I saw that the subject on his easel suggested that of which Wynnie had been making a sketch at the same time, on the day when Connie first lay on the top of the opposite cliff. But he was not even looking in the same direction now. "Do you mind having your work seen before it is finished?" "Not in the least, if the spectators will do me the favour to remember that most processes have to go through a seemingly chaotic stage," he answered. I was struck with the mode and tone of the remark. "Here is no common man," I said to myself, and responded to him in something of a similar style. "I wish we could always keep that in mind with regard to human beings themselves, as well as their works," I said aloud. The painter looked at me, and I looked at him. "We speak each from the experience of his own profession, I presume," he said. "But," I returned, glancing at the little picture in oils upon his easel, "your work here, though my knowledge of painting is next to nothing--perhaps I ought to say nothing at all--this picture must have long ago passed the chaotic stage." "It is nearly as much finished as I care to make it," he returned. "I hardly count this work at all. I am chiefly amusing, or rather pleasing, my own fancy at present." "Apparently," I remarked, "you had the conical rock outside the hay for your model, and now you are finishing it with your back turned towards it. How is that?" "I will soon explain," he answered. "The moment I saw this rock, it reminded me of Dante's Purgatory." "Ah, you are a reader of Dante?" I said. "In the original, I hope." "Yes. A friend of mine, a brother painter, an Italian, set me going with that, and once going with Dante, nobody could well stop. I never knew what intensity _per se_ was till I began to read Dante." "That is quite my own feeling. Now, to return to your picture."