"Are you angry?" he asked, humbly.
"No," she said, gently, "I am not angry."
"But you despise me, because you consider me a useless creature, an æsthete and a dreamer?"
"No. What am I myself, that I should reproach you with your uselessness?"
"Oh, if we could only find something!" he exclaimed, almost in ecstasy.
"What?"
"An aim. But mine would always remain beauty. And the past."
"And, if I had the strength of mind to devote myself to an aim, it would above all be this: bread for the future."
"How abominable that sounds!" he said, rudely but sincerely. "Why didn't you go to London, or Manchester, or one of those black manufacturing towns?"
"Because I hadn't the strength of mind and because I think too much of myself and of a sorrow that I have had lately. And I expected to find distraction in Italy."