e always maintained it, though often contradicted), and at
bottom the poor fellow, an artist to his fingertips, and regarding a
failure of completeness as a crime, had an extreme dread of scandal.
There are people who regret that having gone so far he did not go
further; but I regret nothing (putting aside two or three of the motives
I just mentioned), for he arrived at perfection, and I don't see how you
can go beyond that The hours I spent in his study--this first one and
the few that followed it; they were not, after all, so numerous--seem
to glow, as I look back on them, with a tone which is partly that of
the brown old room, rich, under the shaded candlelight where we sat and
smoked, with the dusky, delicate bindings of valuable books; partly that
of his voice, of which I still catch the echo, charged with the images
that came at his command. When we went back to the drawing-room we found
Miss Ambient alone in possession of it; and she informed us that her
sister-in-law had a quarter of an hour before been called by the nurse
to see Dolcino, who appeared to be a little feverish.

"Feverish! how in the world does he come to be feverish?" Ambient asked.
"He was perfectly well this afternoon."

"Beatrice says you walked him about too much--you almost killed him."

"Beatrice must be very happy--she has an opportunity to triumph!" Mark
Ambient said, with a laugh of which the bitterness was just perceptible.

"Surely not if the child is ill," I ventured to remark, by way of
pleading for Mrs. Ambient.

"My dear fellow, you are not married--you don't know the nature of
wives!" my host exclaimed.

"Possibly not; but I know the nature of mothers."

"Beatrice is perfect as a mother," said Miss Ambient, with a tremendous
sigh and her fingers interlaced on her embroidered knees.

"I shall go up and see the child," her brother went on. "Do you suppose
he's asleep?"

"Beatrice won't let you see him, Mark," said the young lady, looking at
me, though she addressed, our companion.

"Do you call that being perfect as a mother?" Ambient inquired.

"Yes, from her point of view."

"Damn her point of view!" cried the author of _Beltraffio_. And he left
the room; after which we heard him ascend the stairs.

I sat there for some ten minutes with Miss Ambient, and we naturally had
some conversation, which was begun, I think, by my asking her what the
point of view of her sister-in-law could be.

"Oh, it's so very odd," she s