"I know exactly how I appear," she said constrainedly. "I look an affected idiot. If you knew how I hate to appear affected! I give you my word I don't put it on; I can't help it. The theatre gives me hot and cold shivers, and turns me inside out. That isn't prettily expressed, but it describes what I mean as nearly as possible. Am I 'enthusing' again?"
"I never said you 'enthused' before. You're not my idea of—of 'the gushing girl' at all."
"I'm glad to hear it. I was very ashamed when you had gone this afternoon." She hesitated painfully. "I wish I could explain myself, but I can't—without a pen. I can write what I feel much better than I can say it. I began to write a play once, and the girl said just what I felt. It was a bad play, but a big relief. I've sometimes thought that if I walked about with a pen in my hand, I should be a good conversationalist."
"Try to tell me what you feel without one," said Heriot.
"You encourage me to bore you. Mr. Heriot, I yearn, I crave, to do something clever. It isn't only vanity: half the craving is born of the desire to live among clever people. Ever since I can remember I've ached to know artists, and actors, and people who write, and do things. I've been cooped among storekeepers without an idea in their heads; I've never seen a man or woman of talent in my life, excepting my father; I've never heard anybody speak who knew what art or ambition meant. You may laugh, but if I had it, I would give five hundred dollars to go home with some of those actresses to-night, and sit mum in a corner and listen to them."
"Don't you think it very likely you might be disappointed?" he asked.
"I don't. I don't expect they would talk blank-verse at supper, but they would talk of their work, of their hopes. An artist must be an artist always—on the stage, or off it; in his studio, or in his club. My father is an instance: he could not be a philistine if he tried. He once said something I've always remembered; he said: 'God gave me my soul, child; circumstances gave me an hotel.' I thought it happily put."
Heriot perceived that Cheriton had thought so too, as the "impromptu" had been repeated.
"What a different world we should have lived in by now if he had kept in his profession!" she exclaimed. "I quiver when I realise what I've missed. People that I only know through their books, or the newspapers, would have been familiar friends. I should have seen Swinburne smoking cigars in our parlour; and Sarah Bernhardt would have dropped in to tea and chatted about the rehearsal she had just left, and showed me the patterns of the new costumes she was ordering. Isn't it wonderful?"
In sympathy for her he said: