Wyndham was surprised at the sweetness and old-world courtesy revealed in the old man's personality. "You are very kind," he said with a smile. "I hope indeed I am worth so pretty a sentiment. But please take this arm-chair."
He pushed it forward, then set the rush-bag down on the table, hastily throwing a serviette over the litter of his last meal, which he had not had the energy to clear away, and which now brusquely offended his fastidiousness. But as Mr. Robinson, good careful soul, hesitated to soil the chair, Wyndham got a rag and wiped away the more lurid splashes from his garments. Then, whilst the old man rested, Wyndham trimmed his lamp; and presently the glooms vanished before a cosy illumination. Mr. Robinson at once began to scrutinise the studio on all sides with amusingly deep interest. The old Normandy presses, the model's throne, the giant easel, the well-worn Persian carpet, the hosts of canvasses of all sizes standing with their faces to the wall, the disorder and informality everywhere—all seemed to strike for him a note of youth and gaiety, to animate him with a sense of a new romantic universe. His face lighted with pleasure. He gazed up at the lofty roof and the oak cross-beams that supported it, and finally his eye rested on the little stairway and gallery at the far end, now almost lost in the shadows.
"Is your bedroom up there?" he hazarded, his naïve interest slipping out on his tongue.
"Yes," smiled Wyndham, as he tackled the dying fire. "It's the traditional arrangement."
"What a fascinating place you've got here! It's all a new world to me."
"Ah, it's a very ordinary sort of world—when once you've settled down to work."
"I have never known an artist before," pursued the old man, "and it is all fresh to me. I think that if I were a youngster again, I shouldn't at all dislike having a place like this, and making my home of it. Not that I mean I should ever have made anything of an artist," he added with a smile. "It's the spirit of the thing that appeals to me. You must be very happy here."
"Not necessarily," said Wyndham. He saw the old man's eyes fixed on him gravely. "You see, I'm not one of your successful artists, and the years have a way of passing on." He struggled with the fire, making the sticks blaze, then piled up the coals unsparingly. Mr. Robinson was the only person in the world to whom he had ever admitted failure, but somehow it did not seem to matter.
The old man gazed at him in frank astonishment. "Why, you are in the prime of early manhood!" he exclaimed. "Really it is most extraordinary to hear a splendid young man like you complain of the years passing!"
"I'm thirty-three," volunteered Wyndham. "And an unlucky devil of thirty-three, who has as much trouble in getting rid of his work as I, feels old enough in all conscience."