canvas, to
which he had of late devoted his mornings entirely, keeping the
afternoons for his sitters. He saw that it was imperative he should now
make some fresh sketches on the spot. But to regain his exact vision he
must have access to the old window in Grosvenor Place. Yet the very
thought of the house and the memory of those former visits had a
strange shattering effect on him. And some warning voice rose sternly,
bade him not renew these old associations.

He reasoned the matter out, and hesitation seemed absurd. For the sake
of his picture, it was essential he should occupy a certain point of
view. Though he had let the acquaintanceship lapse entirely ever since
Lady Betty's marriage, access to that point of view was no doubt a
simple matter. A mere letter of request, and the old earl would readily
give his permission. This time he would probably come and go without
seeing anybody at all.

Wyndham sat down to write the letter, the interest of the composition
ousting for the time his irrational misgivings. He recalled himself to
the earl's recollection, explained that the picture for which he had
made the former sketches had unavoidably been put aside; but now that he
was at last able to take it up again he desired to make some fresh
sketches, and begged the use of his old post of vantage for a few
mornings. He concluded with the hope that the earl was in the best of
health, and sent his respects and remembrances to his daughter, should
the earl be seeing her just then.

It was the merest courtesy on his part to show he had not forgotten Lady
Betty! After all, their lives were so entirely alien now!

He addressed and stamped the letter; then his strong instinct against
the whole proceeding reasserted itself. He rose and paced about. The
warning voice said, "Keep away from Grosvenor Place. No good will come
of it." "But it's absurd," he said aloud. "The thing's an absolute
necessity--I can't throw over the picture at this stage. My whole
artistic future depends upon it. What harm can possibly arise from my
going there? Lady Betty? Why, she's a matron by now! And probably not
even in England. And if she were, what is she to me now? And at any rate
I am certainly nothing to her. If I stumbled up against her the very
first morning I went there, we should still be far as the poles asunder.
She was certainly a wonderful girl, and I of course fell headlong in
love with her. Put any impressionable fellow with poetic i