"Mystery! then there is a mystery?"

"Yes," answered Porbus. "Frenhofer was the only pupil Mabuse was willing
to teach. He became the friend, saviour, father of that unhappy man, and
he sacrificed the greater part of his wealth to satisfy the mad passions
of his master. In return, Mabuse bequeathed to him the secret of relief,
the power of giving life to form,--that flower of nature, our perpetual
despair, which Mabuse had seized so well that once, having sold and
drunk the value of a flowered damask which he should have worn at
the entrance of Charles V., he made his appearance in a paper garment
painted to resemble damask. The splendor of the stuff attracted the
attention of the emperor, who, wishing to compliment the old drunkard,
laid a hand upon his shoulder and discovered the deception. Frenhofer is
a man carried away by the passion of his art; he sees above and beyond
what other painters see. He has meditated deeply on color and the
absolute truth of lines; but by dint of much research, much thought,
much study, he has come to doubt the object for which he is searching.
In his hours of despair he fancies that drawing does not exist, and that
lines can render nothing but geometric figures. That, of course, is not
true; because with a black line which has no color we can represent
the human form. This proves that our art is made up, like nature, of an
infinite number of elements. Drawing gives the skeleton, and color gives
the life; but life without the skeleton is a far more incomplete
thing than the skeleton without the life. But there is a higher truth
still,--namely, that practice and observation are the essentials of
a painter; and that if reason and poesy persist in wrangling with the
tools, the brushes, we shall be brought to doubt, like Frenhofer, who
is as much excited in brain as he is exalted in art. A sublime painter,
indeed; but he had the misfortune to be born rich, and that enables him
to stray into theory and conjecture. Do not imitate him. Work! work!
painters should theorize with their brushes in their hands."

"We will contrive to get in," cried Poussin, not listening to Porbus,
and thinking only of the hidden masterpiece.

Porbus smiled at the youth's enthusiasm, and bade him farewell with a
kindly invitation to come and visit him.

* * * * *

Nicolas Poussin returned slowly towards the Rue de la Harpe and passed,
without observing that he did so, the modest hos