Part 16 (1/2)
”Mark!” said Catherine in amazement.
”Nothing to call us away from our idle happiness here!” he continued.
”Do you say--nothing?”
”Why--no. For we are free; we have no ties. You have no profession, Mark. You have no art even to call you back to England. Dear father--how he wors.h.i.+ps the arts!”
”And you, Kitty--you?”
Mark spoke with a curious pressure of excitement.
”He has taught me to love them too.”
”How much, Kitty? As he loves them, more than anything else on earth?”
She had never heard him speak at all like this. She answered:
”Ah no. For my mother----”
She paused.
”My mother has made me understand that there is something greater than any art, more important, more beautiful.”
”What can that be?”
”Oh, Mark--religion!”
He leaned over the railing at her side, and the white and red roses that embraced the pillar shook against his thick dark hair in the infant breeze of evening.
”But there are many religions,” he said. ”A man's art may be his religion.”
A troubled look came into her eyes and made them like her mother's.
”Oh no, Mark.”
”Yes, Kitty,” he said, with growing earnestness, putting aside his reserve for the first time with her. ”Indeed it may.”
”You mean when he uses it to do good?”
He shook his head. The roses s.h.i.+vered.
”The true artist never thinks of that. To have a definite moral purpose is destructive.”
The City at their feet was sinking into shadow now, and the air grew cold, filled with the snowy breath of the Sierra.
”When we go back to England I will teach you the right way to follow an art, to wors.h.i.+p it; the way that will be mine.”
”Yours, Mark? But I don't understand.”
”No,” he said. ”You don't understand all of me yet, Kitty. Do you want to?”