e of her. She's not for a poor
beggar like me, who was born unlucky. Well, whining won't do any
good--let's have a look at Beevor's latest performance."

He spread out a large coloured plan, in a corner of which appeared the
name of "William Beevor, Architect," and began to study it in a spirit
of anything but appreciation.

"Beevor gets on," he said to himself. "Heaven knows that I don't grudge
him his success. He's a good fellow--though he _does_ build
architectural atrocities, and seem to like 'em. Who am I to give myself
airs? He's successful--I'm not. Yet if I only had his opportunities,
what wouldn't I make of them!"

Let it be said here that this was not the ordinary self-delusion of an
incompetent. Ventimore really had talent above the average, with ideals
and ambitions which might under better conditions have attained
recognition and fulfilment before this.

But he was not quite energetic enough, besides being too proud, to push
himself into notice, and hitherto he had met with persistent ill-luck.

So Horace had no other occupation now but to give Beevor, whose offices
and clerk he shared, such slight assistance as he might require, and it
was by no means cheering to feel that every year of this enforced
semi-idleness left him further handicapped in the race for wealth and
fame, for he had already passed his twenty-eighth birthday.

If Miss Sylvia Futvoye had indeed felt attracted towards him at one time
it was not altogether incomprehensible. Horace Ventimore was not a model
of manly beauty--models of manly beauty are rare out of novels, and
seldom interesting in them; but his clear-cut, clean-shaven face
possessed a certain distinction, and if there were faint satirical lines
about the mouth, they were redeemed by the expression of the grey-blue
eyes, which were remarkably frank and pleasant. He was well made, and
tall enough to escape all danger of being described as short;
fair-haired and pale, without being unhealthily pallid, in complexion,
and he gave the impression of being a man who took life as it came, and
whose sense of humour would serve as a lining for most clouds that might
darken his horizon.

There was a rap at the door which communicated with Beevor's office, and
Beevor himself, a florid, thick-set man, with small side-whiskers, burst
in.

"I say, Ventimore, you didn't run off with the plans for that house I'm
building at Larchmere, did you? Because--ah, I see you're looking over
th