An Engagement
of Convenience

A Novel

By

Louis Zangwill

Author of "The World and a Man,"
"One's Womenkind," &c., &c.

London

Brown, Langham & Co., Ltd.

78 New Bond Street, W.
1908

"In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be!"

George Meredith.

An
Engagement of Convenience

I

Miss Robinson had first seen Wyndham and fallen in love with him on the day that he appeared in the road as a neighbour and set up his studio there. But that was years before, and she had never made his acquaintance. He was the Prince Charming of the romances, handsome, of knightly bearing, with a winning smile on his frank face. From her magic window in the big corner house where the road branched off into two, she had narrowly observed his goings and comings, had watched eagerly all that was visible of his romantic, mysterious profession—the picturesque Italian models that pulled his bell, the great canvasses and frames that, during the earlier years at least, were borne in through his door, to reappear in due course as finished pictures on their way to the exhibitions—and it was sometimes possible to catch glimpses of stately figure-paintings and fascinating scenes and landscapes.

Then, too, there was the suggestion of his belonging to a brilliant social world: she had indeed felt that at her first sight of him. Smart broughams and victorias in which nestled stylish people not unfrequently drew up at his studio about tea-time, and in the season he could be seen going off every night in garb of ceremony; not to speak of his occasional departures—to important country-houses, no doubt—with portmanteaus and dressing-bags stacked on the roof of his hansom.

And not less eagerly had Miss Robinson followed his work, scanning the magazines for his drawings, and haunting the galleries in the search for his paintings. No one guessed how much he was the interest of her life: her parents had no suspicion at all, though they knew of their unusual neighbour, and spoke of him occasionally at table. But Alice Robinson was the humblest of womankind. Her youth lay already in the past: she accounted herself the plainest of the plain. So she idealised and worshipped her hero at a distance, feeling immeasurably farther from him than the hundred yards of respectable Hampstead pavement that separated their lives.

One morning at breakfast her father read out from his paper the news of a sensational bankruptcy. A world-famous house of solicitors had fallen, and some of the first families in England were losers. Immense trust funds had gone for building speculations, and amongst the fashionable creditors who had been hit the worst were Mr. Walter Lloyd Wyndham, the artist, of Hampstead, and Miss Mary Wyndham, his sister. It seemed a curious little fact to Mr. Robinson that this affair should vibrate so near to them, and a mild and not unpleasant stimulation was thereby imparted to the breakfast-table. But Miss Robinson was hard put to it to dissimulate her deeper interest in the announcement. Her agitation was profound, shattering: she was glad to escape, and sit alone with her secret. It seemed a sacrilege that earthly vicissitude should touch this brilliant existence. And thereafter she watched her hero more narrowly than ever, reading in his bearing a stern defiance of adversity.

At first indeed there was little difference visible in Wyndham's outward seemings, and Miss Robinson was thankful that the calamity had ruffled him so imperceptibly. Yet, as the year went by, it began to dawn upon her that things nevertheless were changing. She had learnt to read with consummate skill all the little activities that beat around the studio, and it did not escape her attention that he was going into society rarely, that smart visitors were fewer, and that pictures were being returned to him after astonishingly brief intervals. And gradually, as if in corroboration of her own conclusions, she found his work missing from the exhibitions, and knew with a sinking of her heart that his brilliant days were waning.

And as time further passed, and one year merged into another, she realised definitely that his vogue had ended. She could not even find anything of his in the magazines, though she purchased them prodigally, and searched them through with a hope that was desperation, and a fear that was well-nigh frenzy.

The last year or two a dead unnatural calm had settled over the studio. Pictures were neither despatched nor returned: if models rang the bell, it was only to turn away the next minute with disappointed faces. Of fashionable visitors there was never a sign now: not even a comrade or fellow-artist came to look him up. But only a tall, sad-faced girl, who somehow resembled him, called there at long intervals, and Miss Robinson envied this sister the sympathy she could bring him.

He did not leave London now. All through the summer he kept in town, lying low, as Miss Robinson could well see from the pallor of his face on her return from her own conventional holiday at the seaside. She could cherish no delusions—he was a beaten man!

Time and again she brushed close to him, passing him by chance in the street, and observed the languor of his step, the growing sadness of his features. Other details did not escape her. There was no one to attend on him; no one to care for him. Even a charwoman was a rarity at last, and Wyndham could be seen shopping almost furtively in the adjoining streets, and bearing back his own provisions to the studio. Miss Robinson divined, under their wrappings, the tin of sardines, the potted tongue, the loaf of bread. She knew that he never took a meal out now, and that, if he left the studio in the daytime, it was only to escape from the misery of solitude and hopelessness.

She alone observed him so minutely. Her mother had in some degree shared her interest in his work, and had sometimes accompanied her to the galleries; but the common interest of the family in their neighbour was casual and fitful. Miss Robinson hardly dared mention his name now: it seemed to her that to draw attention to his poverty was to humiliate him. Besides, she feared to reveal her own emotion.

One day Miss Robinson's own life caught her with a breathless upheaval. An honoured and intimate friend of her father's, successful, opulent, came forward with an avowal of esteem for her; deferentially desired her association with him in his second essay in matrimony! Mr. Shanner seemed to spring it on her with untempered abruptness; though the attentive courtesies that had preceded the crisis might have glimmered some little warning. But Mr. Shanner's footing in the house was as old-established as the rest of his appertainings; and Miss Robinson's spirit was ever at the nadir of diffidence. Men as a rule shunned her: women cared as little to talk to her. That anybody might ever wish to marry her had seemed impossible, inconceivable. Mr. Shanner had many pretensions to style, yet, to her spoiled eye, he seemed merely of clay indifferent.

She strung herself to the ordeal of refusing him, though her real strength knew no faltering. For he proved insistent; wooed her—soberly—decorously—as became the dignity of five decades completed; wooed her with reasons of urgency, and implications of sentiment. He was to depart on a mission to the New World; wished to bear her promise with him. He would treasure it; would think of the new light to shine in his household. But within her lay an unfailing inspiration, and her innermost soul stood like a tower impregnable; though she was all wounds and distress, and quivered with the hurt. Was not her heart with her Prince Charming? her one dream in life the privilege of helping him?

Mr. Shanner had to sail away disconsolate!

But, though Miss Robinson's mind was occupied day and night with this problem of Wyndham's salvation, she could arrive at no plausible solution. For how should she ever dare to give him a sign? She who would have yielded her life for him could only watch him drifting downwards with an agonised sense of her helplessness.

And he all the while unsuspecting of this obscure, loving historian of his existence; of the warm heart that beat for him in these evil days on which he had fallen!

II

For hours the rain had beaten against his windows, and at last, now that a lull had declared itself, Wyndham dragged himself to the door, and looked out into the gray afternoon. His eye took in the familiar vista, but, as it rested on the great bow-windowed house at the corner where the road branched into two, he turned away with a shudder. For years the sight of that house had irritated him: its ugly brick bulk had been symbolic of all Suburbia, of everything in life to which he was instinctively hostile as an artist and a gentleman.

But presently he laughed: it had struck him as comic that he should have preserved in its freshness his full youthful contempt for all this Philistine universe!—he, a half-starved devil of an artist, down in the mouth, with a solitary half-crown in his pocket, speculating with bitter humiliation whether his hard-worked sister had yet a little to spare for him, after all the life-blood which, leech-like, he had sucked out of her! Nay, more, he was conscious that his distaste for this surrounding wilderness of affluent homes, in the midst of which he had so long dwelt as an isolated superior intelligence, had grown more marked in direct proportion as he had become poorer and poorer.

The prosperous figure of the owner of the bow-windowed house rose before him. Immersed in his own existence, Wyndham had deigned to notice very few indeed of his neighbours. But old Mr. Robinson was one of the few, not only because of the regularity with which he passed the studio every day at six o'clock as he came home from business, but also because he invariably bore something in a plaited rush-bag that had a skewer thrust through it, suggesting visits to Leadenhall Market, and purchases of game or salmon for the good wife according to season. But Mr. Robinson's mild aspect, benevolent white beard, and gentle amble had never impressed Wyndham with much of a sense of human fellowship. He might concede that the old man was "a decent sort, no doubt, in his own way"; but they were creatures belonging to different planets.

Still amused at his own disdain, though the corners of his mouth were set a trifle grimly, Wyndham turned back into the studio with the idea of making himself presentable and going to see his sister—since it now seemed possible to get across town without the prospect of an absolute drenching. Happily his wardrobe had substantial resources: in the old days he had kept it well replenished, and his simple life of late here in the studio had made small demands on it. Thus he could still go out faultlessly clad and shod. Nobody need suspect his poverty, he flattered himself, if he ever chose to dip into his own world again. Only he did not choose; there was always so much questioning to face. "We've seen nothing of yours in the last two or three Academies—when are you going to give us another masterpiece?" "Still on the big picture? How is it getting along?" However genially thrown out, such usual interrogation annoyed him beyond measure. It was so long since anything had been "getting along." On all sides he was regarded as a doomed man, and suspected it: suspecting it, he was morbidly sensitive. His life was unnatural and not worth the living. Months and months had been wasted in apathy. Each day he dreamt of a new lease of energy and courage to begin on the morrow; but, after making his bed and clearing away his breakfast and purchasing his food for the day, he would find himself dejected and incapable of a single stroke.

And yet he could not wholly realise the change that had come over the scene. He rubbed his eyes sometimes, as if expecting to awake from an unhappy dream. Was not the flourish of early trumpets still in his ears? The dazzle of admiration still on his retina? The gush of extensive and important family connections still tickling his self-esteem? The sweeter approval of a superior art-clique still flattering his deeper vanity?

