"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!" However, at this moment Lionel suddenly discovered that this leisurely stroll was likely to make them late in getting to the theatre; so that perforce they had to leave these peaceful glades of the Green Park and get into Piccadilly, where they jumped into a hansom-cab and were rapidly whirled away eastward.