, and I'll mount all my pics in aniline-dye
plush plasters, and I'll invite every woman who maunders over what her
guide-books tell her is Art, and you shall receive 'em, Torp,--in a
snuff-brown velvet coat with yellow trousers and an orange tie. You'll
like that?'

'Too thin, Dick. A better man than you once denied with cursing and
swearing. You've overdone it, just as he did. It's no business of mine,
of course, but it's comforting to think that somewhere under the stars
there's saving up for you a tremendous thrashing. Whether it'll come
from heaven or earth, I don't know, but it's bound to come and break you
up a little. You want hammering.'

Dick shivered. 'All right,' said he. 'When this island is disintegrated,
it will call for you.'

'I shall come round the corner and help to disintegrate it some more.

We're talking nonsense. Come along to a theatre.'

CHAPTER VI

'And you may lead a thousand men,
Nor ever draw the rein,
But ere ye lead the Faery Queen
'Twill burst your heart in twain.'

He has slipped his foot from the stirrup-bar,
The bridle from his hand,
And he is bound by hand and foot
To the Queen o' Faery-land.

Sir Hoggie and the Fairies.

SOME weeks later, on a very foggy Sunday, Dick was returning across the
Park to his studio. 'This,' he said, 'is evidently the thrashing that
Torp meant. It hurts more than I expected; but the Queen can do no
wrong; and she certainly has some notion of drawing.'

He had just finished a Sunday visit to Maisie,--always under the green
eyes of the red-haired impressionist girl, whom he learned to hate
at sight,--and was tingling with a keen sense of shame. Sunday after
Sunday, putting on his best clothes, he had walked over to the untidy
house north of the Park, first to see Maisie's pictures, and then to
criticise and advise upon them as he realised that they were productions
on which advice would not be wasted. Sunday after Sunday, and his love
grew with each visit, he had been compelled to cram his heart back from
between his lips when it prompted him to kiss Maisie several times and
very much indeed. Sunday after Sunday, the head above the heart had
warned him that Maisie was not yet attainable, and that it would be
better to talk as connectedly as possible upon the mysteries of the
craft that was all in all to her. Therefore it was his fate to endure
weekly torture in the studio built out over the clamm