He had been born with a silver spoon; his childhood and youth had been ideally happy. From the playing-fields of Eton he had passed to the quadrangles of Oxford. A distinguished student of his college?—not in the ordinary grooves; yet favourably known as an intellect with enthusiasms. Phidias was more of an inspiration to him than Aristotle; Titian more actual than Todhunter. Ruskin, Pater, Turner, had stirred him; left his mind subdued to their colours. From boyhood had been his the swift skill with pencil that ran as easily to grace as to mockery. And, left early arbiter of his own existence, with gold enough for freedom, he had made for the one career that called to him.

Genius cannot prove itself at a stroke: it has its adventurings to make. Seldom it realises at the outset that it is adventuring in the dark, therein to grope as best it may to self-discovery. Even this first stage may be long deferred; yet, however sure of himself at last, the artist has still to tread the unending road with the great light of self-realisation ever in the distance. There are the years of strenuous search, of faithful labour; of bitterest failure on failure to bring the deep, mysterious impulses to bloom and fruition. But there is yet another, if independent, adventuring. The great light that crowns the artist's journey shines only in his own spirit. The world sees and knows nothing of it. He has none the less to find his way into that other light—the lurid, mocking limelight of the world's acceptance; to seek a place beside or beneath the charlatan. This is the bitterest stage of all—- to stand shivering in marketplaces that are knee-deep with dung and offal; to be upholding precious things to the vision of swine. What wonder if in the course of so harsh a journeying, as he lives and breathes in his own universe of striving, his precise moral relation to things external grows dim, intangible; and, if money one day give out, he clutches at any crust for sustenance.

Wyndham began his journeyings. His advantages were many and obvious; his disadvantages subtle and unseen. There was the danger that facile talent and social prestige might bring him an early delusive success; a failure, rightly seen, however tricked out with glamour.

His beginnings, indeed, were pleasant: it was great fun throwing himself into this new queer Bohemian world of art. He worked hard as a student, the sheer interest of his labours lightening them astonishingly. And, after some preliminary swayings in varying directions, he at last "found himself," as he supposed; developing a dexterous imitative craft, and joining an advanced crowd with Whistler and Sargent for his deities.

Wherever he pursued his studies—in London, or Paris, or Italy—there he was remarkably popular. Everybody said: "Wyndham belongs to very good people. They're swells—tip-top!" And indeed he had obviously the stamp of being "the real thing," and even the elect of Bohemia were flattered and fascinated by personal association with him.

When ultimately he set up his studio here in Hampstead, he had his policy definitely before him. With the means and the leisure to aim at a high career, he would make no concessions to popularity or the market. He had chosen the locality deliberately. It was London, and within reach of the world; but not so near the world as to endanger his labours. The little tide of fashion that rolled up to his door was not a tribute to fame, but merely the fuss and interest of his non-Bohemian circle pleased for a time with the novelty of having a studio and a genius connected with them.

So in the early years he worked enthusiastically, and was able to win some footing in the galleries. But, in the eyes of his numerous family connections, he was seriously launched; especially when a couple of his pictures at last attracted buyers, and he moreover found himself earning guineas from the patronage of friendly editors whose humbler commissions he carried out in the same spirit of the dignified, ambitious worker.

Then the financial crash came, leaving brother and sister entirely dependent on their labours. Both met the crisis with commendable philosophy. Mary, who had long before taken up educational work as an amateur, was soon able to establish herself as a professional, and had taught ever since at a high school in Kensington; picturesquely settling herself in a tiny flat in an artisan's building, and living as a homely worker. The dignity and serene simplicity of her life had of late furnished the one ideal thing for Wyndham's contemplation.

Wyndham himself had stood up straight and felt very strong; had reassured his fussy, frightened folk that he could rely on his profession. He felt in himself an endless ardour for achievement, a confidence of triumph in the contest with men. Nay, more, he would gain his bread without descending from his high standpoint! The task was fully as difficult as he had anticipated; but at any rate he contrived to live for a couple of years. Then, somewhat to his surprise, the Academy began to return his pictures; and somehow, to his greater surprise, everything else went against him at the same time. He could not even get "illustrating" to do. Those who had acclaimed him before because he was a "swell" were now turning against him apparently for the same reason. Your aristocrats were never to be taken seriously; they were necessarily amateurs! It was all so unanimous, so settled and persistent, that it had almost the air of a conspiracy. Wyndham saw well enough that everybody had tired of his work, that he had had his hour and his vogue; his career lay like a squib that had blazed itself out. All bangs and fizzings, and then a blackened bit of casing, silent, extinguished! Yet he had the discernment to recognise that the dying-down had been really inevitable; that his present relative poverty had little or nothing to do with it. He had been dexterous on the surface, but the sameness of his note—without even the saving grace of convention—had destroyed him commercially.

Well, he believed in himself, and he refused to accept this erasure. On the contrary, he would launch out more daringly than ever. An end to facile imitation of other people's styles! He must express his own deeper self. The strict Whistlerian creed was much too narrow. Art was not merely a bare abstract aesthetics: humanity counted for something after all. Was woman's loveliness something really apart from woman herself? True that art meant beauty—in the largest sense, of course; but why should not humanity and beauty fuse together?

So, scraping together all he could command in the way of money, he set himself to work out a large dramatic idea, suggested by the sight of a May-day demonstration. The canvas was gigantic, and he strove to depict a mob of strikers straggling out of the Park after their great meeting, with elements of fashion caught in this mêlée of labour. The pictorial irony had greatly interested him, and he felt that this painting on the grand scale was being sincerely born out of his own emotion, that it would trumpet out a warning to the age.

The beginnings were full of promise, and he decided to stake everything on it. But for so realistic a representation of Hyde Park Corner he needed to make a great many sketches on the spot. So, through the friendly offices of an amiable acquaintance, he obtained access to a convenient window in Grosvenor Place, and made free use of the privilege. The master of the house, a nobleman of the old school, who at first sight seemed stately as the portraits in his own dining-room, proved on acquaintance to be singularly bluff and genial, sometimes almost slap-dash. He had made Wyndham welcome and at his ease, bidding him come and go as he pleased, and "never to mind a bit about turning the room into a studio." And this charming nobleman had likewise a charming daughter, who sometimes came for a minute or two to talk to Wyndham and interest herself in the sketches. Lady Betty was a brilliant figure of a girl; had travelled a good deal and knew the world. She was sunny and friendly, yet naturally on a pedestal. She was clear-headed and capable; in the home supreme mistress. Wyndham was the subject of many graceful little attentions. If he came in the morning she saw that his glass of sherry and biscuit was never neglected; in the afternoon she presided over tea in the drawing-room and expected him to appear there.

Of course poor Wyndham never dared tell himself that he was in love with her. A girl like that must naturally be reserved for a great match, as regards both position and fortune. He could not think of her save as presiding over a plurality of palaces or voyaging in a magnificent yacht. Palaces and yachts were not the rewards of painters, so Wyndham kept his mind sternly fixed on the purpose for which he was there. Even so, the intervals between his appearances grew wider and wider. And when, after some couple of years of toil, discipline, searching, it had come home to him that in this terrible picture he had undertaken a task beyond his strength and experience, he found himself too shamefaced to "abuse" further the courtesy that had been extended to him. The consciousness, too, of his growing poverty was becoming acuter and acuter. Already he was drawing back into his shell, and, once he had ceased going to Grosvenor Place for the sake of his work, he had not the heart to continue his visits as an ordinary acquaintance. More than a year afterwards he read of Lady Betty's engagement in the papers—it was the very match one would naturally look for. Yet the news "shattered him to bits"—absurdly enough, he told himself, since he had known her at best irregularly, and not in the ordinary course of social intimacy. He was really half-surprised at receiving an invitation to the wedding. He could not prevail on himself to go; but, remembering she had once admired one of his Academy pictures, he sent her a photograph of it on a miniature silver easel as a trifling wedding gift. She wrote back a gracious acknowledgment, which had since remained one of his treasures.

Meanwhile he had been struggling on with the picture, determined to conquer. But its difficulties and problems were endless. After all his toil it stood on his easel in a terribly unfinished condition, though he had stinted his own body to lavish his money on it. At last, gulping down the humiliation, he was forced to accept of Mary's little store of savings to pay his rent and his models. It was his first step of the kind, and he paid the full proverbial cost of it. But he had still the hope of returning the loan a thousandfold. Was not his success to redeem her life as well as his?

Certainly Mary believed in him and the picture, and looked forward to its scoring a great triumph. The whole heart and hope of the sister centred on that vast canvas. She sometimes ran across town to see it, though—poor child!—Hyde Park Corner always looked the same to her at every stage of its long creation. But the picture was Wyndham's backbone; it was his stock-in-trade before his world. He was more and more of a recluse now, refusing all invitations, discouraging his friends from coming to interrupt him—as he put it. Certainly Wyndham would rather have died than confess to failure after all the magnificent trumpeting. Even as it was, the time came soon enough when the big picture no longer served to protect his dignity. He imagined half-pitying glances and ironic smiles, and so eventually he found himself avoiding everybody without exception.

It was only on Lady Betty's wedding day, after more than three years of futile striving, that he had the resolution to remove the great canvas from the easel and stand it with its face to the wall.

