"Then, Mark, if you feel that you have this power, don't you feel a desire to conquer the greatest difficulties in your art, to show that you can succeed where others have failed?"
He looked at her curiously, realising that she had something to say to him, and that she was trying to prepare the way before it.
"Come, Kitty," he said. "Say what you wish to say. You have the right. What is it?"
Catherine told him of her conversation with Jenny.
"That little thin girl," he said. "So she thinks wickedness more interesting, more many-sided than virtue, more dramatic in its possibilities. Well, she and I are agreed. But what was it you wanted?"
"Mark, I want you to prove to her—to everyone—that it is not so."
"How?"
"By writing a different kind of book—a noble book. You can do it. Where others have failed, you can succeed."
He laughed at her, gaily.
"Perhaps, some day, I'll try," he said. "But I can only write at present what I have conceived. Till this book is done, I can think of nothing else. I see you are interested, Kitty. I must tell you all I am intending to do."