"If Zeuxis' grandest triumph consisted in painting grapes, you
assuredly should not take umbrage at my praise of that fruit on your
canvas, which hints of Tokay and Lachrima Christi. I am not an artist,
but I have studied the best pictures in Europe and America, and you
must acquit me of any desire to flatter when I tell you that
background yonder is one of the most extraordinary successes I have
ever seen, from either amateur or professional painters."

Mrs. Gerome arched her black brows slightly, and replied,--

"Then the success was accidental, and I stumbled upon it, for I bestow
little study on the backgrounds of my work. They are mere dim
distances of bluish haze, and do not interest me, and, since I paint
for amusement, I give most thought to my central figure."

"Have you forgotten the anecdote of Rubens, who, when offered a pupil
with the recommendation that he was sufficiently advanced in his
studies to assist him at once in his backgrounds, laughed, and
answered, 'If the youth was capable of painting backgrounds he did not
need his instruction; because the regulation and management of them
required the most comprehensive knowledge of the art.'"

"Yes, I am aware that is one of the _dogmata_ of the craft, but Rubens
was no more infallible than you or I, and his pictures give me less
pleasure than those of any other artist of equal celebrity. Dr. Grey,
if I am even a tolerable judge of my own work, the best thing I have
yet achieved is the drapery of that form. Perhaps I am inclined to
plume myself upon this point, from the fact that it was the opinion of
Carlo Maratti that 'The arrangement of drapery is more difficult than
drawing the human figure; because the right effect depends more upon
the taste of the artist than upon any given rules.' That sweep of blue
gauze has cost me more toil than everything else on the canvas."

"Pardon the expression of my curiosity concerning your modes of
composition in these singular and quaint creations, for which you
have no models; and tell me how this ideal presented itself to your
imagination."

"Dr. Grey, I am not a great genius like Goethe, and unfortunately can
not candidly echo his declaration, that, 'Nothing ever came to me in
my sleep.' I can scarcely tell you when this idea was first born in my
busy, tireless brain, but it took form one evening after I had read
Charlotte Bronte's 'Woman Titan,' in 'Shirley,' and compared it with
that glowing description of