He saw also that he could only paint in one way--Priam Farll's way.

If it was discovered that Priam Farll was not buried in Westminster Abbey; if there was a scandal, and legal unpleasantness--well, so much the worse! But he must paint.
Not for money, mind you! Incidentally, of course, he would earn money.
But he had already quite forgotten that life has its financial aspect.
So in the sitting-room in Werter Road, he walked uneasily to and fro, squeezing between the table and the sideboard, and then skirting the fireplace where Alice sat with a darning apparatus upon her knees, and her spectacles on--she wore spectacles when she had to look fixedly at very dark objects.

The room was ugly in a pleasant Putneyish way, with a couple of engravings after B.W.Leader, R.A., a too realistic wall-paper, hot brown furniture with ribbed legs, a carpet with the characteristics of a retired governess who has taken to drink, and a black cloud on the ceiling over the incandescent burners.

Happily these surroundings did not annoy him.

They did not annoy him because he never saw them.