The younger artist was said to
have formed himself at my friend's feet, and I wondered if a tinge
of jealousy underlay the latter's mysterious abdication. But no--for
it was not till after that event that the _rose Dubarry_
drawing-rooms had begun to display their "Grindles."
I turned to Mrs. Gisburn, who had lingered to give a lump of sugar
to her spaniel in the dining-room.
"Why _has_ he chucked painting?" I asked abruptly.
She raised her eyebrows with a hint of good-humoured surprise.
"Oh, he doesn't _have_ to now, you know; and I want him to enjoy
himself," she said quite simply.
I looked about the spacious white-panelled room, with its
_famille-verte_ vases repeating the tones of the pale damask
curtains, and its eighteenth-century pastels in delicate faded
frames.
"Has he chucked his pictures too? I haven't seen a single one in the
house."
A slight shade of constraint crossed Mrs. Gisburn's open
countenance. "It's his ridiculous modesty, you know. He says they're
not fit to have about; he's sent them all away except one--my
portrait--and that I have to keep upstairs.
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