“No—at least—well, no. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. The idea occurred to me,” replied Clytie.
CHAPTER IX.
The long autumn months rolled on, bringing little new to Clytie or to Kent. Clytie continued to paint her small genre pictures, but with a more certain touch, a restraint which a deeper insight into life compelled. They did not satisfy her now, however, as they used to. She had more articulate longings after an art which should be higher, more comprehensive, more responsive to certain subtler and at the same time more stirring impulses within her.
“I want to paint something that may live,” she said to Kent, “something I can throw my whole soul into, something I can look at when it is finished and say: 'There, that is final; that expresses consummately everything I have ever felt and dreamed.'”
“If you can ever say that, you will cease to be an artist,” he replied in his matter-of-fact way.
“Perhaps so. But I must try. And the subject, the subject?”
“Wait,” said Kent. “If it ever comes, it will do so of itself.”