He was still absorbed in the
study of this face when Lightmark entered and took his place
opposite him with a brief apology for his tardiness. He was dressed
well, with a white orchid in his button-hole, and looked prosperous
and rosy. Some light badinage on this score from his various
acquaintances in the restaurant he parried with a good-humoured
nonchalance; then he betook himself to consideration of the _menu_.

"I have been calling on your friends, the Sylvesters," he explained
after a while, "and I could not get away before. My uncle was there,
by the way. You have heard me speak of him?"

"Your uncle, who holds such a lax view of the avuncular offices?"

Lightmark smiled a little self-congratulatory smile.

"Ah, that's changed. The old boy was deuced friendly--gave me his
whole hand instead of two fingers, and asked me to dine with him. I
think," he went on after a moment, "the Sylvesters have been putting
in a good word for me. Or perhaps it was Mrs. Sylvester's portrait
which did the job."

"Ah," said Rainham, "you have painted her, have you?"

Their fish occupied them in silence. Lightmark, a trifle flushed
from his rapid walk, smiled from time to time absently, as though
his thoughts were pleasant ones. The older man thought he had seldom
seen him looking more boyishly handsome. Presently his eyes again
caught the head which had so struck his fancy.

"Is that yours, Dick?" he asked.

Lightmark followed the direction of his eyes to the opposite wall.

"I believe it is," he remarked, with a shade of deprecation in his
manner. "It is Oswyn. Don't you know him?"

"I don't know him," said the other, sipping his thin Medoc. "But I
think I should like to. What is he?"

"He will be here soon, no doubt, and then you will see for yourself.
He is Oswyn! I knew him in Paris better than I do now. He was in
B----'s studio; and B---- swore that he had a magnificent genius. He
painted a monstrous picture which the Salon wouldn't hang; but B----
bought it, and hung it in his studio, where it frightened his models
into fits. Last year he came to London, where he makes enough, when
he is sober, by painting pot-boilers for the dealers, to keep him in
absinthe and tobacco, which are apparently his sole sustenance. In
the meanwhile he is painting a masterpiece; at least, so he will
tell you. He is a virulent fanatic, whose art is the most monstrous
thing imaginable. He is--but talk of the devil----"

He broke off an