his sketch of Sydenham's,
picturing himself with the courage to utter them. He told himself
frankly what he thought of the old man's work--his "brush doddering," he
nerved himself to call it.

Immensely refreshed by this exercise in brutality, he rolled over on his
grassy bed to follow the shade of the oak under which he lay, and
dramatized a meeting with Teevan, in which the little man strangely
listened more than he spoke. He uttered his mind again concerning the
work of Sydenham, the master Teevan had prescribed, asserting that
unsuspecting toiler to be hopelessly "locoed" in the matter of color. He
saw Teevan's fine brows go elegantly up at this term, and he explained
it to him with a humble sort of boldness.

From this he warmed to sheer audacity, disclosing further to his
imagined hearer that the time had come for him to go his own way--still
grateful for advice, still yearning for that friendly intimacy, but
determined to be done with dreams. He saw Teevan applauding this mild
declaration of revolt, with his fine, dark little smile, and a courteous
inclination of the head, and he thereupon amplified it. He must go back
to himself and stay there stubbornly, wheresoever that self led him.
Millet might have a restricted sense of color, Corot might have had his
faults, and Rousseau have been less than Teevan could have wished him;
but these were dead men. And Ewing was alive, determined to do those
things that permitted him to feel the little power he might have. He was
through with efforts that brought him nothing but a sense of the folly
of all effort. And it was to this conviction, he made it plain, that his
amazed but still respectful listener had led him. He worked himself into
a glow of defiant self-assertion, feeling his own respect, and Teevan's
as well, mounting with his heat.

When the light faded he strolled over to look at Sydenham's sketch, bent
on testing his self-inspired temerity.

"I wonder if you've gotten that sky?" he began judicially, as the old
man invited his comment. Sydenham looked up in some surprise, but
Ewing's eyes were still on the sketch.

"Too gray above, isn't it? I thought the gray was only down near the
horizon. By the way, I wish I'd roughed in that cow for you. A cow isn't
the easiest thing in the world to draw. They look easy, but they're not.
That bit of stone wall isn't bad, and your clover effect is first rate."
He paused. He had meant only to practice speaking his own mi