room," Rachel explained.

"But you will play to us?" Clarissa entreated. "I can't imagine anything
nicer than to sit out in the moonlight and listen to music--only that
sounds too like a schoolgirl! You know," she said, turning to Helen, "I
don't think music's altogether good for people--I'm afraid not."

"Too great a strain?" asked Helen.

"Too emotional, somehow," said Clarissa. "One notices it at once when a
boy or girl takes up music as a profession. Sir William Broadley told me
just the same thing. Don't you hate the kind of attitudes people go into
over Wagner--like this--" She cast her eyes to the ceiling, clasped her
hands, and assumed a look of intensity. "It really doesn't mean that
they appreciate him; in fact, I always think it's the other way round.
The people who really care about an art are always the least affected.
D'you know Henry Philips, the painter?" she asked.

"I have seen him," said Helen.

"To look at, one might think he was a successful stockbroker, and not
one of the greatest painters of the age. That's what I like."

"There are a great many successful stockbrokers, if you like looking at
them," said Helen.

Rachel wished vehemently that her aunt would not be so perverse.

"When you see a musician with long hair, don't you know instinctively
that he's bad?" Clarissa asked, turning to Rachel. "Watts and