She didn't at all care for Japanese prints, and Gerald's sketches looked to her rather like Japanese prints.

She really didn't imagine that he intended her to take them seriously, and when he had brought them out and shown them to her she had said, 'Pretty, very pretty indeed, dear; really you have talent, I'm sure of it.

With hard work, under a good master, you might have become quite a painter.' She had then seen the little look of discomfiture on Gerald's face, though he laughed good-humouredly as he put away his sketches, saying to Helen, who was present, 'I'm put in my place, you see.' Althea had hastened to add, 'But, dear, really I think them very pretty.
They show quite a direct, simple feeling for colour.

Don't they, Helen?
Don't you feel with me that they are very pretty ?' Helen had said that she knew nothing about pictures, but liked Gerald's very much.
It was hard now to be asked to accept this vagrant artistry instead of the large, political life she had seen for him.

And what of the London drawing-room?
'You must keep in touch with people, Gerald,' she said.