en what's a fellow
to be?'

'My particular care. Come, old man'--and Peter now fairly
pleaded--'_I'll_ look out for you.'

Lance, who had remained on the sofa with his legs out and his hands in
his pockets, watched him with eyes that showed suspicion. Then he got
up. 'You think there's something the matter with me--that I can't make
a success.'

'Well, what do you call a success?'

Lance thought again. 'Why the best sort, I suppose, is to please one's
self. Isn't that the sort that, in spite of cabals and things, is--in
his own peculiar line--the Master's?'

There were so much too many things in this question to be answered
at once that they practically checked the discussion, which became
particularly difficult in the light of such renewed proof that, though
the young man's innocence might, in the course of his studies, as
he contended, somewhat have shrunken, the finer essence of it still
remained. That was indeed exactly what Peter had assumed and what
above all he desired; yet perversely enough it gave him a chill. The
boy believed in the cabals and things, believed in the peculiar line,
believed, to be brief, in the Master. What happened a month or two
later wasn't that he went up again at the expense of his godfather,
but that a fortnight after he had got settled in Paris this personage
sent him fifty pounds.

He had meanwhile at home, this personage, made up his mind to the
worst; and what that might be had never yet grown quite so vivid to
him as when, on his presenting himself one Sunday night, as he never
failed to do, for supper, the mistress of Carrara Lodge met him
with an appeal as to--of all things in the world--the wealth of the
Canadians. She was earnest, she was even excited. 'Are many of them
_really_ rich?'

He had to confess he knew nothing about them, but he often thought
afterwards of that evening. The room in which they sat was adorned
with sundry specimens of the Master's genius, which had the merit of
being, as Mrs Mallow herself frequently suggested, of an unusually
convenient size. They were indeed of dimensions not customary in the
products of the chisel, and they had the singularity that, if the
objects and features intended to be small looked too large, the
objects and features intended to be large looked too small. The
Master's idea, either in respect to this matter or to any other, had
in almost any case, even after years, remained undiscoverable to
Peter Brench. The creations