"Not that I remember."
"Well, come into the dining-room."
We went into the dining-room, and she switched on the lights.
"There," she said.
On the wall close to the door--that may have been why I hadn't noticed
it before; I had sat with my back to it--was a large oil-painting. It
was what you'd call a classical picture, I suppose. What I mean is--well,
you know what I mean. All I can say is that it's funny I _hadn't_
noticed it.
"Is that the 'Venus'?" I said.
She nodded.
"How would you like to have to look at that every time you sat down to
a meal?"
"Well, I don't know. I don't think it would affect me much. I'd worry
through all right."
She jerked her head impatiently.
"But you're not an artist," she said. "Clarence is."
And then I began to see daylight. What exactly was the trouble I didn't
understand, but it was evidently something to do with the good old
Artistic Temperament, and I could believe anything about that. It
explains everything. It's like the Unwritten Law, don't you know,
which you plead in America if you've done anything they want to send
you to chokey for and you don't want to go. What I mean is, if you're
absolutely off your rocker, but don't find it convenient to be scooped
into the luny-bin, you simply explain that, when you said you were a
teapot, it was just your Artistic Temperament, and they apologize and
go away.
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