Lawrence Vane's view struck me as narrow and one-sided. He ignored the fact that Wray was one of the most courted men in London, that in England and America his genius drew to him followers, patrons, friends of all ranks, and that, as a natural consequence, there were warm corners in women's hearts for this spoilt child of fortune. With the world beckoning, the fair sex flinging petals from the rose gardens of love and admiration, he had needed more than human dexterity to pick his way through the scented labyrinths that were continually twining around his feet.
I found him in, and he greeted me with his rare smile. In an instant I observed that he was no longer the same Wray, whose presentiment he himself had painted for the Corporation of H——, no longer the harum-scarum painter I had known five years ago; it seemed as though he had thrown all the buoyancy of colour and tissue—the veritable body of him—on the canvas, and had left merely a shadow of the original to walk the earth.
The studio, a temporary one, was on the ground floor. It looked out on the bustle and swarm of the Buckingham Palace Road, where the roar of traffic was accompanied by wafts of martial music from the adjacent parade ground. It made a bizarre accompaniment to our reunion.
I strained his hand, shook it more than once as an assurance. I wished to convey to him that I was not ignorant, nor curious—in fact, that I believed in him. My allegiance was unshaken by Lawrence Vane's history. I gave him the faith of friendship, which is a closer grained quality than the faith of love.
We stood among his pictures and gossiped of art, praising H's brush-work, wondering at R's anatomy, arguing L's historical accuracy, and talking of everything warily—on the brink, as it were, of a plunge, like timid girls at a river, dipping now a finger, a foot, an arm, in the chilly depths, and wavering. When at last we were seated he took a header.
"You've seen my portrait?"
"At the Academy? Just come from it."
"You think I've flattered myself?" he said, with his head on one side, his eyes asking more than the question.
"It would not have done you justice three years ago," I evaded.
"Good! I wished the husk to be a thing of beauty. You think it a work that will live?"