“It’s a dry-point, isn’t it?” Marguerite asked, peering into it.  George started.  This single remark convinced him that she knew all about etching, whereas he himself knew nothing.  He did not even know exactly what a dry-point was.

“Mostly,” said Mr. Prince.  “You can only get that peculiar quality of line in dry-point.”

George perceived that etching was an entrancing subject, and he determined to learn something about it—­everything about it.

Then came the turn of Mr. Buckingham Smith’s paintings.  These were not signed ‘Smith’ as the etchings were signed ‘Prince.’  By no means!  They were signed ‘Buckingham Smith.’  George much admired them, though less than he admired the etchings.  They were very striking and ingenious, in particular the portraits and the still-life subjects.  He had to admit that these fellows to whom he had scarcely given a thought, these fellows who existed darkly behind the house, were prodigiously accomplished.

“Of course,” said Mr. Buckingham Smith negligently, “you can’t get any idea of them by this light—­though,” he added warningly, “it’s the finest artificial light going.  Better than all your electricity.”

There was a pause, and Mr. Prince sighed and said: 

“I was thinking of going up to the Promenades to-night, but Buck won’t go.”

George took fire at once.  “The Glazounov ballet music?”

“Glazounov?” repeated Mr. Prince uncertainly.  “No.  I rather wanted to hear the new Elgar.”

George was disappointed, for he had derived from Mr. Enwright positive opinions about the relative importance of Elgar and Glazounov.

“Go often?” he asked.

“No,” said Mr. Prince.  “I haven’t been this season yet, but I’m always meaning to.”  He smiled apologetically.  “And I thought to-night——­” Despite appearances, he was not indifferent after all to his great Viennese triumph; he had had some mild notion of his own of celebrating the affair.

“I suppose this is what etchings are printed with,” said George to Mr. Buckingham Smith, for the sake of conversation, and he moved towards the press.  The reception given to the wonderful name of Glazounov in that studio was more than a disappointment for George; he felt obscurely that it amounted to a snub.

Mr. Buckingham Smith instantly became the urbane and alert showman.  He explained how the pressure was regulated.  He pulled the capstan-like arms of the motive wheel and the blanketed steel bed slid smoothly under the glittering cylinder.  Although George had often been in his stepfather’s printing works he now felt for the first time the fascination of manual work, of artisanship, in art, and he regretted that the architect had no such labour.  He could indistinctly hear Mr. Prince talking to Marguerite.

“This is a monotype,” said Mr. Buckingham Smith, picking up a dusty print off the window-sill.  “I do one occasionally.”