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Lyon heard her answer. ‘It’s cruel–oh, it’s too cruel!’

‘Damn him–damn him–damn him!’ the Colonel repeated.

‘It’s all there–it’s all there!’ Mrs. Capadose went on.

‘Hang it, what’s all there?’

‘Everything there oughtn’t to be–everything he has seen–it’s too dreadful!’

‘Everything he has seen? Why, ain’t I a good-looking fellow? He has made me rather handsome.’

Mrs. Capadose had sprung up again; she had darted another glance at the painted betrayal. ‘Handsome? Hideous, hideous! Not that–never, never!’

‘Not what, in heaven’s name?’ the Colonel almost shouted. Lyon could see his flushed, bewildered face.

‘What he has made of you–what you know! He knows–he has seen. Every one will know–every one will see. Fancy that thing in the Academy!’

‘You’re going wild, darling; but if you hate it so it needn’t go.’

‘Oh, he’ll send it–it’s so good! Come away–come away!’ Mrs. Capadose wailed, seizing her husband.

‘It’s so good?’ the poor man cried.

‘Come away–come away,’ she only repeated; and she turned toward the staircase that ascended to the gallery.

‘Not that way–not through the house, in the state you’re in,’ Lyon heard the Colonel object. ‘This way–we can pass,’ he added; and he drew his wife to the small door that opened into the garden. It was bolted, but he pushed the bolt and opened the door. She passed out quickly, but he stood there looking back into the room. ‘Wait for me a moment!’ he cried out to her; and with an excited stride he re-entered the studio. He came up to the picture again, and again he stood looking at it. ‘Damn him–damn him–damn him!’ he broke out once more. It was not clear to Lyon whether this malediction had for its object the original or the painter of the portrait. The Colonel turned away and moved rapidly about the room, as if he were looking for something; Lyon was unable for the instant to guess his intention. Then the artist said to himself, below his breath, ‘He’s going to do it a harm!’ His first impulse was to rush down and stop him; but he paused, with the sound of Everina Brant’s sobs still in his ears. The Colonel found what he was looking for–found it among some odds and ends on a small table and rushed back with it to the easel. At one and the same moment Lyon perceived that the object he had seized was a small Eastern dagger and that he had plunged it into the canvas. He seemed animated by a sudden fury, for with extreme vigour of hand he dragged the instrument down (Lyon knew it to have no very fine edge) making a long, abominable gash. Then he plucked it out and dashed it again several times into the face of the likeness, exactly as if he were stabbing a human victim: it had the oddest effect–that of a sort of figurative suicide. In a few seconds more the Colonel had tossed the dagger away–he looked at it as he did so, as if he expected it to reek with blood–and hurried out of the place, closing the door after him.

The strangest part of all was–as will doubtless appear–that Oliver Lyon made no movement to save his picture. But he did not feel as if he were losing it or cared not if he were, so much more did he feel that he was gaining a certitude. His old friend was ashamed of her husband, and he had made her so, and he had scored a great success, even though the picture had been reduced to rags. The revelation excited him so–as indeed the whole scene did–that when he came down the steps after the Colonel had gone he trembled with his happy agitation; he was dizzy and had to sit down a moment. The portrait had a dozen jagged wounds–the Colonel literally had hacked it to death. Lyon left it where it was, never touched it, scarcely looked at it; he only walked up and down his studio, still excited, for an hour. At the end of this time his good woman came to recommend that he should have some luncheon; there was a passage under the staircase from the offices.