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tion between the two.
Lawson was painting with infinite labour, working till
he could hardly stand for days and then scraping out all he
had done. He would have exhausted the patience of anyone
but Ruth Chalice. At last he got into a hopeless muddle.
‘The only thing is to take a new canvas and start fresh,’
he said. ‘I know exactly what I want now, and it won’t take
me long.’
Philip was present at the time, and Miss Chalice said to
him:
‘Why don’t you paint me too? You’ll be able to learn a lot
by watching Mr. Lawson.’
It was one of Miss Chalice’s delicacies that she always ad-
dressed her lovers by their surnames.
‘I should like it awfully if Lawson wouldn’t mind.’
‘I don’t care a damn,’ said Lawson.
It was the first time that Philip set about a portrait, and
he began with trepidation but also with pride. He sat by
Lawson and painted as he saw him paint. He profited by the
example and by the advice which both Lawson and Miss
Chalice freely gave him. At last Lawson finished and invited
Clutton in to criticise. Clutton had only just come back to
Paris. From Provence he had drifted down to Spain, eager
to see Velasquez at Madrid, and thence he had gone to Tole-
do. He stayed there three months, and he was returned with
a name new to the young men: he had wonderful things to
say of a painter called El Greco, who it appeared could only
be studied in Toledo.
‘Oh yes, I know about him,’ said Lawson, ‘he’s the old