"I don't quite understand," she murmured nervously, reluctant to believe.
"In refusing to accept the full companionship of the man who loves you, Evarne, and whom you love in return, you are simply enslaving your emotions, enchaining them, and hopelessly preventing their perfect development. The technique of your chosen Art you will doubtless gain by time and perseverance, but you are scornfully neglecting to bring to fruition a far more subtle source of power—the rich ripeness of soul that alone can appeal to humanity's soul—the flame that can set blazing the fire that lies at the heart of the race of man."
Evarne again parted her lips as if to speak, but without hesitation Morris went on with his homily.
"Whether you set forth to create pictures or books or music, you cannot possibly give more to the children of your brain than is to be found within your own innermost self. Only by having known the most intense, the loftiest, the deepest, in the whole range of emotional experience will you be enabled to put knowledge into your work, and without that, what worth has any work of Art? Believe me, ignorance cannot possibly ring true—truth alone can live and enthral.
"Now, believe me or not, as you like, Evarne, but I assure you that because of all this, love is the one and only teacher that can really evolve a great artist. Forgive me for thus assailing you on all sides, my sweet iceberg, but your happiness and success are very dear to me. I simply cannot bear to see you thus blindly and ignorantly opposing the unfolding of the bright flower of your genius. As I started by saying, your soul is still sleeping, and it will slumber on until you can become reconciled to letting love awaken it."
A protracted silence followed these last words. Evarne continued to gaze at Morris with the rapt expression she always wore when he was pouring fresh thoughts into her mind. This suggestion of a triple alliance between illicit love, the possession of a soul, and success in Art, possessed all the charms and the startling qualities of novelty.
"You are trying to make me think selfishly," she murmured at last, "but you must never believe that my own progress is of more consequence to me than——" She looked at him in silence again, and her eyes and her thoughts grew full of tenderness. Clasping her hands together, she went on, "And oh! if it were, I'm sure, oh! so sure, that the love I feel for you already is—is——"
"It is not of the sort that counts."
"But Socrates says that pure love——"
Morris interrupted her. He felt that this troublesome antique philosopher must be resolutely suppressed once and for all.