speaking of. Therefore,
precisely, those who really know _don't_ speak of him. He may still hear
a great chatter, but what he hears most is the incorruptible silence of
Fame. I've squared her, you may say, for my little hour--but what's my
little hour? Don't imagine for a moment," the Master pursued, "that I'm
such a cad as to have brought you down here to abuse or to complain of my
wife to you. She's a woman of distinguished qualities, to whom my
obligations are immense; so that, if you please, we'll say nothing about
her. My boys--my children are all boys--are straight and strong, thank
God, and have no poverty of growth about them, no penury of needs. I
receive periodically the most satisfactory attestation from Harrow, from
Oxford, from Sandhurst--oh we've done the best for them!--of their
eminence as living thriving consuming organisms."

"It must be delightful to feel that the son of one's loins is at
Sandhurst," Paul remarked enthusiastically.

"It is--it's charming. Oh I'm a patriot!"

The young man then could but have the greater tribute of questions to
pay. "Then what did you mean--the other night at Summersoft--by saying
that children are a curse?"

"My dear youth, on what basis are we talking?" and St. George dropped
upon the sofa at a short distance from him. Sitting a little sideways he
leaned back against the opposite arm with his hands raised and
interlocked behind his head. "On the supposition that a certain
perfection's possible and even desirable--isn't it so? Well, all I say
is that one's children interfere with perfection. One's wife interferes.
Marriage interferes."

"You think then the artist shouldn't marry?"

"He does so at his peril--he does so at his cost."

"Not even when his wife's in sympathy with his work?"

"She never is--she can't be! Women haven't a conception of such things."

"Surely they on occasion work themselves," Paul objected.

"Yes, very badly indeed. Oh of course, often, they think they
understand, they think they sympathise. Then it is they're most
dangerous. Their idea is that you shall do a great lot and get a great
lot of money. Their great nobleness and virtue, their exemplary
conscientiousness as British females, is in keeping you up to that. My
wife makes all my bargains with my publishers for me, and has done so for
twenty years. She does it consummately well--that's why I'm really
pretty well off. Aren't you the father of their innocent