occurred to her that she
should like to study art, and might possibly find in it a means of
self-support. She was allowed to attend classes at South Kensington,
but little came of this except a close friendship with a girl of her
own age, by name Bertha Cross, who was following the art course with
more serious purpose. When she had been betrothed for about a year,
Rosamund chanced to spend a week in London at her friend's house, and
this led to acquaintance between Franks and the Crosses. For a time,
Warburton saw and heard less of the artist, who made confidantes of
Mrs. Cross and her daughter, and spent many an evening with them
talking, talking, talking about Rosamund; but this intimacy did not
endure very long, Mrs. Cross being a person of marked peculiarities,
which in the end overtried Norbert's temper. Only on the fourth story
flat by Chelsea Bridge could the lover find that sort of sympathy which
he really needed, solacing yet tonic. But for Warburton he would have
worked even less. To Will it seemed an odd result of fortunate love
that the artist, though in every other respect a better man than
before, should have become, to all appearances, less zealous, less
efficient, in his art. Had Rosamund Elvan the right influence on her
lover; in spite of Norbert's lyric eulogy, had she served merely to
confuse his aims, perhaps to bring him down to a lower level of thought?

There was his picture, "Sanctuary." Before he knew Rosamund, Franks
would have scoffed at such a subject, would have howled at such
treatment of it. There was notable distance between this and what
Norbert was painting in that summer sunrise four years ago, with his
portable easel in the gutter. And Miss Elvan admired "Sanctuary"--at
least, Franks said she did. True, she also admired the picture of the
pawnshop and the public-house; Will had himself heard her speak of it
with high praise, and with impatient wonder that no purchaser could be
found for it. Most likely she approved of everything Norbert did, and
had no more serious criterion. Unless, indeed, her private test of
artistic value were the financial result.

Warburton could not altogether believe that. Annoyance with the artist
now and then inclined him to slighting thought of Rosamund; yet, on the
whole, his view of her was not depreciatory. The disadvantage to his
mind was her remarkable comeliness. He could not but fear that so much
beauty must be inconsistent with the sterling qualit