used to looking deep into human lives out of a complete knowledge of
them as we do up here, it's very tantalizing and tormenting and after a
while gets boring, the superficial, incoherent glimpses you get in such
a smooth, glib-tongued circle as the people I happen to know in New
York. It's like trying to read something in a language of which you know
only a few words, and having the book shown to you by jerks at that!"

Mr. Marsh remarked speculatively, as though they were speaking of some
quite abstract topic, "It may also be possibly that you are succumbing
to habit and inertia and routine."

She was startled again, and nettled . . . and alarmed. What a rude thing
to say! But the words were no sooner out of his mouth than she had felt
a scared wonder if perhaps they were not true. She had not thought of
that possibility.

"I should think you would like the concerts, anyhow," suggested Mr.
Welles.

"Yes," said Marise, with the intonation that made the affirmation almost
a negative. "Yes, of course. But there too . . . music means so much to
me, so very much. It makes me sick to see it pawed over as it is among
people who make their livings out of it; used as it so often is as a
background for the personal vanity or greed of the performer. Take an
ordinary afternoon solo concert given by a pianist or singer . . . it
always seems to me that the music they make is almost an unconsidered
by-product with them. What they're really after is something else."

Marsh agreed with her, with a hearty relish, "Yes, musicians are an
unspeakable bunch!