od pictures? How can I tell without seeing some of your work?
Doesn't it come back to me that at Oxford you used to sketch very
prettily? But that's the last thing that matters."

"What does matter then?" Nick asked with his eyes on his companion.

"To be on the right side--on the side of the 'fine.'"

"There'll be precious little of the 'fine' if I produce nothing but
daubs."

"Ah you cling to the old false measure of success! I must cure you of
that. There'll be the beauty of having been disinterested and
independent; of having taken the world in the free, brave, personal
way."

"I shall nevertheless paint decently if I can," Nick presently said.

"I'm almost sorry! It will make your case less clear, your example less
grand."

"My example will be grand enough, with the fight I shall have to make."

"The fight? With whom?"

"With myself first of all. I'm awfully against it."

"Ah but you'll have me on the other side," Nash smiled.

"Well, you'll have more than a handful to meet--everything, every one
that belongs to me, that touches me near or far; my family, my blood, my
heredity, my traditions, my promises, my circumstances, my prejudices;
my little past--such as it is; my great future--such as it has been
supposed it may be."

"I see, I see. It's splendid!" Nash exclaimed. "And Mrs. Dallow into the
bargain," he added.

"Yes, Mrs. Dallow if you like."

"Are you in love with her?"

"Not in the least."

"Well, she is with you--so I understood."

"Don't say that," said Nick Dormer with sudden sternness.

"Ah you are, you are!" his companion pronounced, judging apparently from
this accent.

"I don't know _what_ I am--heaven help me!" Nick broke out, tossing his
hat down on his little tin table with vehemence. "I'm a freak of nature
and a sport of the mocking gods. Why should they go out of their way to
worry me? Why should they do everything so inconsequent, so improbable,
so preposterous? It's the vulgarest practical joke. There has never been
anything of the sort among us; we're all Philistines to the core, with
about as much esthetic sense as that hat. It's excellent soil--I don't
complain of it--but not a soil to grow that flower. From where the devil
then has the seed been dropped? I look back from generation to
generation; I scour our annals without finding the least little
sketching grandmother, any sign of a building or versifying or
collecting or even tulip-raising ancestor. They were al