“No, no; I can quite understand that,” said Anthony breezily. “Nor do I—nor do I. She was always rather uninteresting.”
He walked over to the throne: “Ho, ho!” thought he. “H’m! ha! Paul still worships the titled classes. He was always weak in the first commandment.”
He sat down wearily and searched aimlessly under the little covers of the cake-dishes on the tray.
“Paul,” said he, “I exaggerated when I said there were crumbs....” And he added with a laugh—“I don’t suppose cousin Eleanor recognised cousin Anthony—I was only sixteen—besides, she would not be prepared for his rising at her pretty feet like a down-at-heels pantomime clown in this Palace of Art—this lofty pleasure-house.”
“You wrong Lady Persimmon by insinuation,” said Pangbutt sulkily—“she is a woman of most generous sentiments.”
Anthony uttered a funny little laughing grunt:
“Cousin Eleanor was always the soul of sentiment and—delicate self-indulgence. She used to adore the portrait of Shelley—weep over Chatterton—cry over Kit Marlowe—and—married a baronet in an advanced state of decay.”
He got up, strode to the easel again, and examined the picture. Pangbutt watched him under his brows with sulky attention, lolling against the mantelpiece.
“Come, Paul, old boy,” Anthony said at last—“I’ve been sketching the doll’s soul for you; but you’ve got none of that into her picture.... The colour and technique may be all there—and it is splendidly handled—but where’s the woman?”
Anthony’s frank criticism, his just and keen appreciation of the good and the weak side of a work of art, had always won Pangbutt’s admiration; and the scowl left his eyes now as the praise bit into his conceit. The detraction passed by him: