“Then you don’t think it silly for a lot of people to get together and pretend to enjoy something they know nothing about?”

“Of course I think it silly, but that’s the way God made audiences.  Don’t people go to church in exactly the same way?  If there were a spiritual-pressure test-machine at the door, I suspect not many of you would get to your pews.”

“How do you know I go to church?”

She shrugged her shoulders.  “Oh, people with these old, ready-made opinions usually go to church.  But you can’t evade me like that.”  She tapped the edge of his seat with the toe of her gold slipper.  “You sat there all evening, glaring at me as if you could eat me alive.  Now I give you a chance to state your objections, and you merely criticize my audience.  What is it?  Is it merely that you happen to dislike my personality?  In that case, of course, I won’t press you.”

“No,” McKann frowned, “I perhaps dislike your professional personality.  As I told you, I have a natural distrust of your variety.”

“Natural, I wonder?” Kitty murmured.  “I don’t see why you should naturally dislike singers any more than I naturally dislike coal-men.  I don’t classify people by their occupations.  Doubtless I should find some coal-men repulsive, and you may find some singers so.  But I have reason to believe that, at least, I’m one of the less repellent.”

“I don’t doubt it,” McKann laughed, “and you’re a shrewd woman to boot.  But you are, all of you, according to my standards, light people.  You’re brilliant, some of you, but you’ve no depth.”

Kitty seemed to assent, with a dive of her girlish head.  “Well, it’s a merit in some things to be heavy, and in others to be light.  Some things are meant to go deep, and others to go high.  Do you want all the women in the world to be profound?”

“You are all,” he went on steadily, watching her with indulgence, “fed on hectic emotions.  You are pampered.  You don’t help to carry the burdens of the world.  You are self-indulgent and appetent.”

“Yes, I am,” she assented, with a candour which he did not expect.  “Not all artists are, but I am.  Why not?  If I could once get a convincing statement as to why I should not be self-indulgent, I might change my ways.  As for the burdens of the world—­” Kitty rested her chin on her clasped hands and looked thoughtful.  “One should give pleasure to others.  My dear sir, granting that the great majority of people can’t enjoy anything very keenly, you’ll admit that I give pleasure to many more people than you do.  One should help others who are less fortunate; at present I am supporting just eight people, besides those I hire.  There was never another family in California that had so many cripples and hard-luckers as that into which I had the honour to be born.  The only ones who could take care of themselves were ruined by the San Francisco earthquake some time ago.  One should make personal sacrifices.  I do; I