I had never heard of the picture in question.  As for the book, my father, perceiving my great dislike of mysticism, had always shrunk from showing me any effusion of his that was not of a simply antiquarian kind.  In Switzerland, however, after his death, while waiting for the embalmer to finish his work, I had become, during a few days’ reading, acquainted with The Veiled Queen.  It was a new edition containing an ‘added chapter,’ full of subtle spiritualistic symbols.  Amid what had seemed to me mere mystical jargon about the veil of Isis being uplifted, not by Man’s reason, not by such researches as those of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, and the continental evolutionists, but by Faith and Love, I had come across passages of burning eloquence.

‘I am sorry to say,’ I replied, ’that my Gypsy wanderings are again answerable for my shortcomings.  I have not yet seen your picture.  When I do see it I—­’

’Not seen “Faith and Love” and the equally wonderful predella at the foot of it!’ he exclaimed incredulously.  ’Ah, but you have been living among the Gypsies.  It is the greatest picture of the modern world; for, Mr. Aylwin, it renders in Art the inevitable attitude of its own time and country towards the unseen world, and renders it as completely as did the masterpiece of Polygnotus in the Lesche of the ’Not in the flesh; in the spirit, who knows him so well?  Your mother I have had the pleasure of meeting at the house of Lord Sleaford, and indeed I have had the distinguished honour of painting her portrait; but the great author of The Veiled Queen—­the inspired designer of the vignette symbolical of the Renascence of Wonder in Art—­I never had the rapture of seeing.  This very day, the anniversary of his birth,’ he continued, ‘is a great day in the Aylwinian calendar.’

‘My father’s birthday?  Why, so it is!’

’Mr. Aylwin, is it possible that the anniversary of a day so momentous for the world is forgotten—­forgotten by the very issue of the great man’s loins?’

‘The fact is,’ said I, in some confusion, ’I have been living with the Gypsies, and, you see, Mr. Wilderspin, the passage of time—­’

‘The son of Philip Aylwin a Gypsy!’ murmured Wilderspin meditatively, and unconscious evidently that he was speaking aloud—­’a Gypsy!  Still it would surely be a mistake to suppose,’ he continued, perfectly oblivious now of my presence, ’that the vagaries of his son can really bring shame upon the head of the father.’

‘But, by God!’ I cried, ’it is no mistake that the vagaries of the father can bring shame and sorrow and misery upon the child.  I could name a couple of fathers—­sleeping very close to each other now—­whose vagaries—­’

My sudden anger was carrying me away; but I stopped, recollecting myself.

‘Doubtless,’ said Wilderspin, ’there are fathers and fathers.  The son of Philip Aylwin has assuredly a right to be critical in regard to all other fathers than his own.’