I have no intuitive, immediate grasp of the value of paintings; results come to me slowly, and though every one believes his own judgment to be good, I dare not claim that mine is worth more than that of any other layman, Frances had too often convicted me of gross ignorance and error.  I can only say that I examined these sketches with a feeling of amazement that contained revulsion, if not actually horror and disgust.  They were outrageous.  I felt hot for my sister, and it was a relief to know she had moved across the room on some pretence or other, and did not examine them with me.  Her talent, of course, is mediocre, yet she has her moments of inspiration—­moments, that is to say, when a view of Beauty not normally her own flames divinely through her.  And these interpretations struck me forcibly as being thus “inspired”—­not her own.  They were uncommonly well done; they were also atrocious.  The meaning in them, however, was never more than hinted.  There the unholy skill and power came in:  they suggested so abominably, leaving most to the imagination.  To find such significance in a bourgeois villa garden, and to interpret it with such delicate yet legible certainty, was a kind of symbolism that was sinister, even diabolical.  The delicacy was her own, but the point of view was another’s.

And the word that rose in my mind was not the gross description of “impure,” but the more fundamental qualification—­“un-pure.”

In silence I turned the sketches over one by one, as a boy hurries through the pages of an evil book lest he be caught.

“What does Mabel do with them?” I asked presently in a low tone, as I neared the end.  “Does she keep them?”

“She makes notes about them in a book and then destroys them,” was the reply from the end of the room.  I heard a sigh of relief.  “I’m glad you’ve seen them, Bill.  I wanted you to—­but was afraid to show them.  You understand?”

“I understand,” was my reply, though it was not a question intended to be answered.  All I understood really was that Mabel’s mind was as sweet and pure as my sister’s, and that she had some good reason for what she did.  She destroyed the sketches, but first made notes!  It was an interpretation of the place she sought.  Brother-like, I felt resentment, though, that Frances should waste her time and talent, when she might be doing work that she could sell.  Naturally, I felt other things as well....

“Mabel pays me five guineas for each one,” I heard.  “Absolutely insists.”

I stared at her stupidly a moment, bereft of speech or wit.  “I must either accept, or go away,” she went on calmly, but a little white.  “I’ve tried everything.  There was a scene the third day I was here—­when I showed her my first result.  I wanted to write to you, but hesitated—­”

“It’s unintentional, then, on your part—­forgive my asking it, Frances, dear?” I blundered, hardly knowing what to think or say.  “Between the lines” of her letter came back to me.  “I mean, you make the sketches in your ordinary way and—­the result comes out of itself, so to speak?”