He was tired now, but he must make an effort to emancipate himself from Mary's exchequer. Till then he could not hold his head up. So he painted some smaller and pleasanter pictures, but again he could do nothing with them. The Academy sent them back, the minor galleries sent them back, the Salon sent them back the following year. The dealers offered less than the cost of the frames. Meantime he had ceased to count up the five-pound notes Mary had starved herself to keep for him. He knew he was a coward and dared not. He had reached that stage of moral confusion which Nietzsche registers as in the natural history of the artist-type, and which may not be eyed too harshly from the point of vantage of ordered and organised existence in this outer universe. One idea stood clear beyond all others; grew into his mind; grew till it became his mind. He must cling to his studio, hold desperately to this atmosphere of paint and canvasses.

He was getting on in years now—past thirty-three. It was like the striking of a pitiless clock, this adding of swift year after year to his unsuccessful life. His hand began to fail him. The necessity of now doing his own house-work; of bothering with coals and cinders, preparing his makeshift monotonous meals, pouring oil into lamps, and boiling kettles, and washing plates and teacups, had begun by encroaching on his time and energies, and ended by absorbing them altogether. The care of ministering to his own primary needs had at last superseded art as his profession. Even so, the cobwebs multiplied and the dust lay thick.

Months now slipped by, he scarcely knew how; he was astonished to realise how time might elude one, how a colourless day might be trifled away without appearing to hold the possibility of even a morsel of achievement. Yet he still grasped the hope that something would "arrive"—an unexpected magazine commission, a request from a dealer. Ideas for a new start would teem in his head as he lay tossing on the narrow iron bed up in the gallery at the end of the studio. Why not do some pretty little things—to fetch ten guineas apiece, say—Cupids playing amid wreathed flowers with pale Doric structures in the background? If Mary could manage just another few pounds for him, he would have time to turn out a number of such decorative trifles. Such things were in constant demand and were a sure source of livelihood. He had stood out long enough, much longer indeed than he had had the right. He had consistently worked on a basis of high endeavour, but now he must withdraw his dignity and enter on the pot-boiler phase. Better that than this abominable leech-like existence. Continued misfortune had befogged his wits, and this last year certainly he had been half mad.

So be it! He must wake up now, and no longer lose his days in this stupid pottering about!

Every dog had his day, and his own turn would come in time. He was an artist. He felt it in his bones and blood. Art was his life and destiny. He had blundered in attempting too big a feat too early in his career, but he did not intend that that should wreck his existence. No, no! he would never throw up the sponge. He would rather die than admit defeat, with all those who knew him looking on at the game.

III

He dressed himself carefully to go to Mary's, trying hard not to think of the real purpose of his visit—he had merely informed her that he would be in the neighbourhood and would look in for a cup of tea. But, though it was distasteful to dwell on these unending demands on her earnings, he was anything but profligate in spending them. He had spun out her previous five-pound note so that it had kept him going for weeks and weeks, and he had grudged himself even a newspaper. In view of the newly-projected work to tickle the dealers, he regretted more than ever that he had not been able to pull himself together sooner: in these past precious weeks he might have knocked off half a dozen of such pretty-pretty things.

A series of omnibuses took him across London to Kensington Church, where he descended, presently turning out of the High Street. The "Buildings" where Mary resided were in a side alley at the back, and Wyndham made direct for them. He walked straight in through the large front door that stood perennially open, and followed the trail of muddy footmarks up the worn stone stairway. On the third landing he came to a stop, and pulled a bell half hidden in the obscurity of a corner. The door opened, and Mary stood before him. He could not help seeing how unnaturally slim she appeared to-day; how her simple stuff dress seemed to hang loosely on her.

"This is so good of you. I am so glad to see you, dear." Her earnest face brightened with a wistful yet pleasant smile.

He stooped and kissed her, then followed her into her tiny sitting-room. It was evidently the home of a gentlewoman. With the shelf or two of books, the escritoire, the few prints, and the little trinkets and photographs she valued, she had contrived to make a dainty little nest of it, and all these simple things gave the place a peculiar personal stamp. The table was laid for tea, and the kettle sang on the fire.

"You have had a dreary journey," she said, as she gave him a chair.

"No, the weather has been unexpectedly kind," he reassured her. "The sun peeped out just for one moment. I believe I was the only person in London that noticed it: the rest of the world were intent on other things. Have you been keeping well?"

"You forget I am just back from vacation."

"Of course—I had forgotten," he laughed. "How did you spend your time?"

"I passed the first three weeks with Aunt Eleanor, as I told you I should. We were a big, merry party, and everybody made a great fuss of your little sister." Again that wistful smile. "They all spoiled and petted me shamefully."

"Ah, that was good for you."

"I am not so sure about that," she returned thoughtfully. "I am certainly not used to the sort of thing, and I really found it restful and refreshing to go on to old Lady Glynn, who had me to herself."

"So that's your idea of a holiday—taking care of paralytic, deaf old people whom everybody else shuns like the plague." He shook his finger at her. "And you call it restful and refreshing."

"Service is the greatest of all happiness," she answered gently. "Even as it is, I'm sadly afraid I'm a sham and a fraud. I'm not really a worker—in the same sense as others I know. They have no fashionable friends with big houses in the country."

She brewed the tea and gave him his cup.

"Do people inquire much about me?" he asked, as the uncomfortable thought recurred to him.

"Certainly not of me," she returned. "You neglect them, you refuse their invitations, they never hear a word from you, and naturally they suppose you wish to be quit of them all. And so, no doubt, they feel it the proper thing not to appear to wish to discuss you with your sister." There was a pause. Both seemed lost in thought for the moment. "And so you, poor Walter, have had no holiday at all!"

"Ah, well," he sighed. "I try to content myself with the thought that I'm saving it up. One of these days I daresay I shall go off to Rome or Venice, and recuperate from several points of view. I daresay a bit of luck will be coming my way presently, and I'm keen on getting back to Italy again. I've often planned it out. A month or so at Paris, a couple of months in the South of France, three at Rome, and three at Venice—with a look-in at Naples some time, of course."

"What a lovely holiday that would be!" He did not surprise her quick flash of longing. Both remained pensive.

"But tell me about everybody," he said at last. "You see I take more interest in them all than they suppose."

"That's natural enough. After all, Hertfordshire's your home."

He winced visibly, half sorry that he had set her mind in that direction. She, however, proceeded to draw for him various pictures, and he presently found himself listening with a deeper eagerness than he had foreseen. She brought him close again to his own world, uplifted him in his own eyes: he had almost the sensation of being restored to a sphere which it had been more painful to abandon than he had ever admitted. The minutes passed, bringing him a warm, happy sense of social comradeship with his sister. The little fire burned brightly, and the feeling of the well-ordered nest was fragrant and exquisite. He felt his bitterness softening under its influence; a deep peace seemed to surround him, filling the little haven, radiating from Mary's wistful face, from her gentle smile and voice. How thankful he was this terrible London yet held her sympathy!

"It is a great thing for me to have you to come to, Mary," he broke in on her suddenly. "It helps me tremendously."

"Poor Walter!" she breathed. Her eyes filled with tears.

For a moment both were too moved to speak again. But abruptly, as with a courage and firmness long since resolved upon, she looked straight at him.

"Why don't you give it up, darling? This art is ruining your life."

He did not seem surprised at this sudden turn of the conversation, though such a suggestion had never before fallen from her lips. He took her words as a cry of despair rather than an attempt at a stern reckoning.

"Why don't I give it up?" he echoed. "That's an easy question to ask. The answer is difficult. But I can't give it up. It is impossible."

"It is not so impossible as it seems."

"What can I turn to? I am fitted for nothing."

"Go to the Colonies. Labour on the soil—or work with hammer and saw."

"I am willing to labour, willing to face anything in life. But, Mary—the confession of failure—you don't see how deep, how mad the pride is in me."

"You have nothing to confess. The whole world knows you are a failure. They talk about it openly. They spare me as much as possible, but I can't shut my ears."

It was a staggering blow. "They despise me!" he breathed.

Her lips hesitated, clenched together, the corners convulsed with pain.

"They despise you!"

He found his defence. "Because I have not succeeded commercially." His voice was full of scorn. "It matters little that these gross Philistines misjudge me. They will yet regret it. I shall yet show them that I am not so self-deceived as they imagine. I am an artist—art was born in my blood, art is my whole existence. I shall stick to it till I fall dead. I ask you, Mary, to believe in me a little longer."

"Heaven knows I have never wavered in my belief a moment. But it is not my belief that can save you. You have made a brave attempt, but you have been defeated. I am only facing the simple facts. The present position seems to me a hopeless one to start from. You have no means behind you now, so what is there before you save to go on in the same miserable way as you have lived the last year or two? I see no possibility of anything but repetition of the same unhappy experience—the world is not going to step out of its way for your sake. And remember it has already made up its mind about you."

"Then I have lost your sympathy!" he exclaimed. He stared gloomily into the fire.

She saw now that the morbid sensibility of the man who had failed would never face clear, cold reason, however gently administered.

"No, dear; you have not lost my sympathy. Please don't think that," she pleaded. "Don't you see I want to be a real friend to you; don't you see that you are more to me than your art?"

"I must fight it out," he insisted. "To-morrow I am starting a fresh lot of things—to sell! I have always stood out for the big accomplishment, but now I offer my labour in the market. Pretty designs, prettily coloured—Cupids and pearly clouds and wreaths of flowers. The dealers will take them. You will see, Mary, I shall manage to pull through yet."

She shook her head incredulously. "Better to give it up altogether before it is too late."

"You can't mean it," he exclaimed. "You have stood by me so long that I can't believe you are going to turn against me."

"I repeat that I care for you more than for your art, and I cannot see you sacrificed. No, I have not turned against you. I have been against you all this long, unhappy time. To-day I am your friend for the first time. Listen, darling. When I got your letter yesterday, I knew that things were as bad as ever, that you were at your wits' ends again for money."

