“It’s funny,” he said to Querida, going out on the train to his sister’s country home one delicious morning—­“it’s confoundedly odd that I should turn lazy in my old age.  Do you think I’m worked out?” He gulped down a sudden throb of fear smilingly.

“Lie fallow,” said Querida, gently.  “No soil is deep enough to yield without rest.”

“Yours does.”

“Oh, for me,” said Querida, showing his snowy teeth, “I often sicken of my fat sunlight, frying everything to an iridescent omelette.”  He shrugged, laughed:  “I turn lazy for months every year.  Try it, my friend.  Don’t you even keep mi-careme?”

Neville stared out of the window at the station platform past which they were gliding, and rose with Querida as the train stopped.  His sister’s touring car was waiting; into it stepped Querida, and he followed; and away they sped over the beautiful rolling country, where handsome cattle tried to behave like genuine Troyon’s, and silvery sheep attempted to imitate Mauve, and even the trees, separately or in groups, did their best to look like sections of Rousseau, Diaz, and even Corot—­but succeeded only in resembling questionable imitations.

“There’s to be quite a week-end party?” inquired Querida.

“I don’t know.  My sister telephoned me to fill in.  I fancy the party is for you.”

“For me!” exclaimed Querida with delightful enthusiasm.  “That is most charming of Mrs. Collis.”

“They’ll all think it charming of you.  Lord, what a rage you’ve become and what a furor you’ve aroused!...  And you deserve it,” added Neville, coolly.

Querida looked at him, calm intelligence in his dark gaze; and understood the honesty of the comment.

“That,” he said, “if you permit the vigour of expression, is damn nice of you, Neville.  But you can afford to be generous to other painters.”

“Can I?” Neville turned and gazed at Querida, gray eyes clear in their searching inquiry.  Then he laughed a little and looked out over the sunny landscape.

Querida’s olive cheeks had reddened a trifle.

Neville said:  “What is the trouble with my work, anyway?  Is it what some of you fellows say?”

Querida did not pretend to misunderstand: 

“You’re really a great painter, Neville.  And you know it.  Must you have everything?”

“Well—­I’m going after it.”

“Surely—­surely.  I, also.  God knows my work lacks many, many things—­”

“But it doesn’t lack that one essential which mine lacks. What is it?”

Querida laughed:  “I can’t explain.  For me—­your Byzantine canvas—­there is in it something not intimate—­”

“Austere?”

“Yes—­even in those divine and lovely throngs.  There is, perhaps, an aloofness—­even a self-denial—­” He laughed again:  “I deny myself nothing—­on canvas—­even I have the audacity to try to draw as you do!”