"Well, why shouldn't I be serious?"
"Mother wouldn't like it. She has inherited the fine old superstition that art's pardonable only so long as it's bad—so long as it's done at odd hours, for a little distraction, like a game of tennis or of whist. The only thing that can justify it, the effort to carry it as far as one can (which you can't do without time and singleness of purpose), she regards as just the dangerous, the criminal element. It's the oddest hind-part-before view, the drollest immorality."
"She doesn't want one to be professional," Biddy returned as if she could do justice to every system.
"Better leave it alone then. There are always duffers enough."
"I don't want to be a duffer," Biddy said. "But I thought you encouraged me."
"So I did, my poor child. It was only to encourage myself."
"With your own work—your painting?"
"With my futile, my ill-starred endeavours. Union is strength—so that we might present a wider front, a larger surface of resistance."
Biddy for a while said nothing and they continued their tour of observation. She noticed how he passed over some things quickly, his first glance sufficing to show him if they were worth another, and then recognised in a moment the figures that made some appeal. His tone puzzled but his certainty of eye impressed her, and she felt what a difference there was yet between them—how much longer in every case she would have taken to discriminate. She was aware of how little she could judge of the value of a thing till she had looked at it ten minutes; indeed modest little Biddy was compelled privately to add "And often not even then." She was mystified, as I say—Nick was often mystifying, it was his only fault—but one thing was definite: her brother had high ability. It was the consciousness of this that made her bring out at last: "I don't so much care whether or no I please mamma, if I please you."
"Oh don't lean on me. I'm a wretched broken reed—I'm no use really!" he promptly admonished her.