"I bought a picture of yours the other day, Mr. Kühler," said Tysoe. "I am ashamed to think how little I gave for it, but works of art are priceless, are they not?" "Mine are," said Mendel, overcoming his disgust and beginning to enjoy the game. "You think so," rejoined Tysoe with an undulation of his long body. "And why shouldn't you say so? You are sincere and strong. You must force your talent upon an ungrateful world." A man-servant announced dinner, and Tysoe gave his arm to Oliver and led her downstairs, while Logan put his hand on Mendel's shoulder and said with a chuckle:-- "Be sincere." Mendel began at once with the soup, as though he had been wound up. "I have won every possible prize for painting and drawing, and the first picture I exhibited was the sensation of the year in art circles." "I remember it," said Tysoe. "Like my friend Logan, I am profoundly dissatisfied with the state of art in England, and though I am not an Englishman I have sufficient love for the country to wish to do my share in redeeming it. The first essential is a new technique, the second essential is a new spirit, and the third essential is sincerity." "Wonderfully true!" cried Tysoe. "Have some sherry. Wonderfully true! Now, take the ordinary man. He might feel all that, but would he dare to say it? No. That is why I, as an idealist, delight in the society of artists. You know where you are with them. Facts are facts with them." "I do like this sherry wine," said Oliver, beginning to feel very comfortable in the warm luxury of the dining-room. Logan kicked her under the table. Feeling that more was expected of him, Mendel wound himself up again and went on:-- "Logan and I are going to hold an exhibition together. It will make a great stir, that is, if London is not altogether dead to sincerity. We think it is time that independence among artists was encouraged. Art must not be allowed to stop short at Calthrop----" He stopped dead as he realized that the wall opposite him held half a dozen drawings by Calthrop. Logan rushed in:-- "Among real artists there is no rivalry. Art is not a competition. It is a constellation, like the Milky Way." "Ah! La Voie Lactée!" cried Tysoe, dropping into French, as he sometimes did when he was moved. "Quite so! La Voie Lactée!" "At home in Yorkshire," said Oliver, "there are sometimes two big stars hanging just over the top of the moors, and they say it means love or death if you see it at half-past nine." Logan took charge of the conversation, frowning at Mendel and Oliver as though they were naughty children. He described the masterpiece he was painting, and Tysoe said:-- "I'm sure I shall like that. It sounds big and forceful, like yourself. Do let me have a look at it before anyone else sees it." Then he added:-- "I saw a charming still-life of yours once. A melon, I think it was. What has become of it?" "It was sold, I fancy," replied Mendel, who had never painted a melon in his life.