Then the little woman would hurry in and stand entranced.
"Oh! so brilliant, Adolphe! It hurts my eyes to look at it. See how it glows! Ah, it will come!" and she would shade her wistful eyes with her hand as if the light from the flat canvas dazzled her. These were gala hours in the musty rooms at the top of the old Studio Building.
Then there would come long days of depression. The lower range of color was correct, but that over the right of the mountain and near the zenith did not pulsate. The fault lay in the poor quality of the colors or in the bad brushes or the sky outside. The faded sister's face always fell when the trouble lay with the colors. Even the small measure of milk would then have to be given up until the janitor came bearing another letter with a foreign stamp.
Dalny knew nothing of all this, nor did anyone else in the building—nothing positively of their home life—except from such outside indications as the size of the can of milk and the increasing shabbiness of their clothes. Dalny had suspected it and had tried to win their confidence in his impulsive way; but all his advances had been met by a gentle, almost pathetic, reserve which was more insurmountable than a direct repulse. He also wanted to learn something more of the old man's methods. He had in his own earlier student days known an old professor in Heidelberg who used to talk to him about violet and green, but he never got any farther than talk. Here was a man, a German, too, perhaps—or perhaps a Swede—he could not tell from the name—some foreigner, anyhow—who was putting his theories into practice, and, more convincing still, was willing to starve slowly until they materialized.
Once he had cornered the old man on the stairs, and, throwing aside all duplicity, had asked him the straight question:
"Will you show me your picture? I showed you mine."
"Old Sunshine" raised his wide-brimmed hat from his head by the crown—it was too limp to be lifted in any other way—and said in a low voice:
"Yes, when it is a picture; it is now only an experiment."
"But it will help me if I can see your work. I am but a beginner; you are a master."