Part 70 (1/2)
”No woman,” said Frances, ”knows anything till she's had a child.”
”Oh, you married women!”
”Even a married woman. She doesn't know what her love for her husband is until she's held his child at her breast. And she may be as stupid as you please; but she knows more than you.”
”I know what she knows--I was born knowing. But if I were married, if I had children, I should know nothing, nothing any more.”
Frances was silent.
”They--they'd press up so close to me that I should see nothing--not even them.”
”Don't you want them to press?”
”It doesn't matter what I want. It's what I see. And they wouldn't let me see.”
”They'd make you feel,” said Frances.
”Feel? I should think they would. I should feel _them_, I should feel for them, I should feel nothing else besides.”
”But,” persisted Frances, ”you would feel.”
”Do you think I don't?” said Jane.
”Well, there are some things--I don't see how you can--without experience.”
”Experience? Experience is no good--the experience you mean--if you're an artist. It spoils you. It ties you hand and foot. It perverts you, twists you, blinds you to everything but yourself and it. I know women--artists--who have never got over their experience, women who'll never do anything again because of it.”
”Then, my dear,” said Frances, ”you would say that geniuses would do very much better not to marry?” Her voice was sweet, but there was a light of sword-play in her eyes.
”I do say it--if they're thinking of their genius.”
”Would you say it to Hugh?”
The thrust flashed sharp and straight.
”Why not?” said Jane, lightly parrying the thrust.
Sophy appeared again at that moment and said good-bye. They held her at parting with a gaze that still searched her and found her impenetrable.
Their very embrace dismissed her and disapproved.
Tanqueray was waiting for her at the gate. He was going to see her home, he said. He wanted to talk to her. They could walk through Regent's Park towards Baker Street.
They had left the Levines' some way behind them when he turned to her.
”Jinny,” he said, ”what are you doing in that galley?”
”What are you doing in it yourself, George?”
”I? I came to see you. I was told you would be there. You know, you _do_ let yourself in for people.”
”Do I?”