Pretending to a half-reluctance, though at heart, truly, he was nothing loath to consent, Corin let himself be persuaded. He shifted his position. By the outer edge of the window splay he raised his chisel and set himself to work.
The outer coats of plaster fell in thick flakes before that same remorseless chisel; they crumbled on to the platform upon which Corin stood. Below the plaster was a thin substance lying on the wall like a film. Here the chisel came lightly into play; that film must be removed carefully, with touch as delicate as the touch of a butterfly’s wing. It entailed a suspension of breath, an excited prevention of the merest involuntary quivering of a muscle. The film broke and powdered at the lightest stroke, covering Corin’s hand and wrist with a soft grey dust. Breathless he pursued his work; then, suddenly, he stopped, his eyes gleaming with pleasure.
John bent forward. Here assuredly was novelty,—no longer the crimson masonry, but black chevrons set within two narrow black lines showed on the cream-coloured wall, and extending, it was evident, around the whole window.
“Ah!” breathed John.
Corin nodded, his chisel again raised.
In places the plaster adhered like glue to the walls; it had to be chipped away inch by inch, and through sheer force. Here it was that the work required the greatest skill and dexterity. The pressure of the chisel by an extra hair’s breadth would have meant the cutting through of the film below the plaster, and destroying the painting that lay beneath. It required a fine strength of wrist, the calculation to a nicety of the depth to which to cut, above all, an infinity of patience. Yet, again, there were patches where not only the plaster, but the film with it, flaked away at the lightest stroke, and here the painting was at its freshest.
For full twenty minutes John gave close eye to the proceedings. At the end of that time he sighed, a mere tiny sigh. If Corin heard, he heeded not. Stepping back a pace he regarded his work, head on one side, soul absorbed.
John took him firmly by the arm.
“I vowed I’d not divert the stroke of the chisel by the faintest whisper,” he announced. “At the moment shouting would be harmless. Therefore let me tell you in merely normal tones that I’m hungry.”
“Hungry!” Corin blinked at him. “What’s the time?”