llow, one day when the boy was turning twenty,
broke it to their friend, who shared, to the last delicate morsel,
their problems and pains, that it seemed as if nothing would really do
but that he should embrace the career. It had been impossible longer
to remain blind to the fact that he was gaining no glory at Cambridge,
where Brench's own college had for a year tempered its tone to him as
for Brench's own sake. Therefore why renew the vain form of preparing
him for the impossible? The impossible--it had become clear--was that
he should be anything but an artist.

'Oh dear, dear!' said poor Peter.

'Don't you believe in it?' asked Mrs Mallow, who still, at more than
forty, had her violet velvet eyes, her creamy satin skin and her
silken chestnut hair.

'Believe in what?'

'Why in Lance's passion.'

'I don't know what you mean by "believing in it". I've never been
unaware, certainly, of his disposition, from his earliest time, to
daub and draw; but I confess I've hoped it would burn out.'

'But why should it,' she sweetly smiled, 'with his wonderful heredity?
Passion is passion--though of course indeed _you_, dear Peter, know
nothing of that. Has the Master's ever burned out?'

Peter looked off a little and, in his familiar formless way, kept up
for a moment, a sound between a smothered whistle and a subdued hum.
'Do you think he's going to be another Master?'

She seemed scarce prepared to go that length, yet she had on the whole
a marvellous trust. 'I know what you mean by that. Will it be a career
to incur the jealousies and provoke the machinations that have been
at times almost too much for his father? Well--say it may be, since
nothing but clap-trap, in these dreadful days, _can_, it would seem,
make its way, and since, with the curse of refinement and distinction,
one may easily find one's self begging one's bread. Put it at the
worst--say he _has_ the misfortune to wing his flight further than the
vulgar taste of his stupid countrymen can follow. Think, all the same,
of the happiness--the same the Master has had. He'll _know_.'

Peter looked rueful. 'Ah but _what_ will he know?'

'Quiet joy!' cried Mrs Mallow, quite impatient and turning away.

II

He had of course before long to meet the boy himself on it and to hear
that practically everything was settled. Lance was not to go up again,
but to go instead to Paris where, since the die was cast, he would
find the best advantages. Peter had alw