Arnold sat with Caroline at an Opera Matinée. A seat had been left for him near her. In an interval, she began to speak to him again of her weariness of life; the next week was going on precisely as the last had gone, in the same round of engagements.
"You will envy me my life," said Arnold. "I am going out West. I am going to build my own house."
"You are joking; you would not think of it seriously," said Caroline.
"I planned it long ago," answered Arnold; "it was to be the next act after New York,—the final act, perhaps. Scene I: The Log Cabin."
"How can you think of it?" exclaimed Caroline. "Give up everything? your reputation, fortune, everything?"
"New York, in short," added Arnold.
"Very well, then,—New York, in short; that is the world," said Caroline. "And your music, who is to listen to it?"
"My music?" asked Arnold; "that is of a subjective quality. A composer, even, need not hear his own music."
"I don't understand you," said Caroline; "and I dare say you are insane."
"You do not understand me?" asked Arnold, "yet you could read to me all that fantasie I played to you last night. It was my own composition, and I had not comprehended it in the least."