However, he talked much, and sometimes arrogantly; he gave his views, compared one man with another; if he felt any diffidence, he showed little.  And indeed she led him on.  Upon his art he had a right to speak, and the keen intellectual interest she betrayed in his impressions—­the three days impressions of a painter—­stirred and flattered him.

But he made a great many rather ludicrous mistakes, inevitable to one who had just taken a first canter through the vast field of French art; mistakes in names and dates, in the order of men and generations.  And when he made a blunder he was apt to stick to it absurdly, or excuse it elaborately.  She soon gave up correcting him, even in the gentle, hesitating way she at first made use of.  She said nothing; but there was sometimes mischief, perhaps mockery, in her eyes.  Fenwick knew it; and would either make fresh plunges, or paint on in a sulky silence.

How on earth had she guessed the authorship of those articles in the Mirror?  He supposed he must have talked the same kind of stuff to her.  At any rate, she had made him feel in some intangible way that it seemed to her a dishonourable thing to be writing anonymous attacks upon a body from whom you were asking, or intending to ask, exhibition space for your pictures and the chance of selling your work.  His authorship was never avowed between them.  Nevertheless this criticism annoyed and pricked him.  He said to himself that it was just like a woman—­who always took the personal view.  But he had not yet begun on his last two articles, which were overdue.

On one occasion, encouraged perhaps by some kindness of expression on her part, he had ventured an indirect question or two, meant to procure him some information about her past history and present way of life.  She had rebuffed him at once; and he had said to himself fiercely that it was of course because he was a man of the people and she one of ‘the upper ten.’  He might paint her; but he must not presume to know her!

On the other hand, his mind was still warm with memories of her encouragement, her praise.  Sometimes in their talks he would put the portrait aside, and fall to sketching for her—­either to illustrate his memories of pictures, or things noticed in French life and landscapes.  And as the charcoal worked; as he forgot himself in hurried speech, and those remarks fell from him which are the natural outcome of a painter’s experience, vivacious also and touched with literature; then her brown eyes would lighten and soften, and for once his mind would feel exultant that it moved with hers on equal terms—­nay, that he was teacher and she taught.  Whenever there emerged in him the signs of that demonic something that makes greatness she would be receptive, eager, humble even.  But again his commoner, coarser side, his mere lack of breeding, would reappear; and she would fall back on her cold or gentle defensiveness.  Thus protected by what his wrath called ‘airs,’ she was a mystery to him, yet a mystery that tamed and curbed him.  He had never dreamt that such women existed.  His own views of women were those of the shopkeeping middle class, practical, selfish, or sensual.  But he had been a reader of books; and through Madame de Pastourelles certain sublimities or delicacies of poetry began to seem to him either less fantastic or more real.