“I am sure of it.”
Again there was a silence. Then, quite suddenly, Miss Mason began to tell the woman the story of her life. She told it badly. For the last forty years at least Miss Mason had talked little. Miss Stanhope had never cared to encourage conversation other than her own. A daily and minute recital of her own imaginary ailments had sufficed her. That had been a subject which had never palled.
“And the summary of it all is,” ended Miss Mason, “that my life has been utterly narrow.” She stopped and looked at the woman. There was something half humorous, half pathetic, in the expression in her eyes.
“I think,” said the woman slowly, “that one is too ready to use the term ‘narrow’ for lives and opinions which have not covered, as we imagine, a great deal of ground. Sometimes I think ‘concentrated’ would be a better word to use for them. I know that people who have darted hither and thither from one place to another, and from one excitement to another, often talk about ‘living’ and the broadness of their lives. But I fancy that if one could go up in a kind of mental aeroplane and look down upon those lives, one might see that their grooves, though they took an intricate pattern, were possibly narrower than some of those which have gone along one straight and monotonous course.”
“Think so?” said Miss Mason again. Then she smiled half-shamefacedly. “There’s one thing—in spite of all the monotony, I’ve never been able to get rid of my belief in kind of fairy tale happenings. Utterly ridiculous, of course.”
The woman laughed, a low clear laugh, which pleased Miss Mason enormously.
“Now we’re on ground with which I’m far more familiar,” she replied. “I was trying to get hold of words and expressions before which were rather outside my vocabulary, and I fear I sounded a little stilted in consequence. But fairy tales! Why life is a fairy tale. Bad fairies and wicked magicians get mixed up in it of course, or it wouldn’t be one, but there are good fairies and all kinds of unexpected and delicious happenings right through it in spite of them. There’s often, too, a long journey through a wood. You’ve been through yours. What do you hope to find on this side?”
“A studio,” said Miss Mason promptly. This woman was making it extraordinarily easy for her to tell her fairy tale. “Have wanted one ever since I was seventeen, and I think almost before that. Perhaps because my father was an artist.”
“And now you’ll take one?”
“Have come up to look for one,” said Miss Mason. “Am going to look at pictures too. There’s the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, and the Academy. Used to read about them. Later I shall go abroad. Thought I’d better get used to going about in England first. Have read a lot about pictures. Used to take in a magazine called ‘The Studio.’ Saw it advertised once and sent for it. Miss Stanhope used to make me a small allowance. She was kind really, though didn’t always understand.”