Ted mentioned the name of the exhibition where Tom’s studies had appeared, and asked if he had been there.
“Yes, I did go there—no wine, thanks; I never take wine, by the way. It is a stimulant, and I don’t require stimulating, I require soothing. I am glad you mentioned that exhibition; there were two studies there of extreme, unusual merit. They produced in me that feeling that I could have done the thing myself, that I wished I had. That is the final excellence from one’s own point of view. They realized to me the vision I might have had.”
“Whom were they by?” asked Ted.
“By quite a young man, I believe; certainly by quite a new one. Carlingford was the name.”
“Ah! I know him well,” said Ted.
They were sitting over the wine after dinner, and Wallingthorpe, who did not care to talk to Ted exclusively any longer, but wanted a larger audience, bent forward and shook him warmly by the hand. This was done in a dramatic and fervid manner, and naturally drew the attention of the rest of the table.
Wallingthorpe turned round to explain himself.
“I was congratulating Mr. Markham on knowing a man of genius,” he said.
The natural inference was that these felicitations were offered to Ted on the happy event of his having become acquainted with Wallingthorpe, but that gentleman was self-denying enough to dispel the idea.
“I was speaking of two very remarkable little works in the Ashdon Gallery, by a young man called Carlingford, with whom Mr. Markham tells me he is intimate. They are very faulty in many ways, but faults matter nothing when there is the divine essential burning behind them. Mr. Carlingford is an uncut diamond. There are superficial flaws in the stone, which will be polished away. He has only got to work and to live.”