He maintained a shamefaced silence, not daring to make any pretence to the contrary. She looked straight at him as she continued: "I am sure you will be the last to think I have ever considered the few pounds I have been able to put aside for you—my heart's best affection has always gone out to you with them. But the whole of last night I kept awake, and prayed for strength to refuse you any more money."

He held his head down; he was too abased to speak.

"Strength has been granted me at last. You are dear to me, and I will not help to continue this unhappy state of affairs. Sell off your studio, try your fortune in the Colonies, and you will yet pull your life out of the mire."

He rose, and took up his hat. "I daresay you are right, Mary. But I am an artist. Art is my life. Outside that there is nothing for me. Don't think I am ungrateful for all you have done. Goodbye!"

"Goodbye, darling. Perhaps you will yet think it over."

He shook his head wearily and turned away, not seeing that she had held her lips to him. The next moment he was descending the muddy staircase, slipping and stumbling on the bare stone. He was conscious that Mary was standing in the doorway a moment, but he did not see the convulsive working of her face, nor know that as soon as he was out of sight she had thrown herself on her bed, heart-broken, her body shaken in a terrible burst of sobbing.

IV

In the High Street Wyndham waited impatiently for an omnibus to take him home again. Instinctively he turned for refuge to the bleak studio, from whose loneliness he had so often been impelled to escape. But it was his own corner, and all he had. He would not light his lamp; he would lie there in the gloom till his pain and self-abasement should have worn themselves out. Merciful sleep might come; perhaps—and the idea seemed sweet to him—the sleep of all sleeps.

So he possessed his spirit as best he could, while the vehicle lumbered along through the endless streets; shivering a little in the autumn dusk as now and then a gust of wind arose. The sky clouded heavily, and, when finally he descended, the rain was falling swiftly again.

At last he was at home! He thought of the studio now with affection, and quickened his pace feverishly. Then he became aware that a familiar figure, holding a familiar rush-bag with a skewer thrust through it, was trudging just ahead of him in the growing darkness. But he was not surprised at catching sight of Mr. Robinson, since it was the regular hour of the merchant's appearance after his homeward journey from the City. As usual, Mr. Robinson's house filled the centre of vision, looming vast at the cross-roads, and softened in the evening mist; and for the first time the figure plodding towards it under the dripping umbrella struck Wyndham as interesting and strangely human.

Steadily, steadily, Wyndham gained on his neighbour; then, acting on some vague instinct, slackened his step so as not to have to pass him to get to his own door. But just outside the studio Mr. Robinson slipped, swayed, then came to the ground heavily. Wyndham at once hurried forward, and helped him to his feet.

"You are not hurt, I hope?" he inquired.

"I think not," returned the old man. He leaned against the studio door, whilst Wyndham took the rush-bag from his clenched fingers, and gathered up the umbrella from the gutter into which it had rolled. Mr. Robinson surveyed his soiled garments ruefully, and shook his head sadly.

"It is beastly," assented Wyndham.

"It can't be helped," said the old man; "though mud like this on a new suit of clothes puts a hard strain on a man's philosophy." There was a good-natured gleam in his eye and a brave smile on his face. Wyndham found himself unexpectedly attracted, and was much concerned when Mr. Robinson tried to take a step or two, but was pulled up painfully.

"Pray, don't alarm yourself, sir," said Mr. Robinson, as Wyndham caught at his arm solicitously. "I am only a little bruised, and have had rather a wrench. I must just breathe for an instant."

"Won't you come into my studio, and rest for a moment or two?" suggested Wyndham. "I shall be delighted if you will."

He produced the key from his pocket, turned it in the lock, and threw open the door. Then he offered Mr. Robinson the support of his arm.

"It is very kind of you, sir," said the old man, as he linked his arm in Wyndham's. "My name is Robinson. I live just up the road. I daresay you may have noticed me: I have often noticed you."

"I am enchanted to make your acquaintance, though I regret the particular circumstances," said Wyndham, as they passed through the little ante-room into the dim interior.

"I cannot share your regret," returned Mr. Robinson, with a touch of suave conviction. "No, not even if the accident were more serious, since I have been afforded the pleasure of knowing you."

Wyndham was surprised at the sweetness and old-world courtesy revealed in the old man's personality. "You are very kind," he said with a smile. "I hope indeed I am worth so pretty a sentiment. But please take this arm-chair."

He pushed it forward, then set the rush-bag down on the table, hastily throwing a serviette over the litter of his last meal, which he had not had the energy to clear away, and which now brusquely offended his fastidiousness. But as Mr. Robinson, good careful soul, hesitated to soil the chair, Wyndham got a rag and wiped away the more lurid splashes from his garments. Then, whilst the old man rested, Wyndham trimmed his lamp; and presently the glooms vanished before a cosy illumination. Mr. Robinson at once began to scrutinise the studio on all sides with amusingly deep interest. The old Normandy presses, the model's throne, the giant easel, the well-worn Persian carpet, the hosts of canvasses of all sizes standing with their faces to the wall, the disorder and informality everywhere—all seemed to strike for him a note of youth and gaiety, to animate him with a sense of a new romantic universe. His face lighted with pleasure. He gazed up at the lofty roof and the oak cross-beams that supported it, and finally his eye rested on the little stairway and gallery at the far end, now almost lost in the shadows.

"Is your bedroom up there?" he hazarded, his naïve interest slipping out on his tongue.

"Yes," smiled Wyndham, as he tackled the dying fire. "It's the traditional arrangement."

"What a fascinating place you've got here! It's all a new world to me."

"Ah, it's a very ordinary sort of world—when once you've settled down to work."

"I have never known an artist before," pursued the old man, "and it is all fresh to me. I think that if I were a youngster again, I shouldn't at all dislike having a place like this, and making my home of it. Not that I mean I should ever have made anything of an artist," he added with a smile. "It's the spirit of the thing that appeals to me. You must be very happy here."

"Not necessarily," said Wyndham. He saw the old man's eyes fixed on him gravely. "You see, I'm not one of your successful artists, and the years have a way of passing on." He struggled with the fire, making the sticks blaze, then piled up the coals unsparingly. Mr. Robinson was the only person in the world to whom he had ever admitted failure, but somehow it did not seem to matter.

The old man gazed at him in frank astonishment. "Why, you are in the prime of early manhood!" he exclaimed. "Really it is most extraordinary to hear a splendid young man like you complain of the years passing!"

"I'm thirty-three," volunteered Wyndham. "And an unlucky devil of thirty-three, who has as much trouble in getting rid of his work as I, feels old enough in all conscience."

"But you artists have to expect these adverse experiences," said Mr. Robinson. "Art of course isn't like other things—it isn't exactly a business or profession in the ordinary sense, and so long as a man has the gift, he ought not to get disheartened. In our business world, of course, pounds, shillings and pence are everything, but in the world of art it wouldn't do to set up a standard of that kind."

Such sentiments on the part of a Philistine who came home every evening from the City at six o'clock struck Wyndham speechless.

"The struggle of genius is proverbial," Mr. Robinson added, before the younger man could find his tongue; "and genius wouldn't be genius without it."

"Ah, if I were only a genius!" said Wyndham, laughing.

"I am sure you are a genius," said the old man very gravely. "I have often thought what a clever face yours was. At home we have often spoken of you."

"I suppose then I must be a conspicuous figure in the road. I had no idea of it!" Wyndham laughed again.

"You've been in the neighbourhood some years now," said Mr. Robinson half apologetically; "and neighbours naturally notice one another. Besides, if I may say so, you are quite unlike the ordinary run of people. You are not the sort of man one sees in the City."

"You interest me. In what way do I differ from others?"

"You have the stamp of belonging to leisured people; it is plain from your walk and bearing, from your voice and manner of speech. And then there is something about your clothes even—I don't quite know what." The old man's eyes rested on him with a sort of approval and satisfaction.

Wyndham was amused. "You are really an original character," he exclaimed. "I like you."

Mr. Robinson smiled with gratification. "I more than return the compliment, I can assure you."

"But pray go on," said Wyndham. "I believe you're a wizard. I must get you to cast my horoscope."

Mr. Robinson raised his hands. "I don't think I could manage that," he laughed. "I am only a quiet observer of my fellow-men. In the present case it is very easy to see that yours is the face of a gentleman by birth. There is a certain composure in your whole style. Whatever you had to face, you would never have that appearance that men get in the City—of wearing themselves out."

"Better to wear out than to rust out," said Wyndham meditatively. "I rust out."

He was astonished at his own frankness. But there was a deep pleasure in being natural for once, in throwing off the cover of sham and pretence that had characterised his intercourse with his kind in the past. He did not even consider it was strange that the person he should be baring himself to so freely was one whose existence hitherto he had merely deigned to notice. But nothing could exceed Mr. Robinson's amazement at this last profession of his.

"Rust out!" The old man's eyes opened wide. "Why, you have done an immense amount of work!" He waved his hand significantly towards the army of canvasses ranged against the walls.

Wyndham affected to be impressed by the consideration. "Yes," he admitted; "I have used up a considerable amount of material in my time, I must admit." He had suddenly perceived that Mr. Robinson was largely discounting his ingenuous frankness, and was really taking his profession of failure, which, as it happened, he had thrown out in an offhand way, as rather affectation than literal truth.

"And no doubt will be using up still larger amounts in the future." The old man smiled and rose. "But I am taking up your time!"

"No, indeed," Wyndham assured him. "I hope you have quite recovered now."

"Oh, quite," returned Mr. Robinson. "I had altogether forgotten the little accident in the pleasure of our conversation."

