“Me! It murders all the bowels of compassion in a man.”

A wave of pure hate came out of the artist. He heard the note of dislike in the other man’s voice, and the note of contempt. And he himself loathed the mention of bowels of compassion. Sickly sentiment!

Mellors stood rather tall and thin, worn-looking, gazing with flickering detachment that was something like the dancing of a moth on the wing, at the pictures.

“Perhaps stupidity is murdered; sentimental stupidity,” sneered the artist.

“Do you think so? I think all these tubes and corrugated vibrations are stupid enough for anything, and pretty sentimental. They show a lot of self-pity and an awful lot of nervous self-opinion, seems to me.”

In another wave of hate, the artist’s face looked yellow. But with a sort of silent hauteur he turned the pictures to the wall.

“I think we may go to the dining-room,” he said.