Away into the distance stretched the other rooms, bound one to the other like links in a chain.
From the third of these came the penetrating voices of the American ladies, descanting unhesitatingly upon the pictures; while in the second the two artists could be seen flitting from one canvas to another with a restless, nervous activity.
These facts came subconsciously to the Irishman, for his eyes and his thoughts were for the boy and the subject of the boy's interest--a picture curiously repulsive, yet curiously binding in its realism of conception.

It was a large canvas that formed one of a group of five or six studies by a particular artist.

The details of the picture scarcely held the mind, for the imagination of the beholder was instantly caught and enchained by the central figure--the figure of a great ape, painted with cruel and extraordinary truth.

The animal was squatting upon the ground, devouring a luscious fruit; its small and greedy eyes were alight with gluttony; in its unbridled appetite, its hairy fingers crushed the fruit against its sharp teeth, while the juice dripped from its mouth.
The intimate, undisguised portrayal of greed shocked the susceptibilities, but it was the hideous human attributes patent in the brute that disgusted the imagination.

With a terrible cunning of mind and brush the artist had laid bare a vice that civilization cloaks.
For two or three minutes the boy stood immovable, then he looked back over his shoulder, and the man behind him was surprised at the expression that had overspread his face, the sombre light that glowed in his eyes.