MEN I HAVE PAINTED
groves of Hawarden back to the shrine where Art is the goddess adored by a universal brotherhood of worshippers.
III.—AT DOWNING STREET
MR. GLADSTONE was again Prime Minister. He was living at No. 10, Downing Street, that unpretentious old house whose walls echoed and re-echoed the mandates of the governors of the British Empire.
I sought anew the Prime Minister and asked to be allowed to work as I had worked before: America wanted a portrait. He consented with the simplicity of manner and grace which one expects from a great man. I was to come early in the morning after breakfast. "At ten o'clock Sir Algernon West, my secretary, will bring in the letters, and he and I will go over them together. It will take perhaps twenty minutes or less. In case there should be anything of a private nature to which you should not be privy, I will ask you to wait in the next room for the few minutes required to discuss the answer." After a pause, "But no," he continued, "on second thoughts I will go with Sir Algernon into this ante-room, so that you may go on with your work during the few minutes I shall be absent." I thanked him for his consideration, and sat down before the easel, knowing how very dear to those who can command is the virtue of acquiescence.
Mr. Gladstone then stretched himself out on a dark-red morocco sofa that was drawn up diagonally across one of the tall windows with its foot towards the door, and began to read. There was an ample space between the window and the sofa to accommodate a chair placed immediately back of the sofa. I had worked for about
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