There was a pause. "I am sorry there's no light," said Wyndham; "else I should show you some of my work—that is, if you cared to see it."

The old man looked eager. "Couldn't you make the lamp do?" he exclaimed. "I'm sure it would give me a very good idea of your pictures. But I am presuming on your kindness."

"Oh, no," protested Wyndham.

He began to move about the studio, conscious of a new energy. Somebody was here to appreciate him; somebody desired to see his work, was looking up to him in admiration! He felt strangely rejuvenated—it was as if he had taken a dose of some wonderful elixir. He selected half a dozen of the smaller pictures, and brought them forward. Then, as he wheeled the great easel into position, the whim took him to see how his huge "masterpiece" looked after all this long interval of time.

For, since he had stood it with its face to the wall on Lady Betty's wedding-day, he had never had the heart to glance at it again. Not merely failure and wasted years were associated with it, but it stirred memories of the hours he had spent at Grosvenor Place in the first freshness of his hopes, when he had worked with the passion of youth. Then, too, there was the silent drama that had played itself out in the depths of his own spirit. Looking back, it seemed to him that no man could ever have cherished a more hopeless love, or have encountered a more inevitable one. Nor had the lapse of time softened the bitterness of that strange romantic chapter. Lady Betty's figure and personality would remain with him as his ideal of woman for the rest of his life; and he clung to the memory of his hurt as typical of his whole fortune.

But though the thought of the picture to-night inevitably stirred up some of these old emotions, there was joined to them a sudden overwhelming curiosity. What would be his impression at the first glance? Would all its deficiencies and crudities stand out in relief, and make him turn away from it in sickness and loathing? Or would it strike him, however unfinished it might be, as having yet promise in it, as justifying some at least of the time—nay, even life-blood—he had consecrated to it?

"What a huge thing!" ejaculated Mr. Robinson, as Wyndham tilted it back from the wall.

"It is tremendous," smiled Wyndham. "I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to give me a hand with it."

Together they carried it to the easel, and Wyndham hoisted it to its old place. "I don't know whether we shall be able to make head or tail of it," he said; "but I'll do what I can with the lamp. As you see, it's a powerful one."

"Of course I don't profess to be a connoisseur of oil paintings," Mr. Robinson warned him. "But I know what I like, though I daresay you will think me extremely benighted."

"No, indeed," protested Wyndham; "I shall value your opinion highly." He worked away at the little wheel at the back of the easel as he inclined the canvas at the most favourable angle, whilst the old man watched the process fascinated.

The next moment Wyndham was holding the big lamp high in the air, and carefully illumining the surface of the picture. For a moment everything before his eyes was blurred, and he could see nothing at all; but he stood his ground firmly, and gripped the lamp heroically. And before the mist could clear he heard Mr. Robinson's voice rise in admiration.

"Wonderful!" exclaimed the old man, his tone vibrating with an immense conviction; and at that moment Wyndham received the picture full on his vision and felt at once he had there a basis that could be worked up into a splendid achievement.

"The crowd of strikers with their banner is the most life-like thing I've ever seen. Wonderful!" Mr. Robinson gazed and gazed, his interest overflowing into a running comment. "It's Hyde Park Corner! Why, of course—there's the Duke of Wellington's house, and there's Lord Rothschild's. Marvellous! What a variety of faces and characters! And the old fellow there in the corner—what powerful features full of despair! And the old woman with the red shawl—she hasn't had a morsel of food, poor creature, for twenty-four hours, I'll wager. Why don't you leave her alone, you old ruffian of a policeman! And then that fashionable lady in her brougham with her over-fed poodle—what contempt on her face for all these artizans! How real everything is—the perspective is grand! Why, you could take a walk out there in the distance! Marvellous! It doesn't need an art education to see that's a work of genius."

Wyndham stood listening in elation, though, in his own perception of the work just now, he felt as aloof from it as if it had sprung from another's labours. His brain seemed emancipated from the tangle of its old problems and all his old flounderings. And as Mr. Robinson continued his admiring ejaculations, Wyndham put in now and again a word of explanation, drawing attention to a point here and there, though this was at first rather by way of soliloquy than conversation. But, presently, as he moved the lamp to and fro, up and down, he warmed to the occasion; even enlarging on his pet ideas, and pointing out where he had failed to realise his own scheme and formula. Mr. Robinson listened, wholly absorbed and fascinated by these new horizons that opened before him. His respect and worship for art was contagious: Wyndham began to worship it more himself.

And the younger man grew eloquent, expatiated on the old art and the new, on academies and masters, on realism and symbolism, on plein air and sunlight, on colour and technique. And as he spoke, he was enchanted with his own voice. It was splendid to feel himself speaking again after all this long suppression—he was realising the strength and infallibility of his own artistic convictions. Never before had he felt so sure of his conceptions; his former humility had only led to confusion and hesitation. In future, his own mind should dominate—he would not be blown about by all these conflicting schools and critics.

He was conscious of standing more vigorously upright; and, as he enlarged on the picture, he seemed to get a new and sure hold of it, seeing more and more the potentiality of a great and powerful structure that no Academy could dare refuse to recognise. He saw now that his long interval of hibernation had not been unfruitful. And it had made a necessary sharp division between the two parts of his life—the first, uncertain, stumbling, unsuccessful; the second, confident, mature, triumphant.

The picture before him was transformed. Problems that had baffled him seemed to solve themselves in a flash. Effects he had vainly sought through maddening months stood at once revealed, flowing naturally out of what he had already set down. His hand longed to be wielding the brush again.

"But if I may make the remark," interposed Mr. Robinson at length; "it seems matter for surprise that a gentleman like you should be attracted to the choice of such a subject. I should hardly suppose that you have ever come into any real contact with labour, and workmen on strike would therefore scarcely come within the sphere of your sympathy."

"The artist is of universal sympathy," said Wyndham gravely, and himself believed it. At that moment he felt his endless sympathy spreading itself out, embracing all creation. "And then it was not only the humanity of the scene that touched me, and inspired me to attempt to put it down finely and greatly; there was also the pure art part as it appealed to the trained vision—the splendid difficulties to be vanquished, the opportunities for draughtsmanship and subtle colour, the sense of far-stretching space to be produced from only a narrow gamut of light and shade."

"Marvellous!" echoed Mr. Robinson again.

"But if I may make the remark in my turn," said Wyndham, "your sympathy with labour surprises me equally."

"Why so?" asked Mr. Robinson.

"The natural antagonism between capital and labour!" smiled Wyndham.

"Oh, I started as a poor boy—right at the foot of the ladder," explained Mr. Robinson. "My father was a carpenter. Wages were low in those days, and prices of all necessaries were high. I remember in my childhood we had a pretty hard time of it. In my own firm we share the profits with all the employees. So you see I'm rather partial to labour so long as it's decent and reasonable. When I think of my own struggles, I like to see every man get fair opportunities. When a man has no particular talent—such as myself, for instance—it is ever so much the harder to go through discouragements. But, at the worst of times, it must be a great thing for a gifted man like yourself to be conscious of his own powers."

"So you set up to have no particular talent!" explained Wyndham. "You amuse me. Haven't you made your fortune unaided? I confess that that seems to me the most difficult thing in the world—immensely cleverer than anything in the way of art or painting."

Mr. Robinson laughed. "Now you're making fun of me."

"I was never more serious in my life," insisted Wyndham, now wheeling forward a smaller easel, in order to display the pictures he had at first selected. "I consider it frightfully clever to make money."

"My dear sir, fools often make money," Mr. Robinson assured him.

Wyndham shook his head incredulously. "Do you care much about this landscape?" he asked.

"Very much indeed. It is so green and fresh and airy, and those are grand old trees."

"It's our old home in Hertfordshire. I lost the property and a modest fortune through a rascally set of lawyers."

Mr. Robinson's face expressed deep concern. "Yes, I remember the affair well," he said. "I remember reading it over the breakfast-table to my wife and daughter. We saw your name among the creditors. It was a bad business."

"They had managed all our family concerns for thirty years."

Wyndham was now wound up to enter into more personal matters than he had so far touched upon. As before, he was perfectly frank, recounting in the intimacy of the moment all the details of this financial catastrophe. He spoke freely of his relations in the country, and of his sister Mary, and the independent way in which she was earning her bread; passing from canvas to canvas the while, and breaking off frequently to discuss the paintings.

At last they had gone through all the selection, but the unfailing appreciation of his visitor was so pleasant to the artist that he could not help bringing forward two or three more, and then finally another. And still yet another after!—like the preacher's "one word more."

"I have passed a very happy time here with you," the old man declared, as Wyndham restored the lamp to its usual place on the table. "You see I was right; the occasion was well worth the accident that brought it about."

"Happily you were not really hurt. So all's well that ends well."

The old man took hold of his rush-bag. "I mustn't forget my middle of salmon," he smiled. "I generally fetch something home for my wife—some game or fish fresh from the market."

"You make me wish I had a husband in the City," sighed Wyndham.

Mr. Robinson laughed. "Well, I suppose I must make up my mind to be off, else my wife and daughter will be wondering what has become of me."

Wyndham came forward hurriedly. "I hope I have not been keeping you," he murmured. Somehow he did not like being left alone now. The old man's coming had saved him for the time being from the clutch of a terrible despair, and he saw it waiting to descend swiftly on him. The half-hour of self-respect would vanish like an illusion.

But Mr. Robinson's voice was breaking in on his mood again.

"Would it be presuming too much on our slight acquaintance if I suggested——" The old man hesitated with an evident shyness that was very winning.

