“She has too level a head,” Grenfell said. “It’s as fatal in art as it is in some professions. You have to concentrate, hang on to the one thing, and give yourself to it. Miss Kinnaird couldn’t do that. She must stop and count the cost. To make anything of this life one now and then must shut one’s eyes to that. There generally has to be a sacrifice.”
He broke off, and looked at his companion rather curiously.
“The other girl could make it. She wouldn’t ask whether it were worth while.”
Weston was a trifle startled. He had that very day seen something in Ida Stirling’s eyes that seemed to bear out what his comrade suggested. It had been there for only a moment, which he felt might have been fateful to both of them, and he knew that it was beyond his power to analyze all the qualities that the look had suggested. It had, however, hinted at a courage sufficient to set at defiance conventions and the opinions of her friends, and at the capacity to make a costly sacrifice.
“You seem sure of that?”
“Well,” said Grenfell, reflectively, “I think I am. You see in one or two respects I’m like Miss Stirling.”
“You like Miss Stirling!”
There was an indignant protest in Weston’s voice which brought a twinkle into Grenfell’s watery eyes.
“Just so,” he said. “When I know what I want the most, I set about getting it. I guess that’s sense—sense that’s way beyond prudence. What one wants is, in a general way, what one likes, which is a very different thing from what’s good for one. It’s very seldom that one finds the latter nice. Get these distinctions?”
“I can’t see the drift of them,” said Weston, impatiently.