Crome Yellow

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  Gombauld was by no means so furious at their apparition as Denis hadhoped and expected he would be. Indeed, he was rather pleased thanannoyed when the two faces, one brown and pointed, the other round andpale, appeared in the frame of the open door. The energy born of hisrestless irritation was dying within him, returning to its emotionalelements. A moment more and he would have been losing his temperagain--and Anne would be keeping hers, infuriatingly. Yes, he waspositively glad to see them.

  "Come in, come in," he called out hospitably.

  Followed by Mr. Scogan, Denis climbed the little ladder and stepped overthe threshold. He looked suspiciously from Gombauld to his sitter, andcould learn nothing from the expression of their faces except that theyboth seemed pleased to see the visitors. Were they really glad, or werethey cunningly simulating gladness? He wondered.

  Mr. Scogan, meanwhile, was looking at the portrait.

  "Excellent," he said approvingly, "excellent. Almost too true tocharacter, if that is possible; yes, positively too true. But I'msurprised to find you putting in all this psychology business." Hepointed to the face, and with his extended finger followed the slackcurves of the painted figure. "I thought you were one of the fellows whowent in exclusively for balanced masses and impinging planes."

  Gombauld laughed. "This is a little infidelity," he said.

  "I'm sorry," said Mr. Scogan. "I for one, without ever having hadthe slightest appreciation of painting, have always taken particularpleasure in Cubismus. I like to see pictures from which nature has beencompletely banished, pictures which are exclusively the product of thehuman mind. They give me the same pleasure as I derive from a good pieceof reasoning or a mathematical problem or an achievement of engineering.Nature, or anything that reminds me of nature, disturbs me; it istoo large, too complicated, above all too utterly pointless andincomprehensible. I am at home with the works of man; if I choose toset my mind to it, I can understand anything that any man has made orthought. That is why I always travel by Tube, never by bus if I canpossibly help it. For, travelling by bus, one can't avoid seeing, evenin London, a few stray works of God--the sky, for example, an occasionaltree, the flowers in the window-boxes. But travel by Tube and you seenothing but the works of man--iron riveted into geometrical forms,straight lines of concrete, patterned expanses of tiles. All is humanand the product of friendly and comprehensible minds. All philosophiesand all religions--what are they but spiritual Tubes bored through theuniverse! Through these narrow tunnels, where all is recognisably human,one travels comfortable and secure, contriving to forget that all roundand below and above them stretches the blind mass of earth, endlessand unexplored. Yes, give me the Tube and Cubismus every time; give meideas, so snug and neat and simple and well made. And preserve me fromnature, preserve me from all that's inhumanly large and complicated andobscure. I haven't the courage, and, above all, I haven't the time tostart wandering in that labyrinth."

  While Mr. Scogan was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to the fartherside of the little square chamber, where Anne was sitting, still in hergraceful, lazy pose, on the low chair.

  "Well?" he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was he askingof her? He hardly knew himself.

  Anne looked up at him, and for answer echoed his "Well?" in another, alaughing key.

  Denis had nothing more, at the moment, to say. Two or three canvasesstood in the corner behind Anne's chair, their faces turned to the wall.He pulled them out and began to look at the paintings.

  "May I see too?" Anne requested.

  He stood them in a row against the wall. Anne had to turn round in herchair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the man fallen fromthe horse, there was a painting of flowers, there was a small landscape.His hands on the back of the chair, Denis leaned over her. From behindthe easel at the other side of the room Mr. Scogan was talking away.For a long time they looked at the pictures, saying nothing; or, rather,Anne looked at the pictures, while Denis, for the most part, looked atAnne.

  "I like the man and the horse; don't you?" she said at last, looking upwith an inquiring smile.

  Denis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice, as though it hadcost him a great effort to utter the words, he said, "I love you."

  It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many times before and mostlyheard with equanimity. But on this occasion--perhaps because they hadcome so unexpectedly, perhaps for some other reason--the words provokedin her a certain surprised commotion.

  "My poor Denis," she managed to say, with a laugh; but she was blushingas she spoke.