waned with every breath
he drew.

"Well," he said quietly, "you are the man I wished to see."

"Querida," he said, deeply affected, "this thing isn't going to be
permanent--"

"No; not permanent. It won't last, Neville. Nothing does last.... unless
you can tell me whether my pictures are going to endure. Are they? I
know that you will be as honest with me as I was--dishonest with you. I
will believe what you say. Is my work destined to be permanent?"

"Don't you know it is?"

"I thought so.... But _you_ know. Because, Neville, you are the man who
is coming into what was mine, and what will be your own;--and you are
coming into more than that, Neville, more than I ever could have
attained. Now answer me; will my work live?"

"Always," said Neville simply.

Querida smiled:

"The rest doesn't matter then.... Even Valerie doesn't matter.... But
you may hand me one of her roses.... No, a bud, if you don't
mind--unopened."

When it was time for Neville to go Querida's smile had faded and the
pink rose-bud lay wilted in his fingers.

"It is just as well, Neville," he said. "I couldn't have endured your
advent. Somebody _has_ to be first; I was--as long as I lived.... It is
curious how acquiescent a man's mind becomes--when he's like this. I
never believed it possible that a man really could die without regret,
without some shadow of a desire to live. Yet it is that way, Neville....
But a man must lie dying before he can understand it."

* * * * *

A highly tinted uncle from Oporto arrived in New York just in time to
see Querida alive. He brought with him a parrot.

"Send it to Mrs. Hind-Willet," whispered Querida with stiffening lips;
"_uno lavanta la caca y otro la nata_."

A few minutes later he died, and his highly coloured uncle from Oporto
sent the bird to Mrs. Hind-Willet and made the thriftiest arrangement
possible to transport what was mortal of a great artist to Oporto--where
a certain kind of parrot comes from.

CHAPTER XVI

On the morning of the first day of June Neville came into his studio and
found there a letter from Valerie:

"DEAREST: I am not keeping my word to you; I am asking you for more
time; and I know you will grant it.

"Jose Querida's death has had a curious effect on me. I was inclined to
care very sincerely for him; I comprehended him better than many people,
I think. Yet there was much in him that I never understood. And I doubt
that