you some other time," Celia said, answering the
reproach in his tone. "But tonight I wanted to talk with you instead."

She kept silent, in spite of this, so long now that Theron was on the
point of jestingly asking when the talk was to begin. Then she put a
question abruptly--

"It is a conventional way of putting it, but are you fond of poetry, Mr.
Ware?"

"Well, yes, I suppose I am," replied Theron, much mystified. "I can't
say that I am any great judge; but I like the things that I like--and--"

"Meredith," interposed Celia, "makes one of his women, Emilia in
England, say that poetry is like talking on tiptoe; like animals in
cages, always going to one end and back again. Does it impress you that
way?"

"I don't know that it does," said he, dubiously. It seemed, however,
to be her whim to talk literature, and he went on: "I've hardly read
Meredith at all. I once borrowed his 'Lucile,' but somehow I never got
interested in it. I heard a recitation of his once, though--a piece
about a dead wife, and the husband and another man quarrelling as to
whose portrait was in the locket on her neck, and of their going up to
settle the dispute, and finding that it was the likeness of a third man,
a young priest--and though it was very striking, it didn't give me a
thirst to know his other poems. I fancied I shouldn't like them. But
I daresay I was wrong. As I get older, I find that I take less narrow
views of literature--that is, of course, of light literature--and
that--that--"

Celia mercifully stopped him. "The reason I asked you was--" she began,
and then herself paused. "Or no,--never mind that--tell me something
else. Are you fond of pictures, statuary, the beautiful things of the
world? Do great works of art, the big achievements of the big artists,
appeal to you, stir you up?"

"Alas! that is something I can only guess at myself," answered Theron,
humbly. "I have always lived in little places. I suppose, from your
point of view, I have never seen a good painting in my life. I can only
say this, though--that it has always weighed on my mind as a great and
sore deprivation, this being shut out from knowing what others mean when
they talk and write about art. Perhaps that may help you to get at what
you are after. If I ever went to New York, I feel that one of the first
things I should do would be to see all the picture galleries; is that
what you meant? And--would you mind telling me--why you--?"

"Why I asked yo