'Now steer wherever you will,' he said, in a low voice. 'Never mind the directness of the course--wherever you will.' 'Shall it be Creston Shore?' she said, pointing to a stretch of beach northward from Budmouth Esplanade.
'Creston Shore certainly,' he responded, grasping the sculls. She took the strings daintily, and they wound away to the left.
For a long time nothing was audible in the boat but the regular dip of the oars, and their movement in the rowlocks. Springrove at length spoke.
'I must go away to-morrow,' he said tentatively.
'Yes,' she replied faintly.
'To endeavour to advance a little in my profession in London.' 'Yes,' she said again, with the same preoccupied softness.
'But I shan't advance.' 'Why not? Architecture is a bewitching profession. They say that an architect's work is another man's play.' 'Yes. But worldly advantage from an art doesn't depend upon mastering it. I used to think it did; but it doesn't. Those who get rich need have no skill at all as artists.' 'What need they have?' 'A certain kind of energy which men with any fondness for art possess very seldom indeed--an earnestness in making acquaintances, and a love for using them. They give their whole attention to the art of dining out, after mastering a few rudimentary facts to serve up in conversation. Now after saying that, do I seem a man likely to make a name?' 'You seem a man likely to make a mistake.' 'What's that?' 'To give too much room to the latent feeling which is rather common in these days among the unappreciated, that because some remarkably successful men are fools, all remarkably unsuccessful men are geniuses.' 'Pretty subtle for a young lady,' he said slowly. 'From that remark I should fancy you had bought experience.' She passed over the idea. 'Do try to succeed,' she said, with wistful thoughtfulness, leaving her eyes on him.
Springrove flushed a little at the earnestness of her words, and mused. 'Then, like Cato the Censor, I shall do what I despise, to be in the fashion,' he said at last. . . 'Well, when I found all this out that I was speaking of, what ever do you think I did? From having already loved verse passionately, I went on to read it continually; then I went rhyming myself. If anything on earth ruins a man for useful occupation, and for content with reasonable success in a profession or trade, it is the habit of writing verses on emotional subjects, which had much better be left to die from want of nourishment.' 'Do you write poems now?' she said.