“You would not sacrifice your life for your art?”
“No,” replied Clytie, with quick frankness, “I wouldn't. The fuller one's life, the fuller one's art. The one is a reflection of the other. At least it is so with me.”
“I'll paint your portrait one of these days for nothing,” said Redgrave somewhat irrelevantly.
Clytie flushed a little at the compliment.
“What are you going to put into me?”
“The question whether even the most emancipated of young women ever has art in her soul,” said Redgrave, with a quiet smile.
“I am going to paint a picture some day that will astonish you,” replied Clytie, with a laugh.
“Ah! So is everyone. When will that some day be? I hardly know a painter or a writer or a musician that has not something he is going to do some day—a three-act drama all ready, bar transcription on paper—a masterpiece all complete, bar the mechanical transference to canvas.”
“Oh, Mr. Redgrave, if you are going to moralise like that, I'll report you to Mr. Farquharson. You had much better sit down and take me round the studios.”
But Redgrave was carried off before he had time to begin, and Clytie joined a large group standing and sitting round the fire. They were the younger, less responsible members of the company, and were talking nonsense. Singleton, a clean-shaven, red-faced man and a minor poet, was explaining what he called the Physical Basis of Life. Professor Huxley, by the way, has treated the subject differently.