“Perhaps you’ve hit it,” he had said. “I’ve nothing to say against your ‘Portrait of a rising Statesman.’ It’s a fine piece of work. But you know all about the Factories Sanitation Amendment Act, and I can read Sub-section Ten in your handling of the chin. Now I don’t read the papers, and I know nothing of the man. I tried to get at him and he shut the door in my face. Yet something came through the keyhole and the cracks by the hinges, and I have painted that. And, as you say, God only knows what I’ve put in his face; I don’t. And in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—what I’ve put there happens to be the truth.”
“But what have you done with the picture?” Landor had asked. “The Benevolent refused it, didn’t they?”
“Now you’re getting coarse,” had been Paul’s reply. “We agreed to differ as to its suitability.”
“Then where is it?”
“In St. Aubyn’s study, I believe,” had been the careless reply.
“He bought it, then?”
“I gave it to him.”
Landor had looked at Paul, and had refrained from putting further questions. There had been an expression in Paul’s face which might have made them appear an impertinence.
The gift of the picture had come about in rather a curious way.
Paul never let his sitters see unfinished work, and St. Aubyn had left town immediately after the third sitting, and had not returned till the exhibition was over. Then he had gone to Paul’s studio and had seen the picture. He had made one remark, but that was eloquent.