rd at the
university on the conventions of the arts.) "In painting there are only
two dimensions to the canvas, yet you accept the illusion of three
dimensions which the art of a painter enables him to throw into the
canvas. In writing, again, the author must be omnipotent. You accept as
perfectly legitimate the author's account of the secret thoughts of the
heroine, and yet all the time you know that the heroine was alone when
thinking these thoughts, and that neither the author nor any one else was
capable of hearing them. And so with the stage, with sculpture, with
opera, with every art form. Certain irreconcilable things must be
accepted."

"Yes, I understood that," Martin answered. "All the arts have their
conventions." (Ruth was surprised at his use of the word. It was as if
he had studied at the university himself, instead of being ill-equipped
from browsing at haphazard through the books in the library.) "But even
the conventions must be real. Trees, painted on flat cardboard and stuck
up on each side of the stage, we accept as a forest. It is a real enough
convention. But, on the other hand, we would not accept a sea scene as a
forest. We can't do it. It violates our senses. Nor would you, or,
rather, should you, accept the ravings and writhings and agonized
contortions of those two lunatics to-night as a convincing portrayal of
love."

"But you don't hold yourself superior to all the judges of music?" she
protested.

"No, no, not for a moment. I merely maintain my right as an individual.
I have just been telling you what I think, in order to explain why the
elephantine gambols of Madame Tetralani spoil the orchestra for me. The
world's judges of music may all be right. But I am I, and I won't
subordinate my taste to the unanimous judgment of mankind. If I don't
like a thing, I don't like it, that's all; and there is no reason under
the sun why I should ape a liking for it just because the majority of my
fellow-creatures like it, or make believe they like it. I can't follow
the fashions in the things I like or dislike."

"But music, you know, is a matter of training," Ruth argued; "and opera
is even more a matter of training. May it not be--"

"That I am not trained in opera?" he dashed in.

She nodded.

"The very thing," he agreed. "And I consider I am fortunate in not
having been caught when I was young. If I had, I could have wept
sentimental tears to-night, and the clownish a