and again, as he stood on the Heights, in view of the river, the green wall of Jersey and the great metropolis spread away to the ocean gate, “it is a beautiful city!  And the critics say it is commonplace and vulgar.”  Dear dreamer, it is a beautiful city, and for one reason and another a million of people who have homes there think so.  But take out of it one person, and it would have for you no more interest than any other huge assembly of ugly houses.  How, in a lover’s eyes, the woman can transfigure a city, a landscape, a country!

Celia had come up to town for the spring exhibitions, and was lodging at the Woman’s Club.  Naturally Philip saw much of her, indeed gave her all his time that the office did not demand.  Her company was always for him a keen delight, an excitement, and in its way a rest.  For though she always criticised, she did not nag, and just because she made no demands, nor laid any claims on him, nor ever reproached him for want of devotion, her society was delightful and never dull.  They dined together at the Woman’s Club, they experimented on the theatres, they visited the galleries and the picture-shops, they took little excursions into the suburbs and came back impressed with the general cheapness and shabbiness, and they talked—­talked about all they saw, all they had read, and something of what they thought.  What was wanting to make this charming camaraderie perfect?  Only one thing.

It may have occurred to Philip that Celia had not sufficient respect for his opinions; she regarded them simply as opinions, not as his.

One afternoon, in the Metropolitan Picture-Gallery, Philip had been expressing enthusiasm for some paintings that Celia thought more sentimental than artistic, and this reminded her that he was getting into a general way of admiring everything.

“You didn’t use, Philip, to care so much for pictures.”

“Oh, I’ve been seeing more.”

“But you don’t say you like that?  Look at the drawing.”

“Well, it tells the story.”

“A story is nothing; it’s the way it’s told.  This is not well told.”

“It pleases me.  Look at that girl.”

“Yes, she is domestic.  I admit that.  But I’m not sure I do not prefer an impressionistic girl, whom you can’t half see, to such a thorough bread-and-butter miss as this.”

“Which would you rather live with?”

“I’m not obliged to live with either.  In fact, I’d rather live with myself.  If it’s art, I want art; if it’s cooking and sewing, I want cooking and sewing.  If the artist knew enough, he’d paint a woman instead of a cook.”

“Then you don’t care for real life?”

“Real life!  There is no such thing.  You are demonstrating that.  You transform this uninteresting piece of domesticity into an ideal woman, ennobling her surroundings.  She doesn’t do it.  She is level with them.”

“It would be a dreary world if we didn’t idealize things.”