Nevertheless it seemed that he was himself not entirely dissatisfied with his work, and whenever his friend ventured on the diffident criticism of an amateur, Simon demonstrated at great length that each fault, as he pointed it out, was in truth a singular merit and beauty in the picture.
Presently, with a face of increased importance, he moved a large oblong canvas from its hiding-place, to prop it artistically at such an angle as showed the lights and shades of its finished portion to the best advantage. Then he fell back a couple of paces, contemplating it in silence with his head on one side, and so waited for his friend's opinion.
But Dick was mute. Something in this picture woke up the pain of a recent wound festering in his heart, and yet through all the smart and tingling came a strange sensation of relief, like that with which a styptic salves a sore.
"What do you think of it?" asked the artist. "I want your candid opinion, Stanmore--impartial--unprejudiced, I tell you. I hope great things from it. I believe it far and away the best I've painted yet. Look into the work. O, it will stand inspection. You might examine it with a microscope. Then, the conception, eh? And the drawing's not amiss. A little more this way--you catch the outline of his eyebrow, with the turn of the Rhymer's head."
"Hang the Rhymer's head!" replied Dick, "I don't care about it. I won't look at it. I can't look at it, man, with such a woman as that in the picture. Old boy, you've won immortality at last!"
But Simon's face fell.
"That's a great fault," he answered gravely. "The details, though kept down as accessories to the whole, should yet be worked out so carefully as to possess individual merit of their own. I see, though; I see how to remedy the defect you have suggested. I can easily bring him out by darkening the shadows of the background. Then, this fairy at his elbow is paltry, and too near him besides. I shall paint her out altogether. She takes the eye off my principal figures, and breaks that grand line of light pouring in from the morning sky. Don't you think so?"
But Dick gave no answer. With feverish thirst and longing, he was drinking in the beauty of the Fairy Queen; and had not Simon Perkins been the dullest of observers, and the least conceited of painters, he must have felt intensely flattered by the effect of his work.
"So you like her," said he, after a pause, during which, in truth, he had been considering whether he should not paint out the intrusive fairy that very afternoon.
"Like her!" replied the other. "It's the image of the most beautiful face I ever saw in my life; only it's softer and even more beautiful. I'll tell you what, old fellow, put a price on that picture and I'll have it, cost what it may! Only you must give me a little time," added Dick somewhat ruefully, reflecting that he had spent a good deal of money lately, and rent-day was still a long way off.