ing visions
and scourgings, and the wrangling of soul with flesh. The venerable
Theseus might have been victorious Charlemagne, and Phaedra's maidens
belonged rather in the train of Blanche of Castile than at the Cretan
court. In the earlier studies Hippolytus had been done with a more pagan
suggestion; but in each successive drawing the glorious figure bad been
deflowered of something of its serene unconsciousness, until, in the
canvas under the skylight, he appeared a very Christian knight.
This male figure, and the face of Phaedra, painted with such magical
preservation of tone under the heavy shadow of the veil, were plainly
Treffinger's highest achievements of craftsmanship. By what labor he had
reached the seemingly inevitable composition of the picture--with its
twenty figures, its plenitude of light and air, its restful distances
seen through white porticoes--countless studies bore witness.

From James's attitude toward the picture MacMaster could well conjecture
what the painter's had been. This picture was always uppermost in
James's mind; its custodianship formed, in his eyes, his occupation.
He was manifestly apprehensive when visitors--not many came
nowadays--lingered near it. "It was the _Marriage_ as killed 'im," he
would often say, "and for the matter 'o that, it did like to 'av been
the death of all of us."

By the end of his second week in London MacMaster had begun the notes
for his study of Hugh Treffinger and his work. When his researches
led him occasionally to visit the studios of Treffinger's friends and
erstwhile disciples, he found their Treffinger manner fading as the
ring of Treffinger's personality died out in them. One by one they were
stealing back into the fold of national British art; the hand that
had wound them up was still. MacMaster despaired of them and confined
himself more and more exclusively to the studio, to such of Treffinger's
letters as were available--they were for the most part singularly
negative and colorless--and to his interrogation of Treffinger's man.

He could not himself have traced the successive steps by which he was
gradually admitted into James's confidence. Certainly most of his adroit
strategies to that end failed humiliatingly, and whatever it was that
built up an understanding between them must have been instinctive and
intuitive on both sides. When at last James became anecdotal, personal,
there was that in every word he let fall which put breath and blo