Going to the easel, he rudely jerked aside the curtain.  Involuntarily, the painter went to stand by his side before the picture.

“Look at it!” cried the novelist.  “Look at it in the light of your own genius!  Don’t you see its power?  Doesn’t it tell you what you could do, if you would?  If you couldn’t paint a picture, or if you couldn’t feel a picture to be painted, it wouldn’t matter.  I’d let you ride to hell on your own palette, and be damned to you.  But this thing shows a power that the world can ill afford to lose.  It is so bad because it is so good.  Come here!” he drew his friend to the big window, and pointed to the mountains.  “There is an art like those mountains, my boy—­lonely, apart from the world; remotely above the squalid ambitions of men; Godlike in its calm strength and peace—­an art to which men may look for inspiration and courage and hope.  And there is an art that is like Fairlands—­petty and shallow and mean—­with only the fictitious value that its devotees assume, but never, actually, realize.  Listen, Aaron, don’t continue to misread your mother’s letters.  Don’t misunderstand her as thinking that the place she coveted for you is a place within the power of these people to give.  Come with me into the mountains, yonder.  Come, and let us see if, in those hills of God, you cannot find yourself.”

When Conrad Lagrange finished, the artist stood, for a little, without reply—­irresolute, before his picture—­the check in his hand.  At last, still without speaking, he went back to the table, where he wrote briefly his reply to Mr. Taine.  When he had finished, he handed his letter to the older man, who read: 

   Dear Sir: 

   In reply to yours of the 13th, inst., enclosing your check in payment
   for the portrait of Mrs. Taine; I appreciate your generosity, but
   cannot, now, accept it.

   I find, upon further consideration, that the portrait does not fully
   satisfy me.  I shall, therefore, keep the canvas until I can, with the
   consent of my own mind, put my signature upon it.

   Herewith, I am returning your check; for, of course, I cannot accept
   payment for an unfinished work.

   In a day or two, Mr. Lagrange and I will start to the mountains, for an
   outing.  Trusting that you and your family will enjoy the season at Lake
   Silence I am, with kind regards,

   Yours sincerely, Aaron King.

* * * * *

That evening, the two men talked over their proposed trip, and laid their plans to start without delay As Conrad Lagrange put it—­they would lose themselves in the hills; with no definite destination in view; and no set date for their return.  Also, he stipulated that they should travel light—­with only a pack burro to carry their supplies—­and that they should avoid the haunts of the summer resorters, and keep to the more unfrequented trails.  The