Well, he believed in himself, and he refused to accept this erasure. On the contrary, he would launch out more daringly than ever. An end to facile imitation of other people's styles! He must express his own deeper self. The strict Whistlerian creed was much too narrow. Art was not merely a bare abstract aesthetics: humanity counted for something after all. Was woman's loveliness something really apart from woman herself? True that art meant beauty--in the largest sense, of course; but why should not humanity and beauty fuse together? So, scraping together all he could command in the way of money, he set himself to work out a large dramatic idea, suggested by the sight of a May-day demonstration. The canvas was gigantic, and he strove to depict a mob of strikers straggling out of the Park after their great meeting, with elements of fashion caught in this _melee_ of labour. The pictorial irony had greatly interested him, and he felt that this painting on the grand scale was being sincerely born out of his own emotion, that it would trumpet out a warning to the age. The beginnings were full of promise, and he decided to stake everything on it. But for so realistic a representation of Hyde Park Corner he needed to make a great many sketches on the spot. So, through the friendly offices of an amiable acquaintance, he obtained access to a convenient window in Grosvenor Place, and made free use of the privilege. The master of the house, a nobleman of the old school, who at first sight seemed stately as the portraits in his own dining-room, proved on acquaintance to be singularly bluff and genial, sometimes almost slap-dash. He had made Wyndham welcome and at his ease, bidding him come and go as he pleased, and "never to mind a bit about turning the room into a studio." And this charming nobleman had likewise a charming daughter, who sometimes came for a minute or two to talk to Wyndham and interest herself in the sketches. Lady Betty was a brilliant figure of a girl; had travelled a good deal and knew the world. She was sunny and friendly, yet naturally on a pedestal. She was clear-headed and capable; in the home supreme mistress. Wyndham was the subject of many graceful little attentions. If he came in the morning she saw that his glass of sherry and biscuit was never neglected; in the afternoon she presided over tea in the drawing-room and expected him to appear there.