you
expect to marry."

"That too, dear uncle, is a hope, a desire, a vision," said Felix. It
occurred to him for an instant that this was possibly a preface to the
offer of the hand of one of Mr. Wentworth's admirable daughters. But in
the name of decent modesty and a proper sense of the hard realities of
this world, Felix banished the thought. His uncle was the incarnation
of benevolence, certainly; but from that to accepting--much more
postulating--the idea of a union between a young lady with a dowry
presumptively brilliant and a penniless artist with no prospect of
fame, there was a very long way. Felix had lately become conscious of
a luxurious preference for the society--if possible unshared with
others--of Gertrude Wentworth; but he had relegated this young lady,
for the moment, to the coldly brilliant category of unattainable
possessions. She was not the first woman for whom he had entertained
an unpractical admiration. He had been in love with duchesses and
countesses, and he had made, once or twice, a perilously near approach
to cynicism in declaring that the disinterestedness of women had been
overrated. On the whole, he had tempered audacity with modesty; and
it is but fair to him now to say explicitly that he would have been
incapable of taking advantage of his present large allowance of
familiarity to make love to the younger of his handsome cousins. Felix
had grown up among traditions in the light of which such a proceeding
looked like a grievous breach of hospitality. I have said that he was
always happy, and it may be counted among the present sources of his
happiness that he had as regards this matter of his relations with
Gertrude a deliciously good conscience. His own deportment seemed to
him suffused with the beauty of virtue--a form of beauty that he admired
with the same vivacity with which he admired all other forms.

"I think that if you marry," said Mr. Wentworth presently, "it will
conduce to your happiness."

"Sicurissimo!" Felix exclaimed; and then, arresting his brush, he looked
at his uncle with a smile. "There is something I feel tempted to say to
you. May I risk it?"

Mr. Wentworth drew himself up a little. "I am very safe; I don't repeat
things." But he hoped Felix would not risk too much.

Felix was laughing at his answer.

"It 's odd to hear you telling me how to be happy. I don't think you
know yourself, dear uncle. Now, does that sound brutal?"

The old man was silent a mo