“Ah! Stay like that!” cried Harz.
She let her eyes rest on his face, swinging her foot a little.
“You work because you must; but that's not enough. Why do you feel you must? I want to know what's behind. When I was travelling with Aunt Constance the winter before last we often talked—I've heard her discuss it with her friends. She says we move in circles till we reach Nirvana. But last winter I found I couldn't talk to her; it seemed as if she never really meant anything. Then I started reading—Kant and Hegel—”
“Ah!” put in Harz, “if they would teach me to draw better, or to see a new colour in a flower, or an expression in a face, I would read them all.”
Christian leaned forward: “It must be right to get as near truth as possible; every step gained is something. You believe in truth; truth is the same as beauty—that was what you said—you try to paint the truth, you always see the beauty. But how can we know truth, unless we know what is at the root of it?”
“I—think,” murmured Greta, sotto voce, “you see one way—and he sees another—because—you are not one person.”
“Of course!” said Christian impatiently, “but why—”
A sound of humming interrupted her.
Nicholas Treffry was coming from the house, holding the Times in one hand, and a huge meerschaum pipe in the other.
“Aha!” he said to Harz: “how goes the picture?” and he lowered himself into a chair.