“I hadn’t indicated the slightest shadow,” Arthur continued. “There is no sunshine in the room. You have deliberately falsified my composition.”
“I did it without thinking,” said Blanche shivering. “It is a mistake.”
“A mistake,” he said sullenly. “Your heart isn’t in your work, that is the truth. You don’t really care to help me to find my true expression.”
And he took the canvas from the easel and tore it in two.
Did he half know, did some voice in the back of his twisted brain cry out to him that his part of the picture was hopelessly mediocre and out of drawing, that the only value it possessed was the shadow of the chrysanthemums? Was there jealousy in his rage? Who shall say!
I butted in at this point, and made a pretext for sending Blanche out of the room.
“Now, my dear fellow,” I said confidentially, “don’t in future try to associate your wife with your art. It is quite beyond her. Women, sir, have no artistic feeling. The home, dress, amusement that is their department. ‘Occupy till I come,’ might well have been said of feminine talent. It does occupy—till—ahem! we arrive. When a woman is happily married like your wife she doesn’t care a fig for anything else. Let her share your lighter moments, your walks and drives, allow her to solace your leisure. The bow, sir, must not be always at full stretch. But promise me you won’t allow her to copy any more of your pictures.”
“Never again,” said Arthur sepulchrally, stretched face downwards on the satin sofa.
I picked up the two pieces of torn canvas. A sudden idea seized me.