"Am I?" she cried. The quality in her voice, of rapture and strain, made him look at her.
"My child, how you care!" he said, laying his hand on hers.
She nodded, with wet eyes.
"I have been profoundly interested in the things you gave me to read. I want more, much more. There are certain undoubted qualities—an astonishing vocabulary, a fine sense of words. You are a gourmet for choice words, rich words, words fat with meaning. You've a pretty good sense of form. I can fairly analyze your literary diet. 'Ha, now she's devouring Molière,' I would say to myself, or, 'she's overeating the Russians.'"
Jane laughed happily.
"As a specialist, I must say that you are overfed and undernourished. You read too much and live too little. You look out on life from this white cell. Do you see what I mean?"
"Yes, yes; but what can I do?"
"We must do something. The true artist speaks for the age in which he lives. There is no room for the ascetic point of view in our world to-day—this is a world of the senses. Like it or not, it's true. We measure all pleasure, all experience, by their æsthetic or emotional value. We go back to the very sources of art to find a fiercer reaction. We have Piccabia, Matisse crudity gone stark; we have dissonance in harmony—DeBussey and Strauss; the Russians with their barbaric dances. We have the Irish renaissance in drama, going back to the peasant for primitive emotions. We have the bloodiest war in all times; we are primitive savages in our greed for lust and power, just as we are supermen in devising ways of exquisite, torturing death for our enemies. We are the age of the senses, my friend; we brook no denial of the flesh and its appetites."
"I understand what you mean; I know it to be true; but how can I have a part in life, when perforce, I am just an onlooker?" she asked earnestly.
"We will find a way. We must open the door of the nunnery, and lead Sister Jane into the world of deeds, of fight and lose, heartache and some rare joys. Do you want to come, Sister Jane?"