"But you weren't described as 'bar-struck'?"
"I don't think I ever heard the expression."
"It would be a very foolish one?"
"It would sound so to me."
"Why 'stage-struck' then? Is it any more ridiculous to aspire to one profession than another? You don't say a person is 'paint-struck,' or 'ink-struck,' or anything else '-struck'; why the sneer when one is drawn towards the theatre? But perhaps no form of art appears to you necessary?"
"I think I should prefer to call it 'desirable,' since you ask the question," he said. "And 'art' is a word used to weight a great many trivialities too! Everybody who writes a novel is an artist in his own estimation, and personally, I find existence quite possible without novels."
"Did you ever read Mademoiselle de Maupin?" asked Miss Cheriton.
"Have you?" he said quickly.
"Oh yes; books are very cheap in America. 'I would rather grow roses than potatoes,' is one of the lines in the preface. You would rather grow potatoes than roses, eh?"
"You are an enthusiast," said Heriot; "I see!" He pitied her for being Dick Cheriton's daughter. She was inevitable: the pseudo-artist's discontent with realities—the inherited tendencies, fanned by thinly-veiled approval! He understood.