ent of stale paint and staler tobacco, and very little
else; it was quite devoid of the ordinary artistic trappings. From the
window shrill cries were heard from the ragged children, who fought and
played in the gutter of a sordid street. Woodville had come here to
think.

He knew how shocked and distressed Sylvia had been when he had ventured
to say that he thought he saw something in the Athenian scheme. He
smiled with a slight reaction of gaiety at his surroundings, and
wondered, for the hundredth time, why that extraordinary old American
lady at the National Gallery had actually ordered from him the second
copy of his picture. How marvellously bad it was!

An unusual noise in the street--that of a hansom cab rattling up to the
door--startled him. He went to the window, with a strange feeling at his
heart. It was impossible that it could be Sylvia; she did not even know
the address. It was Sylvia, in pale grey, gracefully paying the cabman
while dirty children collected round her feet. He saw through the window
that she smiled at them, and gave them a bunch of violets and some
money, for which they fought. Horrified, he almost fell down the stairs
and opened the door. There was no one else in the house.

She followed him up to the studio, looking pale, but smiling bravely. He
closed the door and leant against it. He was panting.

"_What--on--earth_," he said, "do you mean by this madness?"

Sylvia, seeing he was angry, took the hatpin out of her hat, and looked
round for a place to sit down and quarrel comfortably.

There was no seat, except a thing that had once been red and once a
sofa, but was now a skeleton, and looked so cold and bare that she
instinctively took off her chinchilla fur cloak and covered it up. Then
she said--

"_Because--I--chose!_ I never can get a word with you at home, and I
have a perfect right to come and talk to my future husband on a subject
that concerns my whole happiness."

She had invented this speech coming along, being prepared for his anger.

"But what would people----"

"People! People! You live for people! Everything matters except me!"

He resolved on calmness.

"Sylvia, dear, since you _are_ here," he said quietly, "let us talk
reasonably."

He tried to sit next to her, but the sofa gave way, and he found himself
kneeling by her side.

They both laughed angrily. He got up and stood by the mantelpiece.

"So you think it is _decent_ to accept money to leave the c