'I never exhibited in the Academy,' continued Wilderspin, without heeding the interruption, 'I never tried to exhibit; but, thanks to the dear friend I have mentioned, I got to know the Master himself. People came to my poor studio, and my pictures were bought from my easel as fast as I could paint them. I could please my buyers, I could please my dear friend, I could please the Master himself; I could please every person in the world but one--myself. For years I had been struggling with what cripples so many artists--with ignorance--ignorance, Mr. Aylwin, of the million points of detail which must be understood and mastered before ever the sweetness, the apparent lawlessness and abandonment of Nature can be expressed by Art. But it was now, when I had conquered these,--it was now that I was dissatisfied, and no man living was so miserable as I. I dare say you are an artist yourself, Mr. Aylwin, and will understand me when I say that artists--figure-painters, I mean,--are divided into two classes--those whose natural impulse is to paint men, and those who are sent into the world expressly to paint women. My mother's death taught me that my mission was to paint women, women whom I--being the son of Mary Wilderspin--love and understand better than other men, because my soul (once folded in her womb) is purer than other men's souls.' 'Is not modesty a Gorgio virtue, Lady Sinfi?' murmured Cyril. 'Nothin' like a painter for thinkin' strong beer of hisself,' she replied; 'but I likes him--oh, I likes him.' 'No man whose soul is stained by fleshly desire shall render in art all that there is in a truly beautiful woman's face,' said Wilderspin. 'I worked hard at imaginative painting; I worked for years and years, Mr. Aylwin, but with scant success. It shames me to say that I was at last discouraged. Hut, after a time, I began to feel that the spirit-world was giving me a strength of vision second only to the Master's own, and a cunning of hand greater than any vouchsafed to man since the death of Raphael. This was once stigmatised as egotism; but "Faith and Love," and the predella "Isis behind the Veil," have told another story. I did not despair, I say; for I knew the cause of my failure. Two sources of inspiration were wanting to me--that of a superlative subject and that of a superlative model. For the first I am indebted to Philip Aylwin; for the second I am indebted to--' 'A greater still, Miss Gudgeon, of Primrose Court,' interjected Cyril. 'For the second I'm indebted to my mother. And yet something else was wanting,' continued Wilderspin, 'to enable me for many months to concentrate my life upon one work--the self-sacrificing generosity of such a friend as I think no man ever had before. 'Wilderspin,' said Cyril, rising, 'the Duke of Little Egypt sleeps, as you see. His Grace of the Pyramids snores, as you hear. The autobiography of a man of genius is interesting; but I fear that yours will have to be continued in our next.'