The shadowy parts of the room behind the different easels were veiled in a brown vapour, precluding all estimate of the extent of the studio, and only subdued in the foreground by the ruddy glare from an open stove of Dutch tiles.
Somerset's footsteps had been so noiseless over the carpeting of the stairs and landing, that his father was unaware of his presence; he continued at his work as before, which he performed by the help of a complicated apparatus of lamps, candles, and reflectors, so arranged as to eke out the miserable daylight, to a power apparently sufficient for the neutral touches on which he was at that moment engaged.
The first thought of an unsophisticated stranger on entering that room could only be the amazed inquiry why a professor of the art of colour, which beyond all other arts requires pure daylight for its exercise, should fix himself on the single square league in habitable Europe to which light is denied at noonday for weeks in succession.
'O! it's you, George, is it ?' said the Academician, turning from the lamps, which shone over his bald crown at such a slant as to reveal every cranial irregularity.

'How are you this morning?
Still a dead silence about your grand castle competition ?' Somerset told the news.

His father duly congratulated him, and added genially, 'It is well to be you, George.

One large commission to attend to, and nothing to distract you from it.

I am bothered by having a dozen irons in the fire at once.