“What sterile growth of sexless root or Epicene,
What flower of kisses without fruit of love, Faustine.”
“She was very pretty—pretty figure—and her hands and feet were small. Yes, all the temptation was there, and I didn’t yield. Glad I met her. It’s helped me to know myself. I’m all right.”
As he drew the blanket under his chin Wynne felt unduly self-satisfied—he forgot, perhaps, that it is easy to resist when there is no impulse to sin.
X
At the National Gallery on the following morning Wynne fell into conversation with an old man. The old man wore an Inverness cape and a wide-brimmed felt hat, he had shaggy eyebrows, a wispy moustache, and his cheeks were seamed and furrowed with wrinkles. He muttered to himself and seemed in a fine rage. Sometimes he rattled his umbrella and scowled at the passers-by, and sometimes he tossed his head and laughed shortly. Scarcely a soul came nigh him that he did not scrutinize closely and disapprovingly. Before him was Leonardo’s “Virgin of the Rocks,” and by his mutterings and rattles he kept the space before the picture clear of other humanity, as a sheep-dog rings his flock.
As Wynne approached he came under the influence of the old gentleman’s inflamed stare, which, being in no wise alarmed, he returned with interest.
“Keep your eyes for the pictures,” rapped out this peculiar individual.
“So I would,” returned Wynne, “if it were not that you disturbed them.”
“Ha! You’re like all the rest. You’d run from your own bridal altar to see a cab-horse jump the area railings. I know the breed—I know ’em.”