“I thought it was just the other way. Did you not say that you would teach me some of those perplexing rules of perspective which my book lays down so elaborately—and, to me, so incomprehensibly?”
“I did, but did not you promise to show me how to manipulate oils—in regard to which I know absolutely nothing? And as practice is of greater importance than theory, you must be the teacher and I the pupil.”
Upon this point they carried on a discussion until Milly, declaring she was wasting her time and losing the effects of light and shade, went seriously to work on the canvas before her. Barret, whose natural colour was somewhat heightened, stood at a respectful distance, looking on.
“You are quite sure, I hope,” said the youth, “that it does not disturb you to be overlooked? You know I would not presume to do so if you had not promised to permit me. My great desire, for many a day, has been to observe the process of painting in oils by one who understands it.”
How he reconciled this statement with the fact that he was not looking at the picture at all, but at the little white hand that was deftly applying the brush, and the beautiful little head that was moving itself so gracefully about while contemplating the work, is more than we can explain.
Soon the painter became still more deeply absorbed in her work, and the pupil more deeply still in the painter. It was a magnificent sweep of landscape that lay before them—a glen glowing with purple and green, alive with flickering sunlight and shadow, with richest browns and reds and coolest greys in the foreground; precipices, crags, verdant slopes of bracken, pine and birch woods hanging on the hillsides, in the middle distance, and blue mountains mingling with orange skies in the background, with MacRummle’s favourite stream appearing here and there like a silver thread, running through it all. But Barret saw nothing of it. He only saw a pretty hand, a blushing cheek and sunny hair!
The picture was not bad. There was a good deal of crude colour in the foreground, no doubt, without much indication of form; and there was also some wonderfully vivid green and purple, with impossible forms and amazing perspective—both linear and aerial—in places, and Turneresque confusion of yellow in the extreme distance. But Barret did not note that—though by means of some occult powers of comprehension he commented on it freely! He saw nothing but Milly Moss.
It was a glorious chance. He resolved to make the most of it.
“I had no idea that painting in oils was such a fascinating occupation,” he remarked, without feeling quite sure of what he said.
“I delight in it,” returned the painter, slowly, as she touched in a distant sheep, which—measured by the rules of perspective, and regard being had to surrounding objects—might have stood for an average cathedral.