er acquaintance, and I was heartily glad of a possible
chance to hear something of Dr. La Touche's earlier life. In our
previous interviews, Salemina's presence had always precluded the
possibility of leading the conversation in the wished-for direction.

When I first saw Gerald La Touche I felt that he required explanation.
Usually speaking, a human being ought to be able, in an evening's
conversation, to explain himself, without any adventitious aid. If he is
a man, alive, vigorous, well poised, conscious of his own individuality,
he shows you, without any effort, as much of his past as you need to
form your impression, and as much of his future as you have intuition to
read. As opposed to the vigorous personality, there is the colourless,
flavourless, insubstantial sort, forgotten as soon as learned, and for
ever confused with that of the previous or the next comer. When I was a
beginner in portrait-painting, I remember that, after I had succeeded
in making my background stay back where it belonged, my figure sometimes
had a way of clinging to it in a kind of smudgy weakness, as if it were
afraid to come out like a man and stand the inspection of my eye. How
often have I squandered paint upon the ungrateful object without adding
a cubit to its stature! It refused to look like flesh and blood, but
resembled rather some half-made creature flung on the passive canvas in
a liquid state, with its edges running over into the background. There
are a good many of these people in literature, too,--heroes who, like
home-made paper dolls, do not stand up well; or if they manage to
perform that feat, one unexpectedly discovers, when they are placed in
a strong light, that they have no vital organs whatever, and can be seen
through without the slightest difficulty. Dr. La Touche does not belong
to either of these two classes: he is not warm, magnetic, powerful,
impressive: neither is he by any means destitute of vital organs;
but his personality is blurred in some way. He seems a bit remote,
absentminded, and a trifle, just a trifle, over-resigned. Privately, I
think a man can afford to be resigned only to one thing, and that is the
will of God; against all other odds I prefer to see him fight till
the last armed foe expires. Dr. La Touche is devotedly attached to his
children, but quite helpless in their hands; so that he never looks at
them with pleasure or comfort or pride, but always with an anxiety as
to what they may do next