Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/469

 give up for it all that one must give up for it, then you must hate the cheap thing just as hard. I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate! A contempt that drives you through fire, makes you risk everything and lose everything, makes you a long sight better than you ever knew you could be." As she glanced at Dr. Archie's face, Thea stopped short and turned her own face away. Her eyes followed the path of the searchlight up the river and rested upon the illumined headland.

"You see," she went on more calmly, "voices are accidental things. You find plenty of good voices in common women, with common minds and common hearts. Look at that woman who sang Ortrude with me last week. She 's new here and the people are wild about her. 'Such a beautiful volume of tone!' they say. I give you my word she 's as stupid as an owl and as coarse as a pig, and any one who knows anything about singing would see that in an instant. Yet she 's quite as popular as Necker, who 's a great artist. How can I get much satisfaction out of the enthusiasm of a house that likes her atrociously bad performance at the same time that it pretends to like mine? If they like her, then they ought to hiss me off the stage. We stand for things that are irreconcilable, absolutely. You can't try to do things right and not despise the people who do them wrong. How can I be indifferent? If that does n't matter, then nothing matters. Well, some times I 've come home as I did the other night when you first saw me, so full of bitterness that it was as if my mind were full of daggers. And I 've gone to sleep and wakened up in the Kohlers' garden, with the pigeons and the white rabbits, so happy! And that saves me." She sat down on the piano bench. Archie thought she had forgotten all about him, until she called his name. Her voice was soft now, and wonderfully sweet. It seemed to come from some where deep within her, there were such strong vibrations in it. "You see, Dr. Archie, what one really strives for in