Robin Pierce nipped in the bud a rather cynical smile. The painter wiped his forehead with a white silk handkerchief.
“Can’t you guess? Look where the crowd is thickest.”
The people had again closed densely round the two pictures.
“You are an artist in more ways than one, I’m afraid,” said Lady Holme. “Don’t turn my head more than the heat has.”
The searching expression, that indicated the strong desire to say something memorable, once more contorted the painter’s face.
“He who would essay to fix beauty on canvas,” he began, in a rather piercing voice, “should combine two gifts.”
He paused and lifted his upper lip two or three times, employing his under-jaw as a lever.
“Yes?” said Lady Holme, encouragingly.
“The gift of the brush which perpetuates and the gift of—er—gift of the—”
His intellect once more retreated from him into some distant place and left him murmuring: