“Queer thing—­ever notice it?—­two artists sit down together, each begins talking of what he’s doing—­to avoid complimenting the other, naturally.  As soon as the third arrives they begin carving up another; only thing they can agree on, see?  Soon as you get four or more of the species together, conversation always comes around to marriage.  Ever notice that, eh?”

“My dear fellow,” said De Gollyer, from the intolerant point of view of a bachelor, “that is because marriage is your one common affliction.  Artists, musicians, all the lower order of the intellect, marry.  They must.  They can’t help it.  It’s the one thing you can’t resist.  You begin it when you’re poor to save the expense of a servant, and you keep it up when you succeed to have some one over you to make you work.  You belong psychologically to the intellectually dependent classes, the clinging-vine family, the masculine parasites; and as you can’t help being married, you are always damning it, holding it responsible for all your failures.”

At this characteristic speech, the five artists shifted slightly, and looked at De Gollyer over their mustaches with a lingering appetite, much as a group of terriers respect the family cat.

“My dear chaps, speaking as a critic,” continued De Gollyer, pleasantly aware of the antagonism he had exploded, “you remain children afraid of the dark—­afraid of being alone.  Solitude frightens you.  You lack the quality of self-sufficiency that is the characteristic of the higher critical faculties.  You marry because you need a nurse.”

He ceased, thoroughly satisfied with the prospect of having brought on a quarrel, raised thumb and first finger in a gingerly loop, ordered a dash of sherry and winked across the group to Tommers, who was listening around his paper from the reading-room.

“De Gollyer, you are only a ‘who’s who’ of art,” said Quinny, with, however, a hungry gratitude for a topic of such possibilities.  “You understand nothing of psychology.  An artist is a multiple personality; with each picture he paints he seeks a new inspiration.  What is inspiration?”

“Ah, that’s the point—­inspiration,” said Steingall, waking up.

“Inspiration,” said Quinny, eliminating Steingall from his preserves with the gesture of brushing away a fly—­“inspiration is only a form of hypnosis, under the spell of which a man is capable of rising outside of and beyond himself, as a horse, under extraordinary stress, exerts a muscular force far beyond his accredited strength.  The race of geniuses, little and big, are constantly seeking this outward force to hypnotize them into a supreme intellectual effort.  Talent does not understand such a process; it is mechanical, unvarying, chop-chop, day in and day out.  Now, what you call inspiration may be communicated in many ways—­by the spectacle of a mob, by a panorama of nature, by sudden and violent contrasts of points of view; but, above all, as a continual stimulus, it comes from that state of mental madness which is produced by love.”