"You remember I didn't praise it."
"But you saw I didn't know any better, and you never let me see that you did. You must have thought highly of me, I can see that." He stooped and laid one of his hands on hers with a friendly, thanking pressure.
"I saw plainly enough what you could do," she protested.
He went to stand again before the despised canvas, playing upon it with humorous disparagement.
"But if you see now," she said, "that it's so—if it seems so——"
"Say the word—do!"
"If it seems bad to you now, that's a good sign. It means that you've learned something about color. Suppose it had still seemed good."
He took the thing off the easel.
"If I've learned as much about color as I think this is bad—well there's only a little left for me to learn."
"Now you will paint others that will seem faultless at the time and bad a year later. That's the penalty of growth, but it's the proof. Make your prayer to the god of painting: 'May everything I do seem bad when it's a year old!'"