"Pray suggest anything you like," said Wyndham.

Thus encouraged, Mr. Robinson launched out boldly. "Would you come home and dine with us—quite without ceremony. We're the simplest of people, but we shall offer you the heartiest of welcomes."

"That is very kind of you," said Wyndham. "I should not be deranging your household?"

"I am sure my wife and daughter will be as delighted to see you as I am. Will you not come home with me now—in a simple, friendly way?"

"Since I am to meet ladies," smiled Wyndham, "I should like to make myself presentable. I have just been across town, and in this filthy, murky atmosphere one gets to feel so utterly unclean."

"Oh, yes; am I not in the same plight myself?" smiled Mr. Robinson.

Wyndham escorted him to the door, and the old man again thanked him for the pleasure the visit had afforded him.

"We dine at half-past seven," was his parting reminder, and Wyndham, promising faithfully to be punctual, closed the door after him.

V

But his visitor had no sooner departed than Wyndham experienced a sharp revulsion of feeling. How stupid to have accepted this invitation! His isolation in this suburban wilderness had always afforded him a certain satisfaction—he had consistently maintained his magnificent want of interest in all this Philistine population. His studio was his castle, and if he chose to starve therein it was at least a mitigation of his misery to be able to do so without the sense of others' eyes prying at him. And now he had surrendered his privacy. The indiscretion was really inexplicable! And he had let his tongue run on so recklessly and confidentially! He might even have drawn back at the very last—alleged an engagement, and cut short the acquaintanceship there and then. Perhaps it was not yet too late!

In his annoyance he started pacing the length of the studio. But the great canvas, still glistening there on the easel, suddenly claimed his attention again, and brought him to a standstill. Impulsively he caught up the lamp, and once more directed its light on to the surface. The picture took deep hold of him, and he stood absorbed in it. And somehow Mr. Robinson's wondering voice began to sound its praises. "Marvellous!" the old man seemed to be saying. "It doesn't need an art education to see that's a work of genius." And as he recalled each stroke of admiration, he nodded his head in agreement.

Was not the old man's appreciation of good augury? Surely it foreshadowed a popular Academy success. Whatever one's personal art ideals, it did not detract from their worth if one could carry them out and please the crowd at the same time—incidentally, of course—without deliberate intention. Did not Molière first try his comedies on his housekeeper? Mr. Robinson's tastes were the tastes of the great public—nay, of even the better classes that went to the galleries. Like him, they dwelt entirely on the illustrative aspect of painting, and were altogether swayed by the humanity of a picture, by its dramatic or anecdotal interest. No wonder some of his fellow-craftsmen had been driven to the opposite extreme, and tried to rule out humanity altogether. But the human side of art need not be necessarily on a low plane, or descend to mere anecdote. In his hands art should be the vehicle of real intellect and emotion.

If only he were not forced to do those idiotic trifles! After holding out so long, to capitulate absolutely for want of bread! No, he would not dine with Mr. Robinson—he would starve rather!

"Better to starve than stoop to inferiors!" he exclaimed, as he set down the lamp again. How little, indeed, he had eaten all that day! And with the thought a distressing weakness came over him. There was a humming at his temples: the studio disappeared in a mist, then reappeared oscillating. He was constrained to steady himself by clutching at the table.

In a minute or two the vertigo passed off, leaving him with a dull craving for food and drink. He might make some sort of a meal from such poor provender as his larder afforded—a portion of a loaf, the remainder of a tin of sardines, a hunk of cheese; but somehow the prospect was singularly uninviting. He might, indeed, add variety to the store by laying out his last shilling in the streets adjoining, but the shilling was too precious, and anyway he had not the energy to go shopping. There swam up before him the picture of a well-lighted, comfortable dining-room with a heavily laden table, and of a middle of salmon, piping hot, that was being served with a dainty white sauce. And then there were hosts of bottles on a mahogany sideboard: fat, gold-tipped bottles; tall, long-necked bottles; fantastic twisted bottles. Good well-cooked food was nourishing him, a delicate wine was moistening his feverish palate, touching his whole dull self to a lighter mood.

He had accepted the invitation. The Robinsons were expecting him, would be troubled and put out if he did not arrive. He carried the lamp up to the gallery, and began his preparations. And then the whim took him to change his clothes again. Not that he supposed the Robinsons affected to be fashionable of an evening, but the pride of the half-starved man rose in irrational self-assertion.

So he dressed carefully, tying his bow to perfection, and arranging the set of his waistcoat fastidiously. It was so long since he had put on evening clothes, and as he saw himself in the glass, well set up, and bearing himself exquisitely, the fact of his poverty seemed absurd and incredible. His face, too, seemed to have recovered some of its olden confidence as he scanned it critically. True the cheeks were a trifle thin and shrunken, but the lines of dejection and sadness had lightened at the new stirring within him.

Then for the first time in all these years he made his way up the road to the ugly house at the corner that had stamped itself upon him as the symbol of all Suburbia, as the stronghold of a type of life that Bohemia mocked at and Belgravia waved aside as impossible.

If he had not yet entirely overcome his distaste, it was at least mitigated by a splendid sense of condescension.

VI

A handsome Phyllis, in cap and apron, opened the door, and Wyndham stepped into a broad corridor, carpeted in red, and hung with popular engravings that he had seen in the windows of all the carvers and gilders in London. Next, he was ushered under a crimson door-hanging into a resplendent drawing-room, lighted by a dazzling crystal chandelier, and sensuously warmed by a great red-hot fire. There was nobody to receive him yet, and he was left to amuse himself with the show-books on the tables—padded photograph albums full of old-fashioned naïve people posing against rococo backgrounds, collections of views of the Valley of the Thames and of the Lake District, and richly bound volumes of Tennyson and Sir Walter Scott.

The interest of these treasures was soon exhausted, and Wyndham, sinking into a remarkably soft arm-chair, impatiently beat with his foot at a cluster of roses on the brand-new "Aubusson" carpet. The room was almost triangular, a large bow window commanding the vista of the main road, and pairs of other windows, straight and tall, overlooking the streets that branched on either hand. And all these windows were elaborately draped in a would-be Renaissance style, with many loops and festoons, and with big gilt cornices above. And between each pair of them stood a gilded consol table surmounted by a mirror that reached to the ceiling. Oval mirrors with lighted candles in sconces glittered from several points of vantage, and crimson couches and the immense piano completed the tale of splendours.

At length the door opened softly, and Mr. Robinson entered. Wyndham rose, not displeased to observe that his host was likewise in evening clothes; as he had been already regretting the self-assertion to which he had yielded.

"Ah, you are in good time," said the old man, coming forward in his quiet, gentle way, and shaking hands again. "I am sorry to say that my wife and daughter are not down yet."

His tone was apologetic, and Wyndham smiled, readily understanding that the announcement of a guest to arrive had scared the ladies to a more elaborate toilette than usual.

"They were enchanted when I told them you were coming," Mr. Robinson continued. "As for commiseration over my fall—not a word!"

The two men had conversed for some few minutes before the hostess and her daughter came sweeping into the room; and, as he had half expected, Wyndham found he knew them more or less vaguely by sight. Mrs. Robinson was a tall dame, fully sixty, with gray hair, and a most amiable expression; stately, even handsome, in her black silk dress with its tasteful lace at the throat and wrists. The daughter who followed rather shyly behind her gave Wyndham the impression that he was beholding the most simple, homely person he had ever met; and this despite the complexity of her costume, which seemed to be built up almost entirely of old lace that lay over itself in thick folds and rich creamy masses. Timidity of temperament and modesty to the verge of self-distrust were at once suggested by the almost awkward constraint of her bearing and the quiet, half-averted glance of her dark eyes. He could see that she hardly dared look at him. He gallantly supposed that she was a year or two younger than himself, and as he met her desperately friendly smile (intended for him but hardly bestowed in his direction) with his choicest bow, he received a further impression that was distinctly more favourable than the first of unrelieved plainness. For, once his eye had taken in her features, the artist in him was ready to do justice to her throat and arms, which were really good: and her dark hair, her greatest glory, lay in a superb coil, which, with a surprising touch of coquetry, was set off by a velvet band and some lilies of the valley. It was curious that the figure of Lady Betty should swim up before him just then, as if to emphasise his real ideal of woman's beauty, and to make him feel once for all how impossible it was ever to step down from that standard. But he could not help smiling covertly at the thought that the family were making such a serious business of so casual an invitation—these toilettes were really so very much more elaborate than anything he might conceivably have looked for; though at any rate it reassured his pride in the fullest degree—evidently, his frank admissions to Mr. Robinson notwithstanding, they were not taking him as a poor devil of an artist, but were looking up to him with a perfect appreciation of the respect that was his due.

Wyndham's presentation to the ladies over, there followed an instant of general embarrassment. Mrs. Robinson smiled again, and quickly tried to make conversation.

"How pleasant to become acquainted at last, after being neighbours so many years!" she murmured. "And so unexpectedly, too."

"When the unexpected does happen," said Wyndham, "it generally is delightful. I suppose that's because most of us in this hard life get into the habit of expecting only the opposite sort of thing."

Miss Robinson laughed shyly, whilst her mother seemed somewhat puzzled.

"They say that the unexpected always happens," ventured the younger woman tremulously. "I'm sure the proverb must be wrong, because nice things happen so seldom." Her voice was soft, vibrating with gracious amiability.

"I disagree with Mr. Wyndham," said her father. "I was not at all expecting to slip down. When the unexpected happened, I am bound to say I did not find it delightful."

