Lypiatt stretched out his two hands and, with fingers splayed out to the widest and trembling in the excessive tension of the muscles, moved them slowly upwards and sideways, as though he were running his palms up the stem of a little wind-wizened tree on a hilltop above the ocean.
Mrs. Viveash continued to look at the unfinished portrait. It was as noisy and easy and immediately effective as a Vermouth advertisement in the streets of Padua. Cinzano, Bonomelli, Campari—illustrious names. Giotto and Mantegna mouldered meanwhile in their respective chapels.
“And look at this,” Lypiatt went on. He took down the canvas that was clamped to the easel and held it out for her inspection. It was one of Casimir’s abstract paintings: a procession of machine-like forms rushing up diagonally from right to left across the canvas, with as it were a spray of energy blowing back from the crest of the wave towards the top right-hand corner. “In this painting,” he said, “I symbolize the Artist’s conquering spirit—rushing on the universe, making it its own.” He began to declaim:
“Look down, Conquistador,
There on the valley’s broad green floor,
There lies the lake, the jewelled cities gleam,
Chalco and Tlacopan
Awaiting the coming Man;
Look down on Mexico, Conquistador,
Land of your golden dream.