t
that what they call 'em?"

Peter, who had turned round again, listened to this with his eyes fixed
on Nick's face while he once more drew forth his watch. "Brute!" he
exclaimed familiarly, at the same time dropping his eyes on the watch.
"When did you say you expect your sitter?"

"Oh we've plenty of time; don't be afraid of letting me see you agitated
by her presence."

"Brute!" Peter again ejaculated.

This friendly personal note cleared the air, made their communication
closer. "Stay with me and talk to me," said Nick; "I daresay it's good
for me. It may be the last time I shall see you without having before
anything else to koo-too."

"Beast!" his kinsman once more, and a little helplessly, threw off;
though next going on: "Haven't you something more to show me then--some
other fruit of your genius?"

"Must I bribe you by setting my sign-boards in a row? You know what I've
done; by which I mean of course you know what I haven't. My genius, as
you're so good as to call it, has hitherto been dreadfully sterile. I've
had no time, no opportunity, no continuity. I must go and sit down in a
corner and learn my alphabet. That thing isn't good; what I shall do for
you won't be good. Don't protest, my dear fellow; nothing will be fit to
look at for a long time." After which poor Nick wound up: "And think of
my ridiculous age! As the good people say (or don't they say it?), it's
a rum go. It won't be amusing."

"Ah you're so clever you'll get on fast," Peter returned, trying to
think how he could most richly defy the injunction not to protest.

"I mean it won't be amusing for others," said Nick, unperturbed by this
levity. "They want results, and small blame to them."

"Well, whatever you do, don't talk like Mr. Gabriel Nash," Peter went
on. "Sometimes I think you're just going to."

Nick stared a moment. "Ah he never would have said _that_ 'They want
results, the damned asses'--that would have been more in his key."

"It's the difference of a _nuance_! And are you extraordinarily happy?"
Peter added as his host now obliged him by arranging half-a-dozen
canvases so that he could look at them.

"Not so much so, doubtless, as the artistic life ought to make one:
because all one's people are not so infatuated as one's electors. But
little by little I'm learning the charm of pig-headedness."

"Your mother's very bad," Peter allowed--"I lunched with her day before
yesterday."

"Yes, I know, I know"--Nick had su