Miss Jones, while speaking, looked so exceedingly beautiful that I almost forgot my dismay at her atrocious taste; for Watkins's "Faith Conquers Fear" had been one of the jokes of the year--a lamentably crude, pretentious presentation of a theatrical subject reproduced extensively in ladies' papers and fatally popular.
At the same moment, and as I looked from Miss Jones's gravely enrapt expression to Manon's seductive graces, I experienced a sensation of extreme discomfort.
"I think a picture should have high and noble aims," Miss Jones pursued, seeing that I remained silent, and evidently considering the time come when duty required her to speak and to speak freely. "A picture should leave one better for having seen it."
I could not ignore the kind but firmly severe criticism implied; I could not but revolt from this Hebraistic onslaught.
"I don't admit a conscious moral aim in art," I said. "Art need only concern itself with being beautiful and interesting; the rest will follow. But a badly-painted picture certainly makes me feel wicked, and when I go to the National Gallery to have a look at the Velasquezes and Veroneses I feel the better for it."
"Velasquez?" Miss Jones repeated. "Ah, well, I prefer the old masters--I mean those who painted religious subjects as no one since has painted them. Why did not Velasquez, at least, as he could not rise to the ideal, paint beautiful people? I never have been able to care for mere ugliness, however cleverly copied."
I felt buffeted by her complacent crudity.
"No soul! Why he paints life, character, soul, everything! Copied! What of his splendid decorativeness, his colour, his atmosphere?" My ejaculations left her calm unruffled.
"Ah, but all that doesn't make the world any better," she returned, really with an air of humouring a silly materialism; and as she went back to her pose she added, very kindly, for my face probably revealed my injured feelings:
"You see I have rather serious views of life."
"Miss Jones--really!" I laid down my palette. "I must beg of you to believe that I have, too--very serious."
Gently Miss Jones shook her head, looking, not at me, but down into the mirror. This effect of duty fulfilled, even in opposition, was most characteristic.