"Your feigning may be honest in the sense that your only feeling is your
feigned one," Peter pursued. "That's what I mean by the absence of a
ground or of intervals. It's a kind of thing that's a labyrinth!"
"I know what I am," she said sententiously.
But her companion continued, following his own train. "Were you really
so frightened the first day you went to Madame Carre's?"
She stared, then with a flush threw back her head. "Do you think I was
pretending?"
"I think you always are. However, your vanity--if you had any!--would be
natural."
"I've plenty of that. I'm not a bit ashamed to own it."
"You'd be capable of trying to 'do' the human peacock. But excuse the
audacity and the crudity of my speculations--it only proves my interest.
What is it that you know you are?"
"Why, an artist. Isn't that a canvas?"
"Yes, an intellectual, but not a moral."
"Ah it's everything! And I'm a good girl too--won't that do?"
"It remains to be seen," Sherringham laughed. "A creature who's
absolutely _all_ an artist--I'm curious to see that."
"Surely it has been seen--in lots of painters, lots of musicians."
"Yes, but those arts are not personal like yours. I mean not so much so.
There's something left for--what shall I call it?--for character."
She stared again with her tragic light. "And do you think I haven't a
character?" As he hesitated she pushed back her chair, rising rapidly.
He looked up at her an instant--she seemed so "plastic"; and then rising
too answered: "Delightful being, you've a hundred!"