pictures," went on Whitaker, ignoring Kenny's outraged sputter, "when
he couldn't, is and always has been a matter of considerable worry and
mystery to me--"

"It needn't have been. That, I fancy, John, you can see for yourself.
I worry very little about how your paper is run."

"But I think I've solved it. It's your vanity."

"My God!" said Kenny with a gasp.

"You wanted to have a hand in what he did. Then you could afford to be
gracious. There are some, Kenny, who must always direct in order to
enjoy."

There was a modicum of enjoyment with Whitaker around, hinted Kenny
sullenly.

Whitaker found his irrelevant trick of umbrage trying in the extreme.
He lost his temper and said that which he had meant to leave to
inference.

"Kenny, Brian's success, in which you, curiously enough, seem to have
had a visionary faith, would have linked him to you in a sort of
artistic dependence in which you shone with inferential genius and
generosity."

It hurt.

"So!" said Kenny, his color high.