ou may observe his legs slowly
lengthening and the coming of his beard. No, his legs lengthened as he
sat with his feet in the basket; but I feel sure that his beard burst
through prematurely some night when he was thinking too hard about the
ladies.

There were no ladies in the exercises, for, despite their altercation
about noses, Pym knew that on this subject Tommy's mind was a blank.
But he recognized the sex's importance, and becoming possessed once
more of a black coat, marched his pupil into the somewhat shoddy
drawing-rooms that were still open to him, and there ordered Tommy to
be fascinated for his future good. But it was as it had always been.
Tommy sat white and speechless and apparently bored; could not even
say, "You sing with so much expression!" when the lady at the
pianoforte had finished.

"Shyness I could pardon," the exasperated Pym would roar; "but want of
interest is almost immoral. At your age the blood would have been
coursing through my veins. Love! You are incapable of it. There is not
a drop of sentiment in your frozen carcass."

"Can I help that?" growled Tommy. It was an agony to him even to speak
about women.

"If you can't," said Pym, "all is over with you. An artist without
sentiment is a painter without colours. Young man, I fear you are
doomed."

And Tommy believed him, and quaked. He had the most gallant struggles
with himself. He even set his teeth and joined a dancing-class; though
neither Pym nor Elspeth knew of it, and it never showed afterwards in
his legs. In appearance he was now beginning to be the Sandys of the
photographs: a little over the middle height and rather heavily built;
nothing to make you uncomfortable until you saw his face. That solemn
countenance never responded when he laughed, and stood coldly by when
he was on fire; he might have winked for an eternity, and still the
onlooker must have thought himself mistaken. In his boyhood the mask
had descended scarce below his mouth, for there was a dimple in the
chin to put you at ease; but now the short brown beard had come, and
he was for ever hidden from the world.

He had the dandy's tastes for superb neckties, velvet jackets, and he
got the ties instead of dining; he panted for the jacket, knew all the
shop-windows it was in, but for years denied himself, with a moan, so
that he might buy pretty things for Elspeth. When eventually he got
it, Pym's friends ridiculed him. When he saw how ill his face matched