"I, sir? I was going to be a painter, but the War knocked that. Then in
the trenches, you know, I used to dream of the Stock Exchange, snug and
warm and just noisy enough. But the Peace knocked that, shares seem off,
don't they? I've only been demobbed about a year. What do you recommend,
sir?"
"Have you got money?"
"Well," answered the young man, "I've got a father; I kept him alive
during the War, so he's bound to keep me alive now. Though, of course,
there's the question whether he ought to be allowed to hang on to his
property. What do you think about that, sir?"
Soames, pale and defensive, smiled.
"The old man has fits when I tell him he may have to work yet. He's got
land, you know; it's a fatal disease."
"This is my real Goya," said Soames dryly.
"By George! He was a swell. I saw a Goya in Munich once that bowled me
middle stump. A most evil-looking old woman in the most gorgeous lace.
He made no compromise with the public taste. That old boy was 'some'
explosive; he must have smashed up a lot of convention in his day.
Couldn't he just paint! He makes Velasquez stiff, don't you think?"
"I have no Velasquez," said Soames.
The young man stared. "No," he said; "only nations or profiteers can
afford him, I suppose. I say, why shouldn't all the bankrupt nations
sell their Velasquez and Titians and other swells to the profiteers by
force, and then pass a law that any one who holds a picture by an Old
Master--see schedule--must hang it in a public gallery? There seems
something in that."
"Shall we go down to tea?" said Soames.
The young man's ears seemed to droop on his skull. 'He's not dense,'
thought Soames, following him off the premises.
Goya, with his satiric and surpassing precision, his original "line,"
and the daring of his light and shade, could have reproduced to
admiration the group assembled round Annette's tea-tray in the inglenook
below. He alone, perhaps, of painters would have done justice to the
sunlight filtering through a screen of creeper, to the lovely pallor of
brass, the old cut glasses, the thin slices of lemon in pale amber tea;
justice to Annette in her black lacey dress; there was something of the
fair Spaniard in her beauty, though it lacked the spirituality of that
rare type; to Winifred's grey-haired, corseted solidity; to Soames, of
a certain grey and flat-cheeked distinction; to the vivacious Michael
Mont, pointed in ear and eye; to Imogen, dark, luscious of glance,
growing a little stout; to Prosper Profond, with his expression as
who should say, "Well, Mr. Goya, what's the use of paintin' this small
party?" finally, to Jack Cardigan, with his shining stare and tanned
sanguinity betraying the moving principle: "I'm English, and I live to
be fit."