She knew when it was coming; for Kami would gather his black alpaca coat into a bunch behind him, and, with faded flue eyes that saw neither pupils nor canvas, look back into the past to recall the history of one Binat. “You have all done not so badly,” he would say. “But you shall remember that it is not enough to have the method, and the art, and the power, nor even that which is touch, but you shall have also the conviction that nails the work to the wall. Of the so many I taught,”—here the students would begin to unfix drawing-pins or get their tubes together,—“the very so many that I have taught, the best was Binat. All that comes of the study and the work and the knowledge was to him even when he came. After he left me he should have done all that could be done with the colour, the form, and the knowledge. Only, he had not the conviction. So today I hear no more of Binat,—the best of my pupils,—and that is long ago. So today, too, you will be glad to hear no more of me. Continuez, mesdemoiselles, and, above all, with conviction.”
He went into the garden to smoke and mourn over the lost Binat as the pupils dispersed to their several cottages or loitered in the studio to make plans for the cool of the afternoon.
Maisie looked at her very unhappy Melancolia, restrained a desire to grimace before it, and was hurrying across the road to write a letter to Dick, when she was aware of a large man on a white troop-horse. How Torpenhow had managed in the course of twenty hours to find his way to the hearts of the cavalry officers in quarters at Vitry-sur-Marne, to discuss with them the certainty of a glorious revenge for France, to reduce the colonel to tears of pure affability, and to borrow the best horse in the squadron for the journey to Kami's studio, is a mystery that only special correspondents can unravel.
“I beg your pardon,” said he. “It seems an absurd question to ask, but the fact is that I don't know her by any other name: Is there any young lady here that is called Maisie?”
“I am Maisie,” was the answer from the depths of a great sun-hat.
“I ought to introduce myself,” he said, as the horse capered in the blinding white dust. “My name is Torpenhow. Dick Heldar is my best friend, and—and—the fact is that he has gone blind.”
“Blind!” said Maisie, stupidly. “He can't be blind.”
“He has been stone-blind for nearly two months.”
Maisie lifted up her face, and it was pearly white. “No! No! Not blind! I won't have him blind!”
“Would you care to see for yourself?” said Torpenhow.