ing. If I could
be guaranteed to live to ninety-nine, like Titian--he had a chance. Look
at that poor fellow who was killed the other day! All that struggle, and
then--just at the turn!"

He spoke English with a foreign accent; his voice was rather harsh, but
his smile very kindly.

Dawney lit a cigarette.

"You painters," he said, "are better off than most of us. You can strike
out your own line. Now if I choose to treat a case out of the ordinary
way and the patient dies, I'm ruined."

"My dear Doctor--if I don't paint what the public likes, I starve; all
the same I'm going to paint in my own way; in the end I shall come out on
top."

"It pays to work in the groove, my friend, until you've made your name;
after that--do what you like, they'll lick your boots all the same."

"Ah, you don't love your work."

Dawney answered slowly: "Never so happy as when my hands are full. But I
want to make money, to get known, to have a good time, good cigars, good
wine. I hate discomfort. No, my boy, I must work it on the usual lines;
I don't like it, but I must lump it. One starts in life with some notion
of the ideal--it's gone by the board with me. I've got to shove along
until I've made my name, and then, my little man--then--"

"Then you'll be soft!"

"You pay dearly for that first period!"

"Take my chance of that; there's no other way."

"Make one!"

"Humph!"

Harz poised his brush, as though it were a spear:

"A man must do the best in him. If he has to suffer--let him!"

Dawney stretched his large soft body; a calculating look had come into
his eyes.

"You're a tough little man!" he said.

"I've had to be tough."

Dawney rose; tobacco smoke was wreathed round his unruffled hair.

"Touching Villa Rubein," he said, "shall I call for you? It's a mixed
household, English mostly--very decent people."

"No, thank you. I shall be painting all day. Haven't time to know the
sort of people who expect one to change one's clothes."

"As you like; ta-to!" And, puffing out his chest, Dawney vanished
through a blanket looped across the doorway.

Harz set a pot of coffee on a spirit-lamp, and cut himself some bread.
Through the window the freshness of the morning came; the scent of sap
and blossom and young leaves; the scent of earth, and the mountains freed
from winter; the new flights and songs of birds; all the odorous,
enchanted, restless Spring.

There suddenly appeared through the doorway a