h stool, still observing his visitor.
For a good many years now, Fenwick had been always well and carefully
dressed--an evident Londoner, accustomed to drawing-rooms and
frequenting expensive tailors. But to-day there was something in his
tired, dishevelled look, and comparatively shabby coat, which reminded
Watson of years long gone by--of a studio in Bernard Street, and a
broad-browed, handsome fellow, with queer manners and a North-Country
accent. As to good looks, Fenwick's face and head were now far finer
than they had been in first youth; Watson's critical eye took note of
it. The hair, touched lightly with grey, had receded slightly on the
temples, and the more ample brow, heavily lined, gave a nobler
shelter than of old to the still astonishing vivacity of the eyes.
The carriage of the head, too, was prouder and more assured. Fenwick,
indeed, as far as years went, was, as Watson knew, in the very prime
of life. Nevertheless, there was in his aspect, as he sat there, a
prophetic note of discouragement, of ebbing vitality which startled
his friend.

'I say,' said Watson, abruptly, 'you've been over-doing it. Have you
made it up with the Academy?'

Fenwick laughed.

'Goodness, no!'

'Where have you been exhibiting this year?'

'At the gallery I always take. And I sent some things to the
Grosvenor.'

Watson shook his head.

'It's an awful pity. You'd got in--you should have stayed in--and made
yourself a power.'

Fenwick's attitude stiffened.

'I have never regretted it for a single hour--except that the scene
itself was ridiculous.'

Watson knew very well to what he referred. Some two years before,
it had been the nine days wonder of artistic London. Fenwick, then a
newly elected Associate of the Academy, and at what seemed to be the
height of his first success as an artist, had sent in a picture to
the Spring Exhibition which appeared to the Hanging Committee of
the moment a perfunctory thing. They gave it a bad place, and an
Academician told Fenwick what had happened. He rushed to Burlington
House, tore down his picture from the wall, stormed at the astonished
members of the Hanging Committee, carried off his property, and vowed
that he would resign his Associateship. He was indeed called upon to
do so; and he signalised his withdrawal by a furious letter to the
_Times_ in which the rancours, grievances, and contempts of ten
chequered and ambitious years found full and rhetorical expression.
The l