She appeared for a moment to reflect upon this: it was spoken in a tone that might have touched her. Yet at the end of the moment, lifting her eyes, she brought out: "I hate art, as you call it. I thought I did, I knew I did; but till this morning I didn't know how much." "Bless your dear soul, _that_ wasn't art," Nick pleaded. "The real thing will be a thousand miles away from us; it will never come into the house, _soyez tranquille_. It knows where to look in and where to flee shrieking. Why then should you worry?" "Because I want to understand, I want to know what I'm doing. You're an artist: you are, you are!" Julia cried, accusing him passionately. "My poor Julia, it isn't so easy as that, nor a character one can take on from one day to the other. There are all sorts of things; one must be caught young and put through the mill--one must see things as they are. There are very few professions that goes with. There would be sacrifices I never can make." "Well then, there are sacrifices for both of us, and I can't make them either. I daresay it's all right for you, but for me it would be a terrible mistake. When I think I'm doing a certain thing I mustn't do just the opposite," she kept on as for true lucidity. "There are things I've thought of, the things I like best; and they're not what you mean. It would be a great deception, and it's not the way I see my life, and it would be misery if we don't understand." He looked at her with eyes not lighted by her words. "If we don't understand what?" "That we're utterly different--that you're doing it all for _me_." "And is that an objection to me--what I do for you?" he asked.