A certain amount of foregoing advices were translated, and M. le Patron, placated by the ten-franc note, granted Wynne leave of absence and conversed affably with Uncle Clem while Wynne mounted the stairs and changed his coat. “Come on,” said Uncle Clem. “Let’s get somewhere where we can talk.” He hailed a fiacre and they drove to the Bois de Boulogne. Here they alighted, and sprawled upon the grass beneath a tree. “Now let’s have the story from the word Go.” So Wynne wound himself up and reeled off all his experiences in the unfriendly city. Once or twice during the recital Uncle Clem frowned, and once or twice looked at his nephew in some perplexity, but in the main he nodded encouragement or gave little ejaculations of praise. “Plucky enough,” he remarked at the close. “I wonder sometimes. Is it plucky merely to fight for existence?” “Did you merely fight for existence—was there no impulse behind it all?” “Yes, the impulse to do and to know has helped me over the stonier parts.” “The painting was not a success, eh?” “It isn’t my medium.” “Have you found out what is?” The question was hard to answer. It would sound futile to reply, “Writing,” when one had but a few occasional jottings on the back of envelopes to substantiate the claim. “I haven’t had much time,” said Wynne, ruefully. “Of course not. After all, the medium doesn’t matter—it’s the motive that counts. Have you determined on your motive?” “I have learnt enough to show people what they are.” “Then don’t. That’s a cynic’s task, not an artist’s.” “Sometimes I think that one is but another name for the other.” “Not it. An artist shows people what they might be.” “Yet many have climbed to the peaks” (he was too self-conscious and diffident, with added years, to say the Purple Patch) “by holding up a mirror.” Uncle Clem shook his head. “A mirror should only reflect beautiful folk,” he replied. “There are better things than to be a man with a camera.” “I sometimes wonder if there are.” “Don’t wonder. Beauty is not to be found by sorting out dustbins. Beauty is in the woods, Wynne. Listen! You can hear the leaves in the tree above us whispering of her, and the little waves in the pool yonder, are leaping up lest they should miss her as she passes by. Can’t you feel the wonder of her everywhere, now in the spring, when she leaps splendid from her winter hiding? D’y’know, when April’s here I throw open my window and look up into the blue and then I see her riding on a cloud. You know the kind of cloud—the great white sort, which brings the summer from the seas. Ha! Yes, and I shout my homage as I brush my hair, and sometimes my poor man Parsons thinks I’m cracked. But what’s the matter if she smiles—for she’s a smiling lady if ever there was one, and her breath is like a breeze which is filtered through a copse of violets.” “Oh Lord, you are just the same old Uncle Clem as ever,” laughed Wynne.