achman, and the next
thing he knew was that he was rolling over the pavement he had so
painfully traversed a few hours before.

She talked to him of the master, Cedersholm, and Antony listened. She
talked enthusiastically, admiringly, and he parried her questions as to
when and where he had worked with the Swedish sculptor. The statuette
lay on her lap.

At the studio door, when Fairfax left her, she said, taking up the
self-same gold purse that he had restored to her in the Louvre seven
months ago--

"I hope that I have enough money to pay for this treasure, Mr.
Rainsford. It's so beautiful that it must be very dear. What is the
price?"

And Fairfax, hot all over, warm indeed for the first time in long,
stammered--

"Don't speak of price--of course, I don't know you well enough, but if
you really like it, please take it."

"Take it!" Mrs. Faversham had cried, "but I mean to--I adore it. Mr.
Cedersholm will tell you how valuable it is, but I must pay you for it,
my dear Mr. Rainsford."

Holding the carriage door open, his fine face on fire and his blue eyes
illumined, he had insisted, and Antony's voice, his personality, his
outstretched hand bare, cold, shapely, charmed her and impressed her,
and he saw her slowly, unwillingly accept his sudden gift. He had seen
her embarrassed suddenly, as he was. Then she had driven away in her
carriage, to be lost in the mists with other people who did not matter
to him, and poor as he had started out, poorer, for he had not the
statuette, he limped down the stairs again and into the street to forage
for them both.

He thought whimsically: "I must feed up the whole dramatis personae of
old Bob's play, for he can't get on until he's fed up the cast!"

He limped along the Rue du Bac, his cold hands in his pockets, his head
a little bent. But no battle with life now, be it what it would, could
compare with his battle in New York. Now, indeed, though he was cold and
hungry and tired, he was the inhabitant of a city that he loved, he was
working alone for the art he adored. He believed in himself--not once
had he yet come to the period of artistic despair.

During these seven months the little personal work he had been able to
do had only whetted his desire; he was young, possessed of great talent
and of brilliant imagination, and he was happy and hopeful and
determined; the physical wants did not weigh on his spirit nor did the
long period of labour injure his power of pro