His ambition, like Whistler's,
was to paint a full length in three days, and hear it hailed a
masterpiece. And, like Whistler, he had no sooner painted it than he
scraped it out; which most sitters found discouraging.
Boden, meanwhile, made amends for all that was revolutionary in his
politics or economics, by reaction on two subjects--art and divorce. He
had old-fashioned ideas on the family, and did not want to see divorce
made easy. And he was quaintly Ruskinian in matters of art, believing
that all art should appeal to ethical or poetic emotion.
"Boden admires a painter because he is a good man and pays his washing
bills," drawled Delorme behind his cigarette, from the lazy depths of a
garden chair. "His very colours are virtues, and his pictures must be
masterpieces, because he subscribes to the Dogs' Home, and doesn't beat
his wife."
"Excellently put," said Boden, his hat on the back of his head, his eyes
beginning to shine. "Do men gather grapes off thistles?"
"Constantly. There is no relation whatever between art and morality."
Delorme smoked pugnaciously. "The greater the artist, generally speaking,
the worse the man."
"I say! Really as bad as that?"
Boden waved a languid hand toward the smoke-wreathed phantom of Delorme.
The circle round the two laughed, languidly also, for it was almost too
hot laugh. The circle consisted of Victoria, Gerald Tatham, Mrs. Manisty,
and Colonel Barton, who had reappeared at luncheon, in order to urge
Tatham to see Faversham as soon as possible on certain local affairs.
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