"Don't, Norman! Don't! You must not! It--it is sold!"
"Sold!" cried the artist. "What do you mean? Can any one be so debased as to have bought a thing like that?" he demanded.
Alice began to laugh a little wildly. "Oh, Norman, how innocent you are!" she cried. "Don't you know that some one has said that the population of this island consists of men, women, and children, mostly fools? There are a great many more who admire and buy 'works of art' like mine than there are to appreciate such paintings as yours!"
"You little goose!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "Are you content to cater for simpletons, aye, and in the worst way possible, by pandering to their foolish, insensate tastes?"
Alice was silent a moment, and then she said, rather lamely, "It pays me to do so."
Her brother would not deign to notice that. He began to walk up and down the room, with long strides and a frown on his face. He was above the average height of men and broad in proportion, and his irregular features were redeemed from plainness by the beauty of his expression and his smile, which was by no means frequent.
Doris was painting at her easel on one side of the room, but the visitor did not appear to see her; his mind was absorbed with the distasteful idea of his sister demeaning herself to cater for the uneducated masses.
"It isn't as if you were trying to raise them," he burst out again. "You are not teaching them what beauty is--you are pandering to their faults! Leading them astray. Making them believe good is bad and bad is good! For, don't you know"--he stopped short by his sister's side, and laid a heavy hand on her shoulder--"don't you know that every time you make them admire a false thing--a thing that ought not to be admired--you rob them of the power to appreciate what is truly great and beautiful? It is a crime--a crime you are committing in the sight of God and man!" He gave her another frown, and began again to walk up and down quite savagely.
Alice looked wistfully towards Doris, but the latter was painting steadily on, with heightened colour and hands that trembled, in spite of the effort she was making to control herself.
Norman then began to examine the pictures standing about in the room in varying stages of completion.