with no wife but my pipe and no family but my canvas children. Do you triumph, madame? Do you triumph? Over my subdued heart? No! Over my broken life? No! Over any cowardly complaint of mine? Over any envy of this good young Englishman? No! no! no! No! madame, I was not born a cad, and you shall not remould me. Accept, once more, my defiance!

Young Clyde came on the evening of the day on which the good fortune of the ladies' had been declared. He received the news very joyfully, but after a while he sobered down greatly, and when we took our leave together he was very depressed, and had grown unlike himself, I asked no questions, but he turned into my room and sat down and lit a cigar and held silence for a few minutes. Then he said—

'I say, Calvotti, old man, have you noticed that I have never once asked you to my rooms?'

I had never thought about it, and I told him so.

'Will you come up to-morrow, in the daytime? Don't say No. I do particularly want you to come. Say twelve o'clock. Will you?'

He seemed strangely eager about this simple matter, and I promised to go. He went away a minute later, and next morning I walked to the address he had given me. He met me at the door, and I saw that he was pale and perturbed. I learned afterwards that he had not been to bed, but had sat up all night harassing himself with groundless misgivings. He led me to his studio, a fine spacious room, with a high north light. He had a chair set in the middle of the room, and on the easel a large veiled picture.

'Now, Calvotti,' he said, speaking with a nervous haste which was altogether foreign to him, 'I have asked you here to settle a question which I cannot settle for myself. Sometimes I'm brimfull of faith and hope, and sometimes I'm in a perfect abyss of despair. You know I've been painting all my life, but I've never sold anything. Everything I paint goes to the governor. Some of the things he hangs about his own place, you know, and some of them—more than half, I suppose—he has cut into strips and sent back to me. He's a very singular man, and has extraordinary ideas about pictures. But I've been working on one subject now for some months past, and now I've finished it, and—— Look here, Calvotti, I'll tell you everything. When I got here last night, I found a letter from my governor telling me that my allowance is stopped after next quarter-day, and that I must get a living by painting. He always said he would give me the chance to make a living, and then leave me to make it. Well, I'm not afraid of that, but I want a candid judgment, because—because—Well, I'm engaged to be married, old man, and I can't live on my wife, you know. And I want you to tell me candidly whether there's any good stuff in me, and whether I can ever do anything, you know.'

'You are engaged to Cecilia?' I asked him.

'Yes,' he said simply, 'I am engaged to Cecilia, and I want to begin work in earnest now.'

'Let me look at your picture,' I said, and took my seat in the chair he had placed ready for me.

He paused a minute as though he would have spoken, but checking himself, he turned to the picture, drew away the cloth by which it was covered, and passed behind me. The picture represented a garret room, through the window of which could be seen the far-reaching roofs of a great city. Against the window rose the figure of a girl who was seated at an old grand piano. Her fingers rested on the keys, and her eyes were looking a great way off. The face and figure were Cecilia's, the garret was that in which I myself had lived, and the piano was mine. The outer light of the picture was so subdued and calm that the face was allowed to reveal itself quite clearly. I looked long and carefully, guarding myself from a too rapid judgment. Arthur, as by this time I had begun to call him, stood at the back of my chair. At last he laid a hand upon my shoulder—

'What do think about it?'

'Do you want my candid opinion?' I asked him.

'Yes, your candid opinion.'

'You will not be offended at anything I shall say?'

'No. I want an honest judgment, and I can trust yours.'

I used the common slang of criticism.

'Suppose, then, I were to say that the: composition is bad, the colour crude, the whole work amateurish, the modelling thin and in places, false, the——'

'Don't say any more, Calvotti. I've been a fool, and the governor has been right all the time.'

'If I said these things, you would believe them?'

'If you said them?' he cried, coming from-behind my chair. 'But do you say them?'

'Stand off!' I said, laughing. A man can rarely endure praise and blame with equal fortitude. My young friend, you will some day paint great pictures. In four or five hundred years' time great painters will look at this and will reverently point out in it the faults of early manner; but they will read the soul in it—as I do now. You are a creature of a hundred years—a painter, an artist. This is not paint, but a face—a face of flesh and blood, with soul behind. And this is not paint, but a faded brown silk. And this is not paint, but solid mahogany. You have done more than paint a picture. You have made concrete an inspiration. Your technique is all masterly, but it does not overpower. It gives only fitting body to a beautiful idea—its soul!'

He blushed and trembled whilst I spoke. Englishmen do not often talk poetry—off the stage. He answered—

'No, really, Calvotti, old man, that's rot, you know. But do you like it?'

I spoke gravely then.

'My dear young friend, so surely as that is your work, so surely will you be a great artist if you choose.'

'You bet I choose,' this young genius answered. He would sooner have died, I suppose, than have put his emotions at that moment into words. This is another characteristic of you English. You will sooner look like fools than have it appear that you feel. You wear the rags of cynicism over the pure gold of nature. This is a foolish pride, but it is useless to crusade against national characteristics.

I was a little chilled, and I said in a business tone—

'Well, we will see about selling this at once.'

'No,' he answered. 'I will not sell this.'

'No?' I asked.

'No,' he said again; 'not this picture,' And for one minute he regarded it, and then shook his head and once more said 'No.'

'Well,' I answered, not trying to persuade him, 'I will ask Mr. Gregory to look at it, and he will give you a commission for a work, and then you will be fairly afloat.'

'Oh, thank you, Calvotti. What a good fellow you are!'

I was unsettled for work. My praise was hysterical and hyperbolical. I could have wept whilst I uttered it. For though I had given up all hope, and though I was glad to find that in art he was worthy as in manhood he was worthy, yet it was still hard to endorse a rival's triumph and to cut out all envy and stifle all pain. And now I had to go home and to live beneath the same roof with Cecilia, and to see her sometimes, and to talk and look like a friend. If you resist the Devil, will he always fly from you? Is it not sometimes safer to fly from him? And is there anywhere a baser fiend than that which prompted me to throw myself upon my knees before her and tell her everything, and so barter honour for an impulse? Brave or not, I know that I was wise when that afternoon I packed up everything and went to say good-bye.

'I am ill,' so I excused myself, 'and I am a child of impulse. Impulse says to me "Go back to Italy—to the air of your childhood—to the scenes you love best." And I obey.'

'But you do not leave England in this way?' asked Cecilia.

'No, mademoiselle, I shall return. But, for a time, good-bye.'

They both bade me good-bye sorrowfully, and I went away. And whatever disturbance my soul made within its own private residence, it was too well-bred to let the outside people know of it.

And so it came to pass that I continue this narrative at Posilipo, in my native air,