It's the poverty of the life those people show, and the awful bounders, of both sexes, that they represent.""Oh now we have you!" her interlocutor laughed."To me, when all's said and done, they seem to be--as near as art can come--in the truth of the truth.It can only take what life gives it, though it certainly may be a pity that that isn't better.Your complaint of their monotony is a complaint of their conditions.When you say we get always the same couple what do you mean but that we get always the same passion? Of course we do!" Voyt pursued."If what you're looking for is another, that's what you won't anywhere find."Maud for a while said nothing, and Mrs.Dyott seemed to wait.
"Well, I suppose I'm looking, more than anything else, for a decent woman.""Oh then you mustn't look for her in pictures of passion.That's not her element nor her whereabouts."Mrs.Blessingbourne weighed the objection."Does it not depend on what you mean by passion?""I think I can mean only one thing: the enemy to behaviour.""Oh I can imagine passions that are on the contrary friends to it."Her fellow-guest thought."Doesn't it depend perhaps on what you mean by behaviour?""Dear no.Behaviour's just behaviour--the most definite thing in the world.""Then what do you mean by the 'interest' you just now spoke of?
The picture of that definite thing?"
"Yes--call it that.Women aren't ALWAYS vicious, even when they're--""When they're what?" Voyt pressed.
"When they're unhappy.They can be unhappy and good.""That one doesn't for a moment deny.But can they be 'good' and interesting?""That must be Maud's subject!" Mrs.Dyott interposed."To show a woman who IS.I'm afraid, my dear," she continued, "you could only show yourself.""You'd show then the most beautiful specimen conceivable"--and Voyt addressed himself to Maud."But doesn't it prove that life is, against your contention, more interesting than art? Life you embellish and elevate; but art would find itself able to do nothing with you, and, on such impossible terms, would ruin you."The colour in her faint consciousness gave beauty to her stare.
"'Ruin' me?"
"He means," Mrs.Dyott again indicated, "that you'd ruin 'art.'""Without on the other hand"--Voyt seemed to assent--"its giving at all a coherent impression of you.""She wants her romance cheap!" said Mrs.Dyott.
"Oh no--I should be willing to pay for it.I don't see why the romance--since you give it that name--should be all, as the French inveterately make it, for the women who are bad.""Oh they pay for it!" said Mrs.Dyott.
"DO they?"
