"You're trying to switch me off the main theme, which is your work."
She sprang up.
"Don't bully me any more," she said quickly, "and I'll play you one of my recent compositions."
She sauntered across to the piano and began to play a little ripping melody, full of sunshine and laughter, and though a sob ran through it, it was smothered by the overlying gaiety. Rooke crossed to her side and quietly lifted her hands from the keys.
"Charming," he said. "But it doesn't ring true. That was meant for a sad song. As it stands, it's merely flippant—insincere. And insincerity is the knell of art."
Nan skimmed the surface defiantly.
"What a disagreeable criticism! You might have given me some encouragement instead of crushing my poor little attempt at composition like that!"
Rooke looked at her gravely. With him, sincerity in art was a fetish; in life, a superfluity. But for the moment he was genuinely moved. The poseur's mask which he habitually wore slipped aside and the real man peeped out.
"Yours ought to be more than attempts," he said quietly. "It's in you to do something really big. And you must do it. If not, you'll go to pieces. You don't understand yourself."
"And do you profess to?"