slight man
of middle height, and of no apparent distinction, and his face with
all its petulant lines of lassitude and ill-health--the wear and
tear of forty years having done with him the work of fifty--struck
one who saw Philip Rainham for the first time by nothing so much as
by his ugliness. And yet few persons who knew him would have
hesitated to allow to his nervous, suffering visage a certain
indefinable charm. The large head set on a figure markedly
ungraceful, on which the clothes seldom fitted, was shapely and
refined, although the features were indefensible, even grotesque.
And his mouth, with its constrained thin lips and the acrid lines
about it, was unmistakably a strong one. His deep-set eyes,
moreover, of a dark gray colour, gleamed from under his thick
eyebrows with a pleasant directness; while his smile, which some
people called cynical, as his habit of speech most certainly was,
was found by others extraordinarily sympathetic.

"Yes, tell me about yourself, Dick," he said again.

"I have done a picture, if that is what you mean, besides some
portraits; I have worked down here like a galley slave for the last
three months."

"And is the queer little _estaminet_ in Soho still in evidence? Do the
men of to-morrow still meet there nightly and weigh the claims of
the men of to-day?"

Lightmark smiled a trifle absently; his eyes had wandered off to his
picture in the corner.

"Oh, I believe so!" he said at last; "I dine there occasionally when
I have time. But I have been going out a good deal lately, and I
hardly ever do have time.... May I smoke, by the way?"

Rainham nodded gently, and the artist pulled out his case and
started a fragrant cigarette.

"You see, Rainham," he continued, sending a blue ring sailing across
the room, "I am not so young as I was last year, and I have seen a
good deal more of the world."

"I see, Dick," said Rainham. "Well, go on!"

"I mean," he explained, "that those men who meet at Brodonowski's
are very good fellows, and deuced clever, and all that; but I doubt
if they are the sort of men it is well to get too much mixed up
with. They are rather _outre_, you know; though, of course, they are
awfully good fellows in their way."

"Precisely!" said Rainham, "you are becoming a very Solomon, Dick!"

He sat playing idly with the ring on his forefinger, watching the
artist's smoke with the same curiously obscure smile. It had the
effect on Lightmark now, as Rainham's