way without a word, because
he had no good word to say of it.

And Neville, scarcely appreciating the reason for any immediate
self-sacrifice, nevertheless had laid aside his brushes as at some
unheard command, and had gone straight to Annan's studio. And there he
had spent the whole morning giving the discouraged boy all that was best
in him of strength and wisdom and cheerful sympathy, until, by noon, an
almost hopeless canvas was saved; and Annan, going with him to the door,
said unsteadily, "Kelly, that is the kindest thing one man ever did for
another, and I'll never forget it."

Yes, the _something_ seemed to have penetrated to his own veins now; he
felt its serene glow mounting when he spent solemn evenings in John
Burleson's room, the big sculptor lying in his morris-chair, sometimes
irritable, sometimes morose, but always now wearing the vivid patch of
colour on his flat and sunken cheeks.

Once John said: "Why on earth do you waste a perfectly good afternoon
dawdling in this place with me?"

And Neville, for a second, wondered, too; then he laughed:

"I get all that I give you, John, and more, too. Shut up and mind your
business."

"_What_ do you get from me?" demanded the literal one, astonished.

"All that you are, Johnny; which is much that I am not--but ought to
be--may yet be."

"That's some sort of transcendental philosophy, isn't it?" grumbled the
sculptor.

"You ought to know better than I, John. The sacred codfish never
penetrated to the Hudson. _Inde irac!_"

Yes, truly, whatever it was that had crept into his veins had
imperceptibly suffused him, enveloped him--and was working changes. He
had a vague idea, sometimes, that Valerie had been the inception, the
source, the reagent in the chemistry which was surely altering either
himself or the world of men around him; that the change was less a
synthesis than a catalysis--that he was gradually becoming different
because of her nearness to him--her physical and spiritual nearness.

He had plenty of leisure to think of her while she was away; but thought
of her was now only an active ebullition of the ceaseless consciousness
of her which so entirely possessed him. When a selfish man loves--if he
_really_ loves--his disintegration begins.

Waking, sleeping, in happiness, in perplexity, abroad, at home, active
or at rest, inspired or weary, alone or with others, an exquisite sense
of her presence on earth invaded him, subtly refreshing him w