The attitude of purely English Club members might be, in part, responsible for the character-development here of weak expansiveness into bitter withdrawal, and natural animal passion to the impotent rage of unnatural excesses which lent him a spurious sense of power.
The real power on this occasion lay in her own self-control, and she knew it.
She spoke impersonally. "There is a story of the first Old Master to paint from the nude. It is not a story that appeals to me, somehow. The model and the artist regarded the occasion so sacred as to warrant their joint attendance at Mass first. Myself, I feel that they should never have realized the suggestion of lust, in anything so aloof as Art, enough to anticipate its interference."
She astonished and disconcerted him where he had hoped to disconcert her.
"You would, therefore, have raised no objection?" rather lamely.
"I should assuredly have refused—you. There is a form of Art, which only artists of a higher evolution than you are fit to practise. My objection would not have been founded on any idea that the human body must be concealed to all for the sake of those who misread its allegorical beauty."
He unscrewed a fresh tube with savagely nervous fingers, and descended to cheap reviling.
"Sterne, I gather, is one of the fortunately evolved specimens who do not misread the allegory and are, hence, privileged without the artist's excuse."
"Your thoughts just bore me," said Ferlie flatly. "I can see them passing across your face and they are ugly enough to mar any work you attempt. And, underneath all my angry disgust, I am sorry for you. If you came across a wounded snake what would you do?"
The palette crashed to the ground as he took a pace forward, clenching his stained hands.