They all laughed; and then Mrs. Robinson resumed the interrupted tenour of her discreet, agreeable way. She herself had often thought how pleasant it would be to know him; but in London one could live for ever so many years and yet know absolutely nothing of one's next-door neighbour. In the country, of course, things were different: there etiquette was more human, and people called of their own accord. Was Mr. Wyndham exhibiting anything just now? They had seen pictures of his in the Academy in past years, and were great admirers of his. Wyndham was by now too faint and exhausted to do more than hold his own in a smiling, conventional way: the splendours of the room, too, dazzled him to the verge of confusion. He was thankful when Phyllis appeared with the announcement that dinner was served; and Mr. Robinson, giving his arm to his daughter, led the way across the hall, under another crimson door-hanging, and into a long dining-room, wherein was set out a great table with flowers and fruit and silver. The covers were laid at one end, which gave the dinner an air of informality and family intimacy.

A glass of sherry at the start revived Wyndham considerably, and soon he fell to conversing at his ease. Presently he found he was somehow taking the lead, and their evident respect and admiration for his lightest word made him clearly perceive that he was an important and brilliant figure for them. Such grains of resentment as he still cherished at having entered on the acquaintanceship were dying away. Meanwhile the seductive prevision of material joys that had risen before him at the studio at that moment of physical weakness was being literally realised, almost comically so. There on the immense mahogany sideboard stood bottles and decanters galore, and now up came the middle of salmon with a piquant sauce accompanying it! God! how delicious it tasted, after all these months of bread and cheese! Wine gave him inspiration, and food the strength to live up to the rôle they were allotting to him. He was good-looking and knew it; his voice, his bearing, his choice of words, were alike distinguished; his experiences were of worlds that were to them far-seeming and romantic. He was the sort of hero they had read about in novels—a handsome guardsman nonchalantly looking in at a Park Lane dance at midnight, or a brilliant attaché to an embassy in touch with wonderful horizons.

Meanwhile the supply of dainty food continued; a leg of lamb, spinach, fat, luscious asparagus, a melon from a Southern clime, a chicken, and the juiciest of French lettuces. The hock was of the most delicate, the champagne subtle and sparkling. Even so he felt himself sparkling in the eyes of the others. He was the lion to whom all this homage was his rightful due, holding them fascinated with his wide knowledge of men and cities, of social life in European capitals. He drew upon his wanderings in by-ways known only of artists; fascinated them with sketches of the art life of Rome and Paris. Reminiscences bubbled up of his student days, and with them were mingled deft touches of Eton and Oxford, and charming cameos of county life; this last developing insensibly into discussions of Anglo-Saxon character, its comparison with the Latin, relative estimations of intelligence, industry, ambition. Mr. Robinson here had many shrewd observations to offer, for they had now wandered into the domain of affairs. Wyndham was genuinely interested in his host's experiences, in his accounts of unusual men of business from strange, even barbarous parts of the world, with whom he had had personal relations. They even touched upon financial operations; and Wyndham felt perfectly at ease amid complications in which millions were bandied about like tennis-balls, and the credit of banks and States was pawned as simply and swiftly as he might pawn his own watch. At last, over the dessert, there was a perceptible slackening. Wyndham, who so far had taken care not to let his eye rest on the many heavy-framed "oil paintings" that hung on the walls, for fear some discussion of them might thence arise, was now incautious enough to fix his gaze markedly on some sheep pasturing just opposite him. But Mr. Robinson seemed to welcome the opportunity thus afforded.

"Oh, of course I know you won't find any of those things worth glancing at," he threw out with a laugh; and the others chimed in, highly amused at the thought of the impression "the things" must be making on their guest.

"Oh, some aren't at all half bad," conceded Wyndham politely, his eye now promenading freely. "The girl with the mandoline is laid in with rather a charming touch, and the fruit-and-flower piece is really decorative."

"We always considered those two the best," declared Mr. Robinson. "I bought them at an auction in the City, many years ago now—more, in fact, than I care to remember."

Wyndham still affected to be examining the collection.

"Now, of course," resumed Mr. Robinson, "that Highland scene is the merest pot-boiler—a stream in the middle, a mountain on one side, and a cow on the other. I've seen hundreds of them for sale. But it's not likely I shall ever be taken in again that way, especially after examining the work I saw at your studio, Mr. Wyndham."

Wyndham inclined his head smilingly, and Mr. Robinson duly proceeded to describe to the others the great masterpiece which that afternoon he had had the privilege of inspecting. His memory of the details proved to be extraordinarily minute, and his face glowed all over again with the wonder and enthusiasm he had displayed at the studio. "The figures, the faces," he wound up, "were simply marvellous. I can't give you the faintest idea of how magnificent it all is. I could spend hours looking at it."

Wyndham could do no less than suggest that the ladies should come and see the picture for themselves, though just then a whiff of unpleasant thoughts urged on him again the imprudence of such further social developments.

"We shall be only too delighted; it will be a great pleasure," exclaimed Mrs. Robinson, and Miss Robinson's eyes shone with unmistakable excitement.

"We must really take down that Highland scene, my dear," proceeded Mrs. Robinson, addressing her husband. "It is altogether too bad. We ought to have something better in its place."

It passed through Wyndham's mind that one of his projected panels would do excellently, but of course it was far too below the dignity of the brilliant lion to appear to snatch at the opportunity of turning a few honest guineas through the grace of his humble entertainers.

"Let us have the Highland scene down by all means," said Mr. Robinson. "And I've an idea! If we can induce Mr. Wyndham to paint our Alice's portrait, why, then we should have something first-rate to hang in its place."

Miss Robinson turned fiery red; the quick glance she flashed at her father was the more conspicuous. "How splendid!" she exclaimed breathlessly. Her bosom heaved. Wyndham was almost painfully aware of the thumping of her heart.

But he himself was caught quite unprepared. True that the unexpected had happened again, but that very quality of the event was in this instance disconcerting. No doubt they observed his slight hesitation.

"Of course it would be a great privilege for us," interposed Mrs. Robinson; "but it seems to me we are counting without Mr. Wyndham's authority."

Wyndham inclined his head graciously with a smile; swiftly master of the situation again, and improving the occasion with a compliment.

"Oh! I shall be most delighted." He gave his proposed subject the professional glance that the occasion authorised. "Miss Robinson will afford me the opportunity of a most distinguished piece of portraiture."

Miss Robinson gazed at her plate, nervously peeling a banana. She had not spoken much during the dinner, but she had hung on Wyndham's words with a naïve, unconscious admiration, which, from a prettier and more brilliant woman, he would scarcely have passed with so little a sense of appreciation.

"Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Wyndham," she said simply. "I am afraid the distinction will be due more to your work than to your sitter."

"No, indeed, Miss Robinson," he protested, with a suave gravity that made his polished assurance the more impressive and charming. "I did not intend any compliment—I spoke only as the artist." He was rather surprised that a woman should display so little vanity. And, in a subtle way, it did not enhance his estimation of her.

Miss Robinson's banana occupied her more earnestly than ever; but her mother came to the rescue by raising the important question of costume. Wyndham, after further professional consideration of his client, preferred to paint Miss Robinson as he saw her now. And with a ready sense of detail he saw, too, that certain rings she wore, though he had not observed them closely at first, would make excellent spots in a scheme of decoration. These rings were unusually chosen, and were more artistic than extravagant. The one on her right hand was a small, subtle cat's-eye surrounded by fine pearls. On her left hand were an aquamarine, and a scarab that shone like the patina of an ancient bronze. Almost without a pause he dashed at once at a scheme, which he elucidated there and then, much to their overwhelming. He would pose her on an Empire chair. In a blue and white Oriental vase on a high stand at the side should be arranged three tall arum lilies amid some vivid carnation blossoms. Why, the Nankin bowl on the mantelpiece was the very thing! The background of the picture should be vague and of an olive-grey tone, laid in with free brushwork, against which the masses of creamy lace would show deliciously decorative. The great surmounting coil of hair would give character to the whole scheme, and the lilies of the valley in the velvet band afford a final contrast of lightness and graciousness against the intense note of the coiffure.

The parents were radiant with pleasure, though poor Miss Robinson looked more and more scared each instant. In her trepidation she could only echo stammeringly the elder people's wonder at his great skill and cleverness. The scheme unfolded itself before them richly beautiful—not one of your dull black portraits, but a canvas glowing with exquisite light and colour.

"There, Alice, you ought to be proud of yourself," said her father, rallying her good-naturedly as a parting shot, when the women rose to retire; and Wyndham attended their exit under the crimson hanging with his most engaging air.

Left alone, the men drew their chairs to the fire, and Mr. Robinson brought forward boxes of fragrant-smelling cigars, large and rotund. The atmosphere of comfort enveloped Wyndham soothingly: the sense of unlimited abundance seemed a miracle after his long privation. Fortunately he had not been tempted to have his glass filled too often: he had appreciated all these good and luscious things with commendable moderation, and had been stimulated to brilliancy without losing cool command of himself. He lighted his cigar at the little silver smoker's lamp that just then came in with the coffee, and, as he puffed, a splendid warm feeling of well-being took possession of him. He helped himself to cream and sugar with the masterful calm and something of the gesture of a stage hero.

Presently Mr. Robinson raised the subject of Wyndham's fee for the portrait, approaching the point apologetically.

"Of course, we could hardly discuss this side of the matter before my wife and daughter," said the old man. "But I must insist on your accepting a fair remuneration for the work—shall we say two hundred guineas?"

"To be frank," said Wyndham, "if you had left it to me, I should hardly have mentioned so large a sum."

