"It really isn't necessary to fetch Britomart," she said after a moment, looking up. "Fetch her if you prefer it, of course, but first I want to say something else--something quite different." That it was something quite different seemed to be a deep relief to Cosimo. He returned from the door again. "What's that?" he said. "It's different," Amory said slowly, "but related. Let me think a moment how to put it.... You were speaking a few minutes ago of selling out from the Eden and the Suffrage Shop. If I understand you, things aren't going altogether well." "They aren't," said Cosimo, almost grimly. "And then," Amory continued, "there's Mr. Prang. Neither you nor Strong seem very satisfied about him." "It's Strong who isn't satisfied. I've no complaints to make about Prang." "Well, I've been thinking about that too, and I've had an idea. I'm not sure that after all Strong mayn't be right. I admit Prang states a case as well as it could be stated; the question is whether it's quite the case we _want_ stated. His case is ours to a large extent, but perhaps not altogether. And as matters stand we're in his hands about India, simply because he knows more about it than we do. You see what I mean?" "Not quite," said Cosimo. "No? Well, let me tell you what I've been thinking...." Those people who are nobodys, and have not had the enormous advantage of being taken by the hand by the somebodys, are under a misconception about daring and original ideas. The ideas seem original and daring to them because the processes behind them are hidden. The inferior mind does not realize of itself that every sudden and miraculous blooming is already an old story to somebody. But Cosimo occupied a sort of intermediary position between the sources of inspiration and the flat levels of popular understanding. Remember, he was in certain ways one of the public; but at the same time he was the author of the "_Life and Work_." He took his Amory, so to speak, nascent. Therefore, when she gave utterance to a splendour, he credited himself with just that measure of participation in it that causes us humbler ones, when we see the airman's spiral, to fancy our own hands upon the controls, or, when we read a great book, to sun ourselves in the flattering delusion that we do not merely read, but, in some mysterious sense, participate in the writing of it also. And so the words which Amory spoke now--words which would have caused you or me to give a gasp of admiration--affected him less extraordinarily. "Why don't you go to India and see for yourself?" she said.