“Why?”
“Because then you have to live up to something you haven’t earned. You don’t know what to do, and in most cases you slump back into mediocrity.”
“But there must be some people who don’t grind——”
“Geniuses, maybe; but they usually do.”
“How do you suppose geniuses recognize themselves?”
“They don’t, in most cases.”
“But if you felt that you had a great gift, that you were going to do wonderful things, mightn’t it be that you were a genius?”
“I should say that it meant that you were merely young,” smiled Miss Watts.
Isabelle decided that doubtless all geniuses met with this lack of recognition in those about them. She pinned her faith to herself! In spite of Cartel and Miss Watts—who, after all, were old—she rather thought that on the opening night, when she spoke her lines, few as they were, the critics would say simply, in large-type headlines:
“CARTEL HAS FOUND A GENIUS!”