"Well, the 'seaside' then. The seaside was my aunt's wish. Well---- Well, I'm saying 'well' too often, I guess?--that's American, too! I've got to be quite English--that's my first step. But at least I don't talk like Americans in your comic papers, do I?" "You talk very delightfully, I think," he said, taken aback. "I hope you mean it. My voice is most important, you know. It would be very cruel if I were handicapped by having anything the matter with my voice. I shall have difficulties enough without!" "I'm afraid," he said, "that I'm unfortunate. I wish I could have done something to further the ambitions your father mentioned." She smiled again, rather wistfully this time. "They seem very absurd to you, I daresay?" He murmured deprecation: "Why?" "The stage-struck girl is always absurd." Recognising his own phrase, he perceived that he had been too faithfully reported, and was embarrassed. "I spoke hastily. In the abstract the stage-struck girl may be absurd, but so is a premature opinion." "Thank you," she said. "But why 'stage-struck,' anyhow? it's a term I hate. I suppose you wanted to be a barrister, Mr. Heriot?" "I did," he confessed, "certainly. There are a great many, but I thought there was room for one more." "But you weren't described as 'bar-struck'?" "I don't think I ever heard the expression." "It would be a very foolish one?" "It would sound so to me." "Why 'stage-struck' then? Is it any more ridiculous to aspire to one profession than another? You don't say a person is 'paint-struck,' or 'ink-struck,' or anything else '-struck'; why the sneer when one is drawn towards the theatre? But perhaps _no_ form of art appears to you necessary?" "I think I should prefer to call it 'desirable,' since you ask the question," he said. "And 'art' is a word used to weight a great many trivialities too! Everybody who writes a novel is an artist in his own estimation, and personally, I find existence quite possible without novels." "Did you ever read _Mademoiselle de Maupin_?" asked Miss Cheriton. "Have _you_?" he said quickly. "Oh yes; books are very cheap in America. 'I would rather grow roses than potatoes,' is one of the lines in the preface. _You_ would rather grow potatoes than roses, eh?" "You are an enthusiast," said Heriot; "I see!" He pitied her for being Dick Cheriton's daughter. She was inevitable: the pseudo-artist's discontent with realities--the inherited tendencies, fanned by thinly-veiled approval! He understood.