'She thought a little bit without speaking, her chin resting on her hand,
her elbow on her knee. We were passing the great red-brown mass of the
Armenian convent. She seemed to be drinking in the dazzling harmonies of
blue and warm brown and pearly light. When she did speak again it was
very slowly, as though she were trying to give words to a number of
complex impressions.

'"Yes," she said; "it seems to me that I am different; but I can't tell
exactly how or why. I see all sorts of new possibilities, new meanings
everywhere: that is one half of it! But the other, and the greater,
half is--how to make all these new feelings and any new knowledge which
may come to me tell on my art." And then she changed altogether with one
of those delightful swift transformations of hers, and her face rippled
over with laughter. "At present the chief result of the difference,
whatever it may be, seems to be to make me most unmanageable at home. I
am for ever disagreeing with my people, saying I can't do this and I
won't do that. I am getting to enjoy having my own way in the most
abominable manner." And then she caught my hand, that was holding hers,
between both her own, and said half laughing and half in earnest--

'"Did you ever realise that I don't know any single language besides my
own--not even French? That I can't read any French book or any French
play?"

'"Well," I said, half laughing too, "it is very astonishing. And you know
it can't go on if you are to do what I think you will do. French you
positively must learn, and learn quickly. I don't mean to say that we
haven't good plays and a tradition of our own; but for the moment France
is the centre of your art, and you cannot remain at a distance from it!