A man who can make two or three
hundred a year by sticking colours anyhow, at any hazard, on canvases--
by producing alleged pictures that in Alice's secret view bore only a
comic resemblance to anything at all--that man had to be taken seriously
in his attic as an artisan. It is true that Alice thought the payment he
received miraculously high for the quality of work done; but, with this
agreeable Jew in the hall, and the _coupe_ at the kerb, she suddenly
perceived the probability of even greater miracles in the matter of
price. She saw the average price of ten pounds rising to fifteen, or
even twenty, pounds--provided her husband was given no opportunity to
ruin the affair by his absurd, retiring shyness.
"Will you come this way?" she suggested briskly.
And all that elegance followed her up to the attic door: which door she
threw open, remarking simply--
"Henry, here is a gentleman come to see you about pictures."
_A Connoisseur_
Priam recovered more quickly than might have been expected. His first
thought was naturally that women are uncalculated, if not incalculable,
creatures, and that the best of them will do impossible things--things
inconceivable till actually done! Fancy her introducing a stranger,
without a word of warning, direct into his attic! However, when he rose
he saw the visitor's nose (whose nostrils were delicately expanding and
contracting in the fumes of the oil-stove), and he was at once
reassured.
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