________________________________________________
_ Gombauld was by no means so furious at their apparition as Denis
had hoped and expected he would be. Indeed, he was rather
pleased than annoyed when the two faces, one brown and pointed,
the other round and pale, appeared in the frame of the open door.
The energy born of his restless irritation was dying within him,
returning to its emotional elements. A moment more and he would
have been losing his temper again--and Anne would be keeping
hers, infuriatingly. Yes, he was positively glad to see them.
"Come in, come in," he called out hospitably.
Followed by Mr. Scogan, Denis climbed the little ladder and
stepped over the threshold. He looked suspiciously from Gombauld
to his sitter, and could learn nothing from the expression of
their faces except that they both seemed pleased to see the
visitors. Were they really glad, or were they cunningly
simulating gladness? He wondered.
Mr. Scogan, meanwhile, was looking at the portrait.
"Excellent," he said approvingly, "excellent. Almost too true to
character, if that is possible; yes, positively too true. But
I'm surprised to find you putting in all this psychology
business." He pointed to the face, and with his extended finger
followed the slack curves of the painted figure. "I thought you
were one of the fellows who went in exclusively for balanced
masses and impinging planes."
Gombauld laughed. "This is a little infidelity," he said.
"I'm sorry," said Mr. Scogan. "I for one, without ever having
had the slightest appreciation of painting, have always taken
particular pleasure in Cubismus. I like to see pictures from
which nature has been completely banished, pictures which are
exclusively the product of the human mind. They give me the same
pleasure as I derive from a good piece of reasoning or a
mathematical problem or an achievement of engineering. Nature,
or anything that reminds me of nature, disturbs me; it is too
large, too complicated, above all too utterly pointless and
incomprehensible. I am at home with the works of man; if I
choose to set my mind to it, I can understand anything that any
man has made or thought. That is why I always travel by Tube,
never by bus if I can possibly help it. For, travelling by bus,
one can't avoid seeing, even in London, a few stray works of God
--the sky, for example, an occasional tree, the flowers in the
window-boxes. But travel by Tube and you see nothing but the
works of man--iron riveted into geometrical forms, straight lines
of concrete, patterned expanses of tiles. All is human and the
product of friendly and comprehensible minds. All philosophies
and all religions--what are they but spiritual Tubes bored
through the universe! Through these narrow tunnels, where all is
recognisably human, one travels comfortable and secure,
contriving to forget that all round and below and above them
stretches the blind mass of earth, endless and unexplored. Yes,
give me the Tube and Cubismus every time; give me ideas, so snug
and neat and simple and well made. And preserve me from nature,
preserve me from all that's inhumanly large and complicated and
obscure. I haven't the courage, and, above all, I haven't the
time to start wandering in that labyrinth."
While Mr. Scogan was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to the
farther side of the little square chamber, where Anne was
sitting, still in her graceful, lazy pose, on the low chair.
"Well?" he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was he
asking of her? He hardly knew himself.
Anne looked up at him, and for answer echoed his "Well?" in
another, a laughing key.
Denis had nothing more, at the moment, to say. Two or three
canvases stood in the corner behind Anne's chair, their faces
turned to the wall. He pulled them out and began to look at the
paintings.
"May I see too?" Anne requested.
He stood them in a row against the wall. Anne had to turn round
in her chair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the
man fallen from the horse, there was a painting of flowers, there
was a small landscape. His hands on the back of the chair, Denis
leaned over her. From behind the easel at the other side of the
room Mr. Scogan was talking away. For a long time they looked at
the pictures, saying nothing; or, rather, Anne looked at the
pictures, while Denis, for the most part, looked at Anne.
"I like the man and the horse; don't you?" she said at last,
looking up with an inquiring smile.
Denis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice, as though it
had cost him a great effort to utter the words, he said, "I love
you."
It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many times before and
mostly heard with equanimity. But on this occasion--perhaps
because they had come so unexpectedly , perhaps for some other
reason--the words provoked in her a certain surprised commotion.
"My poor Denis," she managed to say, with a laugh; but she was
blushing as she spoke. _
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