"I know," said Logan sympathetically. "How can you know? You have only to live in a world that is ready-made for you. I have to make mine as I go, step by step." "That isn't because you are a Jew, but because you are an artist. It is the same for all of us." "It can't be the same, for the ordinary world is not utterly foreign to you. You do not find that which you were brought up to believe, the wisdom you sucked in with your mother's milk, completely denied. . . . I tell you, love is all wrong, and because love is all wrong, art is all wrong, everything is wrong, and so is everybody. Everybody is living with only a part of himself, so that the cleverest people are the worst and most mischievous fools. I tell you, there are times in your West End when I can hardly breathe because people are such fools. If you are successful, they smile at you. If you are not successful, they look the other way. . . . Oh! I know it does not matter, but it makes success a paltry thing, and when you have lived for it and hungered for it, what then? What are you to do when it is like sand trickling through your fingers?" "You can't stop it," said Logan. "You can't throw it away. You can only go on working, come what may." "Yes," replied Mendel dubiously, and grievously disappointed. He had so hoped to squeeze out his twisted, tortured feelings into words, but at a certain point Logan failed him and seemed to shy at his thought. To a certain quality of passion in himself Logan was insensible. Where his own passion began to gain in clear force and momentum, swinging from the depths of life to the highest imagination, only gaining in strength as the ascent grew more arduous, Logan's remained in an exasperated intensity. "I'm sorry," said Mendel. "Talking is no use. I've found my way out of as bad times as this, and shall again. It is no good talking. I will sit as silent as the little figures there, and in time I shall know what I must do." "You want taking out of yourself," muttered Logan irritably. "Come and see Thompson's show." * * * * * As successful artists they entered the gallery self-consciously and rather contemptuously. That did not last long. There were many people sniggering at the Van Goghs and the Picassos, but Mendel's thoughts flew back to a still-life he had painted of a blue enamel teapot and a yellow matchbox years ago. He had painted them as he had seen them, in raw, crude colour, but the picture had been so derided, and he had been so scornfully reminded that there were no brilliant colours in nature, that he had painted the same subject over again with a very careful rendering of what was called "atmosphere."