ked of books there, but the makers of
them seemed men of another sphere. His aunt and the Comte Potowski sang
there indeed, but to Antony their voices were only echoes. He had grown
accustomed to objects whose possession meant small fortunes. His own few
belongings seemed pitiful and sordid. Poverty at Albany had appalled
him, but as yet his soul had been untarnished. Life seemed then a
beautiful struggle. Here in Paris, too, as he worked with Dearborn in
his studio, the lack of money had been unimportant, and privation only a
step on which men of talent poised before going on. Lessons had been
precious to him, and in his meagre existence all his untrammelled senses
had been keen. Now his lack of material resource was terrible,
degrading, sickening.

He threw open wide the window and let in the May sunlight, and the noise
of the streets came with it. Below his window paused the "goat's
milkman," calling sweetly on his little pipe; a girl cried lilies of the
valley; there was a cracking of whips, the clattering of horses' feet,
and the rattling of the little cabs. The peculiar impersonality of the
few of the big city, the passing of the anonymous throng, had a soothing
effect upon him. The river flowed quietly, swiftly past the Louvre, on
which great white clouds massed themselves like snow. Fairfax drew a
long breath and turned to the studio, put on his old corduroy clothes,
filled himself a pipe, and uncovered one of his statues in the corner,
and with his tools in his hand took his position before his discarded
work.

This study had not struck him as being successful when he had thrown the
cloth over it in February, when he had gone up to the Avenue du Bois de
Boulogne. Since that time he had not touched his clay. Now the piece of
work struck his critical sense with its several qualities of merit. He
was too real an artist not to see its value and to judge it. Was it
possible that he had created that charming thing--had there been in him
sufficient talent to form those plastic lines? It was impossible for
Antony to put himself in the frame of mind in which he had been before
he left his work; in vain he tried to bring back the old inspiration of
feeling. The work was strange to him, and almost beautiful too. He was
jealous of it, angry at it. Had he become in so short a time a useless
man? He should have been gaining in experience. A man is all the richer
for being in love and being loved. The image of Mary would not