ity in the
pigment causing it to fade, or rather as if a long drop of some acid, or
perhaps a splash of salt water, had fallen upon the canvas while it was
wet, and bleached it. I knew little of the possible causes of such a
blot, but enough to see that it could not be erased without painting
over it, perhaps not even then. And yet it seemed rather to enhance than
to weaken the attraction which the picture had for me.

"Your candour does you credit, Mr. Morgenstern," said I, "but you know
me well enough to be sure that what you have said will hardly discourage
me. For I have never been an admirer of 'cabinet finish' in works of
art. Nor have I been in the habit of buying them, as a Circassian father
trains his daughters, with an eye to the market. They come into my house
for my own pleasure, and when the time arrives that I can see them
no longer, it will not matter much to me what price they bring in the
auction-room. This landscape pleases me so thoroughly that, if you will
let us take it with us this evening, I will send you a check for the
amount in the morning."

So we carried off the painting in a cab; and all the way home I was in
the pleasant excitement of a man who is about to make an addition to his
house; while Pierrepont was conscious of the glow of virtue which comes
of having done a favour to a friend and justified your own critical
judgment at one stroke.

After dinner we hung the painting over the chimney-piece in the room
called the study (because it was consecrated to idleness), and sat there
far into the night, talking of the few times we had met Falconer at the
club, and of his reticent manner, which was broken by curious flashes of
impersonal confidence when he spoke not of himself but of his art. From
this we drifted into memories of good comrades who had walked beside us
but a few days in the path of life, and then disappeared, yet left us
feeling as if we cared more for them than for the men whom we see every
day; and of young geniuses who had never reached the goal; and of many
other glimpses of "the light that failed," until the lamp was low and it
was time to say good-night.

II

For several months I continued to advance in intimacy with my picture.
It grew more familiar, more suggestive; the truth and beauty of it
came home to me constantly. Yet there was something in it not quite
apprehended; a sense of strangeness; a reserve which I had not yet
penetrated.

One night in August