"Now this picture of the Countess is to me very much more in Velasquez's method than in Lely's. Broader and stronger and with a surer touch. I have always told Ollie he was right to give up landscapes. These two pictures show it. There is really, Mr. Horn, no one on this side of the water who is doing exactly what Oliver is." She spoke as if she was discussing Page, Huntington or Elliott or any other painter of the day, not as if it was her lover. "Did you notice how the lace was brushed in and all that work about the throat--especially the shadow tones?"
She treated Richard precisely as if he was one of the guild. His criticisms of her own work--for he had insisted on seeing her latest picture and had even been more enthusiastic over it than he had been over Oliver's--and his instant appreciation of the Lambinet, convinced her, even before he had finished the tour of the room, that the quaint old gentleman was as much at home in her atmosphere as he was in that of his shop at home discussing scientific problems with some savant.
"I did, my dear. It is quite as you say," answered Richard, with great earnestness. "This 'Woman in Black,' as he calls it, is painted not only with sureness and with an intimate knowledge of the textures, but it seems to me he has the faculty of expressing with each stroke of his brush, as an engraver does with his burin, the rounds and hollows of his surfaces.
And to think, too, my dear," he continued, "that most of it was done at night. The color tones, you know"--and his manner changed, and a more thoughtful expression came into his face--the scientist was speaking now--"are most difficult to manage at night. The colors of the spectrum undergo some very curious changes under artificial light, especially from a gas consuming as much carbon as our common carburetted hydrogen. The greens, owing to the absorption of the yellow rays, become the brighter, and the orange and red tones, from the same reason, the more intense, while the paler violets and, in fact, all the tertiaries, of a bluish cast lose--"
He stopped, as he caught a puzzled expression on her face. "Oh, what a dreadful person I am," he exclaimed, rising from his seat. "It is quite inexcusable in me. Please forgive me, my dear--I was really thinking aloud. Such ponderous learned words should be kept out of this delightful abode of the Muses, and then, I assure you, I really know so little about it, and you know so much." And he laughed softly, and made a little bow as a further apology.
"No. I don't know one thing about it, nor does any other painter I know," she laughed, blowing out the alcohol lamp, "not quite in the same way. And if I did I should want you to come every day and bring Mr. Gill with you to tell me about it." Where-upon Nathan, replying that nothing would give him more pleasure (he had been silent most of the time--somehow no one expected him to talk much when Richard was present), struggled to his feet at an almost imperceptible sign from the inventor, who suddenly remembered that his capitalists were waiting for him, pulled his old cloak about his shoulders and, with Richard leading the way, they all four moved out into the hall and stood in the open doorway.
When they reached the top stair outside the studio dear Richard stopped, took both of Margaret's hands in his, and said, in his kindest voice and in his gravest and most thoughtful manner, as he looked down into her face:
"My dear Miss Grant, may I tell you that I have to-day found in you the realization of one of my day-dreams? And will you forgive an old man when he says how proud it makes him to know a woman who is brave enough to live the life you do? You are the forerunner of a great movement, my dear--the mother of a new guild. It is a grand and noble thing for a woman to sustain herself with work that she loves"--and the dear old gentleman, lifting his hat with the air of a courtier, betook himself down-stairs, followed by Nathan, bowing as he went.
No wonder he rejoiced! Most of the dreams of his younger days were coining true. And now this woman --the beginning of a new era--the opening out of a new civilization. And ahead of it a National Art that the world would one day recognize!
He tried to express his delight to Oliver, and turned to find him, but Oliver was not beside him nor did he join his father for five minutes at least.
That young gentleman--just as Richard and Nathan had reached the BOTTOM of the second flight of stairs--had suddenly remembered something of the utmost importance which he had left in the INNER room, and which he could not possibly find until Madge, waiting by the banister, had gone back to help him look for it, and not then, until Mrs. Mulligan had left them both and shut the kitchen-door behind her. Yes, it was quite five minutes, or more, before Oliver clattered down-stairs after his guests, stopping but once to look up through the banisters into Margaret's eyes--she was leaning over for the purpose--his open hand held up toward her as a sign that it was always at her command.
