“I can’t. That is just it. There is another tragedy in this mismanaged world, that nobody can teach any one else anything that is worth knowing. You can’t teach me how to look young; I can’t teach you how to be wise, how to appreciate, how not to worry. But Martin’s mind is like a cut diamond: it absorbs whatever light--blue, green, red--is thrown into it, and turns it by its own magic into inapproachable colour. That colour is seen in his music. Oh, I have watched you often this last week. You worry him and puzzle him, and I’m sure I don’t wonder, if you ask him the relative places of music and you in his mind. Do you not see how stupid that is? Answer me.” Stella smiled. “Oh, don’t rub it in,” she said. “Yes, it is idiotic.” “My dear, you are so gentle that I feel a brute!” “Please be a brute, then, just five minutes more,” said Stella. “Very good. Do not take up this absurd position and say, ‘I am your goddess, what incense have you got to burn before me this morning? Ah, that is the second-quality incense! I thought so. How _could_ you?’ Be much bigger than that. Suez! Recollect who it is who has paid you this incomparable compliment of saying he wishes to see your face opposite him at breakfast for the rest of his life, every day, every day. Go to Karl Rusoff and ask him where he places Martin, if you do not believe me about his genius. And when he has told you, hire the Albert Hall, fill it with people, and tell them what Karl says. Then wait a couple of years, hire the Albert Hall again, and repeat again what Karl told you. And every single person in the hall will say, ‘Why, of course. We knew that.’” Stella was silent a moment. “Then, must I burn incense before him?” she asked. “The very best incense. I should love to do that!” Lady Sunningdale restrained a movement of impatience. “My dear, you are the one person in the world who must not burn incense,” she said. “An incense-burning wife is like dram-drinking to a man. You are to be his wife. That means a good deal. But you are to be his comrade. That means much more. He and Helen! Why he did not get Helen to come and live with him, and--well, not marry at all, I don’t know. Perhaps Frank would object. Men are all so selfish.” “Do you mean he has chosen badly?” asked Stella. “No, dear; and it is silly to say that. What I meant was that I wonder why he wanted to marry at all, why a nature like that has need of anybody else. If I was like Martin, I should never see a soul, but contemplate my own wonderfulness. However, he did want somebody else. And he chose you, you fortunate girl.” “I ought to be very happy, then?” she asked.