tones, nor falsify the values. He simply could not; the attempt to do so
annoyed him. All men are capable of stooping beneath their highest
selves, and in several directions Priam Farll could have stooped. But
not on canvas! He could only produce his best. He could only render
nature as he saw nature. And it was instinct, rather than conscience,
that prevented him from stooping.

In three days, during which he kept Alice out of the attic partly by
lies and partly by locking the door, the picture was finished; and he
had forgotten all about everything except his profession. He had become
a different man, a very excited man.

"By Jove," he exclaimed, surveying the picture, "I can paint!"

Artists do occasionally soliloquize in this way.

The picture was dazzling! What atmosphere! What poetry! And what
profound fidelity to nature's facts! It was precisely such a picture as
he was in the habit of selling for £800 or a £1,000, before his burial
in Westminster Abbey! Indeed, the trouble was that it had 'Priam Farll'
written all over it, just as the sketch had!

* * * * *




CHAPTER VII