" asked Jane, the practical.

"I shall follow one of the arts," Paul replied. "I think I am a poet,
but I might be a painter or a musician."

"You do sing and play lovely," said Jane.

He had recently purchased from a pawnshop a second-hand mandoline,
which he had mastered by the aid of a sixpenny handbook, and he would
play on it accompaniments to sentimental ballads which he sang in a
high baritone.

"I'll not choose yet awhile," said Paul, disregarding the tribute.
"Something will happen. The 'moving finger' will point--"

"What moving finger?"

"The finger of Destiny," said Paul.

And, as the superb youth predicted, something did happen a day or two
afterwards.

They were walking in Regent Street, and stopped, as was their wont,
before a photographer's window where portraits of celebrities were
exposed to view. Paul loved this window, bad loved it from the moment
of discovery, a couple of years before. It was a Temple of Fame. The
fact of your portrait being exhibited, with your style and title
printed below, marked you as one of the great ones of the earth. Often
he had said to Jane: "When I am there you'll be proud, won't you?"

And she had looked up to him adoringly and wondered why he was not
there already.

It was Paul's habit to scrutinize the faces of those who had achieved
greatness, Archbishops, Field-Marshals, Cabinet Ministers, and to
speculate on the quality of mind that had raised them to their high
estate; and often he would shift his position, so as to obtain a
glimpse of his own features in the plate-glass window, and compare them
with those of the famous. Thus he would determine that he had the brow
of the divine, the nose of the statesman and the firm lips of the
soldier. It was a stimulating pastime. He was born to great things; but
to what great things he knew not. The sphere in which his glory should
be fulfilled was as yet hidden in the mists of time.

But this morning, instead of roving over the illustrious gallery, his
eye caught and was fascinated by a single portrait. He stood staring at
it for a long time, lost in the thrill of thought.

At last Jane touched his arm. "What are you looking at?"

He pointed. "Do you see that?"

"Yes. It's--" She named an eminent actor, then in the heyday of his
fame, of whom legend hath it that his photographs were bought in
thousands by love-lorn maidens who slept with them beneath their
pillows.

Paul drew her away from the little knot