He was collecting himself. He was panic-stricken.
He did not know what to say. It was not only
that they were ill-drawn, or that the colour was put
on amateurishly by someone who had no eye for it; but
there was no attempt at getting the values, and the
perspective was grotesque. It looked like the
work of a child of five, but a child would have had
some naivete and might at least have made an attempt
to put down what he saw; but here was the work of
a vulgar mind chock full of recollections of vulgar
pictures. Philip remembered that she had talked
enthusiastically about Monet and the Impressionists,
but here were only the worst traditions of the Royal
Academy.
“There,” she said at last, “that’s
the lot.”
Philip was no more truthful than anybody else, but
he had a great difficulty in telling a thundering,
deliberate lie, and he blushed furiously when he answered:
“I think they’re most awfully good.”
A faint colour came into her unhealthy cheeks, and
she smiled a little.
“You needn’t say so if you don’t
think so, you know. I want the truth.”
“But I do think so.”
“Haven’t you got any criticism to offer?
There must be some you don’t like as well as
others.”
Philip looked round helplessly. He saw a landscape,
the typical picturesque `bit’ of the amateur,
an old bridge, a creeper-clad cottage, and a leafy
bank.
“Of course I don’t pretend to know anything
about it,” he said. “But I wasn’t
quite sure about the values of that.”
She flushed darkly and taking up the picture quickly
turned its back to him.
“I don’t know why you should have chosen
that one to sneer at. It’s the best thing
I’ve ever done. I’m sure my values
are all right. That’s a thing you can’t
teach anyone, you either understand values or you don’t.”
“I think they’re all most awfully good,”
repeated Philip.
She looked at them with an air of self-satisfaction.
“I don’t think they’re anything
to be ashamed of.”
Philip looked at his watch.
“I say, it’s getting late. Won’t
you let me give you a little lunch?”
“I’ve got my lunch waiting for me here.”
Philip saw no sign of it, but supposed perhaps the
concierge would bring it up when he was gone.
He was in a hurry to get away. The mustiness of
the room made his head ache.
In March there was all the excitement of sending in
to the Salon. Clutton, characteristically, had
nothing ready, and he was very scornful of the two
heads that Lawson sent; they were obviously the work
of a student, straight-forward portraits of models,
but they had a certain force; Clutton, aiming at perfection,
had no patience with efforts which betrayed hesitancy,
and with a shrug of the shoulders told Lawson it was
an impertinence to exhibit stuff which should never
have been allowed out of his studio; he was not less
contemptuous when the two heads were accepted.
Flanagan tried his luck too, but his picture was refused.
Mrs. Otter sent a blameless Portrait de ma Mere, accomplished
and second-rate; and was hung in a very good place.
