to repeat his error of years before. He had avoided
personalities with his master, as he toiled like a common day-labourer,
content to make his living and to display no originality; but now he
felt a sense of fellowship with the great Frenchman and walked along by
Barye's side to the door, proud to be so distinguished. He glanced over
the crowd in the hope of seeing Her, but instead, walking through the
rooms, his eyeglass in his eye, the little red badge of the Legion of
Honour in his coat, he saw Cedersholm.

The following day, when he went to the exhibition, the man at the door
handed a catalogue to Fairfax and pointed to No. 102, against which was
the word "Sold." His price had been unpretentious.

"Moreover," said the man, "No. 102 will certainly have a medal."

Fairfax, his hands in his empty pockets, was less impressed by that
prognostication than by the fact that there was money for him somewhere.
The man opened the desk and handed Fairfax an envelope with five hundred
francs in it.

"Who was the purchaser?" Fairfax looked at the receipt he was given to
sign and read: "Sold to Mr. Cedersholm."

"Mais non," he exclaimed shortly, "ca, non!"

He was assured, however, that it was the American sculptor and no other.
On his way home he reflected, "She sent him to purchase it." And the
five hundred francs bill burned in his pocket. Then he called himself a
fool and asked what possible interest she could still have in Thomas
Rainsford, whose news she had not taken in four weeks. And also, he
reflected, that so far as Cedersholm was concerned, Thomas Rainsford had
nothing to do with Antony Fairfax. "He merely admired my work," he
reflected bitterly. "He has seemed always singularly to admire it."

He paid some pressing debts, got his clothes out of pawn, left Dearborn
what he wanted, and was relieved when the last sou of the money was
gone.

"I wonder, Bob," he said to Dearborn, "when I shall ever have any
'serious money.'" And with sudden tenderness he thought of Bella.

Dearborn, who had also recovered a partially decent suit of clothes,
displayed his trousers and said--

"I think some chap has been wearing my clothes and stretched them." They
hung loose on him.

Fairfax laughed. "You have only shrunk, Bob, that's all. You need
feeding up."

The studio had undergone a slight transformation, which the young men
had been forced to accede to. A grand piano covered with a bright bit of
brocade stood in the