ay to magnificent
effects; ye gods, such light and shade! The fact is, the novel of
every-day life is getting worn out. We must dig deeper, get to
untouched social strata. Dickens felt this, but he had not the courage
to face his subjects; his monthly numbers had to lie on the family
tea-table. Not _virginibus puerisque_ will be my book, I assure you,
but for men and women who like to look beneath the surface, and who
understand that only as artistic material has human life any
significance. Yes, that is the conclusion I am working round to. The
artist is the only sane man. Life for its own sake?--no; I would drink
a pint of laudanum to-night. But life as the source of splendid
pictures, inexhaustible material for effects--_that_ can reconcile me
to existence, and that only. It is a delight followed by no bitter
after-taste, and the only such delight I know."

Harriet was very quiet when Julian returned. She went about getting the
tea with a sort of indifference; she let a cup fall and break, but made
no remark, and left her husband to pick up the pieces.

"Waymark thinks I'm neglecting him," said Julian, with a laugh, as they
sat down together.

"It's better to neglect him than to neglect me, I should think," was
Harriet's reply, in a quiet ill-natured tone which she was mistress of.

"But couldn't we find out some way of doing neither, dear?" went on
Julian, playing with his spoon. "Now suppose I give him a couple of
hours one evening every week? You could spare that, couldn't you? Say,
from eight to ten on Wednesdays?"

"I suppose you'll go if you want to." said Harriet, rising from the
tea-table, and taking a seat sulkily by the window.

"Come, come, we won't say any more about it, if it's so disagreeable to
you," said Julian, going up to her, and coaxing her back to her place.
"You don't feel well to-day, do you? I oughtn't to have left you this
afternoon, but it was difficult to refuse, wasn't it?"

"He had no business to ask you to go. He could see I didn't like it."

Waymark grew so accustomed to receiving Ida's note each Monday morning,
that when for the first time it failed to conic he was troubled
seriously. It happened, too, that he was able to attach a particular
significance to the omission. When they had last parted, instead of
just pressing her hand as usual, he had raised it to his lips. She
frowned and turned quickly away, saying no word. He had offended her by
this infringement of the conditi