It was Fagerolles’ picture.  And in that ‘Picnic’ he found his own forgotten work, ‘In the Open Air,’ the same light key of colour, the same artistic formula, but softened, trickishly rendered, spoilt by skin-deep elegance, everything being ‘arranged’ with infinite skill to satisfy the low ideal of the public.  Fagerolles had not made the mistake of stripping his three women; but, clad in the audacious toilets of women of society, they showed no little of their persons.  As for the two gallant gentlemen in summer jackets beside them, they realised the ideal of everything most distingue; while afar off a footman was pulling a hamper off the box of a landau drawn up behind the trees.  The whole of it, the figures, the drapery, the bits of still life of the repast, stood out gaily in full sunlight against the darkened foliage of the background; and the supreme skill of the painter lay in his pretended audacity, in a mendacious semblance of forcible treatment which just sufficed to send the multitude into ecstasies.  It was like a storm in a cream-jug!

Claude, being unable to approach, listened to the remarks around him.  At last there was a man who depicted real truth!  He did not press his points like those fools of the new school; he knew how to convey everything without showing anything.  Ah! the art of knowing where to draw the line, the art of letting things be guessed, the respect due to the public, the approval of good society!  And withal such delicacy, such charm and art!  He did not unseasonably deliver himself of passionate things of exuberant design; no, when he had taken three notes from nature, he gave those three notes, nothing more.  A newspaper man who arrived went into raptures over the ‘Picnic,’ and coined the expression ‘a very Parisian style of painting.’  It was repeated, and people no longer passed without declaring that the picture was ‘very Parisian’ indeed.

All those bent shoulders, all those admiring remarks rising from a sea of spines, ended by exasperating Claude; and seized with a longing to see the faces of the folk who created success, he manoeuvred in such a way as to lean his back against the handrail hard by.  From that point, he had the public in front of him in the grey light filtering through the linen awning which kept the centre of the gallery in shade; whilst the brighter light, gliding from the edges of the blinds, illumined the paintings on the walls with a white flow, in which the gilding of the frames acquired a warm sunshiny tint.  Claude at once recognised the people who had formerly derided him—­if these were not the same, they were at least their relatives—­serious, however, and enraptured, their appearance greatly improved by their respectful attention.  The evil look, the weariness, which he had at first remarked on their faces, as envious bile drew their skin together and dyed it yellow, disappeared here while they enjoyed the treat of an amiable lie.  Two fat ladies, open-mouthed, were