Two o’clock boomed from a neighboring steeple. “Good-night, Teddy,” said Jimmy, the last man to go. He added, lugubriously: “I’ve still got to meet my wife.” Then, as he caught sight of himself in the hall-rack mirror, the gleam in his eye grew droller. “I’m going home in my own hat and coat,” he grumbled. “I’m sober.”
It was delicious to breathe the balmy night air after the smoky, alcoholic atmosphere of the studio. Rocks walked a little way with Herbert and Matt under the silent stars before they came upon a hansom.
“Are you also an artist?” he asked Matt.
“I hope to be,” said Matt, gravely, “but it’s awfully confusing to know what’s right. They all talk so cleverly, and they all seem to be right.” He was still worried about formulæ, not having discovered that there are only men.
Rocks emitted a short laugh. “Don’t you bother your head with theories, my boy,” he said, laying his hand kindly on Matt’s shoulder. “You just paint. Every man does what he can, and runs down what he can’t. After all, Art is very old; there are no great sensational reforms left, like West’s discarding the toga for the clothes of the period. The plein air school is this century’s contribution; after that there can only be permutations and combinations of the old. What is new in the Azure Art Gallery is not good, and what is good is not new.”
“C’est fini!” said Herbert. “That’s what people always say till genius comes along. My belief is, going by literature and music, that painting hasn’t said its last word.”
“It may come back to its first,” admitted Rocks, laughing. “Things go in cycles. At present the last word of Art is azure.”
“But there are azure shadows?” said Matt.
“Yes; sunshine on a yellow sand gives a suspicion of blue and violet where the yellow light is cut off. But you exaggerate it and call that a revolution.”
“Yes, but this intensified violet, made on your canvas out of light pigments, does produce the illusion of sunlight,” argued Matt. “And, to my mind, it doesn’t falsify nature or values one bit, because in bright sunlight the eye really sees the dazzle, not the values.”