He said something contemptuous of this foreign training for an artist--so much concerned with galleries and Old Masters.

Much better that he should use his eyes upon his own country and its types; that had been enough for all the best men.
Madame de Pastourelles politely disagreed with him; then, to change the subject, she talked of some of the humours and incidents of their stay in Vienna--the types of Viennese society--the Emperor, the beautiful mad Empress, the Archdukes, the priests--and also of some hurried visits to Hungarian country houses in winter, of the cosmopolitan luxury and refinement to be found there, ringed by forests and barbarism.
Fenwick listened greedily, and presently inquired whether Mr.Welby had shared in all these amusements.
'Oh yes.

He was generally the life and soul of them.' 'I suppose he made lots of friends--and got on with everybody ?' Madame de Pastourelles assented--cautiously.
'That's all a question of manners,' said Fenwick, with sudden roughness.
She gave a vague 'Perhaps'-- and he straightened himself aggressively.
'I don't think manners very important, do you ?' 'Very!' She said it, with a gay firmness.
'Well, then, some of us will never get any,' his tone was surly--'we weren't taught young enough.' 'Our mothers teach us generally--all that's wanted!' He shook his head.
'It's not as simple as that.

Besides--one may lose one's mother.' 'Ah, yes!' she said, with quick feeling.
And presently a little tact, a few questions on her part had brought out some of his own early history--his mother's death--his years of struggle with his father.

As he talked on--disjointedly--painting hard all the time, she had a vision of the Kendal shop and its customers--of the shrewd old father, moulded by the business, the avarice, the religion of an English country town, with a Calvinist contempt for art and artists--and trying vainly to coerce his sulky and rebellious son.
'Has your father seen these pictures ?' She pointed to the 'Genius Loci' on its further easel--and to the portrait.
'My father! I haven't spoken to him or seen him for years.' 'Years!' She opened her eyes.