“Nearer ten? Is it possible? Let me see. It must be quite seven years since the governor died, poor old chap. We haven’t met since then, have we?”
“No,” said the painter.
“No, of course; I’ve been careering about the world ever since. You know he died in Egypt?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” said Mr. Strang. “I only heard of his death from the dealer who took over the connection.”
“Yes, he had to go there pretty sharp for his lungs, and I was compelled to leave Paris in my second year to go with him and the mater. But he died happy. That blessed gold medal of mine made him sure the name of Strang would be immortal in the history of Art. I always said there was a certain pathos about the poor old gentleman. But perhaps his assurance wasn’t so wrong after all, because you are going to make the name glorious, aren’t you, you lucky beggar! And his own name, too; which ought to make him happy, even in heaven.”
The great man smiled sadly, but he only said, “And your mother—how is she? I’ve often wished to see her again.”
“Oh, she’s living now at Lyons with some distant relatives of hers. Of course, she soon tired of gadding about with me. She sent me a cutting about you once from a French paper. So you see how your fame has spread! I’ve often been meaning to write to you, but you know how it is, always moving about, and I always intended to look you up when I came to London. I was here two years ago on a flying visit, but some paper said you were in Rome. Yes, and I saw a colored reproduction of a picture of yours, ‘Motherhood,’ decorating a miner’s cabin in the Rockies—the Christmas supplement of the Illustrated London News, if I remember aright. It was a mother nursing a little girl, while the kid herself nursed a doll.”
The painter turned away and struck a match.
“And then there were a couple of years before your father died,” he said. “The last time we met was at the Students’ Club in Seven Dials on Gold Medal Night.”
“Yes, by Jove, you’re right,” said Herbert, thoughtfully. “If I didn’t wish to avoid a platitude I should say that time flies. It’s been a jolly good time, though, for me, with nothing to do except spend the poor old governor’s savings, and a jolly big hole I’ve knocked in them, too. And you haven’t come out of it so badly, eh? That’s a stunning thing of yours in the Academy. Aren’t you glad I made you promise to send a picture to it in those tenpenny times? I’ve just come from there. Got your address from the catalogue. I congratulate you heartily. It’s not the sort of thing I expected from you; but it’s well put in, and I suppose it pays. It is astonishing,” he went on, after pausing to sip from his glass, “how paltry English art looks to me after all these years and seeing everything everywhere. The picture of the year is exactly like the lid of a bon-bon box. There aren’t half a dozen things in to-day’s show that I’d care to look at again. You’re in the running, don’t look so glum, ha, ha, ha! Frankly, old man, your ‘Triumph of Bacchus’ is jolly good work. You know I never cared much for subject, but the modelling is A 1, and that sunlight effect is ripping! And what a crowd there was before it! Phew! I nearly got suffocated trying to see it, and I had to retire to the Architectural Room to cool. I don’t like Cornpepper’s picture one bit, though he is an A.R.A.”