'No,' said Armorel, with decision. 'On Samson, at least, one needs no companion.'
Again they relapsed into silence for a space. Conversation in the studio is fitful.
'I have a thing to talk over with you two,' she said. 'First, I thought it would be best to talk about it to you singly; but now I think that you should both hear the whole story, and so we can all three take counsel as to what is best.'
'Your head a little more—so.' Roland indicated the movement with his forefinger. 'That will do. Now pray go on, Armorel.'
'Once there was a man,' she began, as if she was telling a story to children—and, indeed, there is no better way ever found out of beginning a story—'a man who was, in no sense at all, and could never become, try as much as he could, an artist. He was, in fact, entirely devoid of the artistic faculty: he had no ear for music or for poetry, no eye for beauty of form or for colour, no hand for drawing, no brain to conceive: he was quite a prosaic person. Whether he was clever in things that do not require the artistic faculty, I do not know. I should hardly think he could be clever in anything. Perhaps he might be good at buying cheap and selling dear.'
'Won't you take five minutes' rest?' asked the painter; hardly listening at all to the beginning, which, as you see, promised very little in the way of amusement. There are, however, many ways by which the story-teller gets a grip of his hearer, and a dull beginning is not always the least effective. He put down his palette. 'You must be tired,' he said. 'Come and tell me what you think.' He looked thoughtfully at his picture. Armorel's poor little beginning of a story was slighted.
'You are satisfied, so far?' she asked.
'I will tell you when it is finished. Is the water quite right?'
'We are in shoal, close behind us are the broad Black Rock Ledges. The water might be even more transparent still. It is the dark water racing through the narrow ravine that I think of most. It will be a great picture, Roland. Now I will take my place again.' She did so. 'And, with your permission, I will go on with my story: you heard the beginning, Roland?'
'Oh! Yes! Unfortunate man with no eyes and no ears,' he replied, unsuspecting. 'Worse than a one-eyed Calender.'