The virtue was expressed by his brilliant, joyous eyes which told her his was the sixth sense—the ability to look at his subject and say, “Ah, I won’t paint in the heartbreak, it would be too cruel! Just pleasant shadows,” or “Shall I show the greed which made you play the cad? I think I shall—it needs to be exploited even if you did buy off the press,” or “There is a promise of good things and you shall have them painted clearly so that when you look at yourself you will feel the need of living up to that promise—a sort of jacking-up, old man—with your slightly weak mouth but glorious forehead,” or “You are young and beautiful and you’ve the world before you, but I shall find that gray-gold seriousness of your woman’s soul and make it illumine your face; then you won’t go getting too light of heart and careless of tongue—as you might with the flurry of dimples!” So the world had come to speak of a Hedley portrait as something to be almost fearful of—it was so real—and yet, with this ability, Thurley admitted as the day wore on with their playing at housekeeping or romping in the garden, drinking black coffee while Collin and Polly played guitar and ukelele duets, Collin remained a child. Whether this was purposely achieved or a strange whim of Mother Nature was yet to be proved. But a child he was, whimsical, lovable, worth while but unstable—and he skillfully shut away the duties of maturity by this very fact. Collin shirked responsibility! So did Ernestine, but in a cynical, combative fashion. Collin did it with studied innocence! As the child has imagination as its greatest charm and asset, so did Collin claim it for his own, at the same time retaining that opinion of women which the child possesses: A woman has but two possibilities—tyrant or slave, therefore she can never be his equal. The child regards his nurse or mother as a guardian angel or an unfair oppressor of rights, and so Collin chose to regard women—staying aloof from entangling romance! He called Polly his pal, said with admiration that she had never passed out of that flapper period when every woman wishes she had been born a boy, therefore, Polly was a delight to know! He helped her when she least suspected it, liked and admired her, but he kept that armor of childish irresponsibility about his famous, selfish self and no matter how keenly he might gaze into the souls of those he painted, his own soul was wrapped in nursery eiderdown and labelled, “Unwrap me and you destroy genius!” Polly, like all women who love but once, understood and was content with crumbs. “I shall go abroad when Ernestine does,” Thurley heard him saying when she had lured Fencer into the garden to play retrieve. “I’m so glad—do get rested, you will be rushed with orders next winter,” Polly answered. Thurley knew just the look in those stabbed brown eyes! “What will you do, pal mine?”