"
The Painter laughed. "I cannot soar to your heights," he said.
"Frankly speaking, it is myself that chiefly appeals to me. Why not?
I give the world Beauty, and in return what does it give me? This
dingy restaurant, where I eat ill-flavoured food off hideous
platters, a foul garret giving on to chimney-pots. After long years
of ill-requited labour I may--as others have before me--come into my
kingdom: possess my studio in the Champs Elysees, my fine house at
Neuilly; but the prospect of the intervening period, I confess,
appals me."
Absorbed in themselves, they had not noticed that a stranger, seated
at a neighbouring table, had been listening with attention. He rose
and, apologising with easy grace for intrusion into a conversation he
could hardly have avoided overhearing, requested permission to be of
service. The restaurant was dimly lighted; the three friends on
entering had chosen its obscurest corner. The Stranger appeared to
be well-dressed; his voice and bearing suggested the man of affairs;
his face--what feeble light there was being behind him--remained in
shadow.
The three friends eyed him furtively: possibly some rich but
eccentric patron of the arts; not beyond the bounds of speculation
that he was acquainted with their work, had read the Poet's verses in
one of the minor magazines, had stumbled upon some sketch of the
Painter's while bargain-hunting among the dealers of the Quartier St.
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