fect was
apparently that it was not quite enough a conscious virtue, of many of
the objects of common esteem. When Nick asked him what he had been doing
he replied, "Oh living, you know"; and the tone of the words offered
them as the story of a great deed. He made a long visit, staying to
luncheon and after luncheon, so that the little studio heard all at once
a greater quantity of brave talk than in the several previous years of
its history. With much of our tale left to tell it is a pity that so
little of this colloquy may be reported here; since, as affairs took
their course, it marked really--if the question be of noting the exact
point--a turn of the tide in Nick Dormer's personal situation. He was
destined to remember the accent with which Nash exclaimed, on his
drawing forth sundry specimens of amateurish earnestness:

"I say--I say--I say!"

He glanced round with a heightened colour. "They're pretty bad, eh?"

"Oh you're a deep one," Nash went on.

"What's the matter?"

"Do you call your conduct that of a man of honour?"

"Scarcely perhaps. But when no one has seen them--!"

"That's your villainy. _C'est de l'exquis, du pur exquis_. Come, my dear
fellow, this is very serious--it's a bad business," said Gabriel Nash.
Then he added almost with austerity: "You'll be so good as to place
before me every patch of paint, every sketch and scrap, that this room
contains."

Nick complied in great good humour. He turned out his boxes and drawers,
shovelled forth the contents of bulging portfolios, mounted on chairs to
unhook old canvases that had been severely "skied." He was modest and
docile and patient and amused, above all he was quite thrilled--thrilled
with the idea of eliciting a note of appreciation so late in the day. It
was the oddest thing how he at present in fact found himself imputing
value to his visitor--attributing to him, among attributions more
confused, the dignity of judgement, the authority of knowledge. Nash was
an ambiguous character but an excellent touchstone. The two said very
little for a while, and they had almost half an hour's silence, during
which, after our young man had hastily improvised an exhibition, there
was only a puffing of cigarettes. Gabriel walked about, looking at this
and that, taking up rough studies and laying them down, asking a
question of fact, fishing with his umbrella, on the floor, amid a pile
of unarranged sketches. Nick accepted jocosely the attitude of suspe