what I seem to you to be doing, at best."

"Why should you suppose that I take upon myself to judge you?"

"Forgive me; I think it is one result of your mental habits that you
judge all who differ from you."

This time she clearly was resolved to make no reply. They were passing
through Pozzuoli, and she appeared to forget the discussion in looking
about her. Mallard watched her, but she showed no consciousness of his
gaze.

"Even if the world recognized me as an artist of distinction," he
resumed, "you would still regard me as doubtfully employed. Art does
not seem to you an end of sufficient gravity. Probably you had rather
there were no such thing, if it were practicable."

"There is surely a great responsibility on any one who makes it the
_end_ of life."

This was milder again, and just when he had anticipated the opposite.

"A responsibility to himself, yes. Well, when I say that I believe this
course is the highest I can follow, I mean that I believe it employs
all my best natural powers as no other would. As for highest in the
absolute sense, that is a different matter. Possibly the life of a
hospital nurse, of a sister of mercy--something of that kind--comes
nearest to the ideal."

She glanced at him, evidently in the same kind of doubt about his
meaning as he had recently felt about hers.

"Why should you speak contemptuously of such people?"

"Contemptuously? I speak sincerely. In a world where pain is the most
obvious fact, the task of mercy must surely take precedence of most
others."

"I am surprised to hear you say this."

It was spoken in the tone most characteristic of her, that of a proud
condescension.

"Why, Mrs. Baske?"

She hesitated a little, but made answer:

"I don't mean that I think you unfeeling, but your interests seem to be
so far from such simple things."

"True."

Again a long silence. The carriage was descending the road from
Pozzuoli; it approached the sea-shore, where the gentle breakers were
beginning to be tinged with evening light. Cecily looked back and waved
her hand.

"When You say that art is an end in itself," Miriam resumed abruptly,
"you claim, I suppose, that it is a way of serving mankind?"

Mallard was learning the significance of her tones. In this instance,
he knew that the words "serving mankind" were a contemptuous use of a
phrase she had heard, a phrase which represented the philosophy alien
to her own.

"Indeed, I claim nothing of the kind