ll cried with a sharp note of irony; but her white
look checked it on his lips.

"I know all you are going to say," she murmured, with a kind of
nobleness which moved him even through his sense of its grotesqueness.
"But you must see the distinction, because you first made it clear to
me. I can take money earned in good faith--I can let Caspar live on it.
I can marry Mr. Mungold; because, though his pictures are bad, he does
not prostitute his art."

She began to move away from him slowly, and he followed her in silence
along the frozen path.

When Stanwell re-entered his studio the dusk had fallen. He lit his
lamp and rummaged out some writing-materials. Having found them, he
wrote to Shepson to say that he could not paint Mrs. Van Orley, and did
not care to accept any more orders for the present. He sealed and
stamped the letter and flung it over the banisters for the janitor to
post; then he dragged out his unfinished head of Kate Arran, replaced
it on the easel, and sat down before it with a grim smile.

THE BEST MAN

I

DUSK had fallen, and the circle of light shed by the lamp of Governor
Mornway's writing-table just rescued from the surrounding dimness his
own imposing bulk, thrown back in a deep chair in the lounging attitude
habitual to him at that hour.

When the Governor of Midsylvania rested he rested completely. Five
minutes earlier he had been bowed over his office desk, an Atlas with
the State on his shoulders; now, his working hours over, he had the air
of a man who has spent his day in desultory pleasure, and means to end
it in the enjoyment of a good dinner. This freedom from care threw into
relief the hovering fidgetiness of his sister, Mrs. Nimick, who, just
outside the circle of lamplight, haunted the warm gloom of the hearth,
from which the wood fire now and then sent up an exploring flash into
her face.

Mrs. Nimick's presence did not usually minister to repose; but the
Governor's serenity was too deep to be easily disturbed, and he felt
the calmness of a man who knows there is a mosquito in the room, but
has drawn the netting close about his head. This calmness reflected
itself in the accent with which he said, throwing himself back to smile
up at his sister: "You know I am not going to make any appointments for
a week."

It was the day after the great reform victory which had put John
Mornway for the second time at the head of his State, a triumph
compared with which even the