visitor lingering in the studio when all other guests were
gone; or whether it was simply the feeling that the longer he stayed in
contact with really artistic people the more distinguished he was
becoming. Probably the latter, for the possession of that Harpignies, a
good specimen, which he had bought by accident, and subsequently by
accident discovered to have a peculiar value, had become a factor in his
life, marking him out from all his friends, who went in more for a neat
type of Royal Academy landscape, together with reproductions of young
ladies in eighteenth-century costumes seated on horseback, or in Scotch
gardens. A junior partner in a banking-house of some importance, he
lived at Wimbledon, whence he passed up and down daily in his car. To
this he owed his acquaintance with the family of Dallison. For one day,
after telling his chauffeur to meet him at the Albert Gate, he had set
out to stroll down Rotten Row, as he often did on the way home, designing
to nod to anybody that he knew. It had turned out a somewhat barren
expedition. No one of any consequence had met his eye; and it was with a
certain almost fretful longing for distraction that in Kensington Gardens
he came on an old man feeding birds out of a paper bag. The birds having
flown away on seeing him, he approached the feeder to apologize.

"I'm afraid I frightened your birds, sir," he began.

This old man, who was dressed in smoke-grey tweeds which exhaled a
poignant scent of peat, looked at him without answering.

"I'm afraid your birds saw me coming," Mr. Purcey said again.

"In those days," said the aged stranger, "birds were afraid of men."

Mr. Purcey's shrewd grey eyes perceived at once that he had a character
to deal with.

"Ah, yes!" he said; "I see--you allude to the present time. That's very
nice. Ha, ha!"

The old man answered: "The emotion of fear is inseparably connected with
a primitive state of fratricidal rivalry."

This sentence put Mr. Purcey on his guard.

'The old chap,' he thought, 'is touched. He evidently oughtn't to be out
here by himself.' He debated, therefore, whether he should hasten away
toward his car, or stand by in case his assistance should be needed.
Being a kind-hearted man, who believed in his capacity for putting things
to rights, and noticing a certain delicacy--a "sort of something rather
distinguished," as he phrased it afterwards--in the old fellow's face and
figure, he decided to see if