knowledge without a touch of
pedantry! And how the handsome youth kept up with her--nay, rather,
led her, with a mastery, a resource, to which she always yielded in
case of any serious difference of opinion! It seemed that they
had been abroad together--had seen many sights in each other's
company--had many common friends.

Fenwick felt himself strangely sore and jealous as he listened. Who
was this man? Some young aristocrat, no doubt, born silver spoon in
mouth--one of your idle, insolent rich, with nothing to do but make a
hobby of art, and patronise artists. He loathed the breed.

Her voice startled him back from these unspoken tirades, and once more
he found her eyes fixed upon him. It provoked him to feel that their
scrutiny made him self-conscious--anxious to please. They were so
gentle, so gay!--and yet behind the first expression there sat what
seemed to him the real personality, shrewd, critical, and remote.

'You must see this picture,' she said, kindly. 'It's glorious!'

'Where is it?'

'In a house near here. But father could get you in.'

He hesitated, then laughed, ungraciously.

'I don't seem to have finished yet with the National Gallery.
Who--please--is the gentleman on your right?'

She smiled.

'Oh! don't you know him? You must let me introduce him. It is Mr.
Arthur Welby. Doesn't he talk well?'

She introduced them. Welby received the introduction with a
readiness--a touch of eagerness indeed--which seemed to show a mind
favourably prepared for it.

'Lord Findon tells me you're sending in a most awfully jolly thing
to the Academy!' he said, bending across Madame de Pastourelles, his
musical voice full of cordiality. Fenwick made a muttered reply. It
might have been thought he disliked being talked to about his own
work. Welby accordingly changed the subject at once; he returned to
the picture he had been pressing on Lord Findon.

'Haven't you seen it? You really should.' But this elicited even less
response. Fenwick glared at him--apparently tongue-tied. Then Madame
de Pastourelles and her neighbour talked to each other, endeavouring
to draw in the stranger. In vain. They fell back, naturally, into
the talk of intimates, implying a thousand common memories and
experiences; and Fenwick found himself left alone.

His mind burned with annoyance and self-disgust. Why did he let these
people intimidate him? Why was he so ridiculously self-conscious?--so
incapable of holding his own? He kn