nd meanwhile the bank from which he had borrowed most of his
building money was pressing inexorably for repayment; the solicitor in
Bedford Row could do nothing, and was manifestly averse to running
up a longer bill on his own account; so that, instead of painting,
Fenwick often spent his miserable days in rushing about London, trying
to raise money by one shift after another, in an agony to get a bill
accepted or postponed, borrowing from this person and that, and with
every succeeding week losing more self-respect and self-control.

The situation would have been instantly changed if only his artistic
power had recovered itself. And if Eugenie had been within his reach
it might have done so. She had the secret of stimulating in him what
was poetic, and repressing what was merely extravagant or violent. But
she was far away: and as he worked at the completion of his series of
'Months,' or at various portraits which the kindness or compassion of
old friends had procured for him, he fell headlong into all his worst
faults.

His handling, once so distinguished through all its inequalities, grew
steadily more careless and perfunctory; his drawing lost force and
grip; his composition, so rich, interesting, and intelligent in his
early days, now meant nothing, said nothing. The few friends who still
haunted his studio during these dark months were often struck with
pity; criticism or argument was useless; and some of them believed
that he was suffering from defects of sight, and was no longer capable
of judging his own work.

The portrait commissions, in particular, led more than once to
disaster. His angry vanity suspected that while he was now thought
incapable of the poetic or imaginative work in which he had once
excelled, he was still considered--'like any fool'--good enough for
portraits. This alone was enough to make him loathe the business. On
two or three occasions he ended by quarrelling with the sitter. Then
for hours he would walk restlessly about his room, smoking enormously,
drinking--sometimes excessively--out of a kind of excitement and
_desoeuvrement_--his strong, grizzled hair bristling about his head,
his black eyes staring and bloodshot, and that wild gypsyish look
of his youth more noticeable than ever in these surroundings of what
promised soon to be a decadent middle age.

One habit of his youth had quite disappeared. The queer tendency to
call on Heaven for practical aid in any practical difficulty