under the protection of your mother. You must put
yourself under training--musical, dramatic, theatrical:--whatever you
desire to do you have to learn"--here Gwendolen looked as if she were
going to speak, but Klesmer lifted up his hand and said, decisively, "I
know. You have exercised your talents--you recite--you sing--from the
drawing-room _standpunkt_. My dear Fraeulein, you must unlearn all that.
You have not yet conceived what excellence is: you must unlearn your
mistaken admirations. You must know what you have to strive for, and
then you must subdue your mind and body to unbroken discipline. Your
mind, I say. For you must not be thinking of celebrity: put that candle
out of your eyes, and look only at excellence. You would of course earn
nothing--you could get no engagement for a long while. You would need
money for yourself and your family. But that," here Klesmer frowned and
shook his fingers as if to dismiss a triviality, "that could perhaps be
found."

Gwendolen turned pink and pale during this speech. Her pride had felt a
terrible knife-edge, and the last sentence only made the smart keener.
She was conscious of appearing moved, and tried to escape from her
weakness by suddenly walking to a seat and pointing out a chair to
Klesmer. He did not take it, but turned a little in order to face her
and leaned against the piano. At that moment she wished that she had
not sent for him: this first experience of being taken on some other
ground than that of her social rank and her beauty was becoming bitter
to her. Klesmer, preoccupied with a serious purpose, went on without
change of tone.

"Now, what sort of issue might be fairly expected from all this
self-denial? You would ask that. It is right that your eyes should be
open to it. I will tell you truthfully. This issue would be uncertain,
and, most probably, would not be worth much."

At these relentless words Klesmer put out his lip and looked through
his spectacles with the air of a monster impenetrable by beauty.

Gwendolen's eyes began to burn, but the dread of showing weakness urged
her to added self-control. She compelled herself to say, in a hard
tone--

"You think I want talent, or am too old to begin."

Klesmer made a sort of hum, and then descended on an emphatic "Yes! The
desire and the training should have begun seven years ago--or a good
deal earlier. A mountebank's child who helps her father to earn
shillings when she is six years old--a child