n of assent.
'Well, I could run up to your place--to Bartonbury--and paint those in
the winter, when I come to see my wife. As to the rest--I'll repay you
within the year--unless--well, unless I go utterly to grief, which of
course I may.'

'Wait here a moment. I'll fetch you the money. Better not promise to
repay me in cash. It'll be a millstone round your neck. I'll take it
in pictures.'

'Very well; then I'll either paint you an original finished
picture--historical or romantic subject--medium size, by the end of
the year, or make you copies--you said you wanted two or three--one
large or two small, from anything you like in the National Gallery.'

Morrison laughed good-temperedly. He touched a copy of _The Art
Journal_ lying on the table.

'There's an article here about that German painter--Lenbach--whom
they crack up so nowadays. When he was a young man, Baron Schack, it
appears, paid him one hundred pounds a year, _for all his time_, as
a copyist in Italy and Spain.' He spoke very delicately, mincing his
words a little.

Fenwick's colour rose suddenly. Morrison was not looking at him, or he
would have seen a pair of angry eyes.

'Prices have gone up,' said the painter, dryly. 'And I guess living
in London's dearer now than living in Italy was when Lenbach (which he
pronounced Lenback) was young!'

'Oh! so you know all about Lenbach?'

'You lent me the article. However'--Fenwick rose--'is that our
bargain?'

The note in the voice was trenchant, even aggressive. Nothing of the
suppliant, in tone or attitude. Morrison surveyed him, amused.

'If you like to call it so,' he said, lifting his delicate eyebrows a
moment. 'Well, I'll take the risk.'

He left the room. Fenwick thrust his hands into his pockets, with a
muttered exclamation, and walked to the window. He looked out upon a
Westmoreland valley in the first flush of spring; but he saw nothing.
His blood beat in heart and brain with a suffocating rapidity. So his
chance was come! What would Phoebe say?

As he stood by the large window, face and form in strong relief
against the crude green without, the energy of the May landscape was,
as it were, repeated and expressed in the man beholding it. He was
tall, a little round-shouldered, with a large, broad-browed head,
covered with brown, straggling hair; eyes, glancing and darkish, full
of force, of excitement even, curiously veiled, often, by suspicion;
nose, a little crooked owing to an injury at