"I don't want to be more tied to you than I am," said Logan, endeavouring to adopt a reasonable tone. He was curiously subdued, and never took his eyes off her. Mendel had the impression that they must recently have had a quarrel. Logan was endeavouring to placate her, but she was constantly aggressive. She seemed to have gained in personality and to be possessed of a definite will. She was no longer shrouded in the mists of sensuality, but stood out clearly, a figure of such vitality that Mendel could no longer keep his lazy contempt for her. Almost admirable she was, yet he found her detestable. He thought she should be thanking her lucky stars for having found such a man as Logan; she should be taking gratefully what he chose to give her, instead of setting herself up and putting forward her own vulgar needs. If a woman threw in her lot with an artist, she ought to revel in her freedom from the petty interests and insignificant courtesies that made the lives of ordinary women so humiliating. What was she up to? He knew that there was a deeper purpose in her, something very definite, for which she had been able to summon up her raw vitality. He could understand Logan being fascinated. If he had been in love with the woman he would have been the same, and his mind would have been swamped by sensual curiosity. Before, he had always been rather mystified to know what Logan saw in the woman, but now the infatuation was comprehensible to him. His mind played about it with a strange delight, and he was even envious of Logan to be consumed in the heart of that mystery upon whose fringes he himself was held. And he thought that if he brought Morrison to see them he would be able to understand her better, and might even be able to place his finger on the weak place in her armour. "You two do give me the pip," said Oliver. "You sit there as glum and silent as though you were in church. Taking yourselves too seriously, I call it." Still in his forbearing tone Logan said:-- "We talk of things which are very hard to understand." "Oh, give it up!" she said. "Leave all that to folk with brains and education. Why can't you just paint without talking about it? You'd get twice as much work done." "Because, don't you see, unless you're a blasted amateur, you can't paint without rousing all sorts of questions in your mind--questions that don't seem to have anything to do with painting; but unless you attempt to answer them there's no satisfaction in working." "Oh, cheese it!" she said; "I know what the critics look for, and it has nothing to do with brains. It is like being in love." "Who told you that?" asked Logan with sudden heat; but before she could answer him Mendel had exploded:--