t it?

He had wandered into his studio; now, without his own volition, almost
as if he were hypnotised, he took the canvas on which he had painted
Christian, from where it was leaning, face inwards, against the wall,
and put it on an easel. He had not looked at it since the day of
conflict, and he told himself that he was now regarding it with the
frigid rye of the art critic.

Yes, it was good. Better than he thought. The technique was jolly
good, slick, and unworried, and the likeness was all right too. He had
somehow just got hold of that ethereal look she always had had. She
was hearing those voices they used to chaff her about. How she had
gone for John one day, when he began ragging her about that old hymn!
She always had the pluck of the devil! He frowned. She hadn't had
pluck enough to stand up to her father! He would look at her picture
no longer. He wouldn't think of her. She had chucked him. But his eyes
were held by the eyes that he had painted; with a rush, the thought of
her possessed him. She was everywhere, penetrating his very being,
"his heart in her hands"; he shook in the grip of remembrance, almost
of realisation, of her presence. For a moment, Time stood still for
him; he hung, like a ship that has been flung up into the wind,
trembling. Then the sails filled, the present re-asserted itself. He
was going to marry Tishy Mangan, and Christian had chucked him. He
turned the canvas again.

Why had he thought of that beastly hymn? It had got hold of him now!
The measured tramp of the tune fitted itself to the tick of the
clattering little tin clock on the studio chimney-piece.

"How the troops of Mid-ian,
Prowl, and prowl around!
Christian! Up and at them--"

No, that was what the Duke of Wellington said to the Guards at--Oh,
_damn_ the clock, anyhow! He caught it up, and pitched it across
the room on to a sofa, and hurled a bundle of draperies after it and
on top of it. But the tune would not stop, and the muffled, unbaffled
tick of the clock went on. He swung out of the studio, and went back
to the hall.

The house had its back to the storm, and it was only when he looked
down the Cluhir avenue, that he realised with what fury the rain was
falling. The wind had moderated a little, but the barograph-needle was
still almost off the paper it had gone so low. It was only eleven
o'clock. Two hours before the motor was to come for him. He felt, as
he told himself, using the adjective that has