These facts came subconsciously to the Irishman, for his eyes and his thoughts were for the boy and the subject of the boy’s interest—­a picture curiously repulsive, yet curiously binding in its realism of conception.  It was a large canvas that formed one of a group of five or six studies by a particular artist.  The details of the picture scarcely held the mind, for the imagination of the beholder was instantly caught and enchained by the central figure—­the figure of a great ape, painted with cruel and extraordinary truth.  The animal was squatting upon the ground, devouring a luscious fruit; its small and greedy eyes were alight with gluttony; in its unbridled appetite, its hairy fingers crushed the fruit against its sharp teeth, while the juice dripped from its mouth.

The intimate, undisguised portrayal of greed shocked the susceptibilities, but it was the hideous human attributes patent in the brute that disgusted the imagination.  With a terrible cunning of mind and brush the artist had laid bare a vice that civilization cloaks.

For two or three minutes the boy stood immovable, then he looked back over his shoulder, and the man behind him was surprised at the expression that had overspread his face, the sombre light that glowed in his eyes.  In a moment the adventurer was lost, another being had come uppermost—­a strange, unexpected being.

“What do you think of this picture?”

The Irishman did not answer for a moment, then his eyes returned to the canvas and his tongue was loosed.

“If you want to know,” he said, “I think it’s the most damnable thing I’ve ever seen.  When the Gallic mind runs to morbidity there’s nothing to touch it for filth.”

“Why filth?”

“Why filth?  My dear boy, look at this—­and this!” He pointed to the other pictures, each a study of monkey life, each a travesty of some human passion.

The boy obeyed, conscientiously and slowly, then once more his eyes challenged his companion’s.

“I say again, why filth?”

“Because there is enough of the beast in every man without advertising it.”

“You admit that there is something of the beast in every man?”

“Naturally.”

“Then why fear to see it?” The boy’s face was pale, his eyes still challenged.

The other made a gesture of impatience.  “It isn’t a question of fear; it is a question of—­well, of taste.”

“Taste!” The boy tossed the word to scorn.

“What would you substitute?”

“Truth.”  There was a tremor in his voice, a veil seemed to fall upon his youth, arresting its carelessness, sobering its vitality.

The Irishman raised his brows.  “Truth, eh?”

“Yes.  It is only possible to live when we know life truly, see it and value it truly.”

“There may be perverted truth.”

“You say that because this truth we speak of displeases you; yet this is no more a perversion of the truth than”—­he glanced round the walls—­“than that, for example; yet you would approve of that.”