The tears rose to Alice’s eyes.  She saw that he was more infinitely more mad than she imagined—­with his L800 and his L1,500 for daubs of pictures that conveyed no meaning whatever to the eye!  Why, you could purchase real, professional pictures, of lakes, and mountains, exquisitely finished, at the frame-makers in High Street for three pounds apiece!  And here he was rambling in hundreds and thousands!  She saw that that extraordinary notion about being able to paint was a natural consequence of the pathetic delusion to which he had given utterance yesterday.  And she wondered what would follow next.  Who could have guessed that the seeds of lunacy were in such a man?  Yes, harmless lunacy, but lunacy nevertheless!  She distinctly remembered the little shock with which she had learned that he was staying at the Grand Babylon on his own account, as a wealthy visitor.  She thought it bizarre, but she certainly had not taken it for a sign of lunacy.  And yet it had been a sign of madness.  And the worst of harmless lunacy was that it might develop at any moment into harmful lunacy.

There was one thing to do, and only one:  keep him quiet, shield him from all troubles and alarms.  It was disturbance of spirit which induced these mental derangements.  His master’s death had upset him.  And now he had been upset by her disgraceful brewery company.

She made a step towards him, and then hesitated.  She had to form a plan of campaign all in a moment!  She had to keep her wits and to use them!  How could she give him confidence about his absurd picture?  She noticed that naive look that sometimes came into his eyes, a boyish expression that gave the He to his greying beard and his generous proportions.

He laughed, until, as she came closer, he saw the tears on her eyelids.  Then he ceased laughing.  She fingered the edge of his coat, cajolingly.

“It’s a beautiful picture!” she repeated again and again.  “And if you like I will see if I can sell it for you.  But, Henry——­”

“Well?”

“Please, please don’t bother about money.  We shall have heaps.  There’s no occasion for you to bother, and I won’t have you bothering.”

“What are you crying for?” he asked in a murmur.

“It’s only—­only because I think it’s so nice of you trying to earn money like that,” she lied.  “I’m not really crying.”

And she ran away, downstairs, really crying.  It was excessively comic, but he had better not follow her, lest he might cry too....

A Patron of the Arts

A lull followed this crisis in the affairs of No. 29 Werter Road.  Priam went on painting, and there was now no need for secrecy about it.  But his painting was not made a subject of conversation.  Both of them hesitated to touch it, she from tact, and he because her views on the art seemed to him to be lacking in subtlety.  In every marriage there is a topic—­there are usually several—­which