He was collecting himself.  He was panic-stricken.  He did not know what to say.  It was not only that they were ill-drawn, or that the colour was put on amateurishly by someone who had no eye for it; but there was no attempt at getting the values, and the perspective was grotesque.  It looked like the work of a child of five, but a child would have had some naivete and might at least have made an attempt to put down what he saw; but here was the work of a vulgar mind chock full of recollections of vulgar pictures.  Philip remembered that she had talked enthusiastically about Monet and the Impressionists, but here were only the worst traditions of the Royal Academy.

“There,” she said at last, “that’s the lot.”

Philip was no more truthful than anybody else, but he had a great difficulty in telling a thundering, deliberate lie, and he blushed furiously when he answered: 

“I think they’re most awfully good.”

A faint colour came into her unhealthy cheeks, and she smiled a little.

“You needn’t say so if you don’t think so, you know.  I want the truth.”

“But I do think so.”

“Haven’t you got any criticism to offer?  There must be some you don’t like as well as others.”

Philip looked round helplessly.  He saw a landscape, the typical picturesque `bit’ of the amateur, an old bridge, a creeper-clad cottage, and a leafy bank.

“Of course I don’t pretend to know anything about it,” he said.  “But I wasn’t quite sure about the values of that.”

She flushed darkly and taking up the picture quickly turned its back to him.

“I don’t know why you should have chosen that one to sneer at.  It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.  I’m sure my values are all right.  That’s a thing you can’t teach anyone, you either understand values or you don’t.”

“I think they’re all most awfully good,” repeated Philip.

She looked at them with an air of self-satisfaction.

“I don’t think they’re anything to be ashamed of.”

Philip looked at his watch.

“I say, it’s getting late.  Won’t you let me give you a little lunch?”

“I’ve got my lunch waiting for me here.”

Philip saw no sign of it, but supposed perhaps the concierge would bring it up when he was gone.  He was in a hurry to get away.  The mustiness of the room made his head ache.

XLVII

In March there was all the excitement of sending in to the Salon.  Clutton, characteristically, had nothing ready, and he was very scornful of the two heads that Lawson sent; they were obviously the work of a student, straight-forward portraits of models, but they had a certain force; Clutton, aiming at perfection, had no patience with efforts which betrayed hesitancy, and with a shrug of the shoulders told Lawson it was an impertinence to exhibit stuff which should never have been allowed out of his studio; he was not less contemptuous when the two heads were accepted.  Flanagan tried his luck too, but his picture was refused.  Mrs. Otter sent a blameless Portrait de ma Mere, accomplished and second-rate; and was hung in a very good place.