hose names were Manet, Degas, Monet, and Sisley; but he was an
excellent teacher, helpful, polite, and encouraging. Foinet, on the other
hand, who visited the studio on Fridays, was a difficult man to get on
with. He was a small, shrivelled person, with bad teeth and a bilious air,
an untidy gray beard, and savage eyes; his voice was high and his tone
sarcastic. He had had pictures bought by the Luxembourg, and at
twenty-five looked forward to a great career; but his talent was due to
youth rather than to personality, and for twenty years he had done nothing
but repeat the landscape which had brought him his early success. When he
was reproached with monotony, he answered:

"Corot only painted one thing. Why shouldn't I?"

He was envious of everyone else's success, and had a peculiar, personal
loathing of the impressionists; for he looked upon his own failure as due
to the mad fashion which had attracted the public, sale bete, to their
works. The genial disdain of Michel Rollin, who called them impostors, was
answered by him with vituperation, of which crapule and canaille were
the least violent items; he amused himself with abuse of their private
lives, and with sardonic humour, with blasphemous and obscene detail,
attacked the legitimacy of their births and the purity of their conjugal
relations: he used an Oriental imagery and an Oriental emphasis to
accentuate his ribald scorn. Nor did he conceal his contempt for the
students whose work he examined. By them he was hated and feared; the
women by his brutal sarcasm he reduced often to tears, which again aroused
his ridicule; and he remained at the studio, notwithstanding the protests
of those who suffered too bitterly from his attacks, because there could
be no doubt that he was one of the best masters in Paris. Sometimes the
old model who kept the school ventured to remonstrate with him, but his
expostulations quickly gave way before the violent insolence of the
painter to abject apologies.

It was Foinet with whom Philip first came in contact. He was already in
the studio when Philip arrived. He went round from easel to easel, with
Mrs. Otter, the massiere, by his side to interpret his remarks for the
benefit of those who could not understand French. Fanny Price, sitting
next to Philip, was working feverishly. Her face was sallow with
nervousness, and every now and then she stopped to wipe her hands on her
blouse; for they were hot with anxiety. Suddenly she turned