After that he walked out of the room escorted by Frans Hals, and Diogenes who had remained alone in the big, bare studio, stood in front of Jongejuffrouw Beresteyn's portrait and had another long look at it. A whimsical smile sat round his lips even as they apostrophized the image that looked so gravely on him out of the canvas. "You poor, young, delicate creature!" he murmured, "what of your imperious little ways now? your offers of condescension, your gracious wiping of your dainty shoes on the commoner herd of humanity? Your own brother has thrown you at the mercy of a rogue, eh? A rogue whose valour must needs be rewarded by money and patronage!... Will you recognise him to-night I wonder, as the rogue he really is? the rogue paid to do work that is too dirty for exalted gentlemen's hands to touch? How you will loathe him after to-night!" He drew in his breath with a quaint little sigh that had a thought of sadness in it, and turned away from the picture just as Frans Hals re-entered the room. "When this picture is finished," he said at once to his friend, "your name, my dear Hals, will ring throughout Europe." "'Tis your picture I want to finish," said the other reproachfully, "I have such a fine chance of selling it the day after to-morrow." "Why the day after to-morrow?" "The Burgomaster, Mynheer van der Meer, comes to visit my studio. He liked the beginnings of the picture very much when he saw it, and told me then that he would come to look at it again and would probably buy it." "I can be back here in less than a week. You can finish the picture then. The Burgomaster will wait." The artist sighed a plaintive, uncomplaining little sigh and shrugged his shoulders with an air of hopelessness. "You don't know what these people are," he said, "they will buy a picture when the fancy seizes them. A week later they will mayhap not even look at it. Besides which the Burgomaster goes to Amsterdam next week. He will visit Rembrandt's studio, and probably buy a picture there...." His speech meandered on, dully and tonelessly, losing itself finally in incoherent mutterings. Diogenes looked on him with good-natured contempt. "And you would lick the boots of such rabble," he said. "I have a wife and a growing family," rejoined the artist, "we must all live." "I don't see the necessity," quoth Diogenes lightly, "not at that price in any case. You must live of course, my dear Hals," he continued, "because you are a genius and help to fill this ugly grey world with your magnificent works, but why should your wife and family live at the expense of your manhood." Then seeing the look of horror which his tirade had called forth in the face of his friend, he said with more seriousness: "Would the price of that picture be of such vital importance then?"