“Oh—Art!” he said wearily. “What is it? Or, as Barnard Haw, the higher exponent of the Webberfield philosophy, might say: ‘What it iss? Yess?’”
“I don’t know what the Webberfield philosophy is,” said Lissa innocently, “but Art is only things one believes. And it’s awfully hard, too, because nobody sees the same thing in the same way, or believes the same things that others believe. So there are all kinds of Art. I think the only way to be sure is when the artist makes himself and his audience happier; then that is Art.... But one need not use one’s thumb, you know.”
“The—the way you make me happy? Is that Art?”
“Do I?” she laughed. “Perhaps; for I am happy, too—far, far happier than when I read the works of Henry Haynes. And Henry Haynes is Art. Oh, dear!”
But Harrow knew nothing of the intellectual obstetrics which produced that great master’s monotypes.
“Have you read Double or Quits?” he ventured shyly. “It’s a humming Wall Street story showing up the entire bunch and exposing the trading-stamp swindle of the great department stores. The heroine is a detective and—” She was looking at him so intently that he feared he had said something he shouldn’t. “But I don’t suppose that would interest you,” he muttered, ashamed.
“It does! It is new! I—I never read that sort of a novel. Tell me!”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course. It is perfectly wonderful to think of a heroine being a detective.”
“Oh, she’s a dream!” he said with cautious enthusiasm. “She falls in love with the worst stock-washer in Wall Street, and pushes him off a ferry-boat when she finds he has cornered