“But what about you?” I asked. “Aren’t you one of the revolts?” I am afraid my question was a tactless one, because he painted for a time in complete silence, and then said, yes, he was only one of the reactions; he was only a fashion: one day people would see no more in him than they saw in Whistler or Pennell. (“Not that I should be surprised if some of those fellows came into vogue again,” he put in. “I was at a smart house the other day where my hostess, who is rather a crank, was thinking of having her house decorated with pictures, as they used to in our young days.”) But he painted in his way because he believed in it. “Every line on your face,” he said, “and every play of movement on your face, was predetermined for it by your smiles and frowns and pouts and fidgetings when you were a baby in arms. I must track Truth to its source, so I see you as a baby still—you must excuse me saying that, but it’s my creed. It will last my time; but you’re young, and you may live to see a reaction. These neo-classical people are attracting a lot of attention: I’m an old fogey, and I can’t see anything in these new ideas, but I daresay your daughters will.” It was a bold prophecy for a man to make in the early sixties; but he was quite right. What would he have said to our neo-romantics! Talking of Futurism, I noticed in the paper the other day that Dame Beatrice Goodge was criticizing the old Futurists on the ground that they never produced any architecture: she would not be old enough to remember it, but I have actually seen a row of Cubist houses! It was when I was house-hunting, with Juliet Savage, in ’41, and we were trying our luck at the “Garden City” at Welwyn. The architect’s idea was a very simple one, which was to build a series of octagonal passages, just like a honeycomb: after all, bees built like that, and bees ought to know. Juliet said if I were shaped like a bee and spent all my time in the City making honey, one of these would just suit me. Only a very few tenants were ever secured, and these did not last long: profane neighbours, I believe, used to call them the Hivites. What a mad world it is, and how few men and women you will find who have not a blind spot somewhere.