passed, and there was no reply. Will grew
uneasy; for, though the artist's silence perhaps meant only sullenness,
danger might lurk in such a man's thwarted passion. On the fourth
evening, just as he had made up his mind to walk over to Queen's Road,
the familiar knock sounded. Mrs. Hopper had left; Will went to the
door, and greeted his visitor in the usual way. But Franks entered
without speaking. The lamplight showed a pitiful change in him; he was
yellow and fishy-eyed, unshaven, disorderly in dress indeed, so well
did he look the part of the despairing lover that Warburton suspected a
touch of theatric consciousness.

"If you hadn't come to-night," said Will, "I should have looked you up."

Franks lay limply in the armchair, staring blankly.

"I ought to have come before," he replied in low, toneless voice. "That
night when I met you, I made a fool of myself. For one thing, I was
drunk, and I've been drunk ever since."

"Ha! That accounts for your dirty collar," remarked Will, in his note
of dry drollery.

"Is it dirty?" said the other, passing a finger round his neck. "What
does it matter? A little dirt more or less, in a world so full of it--"

Warburton could not contain himself; he laughed, and laughed again. And
his mirth was contagious; Franks chuckled, unwillingly, dolefully.

"You are not extravagant in sympathy," said the artist, moving with
fretful nervousness.

"If I were, would it do you any good, old fellow? Look here, are we to
talk of this affair or not? Just as you like. For my part, I'd rather
talk about 'The Slummer.' I had a look at it the other day. Uncommonly
good, the blackguard on the curbstone, you've got him."

"You think so?" Franks sat a little straighter, but still with vacant
eye. "Yes, not bad, I think. But who knows whether I shall finish the
thing."

"If you don't," replied his friend, in a matter-of-fact tone, "you'll
do something better. But I should finish it, if I were you. If you had
the courage to paint in the right sort of face--the girl, you know."

"What sort of face, then?"

"Sharp-nosed, thin-lipped, rather anaemic, with a universe of
self-conceit in the eye."

"They wouldn't hang it, and nobody would buy it. Besides, Warburton,
you're wrong if you think the slummers are always that sort. Still, I'm
not sure I shan't do it, out of spite. There's another reason, too--I
hate beautiful women; I don't think I shall ever be able to paint
another."

He sprang u