"
Murdoch whistled.
"By Jove! I never heard you so enthusiastic, so positive, so personally
alive and awake and interested. Don't fall in love with the girl before you
know it."
To this warning Barron made a curious reply.
"Everything depends on my picture. You know my rule of life; to sacrifice
all things to mood. I shall do so here. The best I can do must be done
whatever the cost."
A shadow almost sinister lay behind the utterance, yet young Murdoch could
not fathom it. Barren spoke in his usual slow, unaffected tones, and
painted all the time; for the conversation took place on Gorse Point.
"Not sure if I quite understand you, old man," said Murdoch.
"It doesn't matter in the least if you don't, my dear fellow."
His words were hardly civil, but the tone in which Barren spoke robbed the
utterance of any offense.
"All you need do," he continued, "is to keep silent in the interests of art
and of Joan. I don't want her precious visits to me to get back to her
father's ears or they will cease, and I don't wish to do her a bad turn in
her home, for I owe her a great debt of gratitude. If men ask what I'm
doing, lie to them and beg them not to disturb me, for the sake of Art.
What a glint the east wind gives to color! Yet this is hardly to be called
an east wind, so soft and balmy does it keep."
"Well, you seem to be the better for your work, at any rate.
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