aid any price. Deep down, too, he felt bitterly that he had never
received the slightest praise for any thought of his which he had
written down and sent to that cauldron of the English daily press in
which all individual right to distinction disappears, with all claim to
praise, from written matter, however good it be. He worked, he read, he
studied, he wrote late, and rose early to observe. But his natural gift
was to be a mountebank, a clown, a circus Hercules. By stiffening one of
his senseless arms he could bring down roars of applause. By years of
bitter labour with his pen he earned the barest living. The muscles that
a porter might have, offered him opulence, because it was tougher by a
few degrees than the flesh of other men. The knowledge he had striven
for just kept him above absolute want.

He slipped away from the gay party as soon as he could. His last glance
round the room showed him Angelo Reanda and Gloria, sitting in a corner
apart. The girl's face was grave. There was a gentle and happy light in
the artist's eyes which Griggs had never seen. That also was the strong
man's portion.

Wrathfully he strode away from the house, under the dim oil lamps, an
unlighted cigar between his teeth, his soft felt hat drawn over his
eyes. He crossed the city towards the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona,
his cigar still unlighted.

The streets were alive, though it was very late. There was more freedom
to be gay and more hope of being simply happy in those days. Many men
and women wandered about in bands of ten or a dozen, singing in soft
voices, above which now and then rose a few ringing tenor notes. There
was laughter everywhere in the air; tambourines drummed and thumped and
jingled, guitars twanged, and mandolines tinkled and quavered. From a
dark lane somewhere off the broader thoroughfare, a single voice sang
out in serenade. The Corso was bright with unusual lights, and strewn
with the birdseed and plaster-of-Paris 'confetti,' with yellow sand and
sprigs of box leaves, and withering flowers, and there was about all the
neighbourhood that peculiar smell of plaster and crushed flower-stalks
which belonged then to the street carnival of Rome. Further on, in the
dim quarters by the Tiber, the wine shops were all crowded, and men
stood and drank outside on the pavement, and paid, and went laughing on,
laughing and singing, singing and laughing, through the night.

Griggs felt the penetrating loneliness of him who