Ogilvy was too weak with laughter to continue the favourite pastime of “touching up John”; and Burleson who, under provocation, never exhibited any emotion except impatient wonder at the foolishness of others, emptied his claret bottle with unruffled confidence in his own common-sense and the futility of his friends.

“Kelly, they say, is making a stunning lot of stuff for that Byzantine Theatre,” he said in his honest, resonant voice.  “I wish to Heaven I could paint like him.”

Annan passed his delicate hand over his pale, handsome face:  “Kelly Neville is, without exception, the most gifted man I ever knew.”

“No, the most skilful,” suggested Ogilvy.  “I have known more gifted men who never became skilful.”

[Illustration:  “‘What’s the matter with it, then?’”]

“What hair is that you’re splitting, Sam?” demanded Burleson.  “Don’t you like Kelly’s work?”

“Sure I do.”

“What’s the matter with it, then?”

There was a silence.  One or two men at neighbouring tables turned partly around to listen.  There seemed to be something in the very simple and honest question of John Burleson that arrested the attention of every man at the Syrinx Club who had heard it.  Because, for the first time, the question which every man there had silently, involuntarily asked himself had been uttered aloud at last by John Burleson—­voiced in utter good faith and with all confidence that the answer could be only that there was nothing whatever the matter with Louis Neville’s work.  And his answer had been a universal silence.

Clive Gail, lately admitted to the Academy said:  “I have never in my life seen or believed possible such facility as is Louis Neville’s.”

“Sure thing,” grunted Burleson.

“His personal manner of doing his work—­which the critics and public term ‘tek—­nee—­ee—­eek,’” laughed Annan, “is simply gloriously bewildering.  There is a sweeping splendour to it—­and what colour!”

There ensued murmured and emphatic approbation; and another silence.

Ogilvy’s dark, pleasant face was troubled when he broke the quiet, and everybody turned toward him: 

“Then,” he said, slowly, “what is the matter with Neville?”

Somebody said:  “He does convince you; it isn’t that, is it?”

A voice replied:  “Does he convince himself?”

“There is—­there always has been something lacking in all that big, glorious, splendid work.  It only needs that one thing—­whatever it is,” said Ogilvy, quietly.  “Kelly is too sure, too powerfully perfect, too omniscient—­”

“And we mortals can’t stand that,” commented Annan, laughing. “’Raus mit Neville!’ He paints joy and sorrow as though he’d never known either—­”

And his voice checked itself of its own instinct in the startled silence.

“That man, Neville, has never known the pain of work,” said Gail, deliberately.  “When he has passed through it and it has made his hand less steady, less omnipotent—­”