ly of her mysterious elfish beauty, and women
coveted her golden hair; for nothing women resent so much as Nature's
own coronation of sovereignty. She was only eighteen, and believed in
him--worse luck for her. Afterwards she became jealous and tried the
spur. It makes some beasts go and some stand stock still. He gibbed.
Rash people--men--quoted Byron, told her that constancy was woman's
greatest vice; others--women--bragged of the equality of man and woman,
hinted at levelling down when you can't level up."

"He had cared for her?"

"It was a love match. But you can't plant figs in the midst of thistles.
He was easygoing, hated a smart, so there was no uprooting, and the fig
tree perished!"

There were tears in Lawrence's eyes, but he began whistling a music hall
air in affectation of nonchalance.

"Well," I said, extending a hand as we neared Buckingham Gate, "it is
miserably sad, but thanks for instructing me. I shall be saved unlucky
allusions."

"You mean to see him?" he asked, dejectedly.

"Certainly."

With a wry sneer of dissatisfaction he bade me good-bye, and I continued
my way to the studio.

Lawrence Vane's view struck me as narrow and one-sided. He ignored the
fact that Wray was one of the most courted men in London, that in
England and America his genius drew to him followers, patrons, friends
of all ranks, and that, as a natural consequence, there were warm
corners in women's hearts for this spoilt child of fortune. With the
world beckoning, the fair sex flinging petals from the rose gardens of
love and admiration, he had needed more than human dexterity to pick his
way through the scented labyrinths that were continually twining around
his feet.

I found him in, and he greeted me with his rare smile. In an instant I
observed that he was no longer the same Wray, whose presentiment he
himself had painted for the Corporation of H----, no longer the
harum-scarum painter I had known five years ago; it seemed as though he
had thrown all the buoyancy of colour and tissue--the veritable body of
him--on the canvas, and had left merely a shadow of the original to walk
the earth.

The studio, a temporary one, was on the ground floor. It looked out on
the bustle and swarm of the Buckingham Palace Road, where the roar of
traffic was accompanied by wafts of martial music from the adjacent
parade ground. It made a bizarre accompaniment to our reunion.

I strained his hand, shook it more than once as an