Douglas gave nod in agreement and went to sit down.  Indicating the small statue, he commented on it.  "Who made that one?  It is nicely done."

When the maid came in after Tristan mentioned the maid with what she was to bring in, he looked up at her with a smile.  "Sugar, please."  He responded.

Tristan frowned when Pippa entered with a not very balanced tray. He didn't normally mind that she was still training, but he wouldn't like his maid to make a scene in front of a guest. "Just cream please."

He was delighted that Douglas commented on the little statue, but kind of annoyed that Pippa was there. "Ah, Ganymede," he stood up and walked over. Then he picked it up and returned, handing it to Douglas for an artist's inspection. He doubted the young man's nakedness would bother him, since he was an artist and had probably seen many naked figures in art, if not painted them himself. He wasn't so sure about Pippa.

"It's a mere miniature someone gave to me. I don't know the maker. The original is in Paris, a work by ___" he mentioned the Renaissance sculptor. He leaned against the back of his chair. "I've always been fascinated by the ancient Greeks."

She was quick about it, soon offering each a cup but not wanting to be in the room longer than she needed. She frowned, wondering if she had done wrong, and decided to take herself elsewhere to do something to keep her mind off the fact that someone who she had no business being attracted to was in the house. She'd make herself scarce. She left the room quickly enough, closing the door behind her. Only, she had cleaned the house from top to bottom, even the bedrooms, not that it mattered a wit to the good doctor... no, actually it had mattered a lot to him that she cleaned the house. She sat in the kitchen and closed her eyes for the time being, keeping an ear out.

Glad to get a closer look at the miniature, he nodded.  "It is a well-done copy.  The original is amazing."  He had traveled a lot to see various paintings and statues during his younger years as he studied techniques as created his own style of work. 

"Looks like the person that did this knew what he or she was doing."  He nodded as he looked at it.  Then taking his cup of tea he took a sip.

He looked at Douglas surprised when he mentioned the original, but then remembered that he was both wealthy and famous, so of course he had traveled. Glad that Pippa had left the room, he took the little statue and put in back on the shelf. Then he returned to his seat. "You've travelled a lot, then?" he asked with great interest, taking his cup. He hoped that Pippa remembered to prepare the dining room, so that they could eat as soon as the food arrived and it wouldn't get cold.

Douglas nodded after he had taken another sip of the tea.  "Yes, when I was younger the artists that I studied with took me with him various places around.  Though I am was not sure often if he wanted me with him to study and learn or just carry his supplies."  He chuckled.  He had learned a lot from both the two men that he had studied with, and had become friends with them over the years he was with them.

"Then I traveled with the military doing images for the publications and for the reports they made."  He didn't go into that.  If anyone had seen a newspaper during his time doing the drawings with the military, there was often at least one of his drawings in it.  It had become a dark time for him and he didn't talk about it with just anyone.

He didn't know whether to read in that statement about the teacher more than was said. And then Douglas mentioned traveling with the military. Soldiers! Tristan's mind started adding up pieces of information, jumping to conclusions probably too willingly and unwisely.

And then another thought crossed his mind. "Ah!" He set his cup down before having sipped from it. "Douglas Gordon! Your name was indeed familiar, and I know little about contemporary art. You've done sketches for the newspapers, have you not?" Unpleasant sketches they had been, not for the hand, but for what they portrayed.

Douglas nodded.  "Yes, a great amount back several years back."  He responded quietly.  "Traveling is great when it is not in the middle of a military action."  

At first, it had been just the soldiers getting ready to go to the front and common things in the way there.  Then it had gotten serious and the damage that was done by the war to the land and especially to the men, their side and the other side of the battle.  Only the images that had been rated safe for public viewing, but they had wanted a look at it all for the record.  He had been one of the best and chosen to go in the worst parts of the fighting.  It had made him have to leave as he became seriously ill, depressed at first and then physically requiring him being sent home.

Tristan tilted his head a little to look at the artist and nodded understandingly. "It must have been rough." Back in the asylum he had treated an ex-soldier who had fought in South Africa, and who hadn't been himself since. "It was important work though. Letting the public know the actual cost of war." He didn't want to seem unsupportive of the empire, but privately, Tristan often wondered what good would actually come of it, and especially what ill.

He had been young and it had thought it was an amazing chance to see the world and show off his skills.  To be chosen to do be asked to do the images had been an honor.  Well, it had been an honor, but it had a cost as well.  He had felt it deep inside with each image he had put on paper.  As it went on he had wanted to give something to those that he had witnessed killed or saw after they had died.  He wanted to honor the ones that had lived but been maimed physically, or become different themselves during the fighting.  It wasn't just creating art to him, it was showing the world about the lives he was witnessing.  And deaths.

It was also the reason that he now painted, drew, and sculpted ordinary life.  The parts of the world that are hard, but worth keeping safe and treasuring.  Those children so innocently playing in the sand on a beach or a woman putting up the laundry, an old man falling asleep on a porch with a dog sleeping at his feet or a worker sitting having a humble lunch.  Those were the images he wanted to share with the world now and so he did.  Those and the scenery that is called home to so many people but is so taken for granted.

After a moment of reflection, he nodded grim eyes coming back to the current moment.  "It started exciting, but then.... it wasn't."  He said quietly thinking of the few years when he would not pick up even a charcoal pencil or paintbrush.