al police, might possibly have been efficacious;
but to have broken in upon his exalted mood with such suggestions would
have demanded more nerve than at the time I possessed. In consequence,
my thoughts I kept to myself.

"My God, boy!" he would conclude, "may you never love as I loved that
woman Miriam"--or Henrietta, or Irene, as the case might be.

For my sympathetic attitude towards the red-haired man I received one
evening commendation from old Deleglise.

"Good boy," said old Deleglise, laying his hand on my shoulder. We were
standing in the passage. We had just shaken hands with the red-haired
man, who, as usual, had been the last to leave. "None of the others will
listen to him. He used to stop and confide it all to me after everybody
else had gone. Sometimes I have dropped asleep, to wake an hour later
and find him still talking. He gets it over early now. Good boy!"

Soon I learnt it was characteristic of the artist to be willing--nay,
anxious, to confide his private affairs to any one and every one who
would only listen. Another characteristic appeared to be determination
not to listen to anybody else's. As attentive recipient of other
people's troubles and emotions I was subjected to practically no
competition whatever. One gentleman, a leading actor of that day, I
remember, immediately took me aside on my being introduced to him, and
consulted me as to his best course of procedure under the extremely
painful conditions that had lately arisen between himself and his wife.
We discussed the unfortunate position at some length, and I did my best
to counsel fairly and impartially.

"I wish you would lunch with me at White's to-morrow," he said. "We can
talk it over quietly. Say half-past one. By the bye, I didn't catch your
name."

I spelt it to him: he wrote the appointment down on his shirt-cuff. I
went to White's the next day and waited an hour, but he did not turn
up. I met him three weeks later at a garden-party with his wife. But he
appeared to have forgotten me.

Observing old Deleglise's guests, comparing them with their names, it
surprised me the disconnection between the worker and the work. Writers
of noble sentiment, of elevated ideality, I found contained in men of
commonplace appearance, of gross appetites, of conventional ideas.
It seemed doubtful whether they fully comprehended their own work;
certainly it had no effect upon their own lives. On the other hand, an
innocent, boyish young m