Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/342

 really America—so perhaps I see our country differently than do you," Clem retorted.

"That's probable," Vermillion agreed affably, oblivious to the paralyzed listeners, "for as far as I know I belong to the remainder of the human race of mongrels. I assume you have discovered some new way of laying on paint, as your insistence on American painting as absolutely and uniquely American only can have validity if you can prove that you have discovered a new method of drawing or painting. I take it you are not talking about subject-matter. I believe it of greater value to see what is true to yourself and then to know how to make what you do true to those who look at it. It's like being a matador. You place the banderillas with courage and art, but without bravura. In the bull ring you always can spot faking—it's that extra flourish. Weight your image—with geography, politics, credos, flourishes—and it topples. A painter has to walk the tightrope of his canvas a million times more carefully than any tightrope performer. It's like making love, you have to be lover and beloved simultaneously."

"Ole, Matador!" applauded the Marqués, laughing. "I award to you the ears."

Vermillion grinned and drained his glass. "He means I've killed the bull by handing out too much. Actually what it adds up to is that, as a painter, I'm caught on the horns of my own dilemma—and Leonardo's sentence taunts—'Beware, O painter, when theory outstrips performance.'"

"You're fresh," Lucy said, looking at him, he thought, with that indulgent composure with which models surveyed their painters from the world's canvases.

"I'll be back in a minute," he told her, and went to replenish his glass.

Vida was at the table, bottle in hand. The girl was of a remarkably coordinated line on which to improvise. Her features and head were as planed as an Attica head, but no one could describe those vibrant lips as chiseled.

"Merry Christmas!" she said, pouring the drink. "I'm glad you told them off. What a macabre crowd. To paraphrase: