“I can sing,” Thurley said almost sullenly. “I gave up marrying the man I love in order to sing.”
“Good plot! I’ll tell it to Caleb Patmore, the novelist, but my line is not writing. Because you have done this so-called heroic feat, do not fancy you can become a grand opera singer as a reward, any more than the schoolgirl’s fancy is true that nuns are broken-hearted young women taking poetic refuge in the veil. You are so young and fearless that you remind me of a nice, willing but as yet impossible puppy dog who needs to be shown his place in life. You do not understand that if you have been given a voice and the will and brains to train it and the soul of a true artist to preside over all,” his voice was earnest, “what a gigantic task you are taking upon yourself. No one has said it better than Tolstoy and Aylmer Maude. The former tells us, ‘The task of art is enormous, art should cause violence to be set aside ... art is not a pleasure, a solace nor an amusement, it is a great matter, art is an organ of human life transmitting man’s reasonable perceptions into feeling.’ And Maude has, to my mind, finished the situation by saying that ‘the one great quality which makes a work of art truly contagious is its sincerity.’ Voila!” he began strumming bass notes.
“I must write those things down,” Thurley whispered. “I must learn them—”
“Why?”
“They’re so—so—what is it? Help me out! Remember I’m from Birge’s Corners, I’ve such lots of things to learn and I’m really quite afraid of you!” She leaned nearer him. “I’ll have to study languages and history and no end of stuff and have hours a day of music and love no one and be impersonal, until I am able to have the same look that Ernestine Christian has—she has learned to be impersonal! I want to cease to be a country girl with a good voice and be an individual. Please, Mr. Hobart, let me sing Marguerite for you! I’m not half so afraid of that as I am of scales—”
He began the music, and, looking away from him at the rough, plaster walls, Thurley peopled them with a sea of faces, as she had done hundreds of times in Betsey Pilrig’s parlor or at the little cemetery while she was waiting for Dan. She wondered if Miss Clergy heard her sing and if there would come a chilling burst of criticism from this man. She felt that, if this were so, she would turn on him in unexplainable defense of her voice, ignorant as she was of the things still to be achieved.
Hobart rose from the piano and came to put his firm hands on her shoulders. “Genius has as many symptoms as measles,” he said abruptly. “I’m afraid you’ve every last one of them!”
“You mean,” she said, tense as an unsprung trap, “that it is going to be worth while?” Things were black and queerly shaped to her eyes, due to annoying tears. She thought Hobart’s face a dozen cynical, smiling faces peeping at her from all sides. “Is it worth while, if I work very, very hard?”
“Thurley (almost Hoskins) Precore,” it was as if he pronounced a decree, “for us to stand here and exchange the compliments and promises and superlative statements we are both thinking would be as annoying as women haggling over which shall pay the cabfare! We could drag all manner of red herring over the course and merely waste smart sentences which are in demand for after-dinner speeches. But if you work as I tell you and do not become personal either in your relationship with me or your other musical associates—it isn’t as hard-hearted as it sounds—and if this presuming young rustic from Birge’s Backyard stays in the offing—well—you’ll make your début in about a year!”