no commotion to the discord. I wonder what it is all about, this universe of immortal stars and petty men?"
Sometimes he sat in his room, drawing sketches or painting. He made no effort to do creative work because he stated he was slowly disintegrating.
"To be in tune," he insisted, "I must do destructive work. Taking my cue from Keats, I should paint only in water."
Now and then he drew Mary's profile. She interested him. She was a strong personality. Here was a woman who had lived. He could tell it by her eyes.
Once when she entered his room to make the bed, he showed her a water-color sketch which he had made of her. So beautiful the portrait was, it made her gasp. The resemblance was astounding, yet there was an expression in the face, a depth of feeling that was entirely at variance with her life. It was the portrait of a woman, a good woman who might have been a Madonna or a nun.
"As I look at the picture," Mary said slowly, "I get the impression that there is a halo about the head."
"That is the impression I strove to create," he drawled. "I am glad that you grasped it. It pleases me. Of course there is no actual halo there. It is an illusion brought about by the arrangement of light."
"But it is false!" she cried vehemently.
"What matter?" he asked. "Is not everything of earth false?" "But I am not like that."
"You are, exactly. You are not the woman you profess to be. Not one of us is the man his friends behold. Every one of us is two people. The one that we parade for the eyes of the world, the other that lies hidden in the shell of our bodies. I have painted you with an inner vision. You say it is false. I refuse to argue. I think that truth as exemplified by patrons of the world is a pompous liar. Somewhere within you that woman lies hidden. Perhaps she is in a dark chamber, only occasionally peeping out, but I have caught a glimpse of her."
"But this is the picture of a saint!"
"Nor do I deny it. Still it is the woman I glimpsed in the mirror of your eyes."
56
