“Suppose they did pay thirty thousand dollars for it,” Holker insisted, slapping his knee with his outspread palm.  “That makes the picture no better and no worse.  If it was mine, and I could afford it, I would sell it to anybody who loved it for thirty cents rather than sell it to a man who didn’t, for thirty millions.  When Troyon painted it he put his soul into it, and you can no more tack a price to that than you can stick an auction card on a summer cloud, or appraise the perfume from a rose garden.  It has no money value, Legarge, and never will have.  You might as well list sunsets on the Stock Exchange.”

“But Troyon had to live, Holker,” chimed in Harrington, who, with the freedom accorded every member of the club—­one of its greatest charms—­had just joined the group and sat listening.

“Yes,” rejoined Morris, a quizzjeal expression crossing his face—­ “that was the curse of it.  He was born a man and had a stomach instead of being born a god without one.  As to living—­he didn’t really live—­no great painter really lives until he is dead.  And that’s the way it should be—­they would never have become immortal with a box full of bonds among their assets.  They would have stopped work.  Now they can rest in their graves with the consciousness that they have done their level best.”

“There is one thing would lift him out of it, or ought to,” remarked Harrington, with a glance around the circle.  “I am, of course, speaking of Troyon.”

“What?” asked Morris.

“The news that Roberts paid thirty thousand dollors for a picture for which the painter was glad to get three thousand francs,” a reply which brought a roar from the group, Morris joining in heartily.

The circle had now widened to the filling of a dozen chairs, Morris’s way of putting things being one of the features of club nights, he, as usual, dominating the talk, calling out “Period”—­ his way of notifying some speaker to come to a full stop, whenever he broke away from the facts and began soaring into hyperbolics—­ Morgan, Harrington and the others laughing in unison at his sallies.

The clouds of tobacco smoke grew thicker.  The hum of conversation louder; especially at an adjoining table where one lean old Academician in a velvet skull cap was discussing the new impressionistic craze which had just begun to show itself in the work of the younger men.  This had gone on for some minutes when the old man turned upon them savagely and began ridiculing the new departure as a cloak to hide poor drawing, an outspoken young painter asserting in their defence, that any technique was helpful if it would kill off the snuff-box school in which the man under the skull cap held first place.

Morris had lent an ear to the discussion and again took up the cudgels.

“You young fellows are right,” he cried, twisting his body toward their table.  The realists have had their day; they work a picture to death; all of them.  If you did but know it, it really takes two men to paint a great picture—­one to do the work and the other to kill him when he has done enough.”