es. "They will keep twice as long," said his
nurse, "in dirty water. It is such a waste to put fresh water on roses!"
This remark--slight in itself--remained in his memory as the first
truth--the Logos, in fact--from which all other truths generated. He was
now nine-and-thirty: he had executed an abnormal amount of work, and he
had a just reputation as a portrait-painter. His technical skill was
considered unique. The something lacking was that mysteriousness which
belongs to all great art, and is, essentially, in life.

"Rennes," said one of his friends, "can work for sixteen hours a day. It
is all taken from without. He gives nothing except his undivided
attention." The saying was not true; he gave himself absolutely--soul,
brain, and heart--to his task, but the gift was too premeditated,
too accurately weighed. There was no self-abandonment, nor
self-forgetfulness. His admiration for Miss Carillon had been of this
kind. Having added up her attractions, her figure, her face, her youth,
her intelligence, her grace, he decided that she was exceptional in many
ways. He found real happiness in her society--she was so sane, so clear,
so unaffected. His attitude toward her had remained for some time one of
fraternal affection, partly by force of will, chiefly because his
relations with other women were not so restrained. But the position was
changing. Certain forces in life were assuming for him a complicated and
threatening aspect. What if, after all, there was an incalculable
element in man?

"Now to be practical," he said to himself. He had not seen his mother
for a fortnight. She lived in Kensington Square. "I must really go and
see my mother!" The cab drove quickly; the little grey house was soon
reached. David opened the door with his latch-key and rushed upstairs
into the small drawing-room, furnished in white and green, with fresh
flowers on the mantelpiece, and many shelves of vellum-bound books. A
bronze lamp hung from the ceiling, and its globe, covered in violet
silk, cast a light like that of the early dawn in hilly regions. A faint
odour of lavender filled the air. In one corner of the room there was a
chess-table with its chessmen showing an interrupted game. A velvet
footstool, much indented by the pressure of a firm foot, stood in front
of the carved armchair in which Mrs. Rennes usually sat. Her
work-basket, lined with blue satin and shining with steel fittings,
stood in its customary place on a gipsy sto