‘Building’s the deuce,’ said Watson, gloomily.  ’It ruins everybody from Louis Quatorze and Walter Scott downward.  Have no barns—­that’s my principle—­and then you can’t pull ’em down and build greater!  But, you know, it’s all great nonsense, your talking like this!  You’re as clever as ever—­cleverer.  You’ve only got to paint—­and it’ll be all right.  But, of course, if you will spend all your time in writing letters to the papers, and pamphlets, and that kind of thing—­well!—­’

He shrugged his shoulders.

Fenwick took the remark good-temperedly.  ’I’ve finished three large pictures in eight months—­if only somebody would buy ’em.  And I’m in Paris now’—­he hesitated a moment—­’on a painting job.  I’ve promised C——­’ (he named a well-known actor-manager in London) ’to help him with the production of a new play!  I never did such a thing before—­but—­’

He looked up uncertainly, his colour rising.

’What?—­scenery for The Queen’s Necklace? I’ve seen the puffs in the papers.  Why not?  Hope he pays well.  Then you’re going to Versailles, of course?’

Fenwick replied that he had taken some rooms at the Hotel des Reservoirs and must make some sketches in the palace; also in the park, and the Trianon garden.  Then he rose abruptly.

‘Well, and what have you been after?’

‘The same old machines,’ said Watson, tranquilly, pointing to a couple of large canvases.  ’My subjects are no gayer than they used to be.  Except that—­ah, yes—­I forgot—­I had a return upon myself this spring—­and set to work on some Bacchantes.’  He stopped, and picked up a canvas which was standing with its face to the wall.

It represented a dance of Bacchantes.  Fenwick looked at it in silence.  Watson replaced it with a patient sigh.  ’Theophile Gautier said of some other fellow’s Bacchantes that they had got drunk on “philosophical” wine.  He might, I fear, have said it of mine.  Anyway, I felt I was not made for Bacchantes—­so I fell back on the usual thing.’

And he showed an ’Execution of a Witch’—­filled with gruesome and poignant detail—­excellent in some of its ideas and single figures, but as a whole crude, horrible, and weak.

‘I don’t improve,’ he said, abruptly, turning away—­’but it keeps me contented—­that and my animals.  Anatole!—­vaurien!—­ou es-tu?’

A small monkey, in a red jacket, who had been sitting unnoticed on the top of a cabinet since Fenwick’s entrance, clattered down to the floor, and, running to his master, was soon sitting on his shoulder, staring at Fenwick with a pair of grave, soft eyes.  Watson caressed him;—­and then pointed to a wicker cage outside the window in which a pigeon was pecking at some Indian-corn.  The cage door was wide open.  ’She comes to feed here by day.  In the morning I wake up and hear her there—­the darling!  In the evening she spreads her wings, and I watch her fly toward Saint-Cloud.  No doubt the jade keeps a family there.  Oh! some day she’ll go—­like the rest of them—­and I shall miss her abominably.’