"Like her! Why, she's the only----"

He gibbered for a spell. When he had calmed down, I said, "Well then,
what's your trouble?"

"Reggie," he said, "do you think a man is bound to tell his wife all
about his past life?"

"Oh, well," I said, "of course, I suppose she's prepared to find that a
man has--er--sowed his wild oats, don't you know, and all that sort of
thing, and----"

He seemed quite irritated.

"Don't be a chump. It's nothing like that. Listen. When I came back to
London and started to try and make a living by painting, I found that
people simply wouldn't buy the sort of work I did at any price. Do you
know, Reggie, I've been at it three years now, and I haven't sold a
single picture."

I whooped in a sort of amazed way, but I should have been far more
startled if he'd told me he _had_ sold a picture. I've seen his
pictures, and they are like nothing on earth. So far as I can make out
what he says, they aren't supposed to be. There's one in particular,
called "The Coming of Summer," which I sometimes dream about when I've
been hitting it up a shade too vigorously. It's all dots and splashes,
with a great eye staring out of the middle of the mess. It looks as if
summer, just as it was on the way, had stubbed its toe on a bomb. He
tells me it's his masterpiece, and that he will never do anything like
it again. I should like to have that in writing.