“Well, Darby, how is the picture? It promises, my dear chap, to be the best you have done. Real improvement there.... No, no—my friend, you must not let that happen! Stick it out. I don’t care if it is beginning to bore you. Ability to stand boredom is the mark of power. Yes.... Inspiration is cheap as birds twittering. Sustainment of inspiration is rare as genius. It is genius, I tell you.”
Lunn was happy. Tom praised his picture: called him his friend. He sensed that the reason for all this was devilish. It made no difference. One had to take Tom as he came. Durthal glared snakishly at David: dissatisfied that Tom’s onslaught was in abeyance.
David wished to right himself. Perhaps he was sulking. Perhaps Tom was watching to see what he would do. Let him try to join in.
“I wish you would let me see some of your pictures, sometime,” he said to Lunn.
Lunn frowned ungraciously.
“Sure,” with a stirring of his feet. “Any time.”
“They’re immoral, David.” Tom turned. “They’ll shock you. They tell the truth. They accept the world as it is.”
His voice had a sing-song emphasis, as if he were warning a child away from the fire.
“And what a world it is!” Durthal had merely been waiting. He had not dared hope that David would so aptly accommodate himself to his hostile wishes. He fell in at once with Tom’s accent. “Better not see them, Markand. The women Lunn paints aren’t pure: the men aren’t moral.”
“Think of that, Davie! Wasting his good time painting impure women!”