a fine, individual sense of honour? They are
honest because it is the accepted rule of good conduct in business. Do
you know"--she looked at him squarely--"I thought you would have
something quite definite to say to me; but this is funny-paper stuff,
the sort of objection I'd expect from your office-boy."

"Then you don't think it silly for a lot of people to get together and
pretend to enjoy something they know nothing about?"

"Of course I think it silly, but that's the way God made audiences.
Don't people go to church in exactly the same way? If there were a
spiritual-pressure test-machine at the door, I suspect not many of you
would get to your pews."

"How do you know I go to church?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, people with these old, ready-made
opinions usually go to church. But you can't evade me like that." She
tapped the edge of his seat with the toe of her gold slipper. "You sat
there all evening, glaring at me as if you could eat me alive. Now I give
you a chance to state your objections, and you merely criticize my
audience. What is it? Is it merely that you happen to dislike my
personality? In that case, of course, I won't press you."

"No," McKann frowned, "I perhaps dislike your professional personality.
As I told you, I have a natural distrust of your variety."

"Natural, I wonder?" Kitty murmured. "I don't see why you should
naturally dislike singers any more than I naturally dislike coal-men. I
don't classify people by their occupations. Doubtless I should find some
coal-men repulsive, and you may find some singers so. But I have reason
to believe that, at least, I'm one of the less repellent."

"I don't doubt it," McKann laughed, "and you're a shrewd woman to boot.
But you are, all of you, according to my standards, light people. You're
brilliant, some of you, but you've no depth."

Kitty seemed to assent, with a dive of her girlish head. "Well, it's a
merit in some things to be heavy, and in others to be light. Some things
are meant to go deep, and others to go high. Do you want all the women in
the world to be profound?"

"You are all," he went on steadily, watching her with indulgence, "fed on
hectic emotions. You are pampered. You don't help to carry the burdens of
the world. You are self-indulgent and appetent."

"Yes, I am," she assented, with a candour which he did not expect. "Not
all artists are, but I am. Why not? If I could once get a convincing
statement as to why I shoul