“I should be sorry to think Nature intended me for nothing else.  Would you have me go on singing operas?  I don’t want to appear unreasonable, but how could I go on singing even if I wished to go on?  The taste has changed; you will admit that light opera is the fashion, and I shouldn’t succeed in light opera.  Whatever I do you praise, but you know in the bottom of your heart there are only a few parts which I play well.  You may deceive yourself, you do so because you wish to do so, but I have no wish to deceive myself and I know that I was never a great singer; a good singer, an interesting singer in certain parts if you like, but no more.  You will admit that?”

“No, I don’t admit anything of the kind.  If you leave the stage what will you do with your time?  Your art, your friends—­”

“No one can figure anybody else’s life:  everybody has interests and occupations, not things that interest one’s neighbour, but things that interest herself.”

“So it is because light opera has come into fashion again that you are going to give up singing?  Such a thing never happened before:  a woman who succeeded on the stage, who has not yet failed, whose voice is still fresh, who is in full possession of her art, to say suddenly, ’Money and applause are nothing to me, I prefer a few simple nuns to art and society.’  Nothing seems to happen in life, life is always the same; rien ne change mais pourtant tout arrive, even the rare event of a successful actress relinquishing the stage.”

“It is odd,” she said as they followed the path through the wintry wood, startled now and again by a rabbit at the end of the alley, by a cock pheasant rising up suddenly out of the yew hedges, and, beguiled by the beauty of the trees, they passed on slowly, pausing to think what a splendid sight a certain wild cherry must be in the spring-time.  At the end of the wood Owen returned to the subject of their conversation.

“Yes, it is strange that an actress should give up her art.”

“But, Owen, it isn’t so strange in my case as in any other; for you know I was always a hothouse flower.  You took me away to Paris and had me trained regardless of expense, and with your money it was easy to get an engagement.”

“My money had nothing to do with your engagements.”

“Perhaps not; but I only sang when it pleased me; I could always say, ’Well, my good man, go to So-and-so, she will sing for you any parts you please’; but I can only sing the parts I like.”

“You think, then, that if you had lived the life of a real actress, working your way up from the bottom, what has happened wouldn’t have happened; is that what you mean?”

“It is impossible for me to answer you.  One would have to live one’s life over again.”

“I suppose no one will ever know how much depends upon the gift we bring into the world with us, and how much upon circumstances,” and Owen compared the gift to the father’s seed and circumstances to the mother’s womb.