“Did you do that?” she said limply.

“Yes,” said he, with all the casualness that he could assume.  “How does it strike you?” And to himself:  “This’ll make her see I’m not a mere lunatic.  This’ll give her a shaking up.”

“I’m sure it’s beautiful,” she said kindly, but without the slightest conviction.  “What is it?  Is that Putney Bridge?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I thought it was.  I thought it must be.  Well, I never knew you could paint.  It’s beautiful—­for an amateur.”  She said this firmly and yet endearingly, and met his eyes with her eyes.  It was her tactful method of politely causing him to see that she had not accepted last night’s yarn very seriously.  His eyes fell, not hers.

“No, no, no!” he expostulated with quick vivacity, as she stepped towards the canvas.  “Don’t come any nearer.  You’re at just the right distance.”

“Oh!  If you don’t want me to see it close,” she humoured him.  “What a pity you haven’t put an omnibus on the bridge!”

“There is one,” said he. “That’s one.”  He pointed.

“Oh yes!  Yes, I see.  But, you know, I think it looks rather more like a Carter Paterson van than an omnibus.  If you could paint some letters on it—­’Union Jack’ or ‘Vanguard,’ then people would be sure.  But it’s beautiful.  I suppose you learnt to to paint from your—­” She checked herself.  “What’s that red streak behind?”

“That’s the railway bridge,” he muttered.

“Oh, of course it is!  How silly of me!  Now if you were to put a train on that.  The worst of trains in pictures is that they never seem to be going along.  I’ve noticed that on the sides of furniture vans, haven’t you?  But if you put a signal, against it, then people would understand that the train had stopped.  I’m not sure whether there is a signal on the bridge, though.”

He made no remark.

“And I see that’s the Elk public-house there on the right.  You’ve just managed to get it in.  I can recognize that quite easily.  Any one would.”

He still made no remark.

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked gently.

“Going to sell it, my dear,” he replied grimly.  “It may surprise you to know that that canvas is worth at the very least L800.  There would be a devil of a row and rumpus in Bond Street and elsewhere if they knew I was painting here instead of rotting in Westminster Abbey.  I don’t propose to sign it—­I seldom did sign my pictures—­and we shall see what we shall see....  I’ve got fifteen hundred for little things not so good as that.  I’ll let it go for what it’ll fetch.  We shall soon be wanting money.”