Hobart interrupted with a discord. “You naturally breathe well, but you are frightened. You are not singing but faking, and trying to make me think you are not. My dear young person, if I were not able to tell in half a second who is really singing and who is not, I would be forced to abdicate instanter. Now either go home and rest up and take off that company manner and then come back here and sing or admit you cannot sing or else—sing!” He rested his hands on the keys again. “I can sing,” Thurley said almost sullenly. “I gave up marrying the man I love in order to sing.” “Good plot! I’ll tell it to Caleb Patmore, the novelist, but my line is not writing. Because you have done this so-called heroic feat, do not fancy you can become a grand opera singer as a reward, any more than the schoolgirl’s fancy is true that nuns are broken-hearted young women taking poetic refuge in the veil. You are so young and fearless that you remind me of a nice, willing but as yet impossible puppy dog who needs to be shown his place in life. You do not understand that if you have been given a voice and the will and brains to train it and the soul of a true artist to preside over all,” his voice was earnest, “what a gigantic task you are taking upon yourself. No one has said it better than Tolstoy and Aylmer Maude. The former tells us, ‘The task of art is enormous, art should cause violence to be set aside ... art is not a pleasure, a solace nor an amusement, it is a great matter, art is an organ of human life transmitting man’s reasonable perceptions into feeling.’ And Maude has, to my mind, finished the situation by saying that ‘the one great quality which makes a work of art truly contagious is its sincerity.’ _Voila!_” he began strumming bass notes. “I must write those things down,” Thurley whispered. “I must learn them—” “Why?” “They’re so—so—what is it? Help me out! Remember I’m from Birge’s Corners, I’ve such lots of things to learn and I’m really quite afraid of you!” She leaned nearer him. “I’ll have to study languages and history and no end of stuff and have hours a day of music and love no one and be impersonal, until I am able to have the same _look_ that Ernestine Christian has—she has learned to be impersonal! I want to cease to be a country girl with a good voice and be an individual. Please, Mr. Hobart, let me sing _Marguerite_ for you! I’m not half so afraid of that as I am of scales—” He began the music, and, looking away from him at the rough, plaster walls, Thurley peopled them with a sea of faces, as she had done hundreds of times in Betsey Pilrig’s parlor or at the little cemetery while she was waiting for Dan. She wondered if Miss Clergy heard her sing and if there would come a chilling burst of criticism from this man. She felt that, if this were so, she would turn on him in unexplainable defense of her voice, ignorant as she was of the things still to be achieved.