‘We label this work of genius “The Lost Shoe,” or “Dodo’s Despair,” or some equally pathetic and unhackneyed title,’ remarked the sculptor as Geff entered upon the scene. ‘We get our so many guineas for it, from our masters, and solicit further orders, do we not, Dinah?’
‘You should have no master but your art,’ was Dinah’s answer.
‘That is easily said. My wife, as usual, Geff, is urging upon me to fulfil my mission, to deliver messages, to begin big and serious work. But I fancy I gauge my own depths justly. I have no messages whatever to deliver to anybody. These trickeries of Philistine sentiment,’ Gaston pointed with a shapely clay-stained hand to his model, ‘are always a success. In the first place, they draw tears from Mr. and Mrs. Prud’homme. In the second, the dealers approve them. What more can an artist’s heart desire?’
‘Everything,’ replied Dinah.
But she spoke in parenthesis, and under her breath.
‘Am I anatomical, Geoffrey? This must always be important, whether a man work with or without a mission. How about this bend in the left knee-joint? Are my muscles right?’
Geoffrey offered one or two strictly professional criticisms; then after admiring the grace, the charm of the little clay sketch, gave his uncompromising moral support to Dinah.
Whoever possesses genius—well, talent, no need to fight over words—lies under the behest of duty. Gaston’s duty, the one straight and unmistakable road that lay before him, was to abandon conventional prettiness, to go in for the expression of the highest thoughts that were in him.
‘I am destitute of high thoughts,’ said Gaston, his refined, intellectual face belying the assertion. ‘I have not the prophet’s rôle. If I tried to soar, I should immediately afterwards have to climb down. I have no original ideas to embody——’
‘Gaston!’ broke, with an accent of denial, from Dinah’s lips.