The Nabob, Volume 2

ois ideas. "For you are shockingly bourgeois, you know. But that is just what I like in you. It's on account of the contrast, I have no doubt, because I was born under a bridge, in a gust of wind, that I have always been fond of sedate, logical natures."

"Oh! my dear, what do you suppose Monsieur Paul will think, when you say you were born under a bridge?" exclaimed the excellent Crenmitz, who could not accustom herself to the exaggeration of metaphors, and always took everything literally.

"Let him think what he pleases, my Fairy. We haven't our eye on him for a husband. I am sure he would have none of that monster known as an artist wife. He would think he had married the devil. You are quite right, Minerva. Art is a despot. One must give oneself to it unreservedly. You put into your work all the imagination, energy, honesty, conscience that you possess, so that you have no more of any of them as long as you live, and the completion of the work tosses you adrift, helpless and without a compass