"Right again, Riche, as usual," said Delapine, much interested. "It is a pleasure to hear Turner praised and appreciated. Not so very long ago it was the fashion to decry him, but all the disparagement could not gainsay the revolution he caused in art." "Look," continued Riche, encouraged in one of his pet hobbies to find so sympathetic an enthusiast in Delapine--the man of science and psychic phenomena, "look at the picture of Dido building Carthage. See the towering marble buildings on either side like fairy castles in the air. Look how every figure, every object is so cunningly painted that collectively they form graceful curves which insensibly lead the eye to the 'point d'apui', which in this case, as you will notice, is the setting sun in the infinite distance beyond, giving immense depth and plasticity to the scene. Look again at his picture of Venice. Here we have a city of pink, and gold, and white, rising like a mist out of an emerald sea under a dome of sapphire blue. What a vista of exquisitely tender loveliness. How beautifully, and yet almost impossibly real. Compare it with the Venice of Canaletti--the same buildings, the same Grand Canal, and yet how vast the gulf between the two painters. Turner's may be likened to a poetic dream; the other, well--the other is merely conventional prose. Take again his 'Ulysses deriding Polyphemus.' Look at the huge rugged rocks frowning over the sea, and the half-hidden giant heaving a large boulder at the Grecian galley. Note the defiant look of Ulysses as he waves a blazing olive tree, while his men are climbing the rigging to unfurl the sails. See the skilful outlining of the shadowy horses of Phoebus in the slanting rays of the rising sun. Could anything tell a tale better? What conception! what genius! it is the power of imagination over the stern reality of facts." "Yes, you have seized the keynote of his genius," said Villebois, admiring his friend's enthusiasm. "But in my humble opinion his 'Fighting Temeraire' being towed to her last resting place by the fiery little steamtug is the finest picture of them all." "By the way, what has become of Delapine? I wanted him to have a glass of wine or some coffee with us in the summer-house, let us go and look for him." "He cannot be far away," said Villebois, as the latter and Riche left the room together. "He was with us a moment ago. How quietly he must have slipped out of the library. I expect he has gone to look for Renée." "No, you won't find him with her," said Riche thoughtfully. "He is not the kind of man who wastes his time running after a woman. I fancy that our friend is far too absorbed and occupied scientifically." "I am not so very sure about that," replied Villebois, smiling to himself, as the scene that he had witnessed about an hour previously flitted across his mind.