He had divided the honors of more than one exhibition with Hazleton and admired and resented him impartially.
"It has been said," said Garry, ruffled by his air of triumph, "that you paint down subtly to the popular fancy where you might paint up to your own ideals."
"Your work," added Garry, "lacks the force and depth of sincerity. Even in Brian's dreadful East River sunset over there, there's a quality you lack, an eagerness for reality and truth and life as it is. Brian has painted poorly what he saw but he painted boats for ragged sailors. Real boats. You've painted brilliantly, in the pine picture for instance, what you wanted to see, a dark forest for mystic folk to dance in when the moonlight lies upon the snow."
"And what," inquired Kenny with a shade of sarcasm, "was the final verdict of the grill jury when all the evidence was in?"
"Remember old Dirk, Kenny? He said that the fullness of life came through--sacrifice. That all things, good and permanent and true, come only out of suffering; that men pay for their dreams with pain." He let the full import of that drive home. "The verdict was, that if you'd forget your public and look for truth, paint with restraint and less brilliant illusory abandon, you'd be a big painter."
"And that," said Kenny with icy politeness, "unalterably defines my status as a painter. In this club at least."
Kenny looked tired but he held out his hand. "Dear lad," he said, "'twas fine brave friendship to tell me--when I asked you."
Failure! He, Kennicott O'Neill who had been decorated by the French government! The men in the grill then talked openly of his flaws and the verdict, officious or otherwise, was failure. Flaws! He was not a big painter. He was merely a self-centered, impecunious, improvident Irishman, indifferently skillful, whose vanity and self-indulgence had driven his son off into a vague green world, God alone knew where. He _was_ a big painter! Posterity would fling that back in the teeth of men!
"Oh," said Kenny vaguely. "Yes, of course."
He was grateful when the door closed, though he stood for full a minute afterward tapping on the table with his fingers. Then indignantly he looked up the word failure in Brian's dictionary and underscored it heavily.