Fenwick listened greedily, and presently inquired whether Mr. Welby had shared in all these amusements.

‘Oh yes.  He was generally the life and soul of them.’

‘I suppose he made lots of friends—­and got on with everybody?’

Madame de Pastourelles assented—­cautiously.

‘That’s all a question of manners,’ said Fenwick, with sudden roughness.

She gave a vague ’Perhaps’—­and he straightened himself aggressively.

‘I don’t think manners very important, do you?’

‘Very!’ She said it, with a gay firmness.

‘Well, then, some of us will never get any,’ his tone was surly—­’we weren’t taught young enough.’

‘Our mothers teach us generally—­all that’s wanted!’

He shook his head.

‘It’s not as simple as that.  Besides—­one may lose one’s mother.’

‘Ah, yes!’ she said, with quick feeling.

And presently a little tact, a few questions on her part had brought out some of his own early history—­his mother’s death—­his years of struggle with his father.  As he talked on—­disjointedly—­painting hard all the time, she had a vision of the Kendal shop and its customers—­of the shrewd old father, moulded by the business, the avarice, the religion of an English country town, with a Calvinist contempt for art and artists—­and trying vainly to coerce his sulky and rebellious son.

‘Has your father seen these pictures?’ She pointed to the ’Genius Loci’ on its further easel—­and to the portrait.

‘My father!  I haven’t spoken to him or seen him for years.’

‘Years!’ She opened her eyes.  ‘Is it as bad as that?’

’Aye, that’s North-Country.  If you’ve once committed yourself, you stick to it—­like death.’

She declared that it might be North-Country, but was none the less barbarous.  However, of course it would all come right.  All the interesting tales of one’s childhood began that way—­with a cruel father, and a rebellious son.  But they came to magnificent ends, notwithstanding—­with sacks of gold and a princess.  Diffident, yet smiling, she drew conclusions.  ’So, you see, you’ll make money—­you’ll be an R.A.—­you’ll marry—­and Mr. Fenwick will nurse the grandchildren.  I assure you—­that’s the fairy-tale way.’

Fenwick, who had flushed hotly, turned away and occupied himself in replenishing his palette.

’Papa, of course, would say—­Don’t marry till you’re a hundred and two!’ she resumed.  ‘But pray, don’t listen to him.’

‘I dare say he’s right,’ said Fenwick, returning to his easel, his face bent over it.

‘Not at all.  People should have their youth together.’

’That’s all very well.  But many men don’t know at twenty what they’ll want at thirty,’ said Fenwick, painting fast.

Madame de Pastourelles laughed.

’The doctors say nowadays—­it is papa’s latest craze—­that it doesn’t matter what you eat—­or how little—­if you only chew it properly.  I wonder if that applies to matrimony?’