Geoffrey offered one or two strictly professional criticisms; then after admiring the grace, the charm of the little clay sketch, gave his uncompromising moral support to Dinah. Whoever possesses genius--well, talent, no need to fight over words--lies under the behest of duty. Gaston’s duty, the one straight and unmistakable road that lay before him, was to abandon conventional prettiness, to go in for the expression of the highest thoughts that were in him. ‘I am destitute of high thoughts,’ said Gaston, his refined, intellectual face belying the assertion. ‘I have not the prophet’s _rôle_. If I tried to soar, I should immediately afterwards have to climb down. I have no original ideas to embody----’ ‘Gaston!’ broke, with an accent of denial, from Dinah’s lips. ‘And the dealers, Farrago in Pall Mall especially, are my masters. Before I left town Farrago’s advice was memorable. “The market demands nothing classic in statuettes, Mr. Arbuthnot. Nothing romantic. Above all, nothing to make us think. The market demands trifles, sir, trifles. Objects for the smoke-room or boudoir. Domestic amenities, as you agreeably say, for Monsieur and Madame Prud’homme! And, for wider sections of society, ‘flavour.’ In any case, trifles. Nothing, if you please, to make us think.”’ ‘Instead of obeying,’ exclaimed Dinah, ‘you ought to say, “I, Gaston Arbuthnot, must do such and such work, no other. Let Mr. Farrago take my statuettes or leave them, as he likes.”’ ‘That style of talk is for giants, my dear child--putting aside the fact that I am bound to Farrago for another six months. Carlyle talked so to the Edinburgh Reviewers. Viewed by the light of after success his talk may sound grand. If Carlyle had not speedily written the “French Revolution” it would have been called “tall.”’ ‘But I want you to write your “French Revolution” in clay,’ Dinah persisted. ‘Here, in Guernsey, you know, you planned to make studies, always studies, for the great work you will set about in Florence. But then,’ a piece of embroidery was between Dinah’s hands; she lifted her eyes from her wools and silks at this juncture, and fixed them, full of earnest reproach, on Gaston, ‘there have been unfortunate throw-backs.’ ‘Throw-backs! As how?’ Gaston Arbuthnot applied himself to the correction of one of the points anatomically criticised by Geoffrey. ‘As long as I am bound to Farrago, even feminine morality, my love, will allow that I should be honest. Every saleable thing I do must pass, as per contract, through Farrago’s hands. Taking one day with another, I have got through rather more work than the average, here in Guernsey.’ ‘Have you put your own thoughts into form, Gaston? This model, when it is finished’--she glanced somewhat coldly at ‘Dodo’s Despair’--‘will be a portrait of Rahnee Thorne simply.’