El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-07-13
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. FAULTLESS PAINTER
, AND HIS FRIEND.
|. By E. Clough Taylor. :


There is a modern picture Of man
and wife at dinner. The man is seated,
his back to the onlOOker, smoking
cigaret; his wife, standing. is finger
gering some cut flowers in great bowl
upon the table. There is a general
air of delicacy and good taste in the
furniture of the room, the shaded can
dies, the silver and cut glass upon the
fine tablecolth. of breeding in the man
and the woman, of the grace of quiet
days and cOntented life in the whole
aspect of comradeship and intimacy
there depicted Underneath is written:
Il love thee to the level OF every
days most quiet need
You would have been reminded of
this picture and the verse if you had
seen Leonard Casillas and his wife sit
ting and talking at the end of their
dinner one day in July Outside the
radiance of the sun was turning the
wharfs and barges on the Thames to
moving freize of shimmering Ochre and
gold. and its sluggish waters to ri
band of amber and olive. The window
was wide open.
Venetia half turned, her elbow on
her chair, to lock at the river; the light
caught and Furnished the auburn of
her hair. and touched the folds of her
dress of palest apricot Casillis, in his
incorrigible way, was already paint
HeT IOT the InO0SduuNu lilAlS III liA9
mind when she said:
Il hear Vincent DeTereauX is back
in town. Have a cigaret?"
Casillas pushed the box away from
him
How you can spoil my best port by
smoking 1 don't know. Back here, is
he? Never stays anywhere. The last
time I heard of him was in northern
India"
.sc;Il,- ola Mort, che lauobad seNv
cigarets are better than your port. He
is restless soul and nearly always
bored. Fancy being bored with fifty
thousand year! Do you know, Leon
ard. once liked him bestr'
THE deuce, you did" chuckled CASH.
lis. why did you refuse him?"
''Oh, he never really asked me =
but 1 know. Poor fellow. 1 think he
bore the news well when 1 told him. He
was always diffident and afraid of him
self, and you'-she smiled-'you were
always your dear self-cOnscious, con-
ceited self. But, oh, he was fond OF you.
Leonard, dear faultless painter"
Il know. We had our study together
at Harrow; we dug together when we
were at the House We even lived in
Paris together until he gave up the idea
of painting when he was left all that
money. He never had the artist in him.
and then queer how life
brings US together and separates US;
it's either work, or marriage
I'm told he gets very low and NOR
bid" she said HE always was rather
apt to get depressed about nothing; also
something worse
~Morphia?'
Yes, so they say. I must look him
up, Leonard"
do. I say. I've sold Venus and
Adonis'"
''Oh, Leonard, good. Who's bought
ito"
81 don't know. swanston won't let
on"
For the last ten years CasiIlis had
sold his pictures through a dealer, find
ing it the better method; and, for the
last five, his paintings had sold abso-
lutely steadily, at high prices The
buyer, so SWANSON told him. insisted on
a strict incognfto; indeed, it was the
condition of the sale
Yesterday he had called in at his deal
ers' to receive the good news of his sale
of his Venus and AdOnis" for $4,000. 1t
was his masterpiece Venitia told him
so, and she was a fine critic
1t was, indeed, a great picture. Ex-
hibited at the Academy of the year, it
had attracted all those who knew beau
ty when they saw ii, and the eager lit
tie group that always fronted 1t told
its own story
'Oh. Leonard am so glad. I must
go down tomorrow to Swanston's to
have a look at tit is so sad 10 think
we shall never see it again"
We'll, answered Casillis, Il like to
feel that it is in the possession of some
one who admires it. 1t will live, 1
think"
At this moment the maid brought in
a note and handed 1t to Venetia- There
was silence in the room, except for the
sonber ticking Of a large grandfather
clock The sun had set, and all the
golden river had turned to dull sap
phire, rejecting, here and there, in
moving spirals, the lights of gas-lamps
and electric arcs on the far side, the
sporadic glare of a flare-light on a