Now he looked vaguely at the villas of Posilipo, and he realized this
thoroughly.

Something for her he had done, and something Vere had done. But how
little it all was!

To-day a new light had been thrown upon Hermione, and he realized what
she was as he had never realized it before. No, she was right. She
could never live fully in a girl child--she was not made to do that.
Why had he ever thought, hoped that perhaps it might be so, that
perhaps Vere might some day completely and happily fill her life? Long
ago he had encouraged her to work, to write. Misled by her keen
intelligence, her enthusiasm, her sincerity and vitality, by the
passion that was in her, the great heart, the power of feeling, the
power of criticising and inspiring another which she had freely shown
to him, Artois had believed--as he had once said to her in London--
that she might be an artist, but that she preferred to be simply a
woman. But he found it was not so. Hermione had not the peculiar gift
of the writer. She could feel, but she could not arrange. She could
discern, but she could not expose. A flood of words came to her, but
not the inevitable word. She could not take that exquisite leap from
the known into the unknown which genius can take with the certainty of
alighting on firm ground. In short, she was not formed and endowed to
be an artist. About such matters Artois knew only how to be sincere.
He was sincere with his friend, and she thanked him for being so.

One possible life was taken from Hermione, the life of the artist who
lives in the life of the work.