ve never seen, or even heard of. Should
Guinevere prove to be the unknown cousin of Elaine, I cannot see that
the purity and charm of Elaine is in any manner affected thereby."

"Yes, Harry; that is so. Besides"--

"Besides, the resemblance is positively trivial. No one but an artist
would think of it. I should never have suspected it without your
assistance. In the one face there is written all that is good, and
pure, and holy; in the other, all that is reckless, unscrupulous,
soulless, and if not vicious might easily become so. It does not take a
physiognomist to see that. I beg pardon for saying so, Julian, but it
seems to me that there is no more similarity between the two than there
is between the opposing elements of your own strange nature. The one all
that is good, and the other, well--not all that is bad, but very
different, you know, old boy. And it is probably these forces within you
that answer to the charms of these two beings who are so manifestly
opposites. The one inspiring only the nobleness of a blameless love; the
other suggesting the abandonment of a reckless passion."

III.

The light in the studio was growing dim. Goetze had risen to his feet
and was walking back and forth in front of the portraits. When he spoke
he seemed to have forgotten them, except as the representation of an
abstract principle; or, perhaps, he was thinking of his own nature, and
what his friend had said of it.

"Good and bad are relative terms only," he said, as one pronouncing a
text. Every man fulfills his purpose. I can put a stroke of paint on my
canvas, and you will call it white. I put another beside it, and by
contrast the first appears gray. Still another, and the second has
become gray, and the first still darker. And so on, until I have
reached the purest white we know. It is the same with humanity. Men are
only dark or light as they are contrasted with others; nor can they
avoid the place they occupy on God's canvas any more than my colors can
choose their places on mine. The world is a great picture. God is the
greatest of all artists. His is the master hand--the unerring touch that
lays on the lights, the half-tones and the shadows. Each fulfills its
purpose. Without the shadows there would be no lights.

"What is true of masses is likewise true of individuals," he continued,
after a moment's pause. "In a landscape, every blade of grass, every
pebble, has its light and its dark side. If you see only