tograph.

My glance fell full on it, and I saw distinctly what it was--a
full-length figure of the danseuse Faina. Traditionally, perhaps, I
ought to have flung it into the fire--any way the grate--or torn it up.
But I am not fond of throwing other, people's things into the fire, nor
of tearing them up, simply because they offend my own views. He had no
right, perhaps, to thrust it upon me as he had, but that fact would
not, in my opinion, constitute my right to destroy it. So I merely laid
it on the mantelpiece.

"Extraordinary thing! Where did you pick that up?"

"Faina sent it to you with her love, and an invitation to supper
to-night after the last 'turn,'" replied Howard, rolling a cigarette,
sticking it with his lips, and looking at me over it.

"Oh! really?" I said, drily.

"Why, Victor, you've quite coloured up!" said Howard with a sort of
derisive triumph.

I felt I had. Why? I can hardly say. The word "love," the sudden view
of the portrait, dashed, whirling headlong over each other, through my
brain, followed by a sort of hazy cloud, out of which looked two azure
eyes.

"She is very lovely, isn't she?" Howard remarked affectionately,
setting the card upright against the wall.

"Very--in her own way," I assented.

I admitted it willingly, with pleasure. Why not?--an evident fact. The
blue slime in a blocked gutter of the road is very lovely also.

"Well, I'm going there to-night, because I admire the sister, and you
must come, too. You are killing yourself by sticking to the work in the
way you do. Come along! Where's the harm? Lucia will never know. I
won't split. God's in heaven and the Czar's a long way off! So you may
as well come and knock about a little. This monotonous life will put an
end to you!"

I was silent.

"Lucia won't know," he repeated.

"There's no question of Lucia's knowing anything," I said.

"Then why do you work as you do, and always refuse to come to a supper,
or a dance, or anything? You can't be really a quiet fellow or you
wouldn't write things the English won't have. You say it's not a
question of Lucia--then what the dickens is it that makes you live the
life you do?"

I did not answer him. I leant in silence against the mantelpiece,
staring absently at the portrait of Faina, and Howard got tired of
waiting for my answer. He went to dress, and I sat down at the
writing-table, absently sketching women's heads on my blotting paper.
Should I go with him or not? I