"Perhaps it isn't everybody's idea of painting," agreed Patricia, guardedly. "I'm afraid I don't know much about it."
Jack lowered himself to the floor at her side.
"I wish I did," he said. "You know, I'm interested, and all that; and I want to like it, because it's Amy's. But I can't, and that's all about it. When a chap like Rosenberg comes along.... He's so damned fluent with it all.... You see, this is what worries me. He's pulling her leg. He thinks her work's awful."
"Oh! Oh!" came in protest from Patricia.
"It's true," said Jack, gloomily. "They all do. To her face they say this sort of stuff; and when they're away they make fun of it. They just laugh. I wish she'd give it up."
"I can't believe ..." began Patricia, greatly distressed.
"No, you don't want to." Jack's dark face, already thin, seemed to grow haggard. "Imagine what I feel about it. They shut up a bit when I'm there; but nobody thinks she's really any good. And what's to be the end of it? Can you see? Can't you imagine her going on, fiddling with this and that—water colours and oils—all drunk with her conceit. And then, what? When she's soured and disappointed she'll...." He shrugged. During the speech his temper had risen, and his tone held a stabbing savageness. "They won't care. They never care about human beings, as we do. They'll laugh, and she'll never know it, but she'll think there's a conspiracy against her. She may go all to pieces; she may pull through. Anything may happen. Sometimes I feel inclined to leave her to it; but I've been in love with her for years—since she was a kid; and I feel I just can't let her drop. She hasn't got a friend in the world except me. Not one that cares if she sinks or swims. Look at her purring, and Monty ladling out the lies. Look at it!"
He checked himself as with venom in his urgent tone he drew attention to the two by the easel. Patricia had paled under the fury of his quiet disclosure. The husky voice, which she had previously disliked, was in keeping with his mood and his words, and it therefore assumed new meaning, and her dislike was gone immediately. She saw him as a young man deeply—almost passionately—in earnest, but she was saddened by the picture of such unhappiness as his must be. Her vision of this whole affair became horrible, beyond bearing.
"If her work isn't any good," said Patricia, "surely she'll realise it? She is wise. At any rate, she's shrewd enough to find out the truth, isn't she? If it is the truth."
"Never. You don't understand what ... all this rot"—he waved vaguely—"means to her. When did a dud—a second-rate person—ever realise his second-rateness? Why, all the really able people I know, or that I've ever heard of, are humble—not that they aren't conceited, too; but it's in a different way. They're humble as well. They've got a sense of their own limitations. They're not like Amy. She's mad about her own cleverness. She calls herself an artist, when it's for other people to do that. And it's only because she guesses there's a catch somewhere. She feels she's failing, and won't face the reason. There's nothing like success for lowering a person's conceit. She's never had any success—not real success. She's got to make it all up inside. Her vanity's all out of control; and if you try to warn her she just flies into a passion and calls you a fool for your pains. She'll never have any success. It's impossible, with her temperament."