They dined at the Pot-au-Feu, and later made the expedition to Hammersmith, where they came to a block of studios surrounded by a scrubby garden. These studios were large and well-kept and did not tally with the description of Logan’s poverty. Still less did the inside give any sign of it. There was a huge red-brick fireplace, surmounted by old brass and blue china, with great arm-chairs on either side of it: there were Persian rugs on the floor; two little windows were filled in with good stained glass, which Mendel knew to be costly; there were two or three large easels; and the walls were hung with tapestry. The whole effect was deliberately and preciously rich.
Logan, who had admitted them to this vast apartment, rushed back at once to a very large easel on which he had a very small canvas, and fell to work on it with a furious energy, darting to and fro and stamping his right foot rather like the big trumpet man in a German band. He was a medium-sized, plumpish man, with a big, strongly featured face, big chin, and compressed lips, and long black hair brushed back from a round, well-shaped brow. He frowned and scowled at his work. A woman came out of a door and crossed the studio behind him. He hurled his palette into the air so that it sailed up and fell with a crash among the brass pots, and barked:—
“How can I work with these constant interruptions? Damn it all, an artist must have peace!”
He flung his arms behind his back and paced moodily to and fro, with his head down and his lips pursed up à la Beethoven. He extended the sphere of his pacing gradually so that he came nearer and nearer to Mendel, yet without noticing him. Mendel was tremendously excited and impressed with the man’s air of mystery and force. It was like Calthrop, but without his awkwardness. Mitchell in comparison looked puny and absurdly young.
Nearer and nearer came Logan, and at last he stopped and fixed Mendel with a baleful stare, and swung his head up and down three times.
“So you are Kühler?” he said.
Mendel opened his lips, but to his astonishment no sound came out of them. So desperately anxious was he not to cut a poor figure before this remarkable man, and not to seem, like Mitchell, pathetically young.
“Good!” said Logan. “Shake hands.” And he crushed Mendel’s thin fingers together. “What I like about you,” he went on, “is your sense of form. Design is all very well in its way, but quite worthless without form.”
Mendel, whose work was still three parts instinctive, could not attach any precise meaning to these expressions, but he was well up in the jargon of his craft and could make a good show.
“Art,” said Logan, “is an exacting mistress. Shall we go and have a drink?”