I bowed, still smiling. "I did not know you were such a flatterer, Mr. Challoner! Diana thanks you!"
The conversation now became general, and turned, among other subjects, upon the growing reputation of Raffaello Cellini.
"What surprises me in that young man," said Colonel Everard, "is his colouring. It is simply marvellous. He was amiable enough to present me with a little landscape scene; and the effect of light upon it is so powerfully done that you would swear the sun was actually shining through it."
The fine sensitive mouth of Heliobas curved in a somewhat sarcastic smile.
"Mere trickery, my dear sir—a piece of clap-trap," he said lightly. "That is what would be said of such pictures—in England at least. And it WILL be said by many oracular, long-established newspapers, while Cellini lives. As soon as he is dead—ah! c'est autre chose!—he will then most probably be acknowledged the greatest master of the age. There may even be a Cellini 'School of Colouring,' where a select company of daubers will profess to know the secret that has died with him. It is the way of the world!"
Mr. Challoner's rugged face showed signs of satisfaction, and his shrewd eyes twinkled.
"Right you are, sir!" he said, holding up his glass of wine. "I drink to you! Sir, I agree with you! I calculate there's a good many worlds flying round in space, but a more ridiculous, feeble-minded, contrary sort of world than this one, I defy any archangel to find!"
Heliobas laughed, nodded, and after a slight pause resumed:
"It is astonishing to me that people do not see to what an infinite number of uses they could put the little re-discovery they have made of LUMINOUS PAINT. In that simple thing there is a secret, which as yet they do not guess—a wonderful, beautiful, scientific secret, which may perhaps take them a few hundred years to find out. In the meantime they have got hold of one end of the thread; they can make luminous paint, and with it they can paint light-houses, and, what is far more important—ships. Vessels in mid-ocean will have no more need of fog-signals and different-coloured lamps; their own coat of paint will be sufficient to light them safely on their way. Even rooms can be so painted as to be perfectly luminous at night. A friend of mine, residing in Italy, has a luminous ballroom, where the ceiling is decorated with a moon and stars in electric light. The effect is exceedingly lovely; and though people think a great deal of money must have been laid out upon it, it is perhaps the only great ballroom in Italy that has been really cheaply fitted up. But, as I said before, there is another secret behind the invention or discovery of luminous paint—a secret which, when once unveiled, will revolutionize all the schools of art in the world."
"Do you know this secret?" asked Mrs. Challoner.