So engrossed were they in their argument,
that they neither saw nor heard him.
"It's nonsense, Colonel Quaritch, perfect nonsense, if you will
forgive me for telling you so," Ida was saying with warmth. "It is all
very well for you to complain that my trees are a blur, and the castle
nothing but a splotch, but I am looking at the water, and if I am
looking at the water, it is quite impossible that I should see the
trees and the cows otherwise than I have rendered them on the canvas.
True art is to paint what the painter sees and as he sees it."
Colonel Quaritch shook his head and sighed.
"The cant of the impressionist school," he said sadly; "on the
contrary, the business of the artist is to paint what he knows to be
there," and he gazed complacently at his own canvas, which had the
appearance of a spirited drawing of a fortified place, or of the
contents of a child's Noah's ark, so stiff, so solid, so formidable
were its outlines, trees and animals.
Ida shrugged her shoulders, laughed merrily, and turned round to find
herself face to face with Edward Cossey. She started back, and her
expression hardened--then she stretched out her hand and said, "How do
you do?" in her very coldest tones.
"How do you do, Miss de la Molle?" he said, assuming as unconcerned an
air as he could, and bowing stiffly to Harold Quaritch, who returned
the bow and went back to his canvas, which was placed a few paces off.
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