He took the picture from her as he spoke and propped it up against the lamp on the centre table. Ragna smiled.
"You are hard on the moderns."
"Hard on them! But I am right to be! They take themselves seriously, not their work. And their training! Do they begin by grinding the colours and washing the brushes in the Master's studio and work slowly up from stage to stage until they become masters in their turn? Not they! They spend a few months or years in academies or studios or schools and then when they are tired of serious study, set up for themselves and with rockety technique and flashy design impress the imagination of the crowds. They spill pots of paint over their canvases and to hide their bad drawing, they do things in flat tones because they can't model and call it decorative art! They work for the commission, and a good price for a picture, a piece of scamped meretricious work, pure clap-trap, means more to them than all the traditions of art—yet they talk of Art for Art's sake! I tell you they are dirt! Dirt!"
He was carried away by his theme and marched up and down the small salotto, stamping his feet, gesticulating, threatening with annihilation the entire breed of modern artists. His enthusiasm impressed Ragna; she saw in it the expression of burning conviction, and its true character escaped her—that of a facile heat of prejudice easily aroused and incapable of cool or judicious comparison. Still he was at his best when talking of art, and his love of it was entirely sincere.
He looked at the girl with a critical eye.
"I should like to paint you there, just as you are; you would make a delightful study with the reflected light on your white dress and the harmony of your golden hair and the blue cushion and the green shutters beyond in that half light. You should have some of the gardenias on the table by you, though, instead of those pink flowers, to make the colour scheme perfect—all green and blue and cool with the one relieving note of your hair." He paused close beside her. "Your hair is the most beautiful I have ever seen—so fine, so silky—so much of it, and such a rare shade, like moonlight on gold!" He lifted a shining strand, drawing it through his fingers with a sort of voluptuous pleasure, then he raised it to his lips. Ragna shrank away from him, a half-frightened look in her eyes. He laid a hand on her shoulder, compelling her glance.
"I love you. Surely you know that, you must have seen it?"
"Don't," she said faintly, "you must not say that!"
"And why not, Ragna cara?" he asked sinking to one knee and pushing aside the chair he had occupied.
"Don't!" she repeated, drawing back as far as she could.