Mrs. Dixon, ceremonially clad in black silk, sailed up the long billiard room, majestic as a full-rigged ship.  Time had treated her well; the increase of weight that the years had brought had done little more than help to keep the wrinkles smoothed; her love for Christian, having survived the depredations of the larder that had once tried it, had triumphed over the enforced economies that marked Christian’s rule as housekeeper and was now her consolation for them.  To apprehend the intention of a painting is not given to all and is a matter that requires more experience than is generally supposed.  To find a landscape has been reversed by the hand that wields the duster, so that the trees stand on their heads, and the sky is as the waters that are beneath the firmament, is an experience that has been denied to few painters, and Mrs. Dixon would have found many to sympathise with her, as she stood in silent stupefaction before the portrait.  Larry had been justified in his belief in it, but for such as Mrs. Dixon, its appeal was inappreciable.  Christian’s face was in shade, the brown darkness of her loosened hair framed it, and blended with the green darkness of the yew hedge.  Faint reflected lights from her white dress, touches of sunlight that came through the leaves of the surrounding trees gave the shadowed face life.  In the clear stillness of the eyes, something had been caught of the wonder that was latent in Christian’s look, the absorption in things far away, seen inwardly, that in childhood had set her in a place apart; rarer now, but still there for those to see who could give confidence to her shy spirit to forget the limitations of this world, and to stray forth to meet invisible comrades from other spheres.  Sometimes it has been given to an artist to rise, not by his conscious volition, above his wonted power; to portray one beloved face with the force of his emotion rather than that of his capacity, transcending the limits of his ordinary skill, just as a horse will put forth his last ounce of effort in response to the magnetism of one rider, and may never again touch the same level of achievement.

But although the very fact that in this canvas something had lifted Larry’s art to greatness, made it for Mrs. Dixon a mystery and a bewilderment, she had no intention of admitting defeat.  After a moment or two of silence, she cast up her eyes in an appeal to what seemed to be a familiar near the ceiling, and said in impassioned tones: 

“Well, well, isn’t that lovely?”

The familiar apparently confirmed the opinion, for she repeated, with a long sigh:  “Wonderful altogether!  I could be looking at it all day!” She turned to Christian with profound deference.  “And what might it be intended to represent, Miss?”

Larry, who had picked up a cue, and was knocking the balls about, gave a short and nettled laugh.

“Oh, Dixie!” said Christian, suffering equally with artist and critic, “don’t you see, it’s a picture of me!”