think, than the real thing. You like it too, you'd be ready in other
conditions to go in for it, in your way--so you've no right to cast the
stone. You like it best done by one vehicle and I by another; and our
preference on either side has a deep root in us. There's a fascination
to me in the way the actor does it, when his talent--ah he must have
that!--has been highly trained. Ah it must _be_ that! The things he can
do in this effort at representation, with the dramatist to back him,
seem to me innumerable--he can carry it to a point!--and I take great
pleasure in observing them, in recognising and comparing them. It's an
amusement like another--I don't pretend to call it by any exalted name,
but in this vale of friction it will serve. One can lose one's self in
it, and it has the recommendation--in common, I suppose, with the study
of the other arts--that the further you go in it the more you find. So I
go rather far, if you will. But is it the principal sign one knows me
by?" Peter abruptly asked.

"Don't be ashamed of it," Nick returned--"else it will be ashamed of
you. I ought to discriminate. You're distinguished among my friends and
relations by your character of rising young diplomatist; but you know I
always want the final touch to the picture, the last fruit of analysis.
Therefore I make out that you're conspicuous among rising young
diplomatists for the infatuation you describe in such pretty terms."

"You evidently believe it will prevent my ever rising very high. But
pastime for pastime is it any idler than yours?"

"Than mine?"

"Why you've half-a-dozen while I only allow myself the luxury of one.
For the theatre's my sole vice, really. Is this more wanton, say, than
to devote weeks to the consideration of the particular way in which your
friend Mr. Nash may be most intensely a twaddler and a bore? That's not
my ideal of choice recreation, but I'd undertake to satisfy you about
him sooner. You're a young statesman--who happens to be an _en
disponibilite_ for the moment--but you spend not a little of your time
in besmearing canvas with bright-coloured pigments. The idea of
representation fascinates you, but in your case it's representation in
oils--or do you practise water-colours and pastel too? You even go much
further than I, for I study my art of predilection only in the works of
others. I don't aspire to leave works of my own. You're a painter,
possibly a great one; but I'm not an actor." Nick Do