‘Shall it be Creston Shore?’ she said, pointing to a stretch of beach northward from Budmouth Esplanade.
‘Creston Shore certainly,’ he responded, grasping the sculls. She took the strings daintily, and they wound away to the left.
For a long time nothing was audible in the boat but the regular dip of the oars, and their movement in the rowlocks. Springrove at length spoke.
‘I must go away to-morrow,’ he said tentatively.
‘Yes,’ she replied faintly.
‘To endeavour to advance a little in my profession in London.’
‘Yes,’ she said again, with the same preoccupied softness.
‘But I shan’t advance.’
‘Why not? Architecture is a bewitching profession. They say that an architect’s work is another man’s play.’
‘Yes. But worldly advantage from an art doesn’t depend upon mastering it. I used to think it did; but it doesn’t. Those who get rich need have no skill at all as artists.’