Fitzgerald.

(with conviction) To be sure!  That makes it—­splendid! (Chuckles to himself, sits again on sofa, and goes on reading.)

Vane.

(looking at picture) Will you never learn to be an artist, Denham?  The modern picture should be a painted quatrain, with colours for words—­words which say nothing, because everything has been said, but which suggest all that has been felt and dreamed.  Art is the initiation into a mood, a mystery—­a sphinx whose riddle every one can answer, yet no one understand.

Fitzgerald.

(shutting the book on his finger) Bravo, Vane!  ’Pon my word, I begin to believe in you.

Vane.

I can endure even that.

Denham.

I am on the wrong tack then?

Vane.

My dear fellow, look at that canvas.  What a method!  You are like an amateur pianist who tries laboriously to obtain tone, without having mastered the keyboard.  One cannot blunder into great art.  Only Englishmen make the attempt.  You are a nation of amateurs. (He turns away, and sees a sketch on the L wall) Did you do this?

Denham.

My brush did it somehow.

Vane.

Ah! this is exquisite—­or would be if you could paint.  Why, why not learn the technique of your art, and make these notes of a mood, a moment, so as to give real delight?

Denham.

Upon my word, Vane, you are right.  That sketch is worth a wilderness of Brynhilds.  But look here! (Crosses to picture.  He opens a pocket knife, and makes a long cut across the figure of Brynhild.) There goes a year’s work.

Fitzgerald.

(rising) By Jove!

Vane.

My dear fellow, I congratulate you.  The year’s work is not thrown away—­now. (Re-enter Mrs. Denham.)

Mrs. Denham.

Oh, Mr. Vane, what have you made him do?

Vane.

My dear Mrs. Denham, I have saved your husband’s reputation for a few months at least.  He cannot do anything so consummately bad in less.  Pray, pray, do not try to understand art!  Women never can; they have not yet developed the sixth sense—­the sense of Beauty.  But I must really tear myself away.

(Mrs. Denham sits gloomily on throne, ignoring Vane.)

Denham.

Won’t you stay and have some tea?

Vane.

Thanks, no.  Lady Mayfair made me promise to go and hear her new tenor.  One knows what one has to expect, but one goes.

(Enter Jane, showing in Miss Macfarlane.)

Jane.

Miss Macfarlane!

(Miss Macfarlane shakes hands with Mrs. Denham and Denham, and nods to Fitzgerald and Vane.)

Miss Macfarlane.

How d’ye do, Fitz?  Ah, Vane! you here?  Don’t run away.

Vane.