He was ashamed to be seen looking so intently at his own work. The next day he was back again and told Cluny that it was not for sale. "I don't think it's a seller, Mr. Kühler," said Cluny. "It's not for sale," repeated Mendel. He went every day and had no other thought. He wandered about in a dream, not seeing people in the streets, not hearing when he was spoken to. On the fifth day as he entered Cluny's he began to tremble, and he fell against a man who was coming out. The blood rushed to his heart and beat at his temples. He knew why it was. The air seemed full of an enchantment that settled upon him and drew him towards the gallery. He knew he was going to see her, and she was there with Clowes, standing in front of his _Ruth._ Clowes was laughing at it, but Morrison, with brows knit, obviously angry, was trying to explain it. "I'm trying to explain the cornfield to Clowes," she said. "Do come and help me." "I can't explain it myself," he said, marvelling at the ease of the meeting. At once he and she were together and Clowes was out of it, like a dweller in another world. "I don't think you ought to do things you can't explain," said Clowes. "Then you are wiping out Michael Angelo, and El Greco, and Blake, and Piero." "Yes," said Mendel. "You are wiping out inspiration altogether." "Oh! if you think you are inspired I have nothing more to say," replied Clowes rather tartly. She had felt instinctively that Mendel and Morrison would meet at the gallery, and was annoyed all the same that it had happened. She knew how they were regarded, and she herself did not approve. Morrison knew how impossible it was, and Clowes thought she ought not to allow it to go on. Clowes also recognized how completely she was out of it, and she made excuses and left them. "You are the only one who likes it," he said. "I don't like it, but I know that it isn't bad. It isn't good either, but it is real and it is you." "I want no more than that," he said, "from you." In his mind he had prepared all sorts of reproaches for his meeting with her, but they fell away from his lips. He could only accept that it was good and sweet and natural to be with her. He told her quite simply how he had come to paint the picture, and how he had tried to paint his love for her. She smiled and shook away her smile. "I'm glad it isn't anything like that really," she said. "I tried to tell you what it was like when I wrote to you." "Yes." That was all she could say. She had been very unhappy, often desperately wretched, because her instinct fought so furiously against the idea of love with him whom she loved. "The picture has made me very happy," she added. "It means that what I have been wanting to happen to you has happened. You _are_ different, you know. I can talk to you so much more easily."