"You little goose!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "Are you content to cater for simpletons, aye, and in the worst way possible, by pandering to their foolish, insensate tastes?" Alice was silent a moment, and then she said, rather lamely, "It pays me to do so." Her brother would not deign to notice that. He began to walk up and down the room, with long strides and a frown on his face. He was above the average height of men and broad in proportion, and his irregular features were redeemed from plainness by the beauty of his expression and his smile, which was by no means frequent. Doris was painting at her easel on one side of the room, but the visitor did not appear to see her; his mind was absorbed with the distasteful idea of his sister demeaning herself to cater for the uneducated masses. "It isn’t as if you were trying to raise them," he burst out again. "You are not teaching them what beauty is--you are pandering to their faults! Leading them astray. Making them believe good is bad and bad is good! For, don’t you know"--he stopped short by his sister’s side, and laid a heavy hand on her shoulder--"don’t you know that every time you make them admire a false thing--a thing that ought not to be admired--you rob them of the power to appreciate what is truly great and beautiful? It is a crime--a crime you are committing in the sight of God and man!" He gave her another frown, and began again to walk up and down quite savagely. Alice looked wistfully towards Doris, but the latter was painting steadily on, with heightened colour and hands that trembled, in spite of the effort she was making to control herself. Norman then began to examine the pictures standing about in the room in varying stages of completion. "Ha! I see!" he said, scoffingly. "The way you get your drawings is to buy prints, and stick them on mill-boards. Yes, and then you smear them over with gelatine and colour them with this wretched paint. How is it you are not found out?" he continued, looking sharply at her, and then turning to examine the edges of one of the pictures. "Ha! I see! Sandpaper! So you rub the edges smooth with that! You little cheat! You defraud your purchasers! I really--you must give up this work at once. Do you hear? You must give it up forthwith--_immediately_!" "I cannot, Norman!" "Why not?" "It pays so well. Sometimes we get eight or nine pounds a week by it." "Pays well! Eight or nine pounds a week!" There was intense scorn in the artist’s tones. "So, for money--mere money--you will sell your soul!" "Nonsense! We must live. I pay for food--your food and mine--and our clothes, yes, and rent, gas, coal, and the servant’s wages, with this money." He stared at her. "I gave you money for those things," he said. "I’m sure I gave you ten pounds not so very long since." "Last Christmas! Nearly twelve months ago! You are so impracticable, Norman. That ten pounds was used in a few days, to pay bills that were owing."