“Did he tell you that?” Terry spoke eagerly.
“Not in so many words, but that’s what he meant.”
“Then he rather admired your ability to do cartoons?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then why don’t you go in for that? One must do something, you know—play some game and that is better than most.”
Ruth did not answer.
“If you’d like I dare say you could do theatrical caricatures for the Sunday Express every week. It wouldn’t take much time. Of course you’d soon get as fed up with the theatre as a dramatic critic, but it would be interesting for a time and you could continue to study, to take time to prove whether or not you have talent. If you say I may, I’ll speak to Daly about it the next time I see him.”
“I’d like it I think—after all, as Mr. Courtenay said, it’s better to be a good cartoonist than a bad painter, and I can always keep on studying. It will not be exactly giving up my ambition, only I won’t be gambling everything on it.” Then, as if half ashamed of her surrender, and wishing to change the subject, “But we didn’t intend to talk about me, we were going to talk about Gloria, weren’t we?”
“Is it absolutely necessary that we should have something very definite to talk about?” he asked, smiling. “Suppose I just asked you to meet me for tea, because.”
Was he teasing her, she wondered.