When he entered the studio he found her seated upon one trunk and surveying another.
"This looks like flight," he said.
"Yes; papa insists on our going early to-morrow morning. Isn't it preposterous! I can only pack my clothing. He says the trouble is only beginning, and that I must not remain here another day."
"I have come to fetch you to Jennie."
"I will be ready presently. I am just looking round to decide on what to take. Be seated, please, while I look over this pile of sketches."
He took a seat and looked at her sombrely. "You'll leave a great big empty place here when you go."
"Do you mean this studio?"
"I mean in my daily life."
She became reflective. "I hate to go, and that's the truth of it. I am just beginning to feel my grip tighten on this material. I know I could do some good work here, but really I was frightened at papa's condition this afternoon. He is better now, but I can see that he is failing. If he insists on campaigning I must go with him—but, oh, how I hate it! Think of standing up and shaking hands with all these queer people for months! I oughtn't to feel so, of course, but I can't help it. I've no patience with people who are half-baked, neither bread nor dough. I believe I like old Mary and Two Horns better."
"I fear you are voicing a mood, not a conviction. We ought not to condemn any one;" he paused a moment, then added: "I don't like you to even say cruel things. It hurts me. As I look round this room I see nothing which has to do with duty or conviction or war or politics. There is peace and beauty here. You belong in this atmosphere; you are fitted to your environment. I admit that I was fired at first with a desire to convert you to my ways of thought; now, when a sense of duty troubles you, takes you away from the joy of your art, I question myself. You are too beautiful to wear yourself out in problems. I now say, remain an artist. There is something idyllic about your artist life as I now understand it. It is simple and childlike. In that respect it seems to have less troublesome questions of right or wrong to decide than science. Its one care seems to be, 'What will produce and preserve beauty, and so assuage the pain of the world?' No question of money or religion or politics—just the pursuit of an ideal in a sheltered nook."