mbler of whisky and soda
reanimated his flagging talk.

"No!" he exclaimed. "I'm not going to admit that 'Sanctuary' is cheap
and sentimental, and all the rest of it. The more I think about it, the
more convinced I am that it's nothing to be ashamed of. People have got
hold of the idea that if a thing is popular it must be bad art. That's
all rot. I'm going in for popularity. Look here! Suppose that's what I
was meant for? What if it's the best I have in me to do? Shouldn't I be
a jackass if I scorned to make money by what, for me, was good work,
and preferred to starve whilst I turned out pretentious stuff that was
worth nothing from my point of view?"

"I shouldn't wonder if you're right," said Warburton reflectively. "In
any case, I know as much about art as I do about the differential
calculus. To make money is a good and joyful thing as long as one
doesn't bleed the poor. So go ahead, my son, and luck be with you!"

"I can't find my model yet for the Slummer's head. It mustn't be too
like the 'Sanctuary' girl, but at the same time it must be a popular
type of beauty. I've been haunting refreshment bars and florists'
shops; lots of good material, but never _quite_ the thing. There's a
damsel at the Crystal Palace--but this doesn't interest you, you old
misogynist."

"Old what?" exclaimed Warburton, with an air of genuine surprise.

"Have I got the word wrong? I'm not much of a classic--"

"The word's all right. But that's your idea of me, is it?"

The artist stood and gazed at his friend with an odd expression, as if
a joke had been arrested on his lips by graver thought.

"Isn't it true?"

"Perhaps it is; yes, yes, I daresay."

And he turned at once to another subject.

CHAPTER 3

The year was 1886.

When at business, Warburton sat in a high, bare room, which looked upon
little Ailie Street, in Whitechapel; the air he breathed had a taste
and odour strongly saccharine. If his eye strayed to one of the walls,
he saw a map of the West Indies; if to another, it fell upon a map of
St. Kitts; if to the third, there was before him a plan of a sugar
estate on that little island. Here he sat for certain hours of the
solid day, issuing orders to clerks, receiving commercial callers,
studying trade journals in sundry languages--often reading some book
which had no obvious reference to the sugar-refining industry. It was
not Will's ideal of life, but hither he had suffered himself to be led
by circums