“I bet we sell the lot in a week. Oliver has two of the critics in her pocket. What do you say to giving a party in honour of the event? We can afford to forgive our enemies now, and there’s a social side to the movement which we ought not to neglect.”
Mendel made no reply. They were sitting on the front. The smooth, glassy sea, reflecting the stars and the lights of the pier, soothed and comforted him. Brighton was to him like a part of London, and he sank drowsily into the happy fantasy that he was being thrust out of the streets towards the stars and the vast power that lay beyond them. He was weary of the streets and the clamour, and he wanted peace and serenity, rest from his own turbulence, the peace which has no dwelling upon earth and lives only in eternity.
“How good it would be,” he said suddenly, “if one could just paint without a thought of what became of one’s pictures.”
“That’s no good,” replied Logan. “One must live.”
The first batch of cuttings arrived in the morning. They were brief, for the most part, quite respectful and appreciative. Mendel learned, to his astonishment, that he was influenced by Logan, and one critic lamented that a promising young painter, who could so simply render the life of his race, should have been infected with modern heresies. There was no uproar, neither of them was hailed as a master, and Logan in more than one instance was dismissed as an imitator of Calthrop.
“Calthrop!” said Logan, gulping down his disappointment and disgust. “Calthrop! Oh well, it is good enough for a beginning. It would have been very different if you had let me print the manifesto. The swine need to be told, you know. They want a lead. . . . We’ll wait for the Sunday papers.”
London was curiously unchanged when they returned. Mendel was half afraid he would be recognized as they came out of Charing Cross Station, but no one looked at him. The convulsion through which he had lived had left people going about their business, and he supposed that if an earthquake happened in Trafalgar Square people would still be going about their business in the Strand.
They were eager for Oliver’s account of the private view, and took a taxi-cab to Camden Town. She was wearing her new dress and was quite the lady: shook hands with Mendel and asked him haughtily in a mincing tone how he was. From all these signs he judged that the exhibition had been a success.
“Quite a lot of people came,” she said. “Real swells. There were two motor-cars outside.”
“Yes,” said Logan. “Tysoe agreed to leave his car outside for a couple of hours to encourage people to go in.”