"We have all to get off our high horse, Miss Lorimer, if we want to live. I had ten guineas this morning for that thing; and there is the Death of Œdipus with its face to the wall in the studio—and likely to remain there, unless we run short of firewood one of these days."
"Do you remember," said Gertrude, "how Warrington threw cold water on Pendennis by telling him to stick to poems like the Church Porch and abandon his beloved Ariadne in Naxos?"
"Yes," answered Frank, "and I never could share Warrington's—and presumably Thackeray's—admiration for those verses."
"Nor I," said Gertrude, as Lucy emerged triumphantly from the dark-room and announced the startling success of her negatives.
She was shown the wonderful poem, and the no less wonderful picture, and then Phyllis said—
"Don't gloat so over it, Gerty." For Gertrude was still sitting at the table absorbed in contemplation of the printed sheet spread out before her.
Gertrude laughed and pushed the paper away; and Lucy quoted gravely—
"'We all, the foolish and the wise,
Regard our verse with fascination,
Through asinine-paternal eyes,