would make a capital editor, or a tutor, or a don, an Oxford don. He would
be perfectly happy as a don; he could read up the German critics and
expound Sophocles. He would be perfectly happy as a don. As it is, he is
perfectly miserable.'

'There was a fellow who had a studio over mine,' said Thompson. 'He had
been in the army and used to paint a bit. The academy by chance hung a
portrait, so he left the army and turned portrait-painter. One day he saw a
picture by Velasquez, and he understood how horrid were the red things he
used to send to the academy. He used to come down to see me; he used to
say, "I wish I had never seen a picture, by Gad, it is driving me out of my
mind." Poor chap, I wanted him to go back to the army. I said, Why paint?
no one forces you to; it makes you miserable; don't do so any more. When
you have anything to say, art is a joy; when you haven't, it is a curse to
yourself and to others.'

Philipps, the editor of _The Cosmopolitan_, turned towards Harding, and he
said--

'I cannot follow you in your estimate of Hubert Price. I don't see him
either mentally or physically as you do. It seems to me that you distort
the facts to make them fit in with your theory. He is tall and thin, but I
do not think that his nature is hard and dry. I should, on the contrary,
say that he was of a soft rather than a hard nature. The expression of his
face is mild and melancholy. I do not detect the dry, hard, rocky basis of
which you speak. I should say that Price was a sentimental man.'

'I have never heard of him being in love,' said Harding. 'I should say that
he had been entirely uninfluenced by women.'