bandon, you'd be a big painter."

"And that," said Kenny with icy politeness, "unalterably defines my
status as a painter. In this club at least."

"You asked me--"

Kenny looked tired but he held out his hand. "Dear lad," he said,
"'twas fine brave friendship to tell me--when I asked you."

Failure! He, Kennicott O'Neill who had been decorated by the French
government! The men in the grill then talked openly of his flaws and
the verdict, officious or otherwise, was failure. Flaws! He was not a
big painter. He was merely a self-centered, impecunious, improvident
Irishman, indifferently skillful, whose vanity and self-indulgence had
driven his son off into a vague green world, God alone knew where. He
_was_ a big painter! Posterity would fling that back in the teeth of
men!

"Kenny!"

It was Garry's voice.

"I'm going."

"Oh," said Kenny vaguely. "Yes, of course."

He was grateful when the door closed, though he stood for full a minute
afterward tapping on the table with his fingers. Then indignantly he
looked up the word failure in Brian's dictionary and underscored it
heavily.

Ah! this world of his was amazingly awry and he himself was hurt and
unhappy. After all, was there any romance, any camaraderie in the
Bohemia he once had loved. By Heaven, no! One had but to stare at the
studio with Brian's vision to see the thing aright. Disorder and
carping tongues and loneliness! God help him, how he longed to escape
somewhere, anywhere where there was peace--and faith and friendliness
in human eyes.

Afterward, a painter on the floor below, swore that Kenny had tramped
the floor all night and there had been occasional thuds. At daylight
he had gone out hurriedly and banged the door.

Sid, entering the studio by the door Kenny had forgotten to lock, found
abundant evidence of frenzied packing and carried the news to the grill.

"I knew it," he said. "I knew it last night. By the Lord Harry, it
was in his eye. Where on earth d'you suppose he's gone?"

"God knows," said Garry and heartily wished he'd kept the grillroom
verdict to himself.

At sunset Kenny blew the horn beneath the willow.

Twilight here among the vivid leaves was softly orange. Where was the
invisible lamp, Kenny wondered with his blood singing, that filled the
world with golden dusk? It lay reflected in the water and in the dim
and yellowed forest paths behind him. And there behind the gables of
the farm, an autumn