come to
him to soothe his irritation. He seemed to see her surrounded by people
and things. Evidently his love had not inspired him, nor did luxury and
the intercourse with worldly people. He had been the day before with
Mary to see the crowning exhibition of a celebrated painter's work, the
fruits of four years of labour. The artist himself, frightfully obese,
smiling and self-satisfied, stood surrounded by his canvases. None of
the paintings had the spontaneity and beauty of his early works--not
one. Fairfax had heard a Latin Quarter student say, "B---- used to paint
with his soul before he was rich, now he paints with his stomach." The
marks of the beast had stamped out the divine seal.

As Fairfax mixed his clay in the silent room where he and Dearborn had
half starved together, he said, "I have never yet become so frightfully
rich as to imperil my soul."

In the declining spring light he began to model. He did not look like a
happy man, like a happy lover, like a man destined to marry a beautiful
woman with several millions of dollars. "Damn money," he muttered as he
worked, and, after a little, "Damn poverty," he murmured. What was it,
then, he could bless? In his present point of view nothing seemed
blessed. He was working savagely and heavily, but hungrily too, as
though he besought his hands to find again for him the sacred touch that
should electrify him again, or as though he prayed his brain to send its
enlightened message to his hand, or as though he called on his emotion
to warm his hardened heart--a combination which he believed was needful
to work and art. Fairfax was so working when the porter brought him a
letter.

It was from Dearborn, and Antony read it eagerly, holding it up to the
fading light. As he saw Dearborn's handwriting he realized that he
missed his companion, and also realized the strong link between them
which is so defined between those who work at a kindred art.

"Dear old man,"--the letter was dated London--"I am sky-high in a room
for which I pay a shilling a night. A thing in the roof is called a
window. Through it I see a field of pots--not flower-pots, but
chimney-pots--and the smoke from them is hyacinthine. The smoke of
endless winters and innumerable fogs has grimed every blessed thing in
this filthy room. My bed-spread is grey cloth, once meant to be white.
Other lodgers have left burnt matches on the faded carpet, whose flowers
have long since been put out by the soot. Ou