"Naturally a gentleman of your disposition would think more of the artistic pleasure of the work than of the money it brought. Still, in this life money has to be considered. In all things, sublime or humble, the labourer is worthy of his hire. I do not for a moment suggest that the sum I have named in any way expresses our appreciation of the work, even in anticipation, and certainly not in any way our sense of the privilege and honour you are bestowing upon us."

"I shall endeavour to merit your kind words," said Wyndham, not to be outdone in polished courtesy, though he conceded that, by force of simple sincerity and good feeling, Mr. Robinson seemed a past master in the delicate art. "At any rate," he pursued, "the work is developing in my mind. The more I dwell upon it, the better and better I like the scheme, and I shall work at it enthusiastically from start to finish."

It being thus assumed that two hundred guineas were to be the artist's reward, Mr. Robinson seemed by no means loth to wander from a point which he had approached with great hesitation and an immense sense of its difficult delicacy. As yet Wyndham did not measure the radical change in his personal situation; nor did he display any undue elation. But his cool demeanour was no mere pose. Indeed, he was surprised himself at the ease with which he was accepting the transaction, as if it were commonplace in his experience. But he merely supposed that he was meeting good fortune with the natural dignity of the artist—to whom commissions are due as a matter of right, however long they may be deferred.

They did not linger in the dining-room, but joined the ladies after their first cigar; though not before Mr. Robinson had sedulously inquired as to his liking for the particular brand, which, he assured Wyndham, was not readily obtainable in London, and had made, him promise to take a box away with him.

In the drawing-room Miss Robinson played to them, at first tremulously, but gaining confidence with the experience. She displayed a degree of trained taste and a certain individual choice, favouring the tenderer and gentler works of Mendelssohn and Mozart. She sang also one or two of Heine's love songs in the German with a touch of passion and regret, whilst Wyndham accompanied her; and he himself wound up the evening in more jovial mood with a rousing student's song from his old Munich days.

Their parting with him had almost a touch of affection; and the final understanding was that he was to plan out the arrangements for the sittings, and to communicate with them in the morning.

He was forgetting his box of cigars at the end, but Mr. Robinson carefully caught it up from the hall table, and brought it after him just as the servant was opening the door.

VII

The next morning early Wyndham jumped out of bed with a bewildered sense of some change in his life, and it was an instant or two before his faculties cleared and he remembered his adventure of the previous evening. His next thought was one of pleasure that he had at last carried out his resolution of rising early. The autumn had developed with unusual severity, but the morning was intensely clear, and the studio full of a strong light. He pushed aside the hanging, and looked down from the gallery on the familiar scene below. Ordinarily, on rising, the sight had filled him with disgust and apathy, but now a freshness and vigour pervaded him, a new imperious desire, not merely in his mind but in all his limbs and muscles, to enter again on the contest with men. As his thought ran back through the past intolerable year or two, his inaction and sloth seemed almost incredible. He saw himself rising at midday, suffering moral tortures before the work he was powerless to begin, letting the barren hours drift away into the deep, then regretting them passionately. Was it not all a nightmare from which he had been curiously released?

He dressed, and, whilst his little kettle was boiling, took careful stock of his professional materials. Colours, brushes, varnishes—all needed renewing; there seemed nothing but impracticable odds and ends, mere bits of wreckage from his disastrous life's venture. Then, too, the filth and disorder all around him struck him brusquely, stung him to annoyance. On every surface where dust might accumulate it lay in serene possession. Wherever spiders could spin, there the webs hung thick, amazing and complicated citadels, prodigious masses and networks.

He felt he could not endure it a day longer. There must be a thorough physical cleansing at once. And he must return to the luxury of a daily bed-maker. This preoccupation with household things took off the keenest edge of one's first energy and enthusiasm; he must reserve himself jealously for his high calling.

As he sipped his coffee he mused over the little financial difficulties that immediately beset him. Now that at last he had a valid ground for appealing to Mary, he felt reluctant; anxious to bring her only the sense of his success without alloy. He might explain the situation to Mr. Robinson, and ask for money in advance; but that seemed as impolitic as it was repugnant in this new rapture of fine upstanding dignity. Payment of the quarter's rent that was already due could be easily deferred—for the bare humiliation of making the request. But he needed something for equipment, and must face the sacrifice of some of the older pictures to which he had clung so long, accepting any sum in exchange, if only shillings.

He still felt no disposition to invest the accident that had turned the tide for him with any touch of superstition or romance. He regarded the whole matter in the same dry light as at his first acceptance of it the evening before. He had sat waiting for clients, and at last they had turned up. But he did not at all dislike the Robinsons: they were very much better than the great run of their class—they had evidently ideals, and aspired to a higher degree of refinement than they as yet possessed, or, perhaps, were capable of possessing. They were neither smug nor self-satisfied, and, in giving him this work, they had avoided indulging in any semblance of bourgeois patronage, whereas other people of their class, even if well meaning, might easily have been gross and intolerable.

He had studied his sitter pretty closely. The profile, as is not unfrequently the case with "plain" women, had a curious individual interest. He felt it offered scope for "construction," and he could import subtly into the drawing a certain distinguished sentiment that was not really in the original, though somehow it might easily have been there, and, in moments of enthusiasm on the part of the observer, might even be conceived to be there. Yes, the profile was undoubtedly the thing: that way, too, the great coil of hair could be handled the more effectively. Indeed, it seemed to him that, taking into consideration her dark eye with its soft lashes, and the long shapely arms, and the exquisite ivory tones of the old lace dress, the scheme should really turn out, as he had so promptly put it to Miss Robinson herself, "a most distinguished piece of portraiture." He was shrewd enough to understand the essential shyness of her disposition, and he felt he might well invest her expression with some suggestion of this, though it should come out as a sort of gentle spiritual modesty.

And now his imagination returned to the contemplation of his own fortunes, and went soaring skywards. His luck having once changed, who could say what might not turn up next? Another sitter might appear, one of your great heroines, stately and brilliant—a sort of Lady Betty, in fact: he might as well admit he had Lady Betty in mind! Such a portrait, appropriately conceived, would form a remarkable pendant to this one. Then, too, he might make another dash at his masterpiece! Such a display of versatility in the next year's exhibitions must place his name on everybody's lips, must surely pave the way to his reputation not only as a great decorative portrait painter, but also as a modern of the moderns, touched to inspiration by all the stress and striving of his age!

This roseate flight was abruptly disturbed by the advent of the postman. The rat-tat, one of the double sort, imperiously summoned him to the door. Had the "something else" already turned up? He rather prided himself on the coolness with which he rose to meet it. The postman handed him a packet and a letter. But at a glance he saw that the packet was a rejected drawing and the letter Mary's, and he went straight down into the depths again. He, however, affected a cheerful good morning to the postman; then, no sooner alone, tore open the letter, with the bitter taste of yesterday's scene with his sister full in his throat. To his astonishment, he pulled out two five-pound Bank of England notes, and only a few words accompanied them. "Dearest," she wrote,—"Since you left me to-day I have suffered beyond endurance. That you will ever forgive me for my harshness I cannot hope. I am the only soul you have to turn to, and yet I struck at you as with a whip. Your face as you turned away will haunt me for the rest of my life. I have been sobbing and sobbing, feeling my heart must break. I ask you to be good to me now, and take this little money. Darling, don't punish me by sending it back. Better times are coming presently, and, if God is good, this little help now may bring you the best of fortune.—Your loving sister, Mary."

Wyndham was unnerved; realising to the full the torture her gentle, sympathetic nature was inflicting on her. What it must have cost her to gather up her strength for that critical interview he could only remotely surmise. Yet it had failed her after all!

However touched he was by her sweetness, however much he was moved to respond to this prostration and surrender, he yet saw only too clearly that at bottom it was a failure of strength. The idea of using the money was singularly distasteful; even though he told himself he would have his hand cut off rather than doubt her perfect goodness and sincerity in sending it.

This necessity of a difficult decision disturbed the nice cool balance with which he had started out to face the day. There was nothing for it but to put aside the letter for the present in the hope that counsel would come to him later. And in the meanwhile he went on with his programme. He tidied his papers, went to hunt out his old charwoman, and, ultimately leaving her in possession of the studio, he ran into town to get his new materials, and look up the various accessories for the scheme of the picture.

His first visit was to a shop in Oxford Street, where he had dealt ever since his student days, and where he could order what he needed without immediate payment. A burly man in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers was making purchases at one of the counters, and his back seemed not unfamiliar. Wyndham brought out his list and was going through the various items with one of the assistants when a heavy hand was placed on his shoulder, and, turning, he beheld the big powerful head and pointed beard of one of the old gang of his Latin Quarter days.

"Sadler!" he exclaimed.

The big head was convulsed with laughter, and Wyndham's hand wrung in a mighty grip.

"How jolly! I was coming to look you up! I've just ferreted out your address; you're still fixed out there at Hampstead?"

"Oh, do come—I shall be delighted," said Wyndham genially. "Have you been in London long?"

"Three weeks. After knocking about for five years—what do you think of that, my boy? First went all over Spain—made scores of studies. Gee! First-rate! Cheapest place in Europe—exchange thirty-five to the sovereign—and lots of good eating. Went to see a bit of Velasquez down at Madrid. Gee-rusalem! And the Titans, stuck up in a funny little room! You never see anything so fine in your life."

"Oh, I've been there," smiled Wyndham.

The vigour and enthusiasm of his old friend, the nasalities of the deep voice, had almost a complete freshness for him, after the long interval since their last meeting. He was pleased at the encounter—it brought him whiffs of old days of happy comradeship. He felt the stirring of the war-horse.

"Then I put in a nice couple of years at Munich; saw some Boecklin. Gee! He's great!"