‘Thanks,’ said Laurie, with a little offence. ‘I have no doubt you are very judicious, but I am sorry I can’t see the matter in the same light. You will give Mr. Welby my compliments, please. I’ll be glad to dine with him on Saturday, as he asks me. Perhaps you will be so good as to say nothing--. But no, that’s of no consequence,’ Laurie added, hastily. Of course he was not going to give in. Of course they must know sooner or later what he was doing, and better sooner than later. They might laugh, or sneer, or consider him childish if they pleased; but the moment his picture was hung on the line in the Academy, all that would be changed. So Laurie mounted his high horse. But he did it in a splendid, magnanimous sort of way. He smoothed down Forrester’s wounded feelings by a ‘tip,’ which, indeed, was more than he could afford, and which the old man took with reluctance,--and opened the door for him with his own hands. ‘Offended! because you tell me how popular my subject has been? Most certainly not! Much obliged to you, on the contrary, Forrester, and very proud of your good opinion,’ he said, with a most gracious smile and nod, as his critic went away, which Forrester did with a certain satisfaction mingling with his regret. ‘It’s for his good,’ the old man said to himself; ‘and there ain’t no way of doing them young fellows good without hurting of their feelings.’ Laurie for his part went back to his painting-room, and sat down moodily before his big canvas. It was too ridiculous to care for such a piece of criticism. Forrester;--Mr. Welby’s servant!--to think of minding anything that a stupid old fellow in his dotage might venture to say! Laurie laughed what he meant for a mocking laugh, and then bit his lip and called himself a fool. Of course the old rascal had been crammed beforehand and taught what to say; or if not, at least it was no wonder if the servant repeated what the master thought. It was not this picture or that, but every picture that Welby had set his face against. And what a piece of idiocy to show his man, his echo,--the very first beginning,--the most chaotic indication,--such as none but an eye at once keen and indulgent could have made out,--of the great work that was to be! Laurie concluded proudly that nobody was to blame but himself, as he sat down in his first quiver of mortification, half inclined to tear his canvas across, and pitch his chalks to the other end of the room. Then he looked at it, and found his Edith looking down upon him with her tragic eyes,--eyes which to her creator looked tragic and full of awful meaning, though they were but put in in chalk. Perhaps, indeed, it was the chalk that made her divine in her despair, whitely shadowing out of the white canvas, owing everything to the imagination,--a suggestion of horror and frantic grief and misery. What if it was a common subject! The more common a thing is, the more universal and all-influencing must it be.