re the only friend I had in Paris.
I thought you rather liked me. I felt there was something between us. I
was drawn towards you--you know what I mean, your club-foot."

Philip reddened and instinctively tried to walk without a limp. He did not
like anyone to mention the deformity. He knew what Fanny Price meant. She
was ugly and uncouth, and because he was deformed there was between them
a certain sympathy. He was very angry with her, but he forced himself not
to speak.

"You said you only asked my advice to please me. Don't you think my work's
any good?"

"I've only seen your drawing at Amitrano's. It's awfully hard to judge
from that."

"I was wondering if you'd come and look at my other work. I've never asked
anyone else to look at it. I should like to show it to you."

"It's awfully kind of you. I'd like to see it very much."

"I live quite near here," she said apologetically. "It'll only take you
ten minutes."

"Oh, that's all right," he said.

They were walking along the boulevard, and she turned down a side street,
then led him into another, poorer still, with cheap shops on the ground
floor, and at last stopped. They climbed flight after flight of stairs.
She unlocked a door, and they went into a tiny attic with a sloping roof
and a small window. This was closed and the room had a musty smell. Though
it was very cold there was no fire and no sign that there had been one.
The bed was unmade. A chair, a chest of drawers which served also as a
wash-stand, and a cheap easel, were all the furniture. The place would
have been squalid enough in any case, but the litter, the untidiness, made
the impression revolting. On the chimney-piece, scattered over with paints
and brushes, were a cup, a dirty plate, and a tea-pot.

"If you'll stand over there I'll put them on the chair so that you can see
them better."

She showed him twenty small canvases, about eighteen by twelve. She placed
them on the chair, one after the other, watching his face; he nodded as he
looked at each one.

"You do like them, don't you?" she said anxiously, after a bit.

"I just want to look at them all first," he answered. "I'll talk
afterwards."

He was collecting himself. He was panic-stricken. He did not know what to
say. It was not only that they were ill-drawn, or that the colour was put
on amateurishly by someone who had no eye for it; but there was no attempt
at getting the values, and the perspective was grotesque. It looked