o appreciate him; somebody desired to see his work, was
looking up to him in admiration! He felt strangely rejuvenated--it was
as if he had taken a dose of some wonderful elixir. He selected half a
dozen of the smaller pictures, and brought them forward. Then, as he
wheeled the great easel into position, the whim took him to see how his
huge "masterpiece" looked after all this long interval of time.

For, since he had stood it with its face to the wall on Lady Betty's
wedding-day, he had never had the heart to glance at it again. Not
merely failure and wasted years were associated with it, but it stirred
memories of the hours he had spent at Grosvenor Place in the first
freshness of his hopes, when he had worked with the passion of youth.
Then, too, there was the silent drama that had played itself out in the
depths of his own spirit. Looking back, it seemed to him that no man
could ever have cherished a more hopeless love, or have encountered a
more inevitable one. Nor had the lapse of time softened the bitterness
of that strange romantic chapter. Lady Betty's figure and personality
would remain with him as his ideal of woman for the rest of his life;
and he clung to the memory of his hurt as typical of his whole fortune.

But though the thought of the picture to-night inevitably stirred up
some of these old emotions, there was joined to them a sudden
overwhelming curiosity. What would be his impression at the first
glance? Would all its deficiencies and crudities stand out in relief,
and make him turn away from it in sickness and loathing? Or would it
strike him, however unfinished it might be, as having yet promise in it,
as justifying some at least of the time--nay, even life-blood--he had
consecrated to it?

"What a huge thing!" ejaculated Mr. Robinson, as Wyndham tilted it back
from the wall.

"It _is_ tremendous," smiled Wyndham. "I'm afraid I shall have to ask
you to give me a hand with it."

Together they carried it to the easel, and Wyndham hoisted it to its old
place. "I don't know whether we shall be able to make head or tail of
it," he said; "but I'll do what I can with the lamp. As you see, it's a
powerful one."

"Of course I don't profess to be a connoisseur of oil paintings," Mr.
Robinson warned him. "But I know what I like, though I daresay you will
think me extremely benighted."

"No, indeed," protested Wyndham; "I shall value your opinion highly." He
worked away at the little wheel at the back