"Leo," said Nina, gently, "do you not think you yourself have too much liking for—for that fine company?"
"Perhaps I have," said he, with perfect good-humor. "What then? Are you going to lecture me, too? Is Saul among the prophets? Has Maurice Mangan been coaching you as well?"
"Ah, Leo," said she, "I should wish to see you give it all up—yes—all the popularity—and your fine company—and that you go away back to Pandiani—"
"Pandiani!" he exclaimed. "Here's romance, indeed! You want us both to become students again, and to have the old days at Naples back again—"
"No, no, no!" she said, shaking her head. "It is the future I think of. I wish to hear you in grand opera or in oratorio—I wish to see you a great artist—that is something noble, something ambitious, something to work for day and night. Ah, Leo, when I hear Mr. Santley sing 'Why do the nations'—when
I see the thousands and thousands of people sitting entranced, then I say to myself, 'There is something grand and noble to speak to all these people—to lift them above themselves, to give them this pure emotion, surely that is a great thing—it is high, like religion—it is a purification—it is—'" But here she stopped, with a little gesture of despair. "No, no, Leo, I cannot tell you—I have not enough English."
"It's all very well," said he, "for you to talk about Santley; but where will you get another voice like his?"
"Leo, you can sing finer music than 'The Starry Night,'" she said. "You have the capacity. Ah, but you enjoy too much; you are petted and spoiled, yes? you have not a great ambition—"
"I'll tell you what I seem to have, though, Nina," said he. "I seem to have a faculty of impressing my friends with the notion that I could do something tremendous if only I tried; whereas I know that this belief of theirs is only a delusion."
"But you do not try, Leo," said this persistent counsellor. "No? life is too pleasant for you; you have not enthusiasm; why, your talk is always persiflage—it is the talk of the fashionable world. And you an artist!"