If Gypsy and Ginger were mysteries to the Cricket-Clubs and Flower-sellers, the unknown Luminous Painter was a mystery to them. But at last they discovered him.
They had taken half an hour off one night to look at the pattern of the moon on the river, and they found him standing in the middle of Westminster Bridge. He was very tall and lean, and wore a tight frock-coat that was quite a good green. It had once been rather a poor black. His soft felt hat was also green, and even he did not know what its first colour was. When they caught sight of him he was engaged in removing the hat from his head with an exquisite gesture, and bowing right and left with an unexampled grace. But for themselves there was nobody else on the bridge, yet he performed his courtly salute again and again, north and south, east and west. His deportment was as expressive as it was beautiful; it expressed deference without humility, airiness without impudence, and it paid a compliment not only to the recipient, but to the executor, of the bow.
“What are you doing?” cried Ginger, advancing with an involuntary curtsey.
The individual almost swept the ground with his hat.
“Madam,” he said, sweetly, “I am Bowing to the Circumstances.”
“What Circumstances?” inquired Ginger.
“My own Circumstances, madam. They require it of me frequently. They require it, alas! of many people. But it is one of the Lost Accomplishments of the age. One of the many. These things were once done with a grace——!”
He dusted and replaced his hat. “They stand saluted!” he said.
“I don’t believe that Circumstances which require bowing to ought to be saluted,” objected Ginger. “Why do you bow to them?”
“In acknowledgment, dear madam,” said the shabby gentleman, “that I am not what I was.”