The artist who works in the bosom of his own family has much to bear, and, so the family consider, much to learn.  Neither in endurance, nor in the docile assimilation of instruction, had Mr. Coppinger been conspicuously successful, and his model, on whom had rested the weighty responsibility of keeping the peace, or, at least, of averting open warfare between the painter and the critics, was now, albeit much spent by her efforts, engaged in binding up the wounds inflicted on the former by the latter.

“If you hadn’t argued with them, they would have liked it very much; you took them the absolutely wrong way!  But they really are deeply impressed by it.”

“I don’t care what they think; I know jolly well it’s the best thing I’ve ever done!” said Larry, whose temperature was still considerably above normal.  “Your mother is the only one of the lot with a soul to be saved. She didn’t harangue about what she doesn’t understand! She said:  ’It makes me think of when she was a little child, and used to say she saw things, and the other children used to tease her so dreadfully’!”

“Quite true,” said Christian.  “So they did!  And now they’re going for you!  But you never teased me, Larry.”

“Thank God, I didn’t!” said Larry; he had been glowering at his picture, but as he spoke he wheeled round, and sat down beside Christian on the long billiard-room sofa.  “Christian, you know—­” he began, stammering, and hesitating in a way that was unlike himself.

Christian interrupted him quickly.

“What shall you call the picture?  I met Barty Mangan the other day, and he was asking me all sorts of questions about it.”

“I shall call it ‘Christian, dost thou hear them?’” said Larry, telling himself that the moment had come.  “I was feeling that about you all the time—­I mean when I was painting.  Christian, you did hear them, didn’t you?  What were they saying?  Did they say anything about me?”

He caught her hand and leaned to her, compelling her eyes to meet his; “Let her see into my heart!” he thought; “she will find only herself there!”

And just then the door opened, and old Evans appeared.

Larry released Christian’s hand, and went red with rage up to the roots of his fair hair.  What he thought of Evans’ incursion was written so plainly on his face, that Christian, in that impregnable corner of her mind where dwelt her sense of humour, felt a bubble of laughter rise.

“You asked Mrs. Dixon, Miss, to see the picture,” said Evans, with a sour look at Larry.  “She’s outside now.”

“Come in, Dixie,” called Christian, with a sensation of reprieve.  Suspense had been trembling in the air round her; it trembled still, but Dixie would bring respite, if not calm.