Mahoudeau, waxing furious, replied: 

’Of course!  It sufficed for us to be with Claude, to be turned away everywhere.’

‘It was Claude who did for us!’ so Gagniere squarely asserted.

And thus they went on, relinquishing Fagerolles, whom they reproached for toadying the newspapers, for allying himself with their enemies and wheedling sexagenarian baronesses, to fall upon Claude, who now became the great culprit.  Well, after all, the other was only a hussy, one of the many found in the artistic fraternity, fellows who accost the public at street corners, leave their comrades in the lurch, and victimise them so as to get the bourgeois into their studios.  But Claude, that abortive great artist, that impotent fellow who couldn’t set a figure on its legs in spite of all his pride, hadn’t he utterly compromised them, hadn’t he let them in altogether?  Ah! yes, success might have been won by breaking off.  If they had been able to begin over again, they wouldn’t have been idiots enough to cling obstinately to impossible principles!  And they accused Claude of having paralysed them, of having traded on them—­yes, traded on them, but in so clumsy and dull-witted a manner that he himself had not derived any benefit by it.

‘Why, as for me,’ resumed Mahoudeau, ’didn’t he make me quite idiotic at one moment?  When I think of it, I sound myself, and remain wondering why I ever joined his band.  Am I at all like him?  Was there ever any one thing in common between us, eh?  Ah! it’s exasperating to find the truth out so late in the day!’

‘And as for myself,’ said Gagniere, ’he robbed me of my originality.  Do you think it has amused me, each time I have exhibited a painting during the last fifteen years, to hear people saying behind me, “That’s a Claude!” Oh!  I’ve had enough of it, I prefer not to paint any more.  All the same, if I had seen clearly in former times, I shouldn’t have associated with him.’

It was a stampede, the snapping of the last ties, in their stupefaction at suddenly finding that they were strangers and enemies, after a long youth of fraternity together.  Life had disbanded them on the road, and the great dissimilarity of their characters stood revealed; all that remained in them was the bitterness left by the old enthusiastic dream, that erstwhile hope of battle and victory to be won side by side, which now increased their spite.

‘The fact is,’ sneered Jory, ’that Fagerolles did not let himself be pillaged like a simpleton.’

But Mahoudeau, feeling vexed, became angry.  ‘You do wrong to laugh,’ he said, ’for you are a nice backslider yourself.  Yes, you always told us that you would give us a lift up when you had a paper of your own.’

‘Ah! allow me, allow me—­’

Gagniere, however, united with Mahoudeau:  ‘That’s quite true!’ he said.  ’You can’t say any more that what you write about us is cut out, for you are the master now.  And yet, never a word!  You didn’t even name us in your articles on the last Salon.’