After a time the old man got up, went to his easel near a window, and, sighing again, began patiently to work upon one of these failures—­a portrait, in oil, of a savage old lady, which he was doing from a photograph.  The expression of the mouth and the shape of the nose had not pleased her descendants and the beneficiaries under the will, and it was upon the images of these features that Roger labored.  He leaned far forward, with his face close to the canvas, holding his brushes after the Spencerian fashion, working steadily through the afternoon, and, when the light grew dimmer, leaning closer to his canvas to see.  When it had become almost dark in the room, he lit a student-lamp with a green-glass shade, and, placing it upon a table beside him, continued to paint.  Ariel’s voice interrupted him at last.

“It’s quitting-time, grandfather,” she called, gently, from the doorway behind him.

He sank back in his chair, conscious, for the first time, of how tired he had grown.  “I suppose so,” he said, “though it seemed to me that I was just getting my hand in.”  His eyes brightened for a moment.  “I declare, I believe I’ve caught it a great deal better.  Come and look, Ariel.  Doesn’t it seem to you that I’m getting it?  Those pearly shadows in the flesh—­”

“I’m sure of it.  Those people ought to be very proud to have it.”  She came to him quietly, took the palette and brushes from his hands and began to clean them, standing in the shadow behind him.  “It’s too good for them.”

“I wonder if it is,” he said, slowly, leaning forward and curving his hands about his eyes so as to shut off everything from his view except the canvas.  “I wonder if it is!” he repeated.  Then his hands dropped sadly in his lap, and he sank back again with a patient kind of revulsion.  “No, no, it isn’t!  I always think they’re good when I’ve just finished them.  I’ve been fooled that way all my life.  They don’t look the same afterwards.”

“They’re always beautiful,” she said, softly.

“Ah, ah!” he sighed.

“Now, Roger!” she cried, with cheerful sharpness, continuing her work.

“I know,” he said, with a plaintive laugh,—­“I know.  Sometimes I think that all my reward has been in the few minutes I’ve had just after finishing them.  During those few minutes I seem to see in them all that I wanted to put in them; I see it because what I’ve been trying to express is still so warm in my own eyes that I seem to have got it on the canvas where I wanted it.”

“But you do,” she said.  “You do get it there.”

“No,” he murmured, in return.  “I never did.  I got out some of the old ones when I came in this morning, some that I hadn’t looked at for years, and it’s the same with them.  You can do it much better yourself—­your sketches show it.”

“No, no!” she protested, quickly.