Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/79

A Puritan Bohemia need of experience. You have used the wrong argument."

"The trouble with you, Nannie, is that you think too hard. Your conscience has got into your feelings."

"The trouble with you is," said Anne with a laugh, "that you show the masculine tendency to follow blind impulse. You won't listen to reason."

"I haven't had a chance," said Howard.

"I am going to make a confession," said Anne. "I simply am not fit for any human experience, because I am cursed with an artistic temperament. No matter what I am doing, a second consciousness is always there, playing spectator. It is impossible for anything that I feel to be other than material for my art."

"This only proves my point!" he cried. "It means that you have never cared enough for anything to get beyond the point of dramatic insight. I think I could make you care."

"I think you couldn't."

"Is it quite true, however? As I stand