had very much to do with his enormous success and fame.  And with all Michael Angelo’s instinct for grandeur, if he had not been equally lucky in regard to models, he could never adequately have expressed that genius.  It is impossible to give vitality to the painting of any head unless the artist has nature before him; this is why no true judge of pictures was ever deceived as to the difference between an original and a copy.  It stands to reason that in every picture of a head, howsoever the model’s features may be idealised, Nature’s own handiwork and mastery must dominate.

Here Cyril gently took the magazine from Wilderspin’s hand, but did not silence him.  ‘As I told you in Wales,’ said he to me, ’I had an abundance of imagination, but I wanted some model in order to realise it.  I could never meet a face that came anything nigh my own ideal of expression as the purely spiritual side of the beauty of woman; and until I did that I knew that I should achieve nothing whereby the world might recognise a new power in art.  In vain did I try to idealise such faces as did not please me.  And this was because nothing could satisfy me but the perfect type of expression which not even Leonardo nor any other painter in the world had found—­the true Romantic type.’

‘I understand you, Mr. Wilderspin,’ I said.  ’This I perfect type of expression you eventually found—­’

‘In the daughter,’ said Cyril, ‘of the goddess Gudgeon.’

‘By the blessing of Mary Wilderspin in heaven,’ said Wilderspin.

And then the talk between the two friends ran upon artistic matters, and I heard no more, for my mind was wandering up and down the London streets.

Wilderspin and I left the house together.  As we walked along, side by side, I said to him:  ’You spoke just now of your mother’s blessing.  Am I really to understand that you in an age like this believe in the power of human blessings and human curses?’

‘Do I believe in blessings and curses, Mr. Aylwin?’ said Wilderspin solemnly.  ’You are asking me whether I am with or without what your sublime father calls the “most powerful of the primary instincts of man.”  He tells us in The Veiled Queen that “Even in this material age of ours there is not a single soul that does not in its inner depths acknowledge the power of the unseen world.  The most hardened materialist,” says he, “believes in what he calls sometimes ‘luck’ and sometimes ‘fortune.’” Let me advise you, Mr. Aylwin, to study the voice of your inspired father.  I will send a set of his writings to your hotel to-morrow.  And, Mr. Aylwin, my duty compels me to speak very plainly to you upon a subject that has troubled me since I had the honour of meeting you in Wales.  There is but one commandment in the decalogue to which a distinct promise of reward is attached; it is that which bids us honour our fathers and our mothers.  Good-day, sir.’

IX