ionable orders ever since, was the
adored of women. He dropped one attenuated knee over the other and
lighted an attenuated cigarette.

"Fancy anybody bothering enough about anything to fight over it!" he
said languidly.

"We're going to _war_, Trenor," repeated Barres, jamming his brushes
into a bowl of black soap. "That's my positive conviction."

"Yours is so disturbingly positive a nature," remonstrated the other.
"Why ever raise a row? Nothing positive is of any real importance--not
even opinions."

Barres, vigorously cleaning his brushes in turpentine and black soap,
glanced around at Trenor, and in his quick smile there glimmered a
hint of good-natured malice. For Esme Trenor was notoriously anything
except positive in his painting, always enveloping a lack of technical
knowledge with a veil of camouflage. Behind this pretty veil hid many
defects, perhaps even deformities--protected by vague, indefinite
shadows and the effrontery of an adroit exploiter of the restless
sex.

But Esme Trenor was both clever and alert. He had not even missed that
slight and momentary glimmer of good-humoured malice in the pleasant
glance of Barres. But, like his more intelligent prototype, Whistler,
it was impossible to know whether or not discovery ever made any
particular difference to him. He tucked a lilac-bordered handkerchief
a little deeper into his cuff, glanced at his jewelled wrist-watch,
shook the long ash from his cigarette.

"To be positive in anything," he drawled, "is an effort; effort
entails exertion; exertion is merely a degree of violence; violence
engenders toxins; toxins dull the intellect. Quod erat, dear friend.
You see?"

"Oh, yes, I see," nodded Barres, always frankly amused at Trenor and
his ways.

"Well, then, if you see----" Trenor waved a long, bony, over-manicured
hand, expelled a ring or two of smoke, meditatively; then, in his
characteristically languid voice: "To be positive closes the door to
further observation and pulls down the window shades. Nothing remains
except to go to bed. Is there anything more uninteresting than to go
to bed? Is there anything more depressing than to know all about
something?"

"You do converse like an ass sometimes," remarked Barres.

"Yes--sometimes. Not now, Barres. I don't desire to know all about
anybody or anything. Fancy my knowing all about art, for example!"

"Yes, fancy!" repeated Barres, laughing.

"Or about anything specific--a woman, for exam