'Yes,' she replied faintly.

'To endeavour to advance a little in my profession in London.'

'Yes,' she said again, with the same preoccupied softness.

'But I shan't advance.'

'Why not? Architecture is a bewitching profession. They say that
an architect's work is another man's play.'

'Yes. But worldly advantage from an art doesn't depend upon
mastering it. I used to think it did; but it doesn't. Those who
get rich need have no skill at all as artists.'

'What need they have?'

'A certain kind of energy which men with any fondness for art
possess very seldom indeed--an earnestness in making acquaintances,
and a love for using them. They give their whole attention to the
art of dining out, after mastering a few rudimentary facts to serve
up in conversation. Now after saying that, do I seem a man likely
to make a name?'

'You seem a man likely to make a mistake.'

'What's that?'

'To give too much room to the latent feeling which is rather common
in these days among the unappreciated, that because some remarkably