Bertha was suitably silent for a moment.
Then she asked tentatively: “What does he mean to do later on? Oxford, I suppose.”
“I suppose so. Of course, he really is most tiresome about his music, poor boy; he thinks he wants to be a professional pianist.”
“Toujours?” inquired Bertha with raised eyebrows.
“Alas, yes! Of course it’s a boyish fancy and won’t last—besides, when has Morris ever stuck to anything? But you know what opposition is to any boy of that age—he simply enjoys it and poses as a misunderstood genius—not that I should say so to anyone on earth but you, Bertie.”
“Nina dear, of course I know that,” warmly said her friend, who was perfectly well aware of the extensive area covered by Nina’s deepest confidence.
“My dear,” Nina Severing declared, with wide-open brown eyes, “it’s absolute nonsense. As you know, I should be the very last person on earth to quench one single spark of the Divine Fire in anyone, least of all in my own nearest and dearest. But Morris has got absolutely nothing more than an inherited gift, and a certain amount of technical skill because I insisted, absolutely insisted, upon his having really good teaching from the time he was quite a little boy. He hasn’t got the temperament to get over the footlights, to begin with.”
Bertha Tregaskis, at the slight tinge of expertism discernable in Nina Severing’s tones, at once retorted firmly:
“Ah! getting over the ‘floats,’ in the slang of the profession, isn’t easy in any art, as I know from my own small dramatic experiences.”
She had some reputation as an amateur actress.