There is a bond stronger than friendship, stronger than love--a bond that cannot be forged in any other shop than the one--the bond between old schoolfellows. Vernon had sometimes wondered why he "stood so much" from Temple. It is a wonder that old schoolfellows often feel, mutually.
"The subject you've started," said he, "is of course, to me, the most interesting. Please develop your thesis."
"Well then, your pictures are good, strong, thorough stuff, with sentiment--yes, just enough sentiment to keep them from the brutality of Degas or the sensualism of Latouche. Whereas you, yourself, seem to have no sentiment."
"I? No sentiment! Oh, Bobby, this is too much! Why, I'm a mass of it! Ask--"
"Yes, ask any woman of your acquaintance. That's just it--or just part of it. You fool them into thinking--oh, I don't know what; but you don't fool me."
"I haven't tried."
"Then you're not brutal, except half a dozen times in the year when you--And I've noticed that when your temper goes smash your morals go at the same time. Is that cause or effect? What's the real you like, and where do you keep it?"
"The real me," said Vernon, "is seen in my pictures, and--and appreciated by my friends; you for instance, are, I believe, genuinely attached to me."
"Oh, rot!" said Bobby.
"I don't see," said Vernon, moving his iron chair to make room for two people at the next table, "why you should expect my pictures to rhyme with my life. A man's art doesn't rhyme with his personality. Most often it contradicts flatly. Look at musicians--what a divine art, and what pigs of high priests! And look at actors--but no, one can't; the spectacle is too sickening."
"I sometimes think," said Temple, emptying his glass, "that the real you isn't made yet. It's waiting for--"
"For the refining touch of a woman's hand, eh? You think the real me is--Oh, Temple, Temple, I've no heart for these childish imaginings! The real me is the man that paints pictures, damn good pictures, too, though I say it."
"And is that what all the women think?
"Ask them, my dear chap; ask them. They won't tell you the truth."
"They're not the only ones who won't. I should like to know what you really think of women, Vernon."
"I don't think about them at all," lied Vernon equably. "They aren't subjects for thought but for emotion--and even of that as little as may be. It's impossible seriously to regard a woman as a human being; she's merely a dear, delightful, dainty--"