"No. For him."
"You're too flattering!"
"I'm in earnest. You'd ruin him. You're too selfish and too capricious to be the mate of a genius. And he's going to be a great genius, Pat, if he keeps himself straight and undivided. You'd divide him. He's quite mad over you; told me so himself."
"How do you know I'm not mad over him?"
"God forbid! It would never last with you. Because he isn't your kind, you'd grow away from him and he'd be wretched and that would react on his music."
"And you think more of his music than of me," pouted Pat.
The artist in Edna Carroll, humble and slight in degree though it were, spoke out the true creed of all artistry which is one. "Not of him. Of his genius. Where you find genius you have to think of it and cherish it above everything."
"Above love?" said Pat. She understood enough of this pure passion to be a little daunted.
"Above everything," reaffirmed the other.
"You needn't be afraid. He doesn't want to marry me."