About this time the old earl dropped in for a chat with the artist, and
invited him to stay to dinner. Tracy cramped down his joy and gratitude
by a sudden and powerful exercise of all his forces; and he felt that now
that he was going to be close to Gwendolen, and hear her voice and watch
her face during several precious hours, earth had nothing valuable to add
to his life for the present.
The earl said to himself, "This spectre can eat apples, apparently.
We shall find out, now, if that is a specialty. I think, myself, it's a
specialty. Apples, without doubt, constitute the spectral limit. It was
the case with our first parents. No, I am wrong--at least only partly
right. The line was drawn at apples, just as in the present case, but it
was from the other direction." The new clothes gave him a thrill of
pleasure and pride. He said to himself, "I've got part of him down to
date, anyway."
Sellers said he was pleased with Tracy's work; and he went on and engaged
him to restore his old masters, and said he should also want him to paint
his portrait and his wife's and possibly his daughter's. The tide of the
artist's happiness was at flood, now. The chat flowed pleasantly along
while Tracy painted and Sellers carefully unpacked a picture which he had
brought with him.
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