“Do you think it is a good picture?” asked Mendel.
“I think it is a good beginning. Two or three more like that and there will be a sensation. There will have to be policemen to regulate the crowd.”
Mendel caught his mood of driving excitement and really was convinced that he had broken through to a style of his own, and to the beginning of something that might be called modern art.
He was a little dashed when, after Logan had gone, he fetched his mother over to see it, and all she could find to say was:—
“You used not to paint like that.”
“No, of course not,” he said impatiently. “The old way was limited, too limited. It was all very well for painting the life down here, just what I saw in front of me. This picture is for an exhibition, all by myself with one other man.”
“Logan?” asked Golda dubiously.
“Yes. It is a great honour to give a private exhibition like that at my age. It is most unusual. This is the beginning of a new style. I’m beginning a new life.”
“You are not going away?” said Golda in a sudden panic that he was to be snatched away from her.
“I should never go away until you gave your permission,” he said. “I am not so very different from Harry that I want to go away and leave my people.”