'Non—il arrivera, celui-là,' said the other calmly.
'As for the other things from the Villa Medici fellows,' said the first speaker, throwing his arm round the back of his chair, and twisting it round so as to front them, 'they make me sick. I should hardly do my fire the injustice of lighting it with some of them.'
'All the same,' replied Alphonse stoutly, 'that Campagna scene of D. 's is well done.'
'Literature, mon cher! literature!' cried the unknown, 'and what the deuce do we want with literature in painting?'
He brought his fist down violently on the table.
'Connu,' said Alphonse scornfully. 'Don't excite yourself. But the story in D. 's picture doesn't matter a halfpenny. Who cares what the figures are doing? It's the brush work and the values I look to. How did he get all that relief—that brilliance? No sunshine—no local colour—and the thing glows like a Rembrandt!'
The boy's mad blue eyes took a curious light, as though some inner enthusiasm had stirred.
'Peuh! we all know you, Alphonse. Say what you like, you want something else in a picture than painting. That'll damn you, and make your fortune some day, I warn you. Now I have got a picture on the easel that will make the bourgeois skip.'
And the speaker passed a large tremulous hand through his waves of hair, his lip also quivering with the nervousness of a man overworked and overdone.
'You'll not send it to the Salon, I imagine,' said another man beside him, dryly. He was fair, small and clean-shaven, wore spectacles, and had the look of a clerk or man of business.