"It's a humiliating
exhibition," he thought, "and I'm glad Torp isn't here to see. The doctor said
I was to avoid mental worry. Come here and let me pet you, Binkie."
The little dog yelped because Dick nearly squeezed the bark out of him.
Then he heard the man speaking in the twilight, and, doglike, understood that
his trouble stood off from him--"Allah is good, Binkie. Not quite so gentle as
we could wish, but we'll discuss that later. I think I see my way to it now.
All those studies of Bessie's head were nonsense, and they nearly brought your
master into a scrape. I hold the notion now as clear as crystal, 'the
Melancolia that transcends all wit.' There shall be Maisie in that head,
because I shall never get Maisie; and Bess, of course, because she knows all
about Melancolia, though she doesn't know she knows; and there shall be some
drawing in it, and it shall all end up with a laugh. That's for myself. Shall
she giggle or grin? No, she shall laugh right out of the canvas, and every man
and woman that ever had a sorrow of their own shall--what is it the poem says?-
-
'Understand the speech and feel a stir
Of fellowship in all disastrous fight.'
"'In all disastrous fight'? That's better than painting the thing merely to
pique Maisie.
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