Rhona Boswell, down whose face also the tears were streaming, nodded in a patronising way to Wilderspin, and said, ’Reia, my mammy lives in the clouds, and I’ll tell her to show you the Golden Hand, I will.’

‘From the moment when I left my mother in the grave,’ said Wilderspin, ’I had but one hope, that she who was watching my endeavours might not watch in vain.  Art became now my religion:  success in it my soul’s goal.  I went to London; I soon began to develop a great power of design, in illustrating penny periodicals.  For years I worked at this, improving in execution with every design, but still unable to find an opening for a better class of work.  What I yearned for was the opportunity to exercise the gift of colour.  That I did possess this in a rare degree I knew.  At last I got a commission.  Oh! the joy of painting that first picture!  My progress was now rapid.  But I had few purchasers till Providence sent me a good man and great gentleman, my dear friend—­’

‘This is a long-winded speech of yours, mon cher,’ yawned Cyril.  ’Lady Sinfi is going to strike up with the Welsh riddle unless you get along faster.’

‘Don’t stop him,’ I heard Sinfi mutter, as she shook Cyril angrily; ‘he’s mighty fond o’ that mother o’ his’n, an’, if he’s ever sich a horn nataral, I likes him.’

‘I never exhibited in the Academy,’ continued Wilderspin, without heeding the interruption, ’I never tried to exhibit; but, thanks to the dear friend I have mentioned, I got to know the Master himself.  People came to my poor studio, and my pictures were bought from my easel as fast as I could paint them.  I could please my buyers, I could please my dear friend, I could please the Master himself; I could please every person in the world but one—­myself.  For years I had been struggling with what cripples so many artists—­with ignorance—­ignorance, Mr. Aylwin, of the million points of detail which must be understood and mastered before ever the sweetness, the apparent lawlessness and abandonment of Nature can be expressed by Art.  But it was now, when I had conquered these,—­it was now that I was dissatisfied, and no man living was so miserable as I. I dare say you are an artist yourself, Mr. Aylwin, and will understand me when I say that artists—­figure-painters, I mean,—­are divided into two classes—­those whose natural impulse is to paint men, and those who are sent into the world expressly to paint women.  My mother’s death taught me that my mission was to paint women, women whom I—­being the son of Mary Wilderspin—­love and understand better than other men, because my soul (once folded in her womb) is purer than other men’s souls.’

‘Is not modesty a Gorgio virtue, Lady Sinfi?’ murmured Cyril.

‘Nothin’ like a painter for thinkin’ strong beer of hisself,’ she replied; ‘but I likes him—­oh, I likes him.’