“He said he didn’t want women to be clever, and they had no business to be. He thought they only ought to be pretty, and I was only inking my fingers. Then I told him what George Eliot said, and he said I’d been reading Half Hours with the Best Authors.”
“And then you quarrelled?”
“Ssh—yes.”
Arthur entered at this moment, and stumbled back to his seat. The Vaaagnerite broke off Götterdammerung at the third syllable, and I fancy Arthur had trodden on his toes. I had great sympathy with Arthur. I particularly liked his views on the art question; but he would have to unbend to this poor little child on my right.
She had turned her head on her shoulder during the love duet, and I could not see her face. I held out my hand for her opera-glasses, and raised them to my eyes. The lenses were wet with tears—I suspected it. I quietly passed them on to Bassishaw, with the message still moist upon them. It is only once in a lifetime you see Tristan through such a medium.
The next interval Bassishaw did not smoke, but remained in his stall. He had heard the love duet, too. I turned to him.
“That was wonderful music, Bassishaw,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied. “Do you know, Butterfield, I think it’s awful fine, by Jove. I can understand Johnnies doing that kind of thing, you know.”
“Quite so,” I answered. “To the Artist-Soul”—(I capitalised the words pompously with my voice)—“to the Artist-Soul, creation is not a choice, but a need. The French realise that in their word besogne——”
He was not listening, and broke in: