"A debt of honour! A few hundreds! My child, you cannot earn all that by such trashy work as this that you are doing!" In spite of himself, Norman regarded her with great admiration.
"The word cannot is not in my dictionary," said Doris, rather grandiloquently. "It must be done!"
"Impossible!" he ejaculated.
"And as for the work being wrong," continued Doris, "I do not know that it is wrong."
"Not know that it is wrong!" exclaimed the other. "When every one of your oil-paintings is a sin against truth. You know it; surely this must appeal to your honour!"
"I do not call them oil-paintings," said Doris, proceeding to repeat rapidly Bernard Cameron's arguments, and ending with the words, uttered very meaningly, "What is truth? We can but obey it as it appears to us. You judge of my pictures from such a different standpoint. They are untrue to all your canons of high art. But I know nothing comparatively of art: I only try to make pictures which will please people, and be worth the trifling sums of money they give for them. Such people could not see any beauty in great works of art; but they say, 'That's pretty! That's very pretty!' when they see mine."
The artist was silent. It was true. What beauty could Jack Hodge and his cousins Dick, Tom, and Harry, see in the Old Masters, or in the new ones either? Yet they were the people who paid their shillings, and even pounds for such pictures as this young girl provided for them.
"Believe me," continued Doris, "there is room in the world for workers of all sort. The birds cannot all be nightingales; the flowers are not all roses; and the human beings who entertain mankind are not all the best and highest of their kind. But there is a place for the homely sparrow, the little daisy, and the poor picture-maker to fill; and it is not--not generous of those more gifted to come and find fault with them!"
Her voice trembled and shook as she concluded; and, feeling that she was about to break down, she bowed slightly to her visitor and left the room.
Mr. Sinclair sprang up as if to stop her, yet did not do so. He opened his mouth to speak, yet no word fell from his lips, and so he allowed her to pass out.