t was perched. It was furnished with a
dainty, and almost a feminine luxury. The room, she could see, was no
more than an oblong garret; but along one side mouse-coloured curtains
fell to the ground in folds from the angle where the sloping roof met
the wall; on the other a cheerful fire glowed from a hearth of white
tiles and a kettle sang merrily upon the hob. A broad couch, piled
with silk cushions occupied the far end beneath the window, and the
feet sank with a delicate pleasure into a thick velvety carpet. In the
centre a small inlaid table of cedar wood held a silver tea-service.
The candlesticks were of silver also, and cast in a light and
fantastic fashion. The solitary discord was a black easel funereally
draped.

Julian prepared the tea, and talked while he prepared it. "It is this
way," he began quietly. "You know what I have always believed; that
the will was the man, his soul, his life, everything. Well, in the old
days thoughts and ideas commenced to make themselves felt in me, to
crop up in my work. I would start on a picture with a clear settled
design; when it was finished, I would notice that by some unconscious
freak I had introduced a figure, an arabesque, always something which
made the whole incongruous and bizarre. I discovered the cause during
the week after I received your last letter. The thoughts, the ideas
were yours; better than mine perhaps, but none the less death to me."

Lady Tamworth stirred uneasily under a sense of guilt, and murmured
a faint objection. Julian shook off the occupation of his theme and
handed her some cake, and began again, standing over her with the cake
in his hand, and to all seeming unconscious that there was a strain of
cruelty in his words. "I found out what that meant. My emotions were
mastering me, drowning the will in me. You see, I cared for you so
much--then."

A frank contempt stressing the last word cut into his hearer with the
keenness of a knife. "You are unkind," she said weakly.

"There's no reproach to you. I have got over it long ago," he replied
cheerily. "And you showed me how to get over it; that's why I am
grateful. For I began to wonder after that, why I, who had always been
on my guard against the emotions, should become so thoroughly their
slave. And at last I found out the reason; it was the work I was
doing."

"Your work?" she exclaimed.

"Exactly! You remember what Plato remarked about the actor?"

"How should I?" asked poor Lady