should not come, or if it should not be worth having,
why--you have still done well.' For it came to pass one night when I was
quite convinced, that I came downstairs to my own room, and sat down and
pulled a certain dream-house to pieces and beat the sawdust out of the
foolish dolls who had had their abiding place in it. But, oh me, my
friends, it is hard to pull down dream-houses; and Madame Circumstance
exults over the bare rafters and the dismantled walls. And, ah! I loved
her, and I love her still, and I shall love her till the day I die. But
I am going to be an Italian old bachelor, 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. Every