ropean
reputation in this particular branch of research, and was, moreover,
provided with that long purse which either proves to be a fatal handicap
to the student's energies, or, if his mind is still true to its purpose,
gives him an enormous advantage in the race for fame. Kennedy had often
been seduced by whim and pleasure from his studies, but his mind was an
incisive one, capable of long and concentrated efforts which ended in
sharp reactions of sensuous languor. His handsome face, with its high,
white forehead, its aggressive nose, and its somewhat loose and sensuous
mouth, was a fair index of the compromise between strength and weakness
in his nature.

Of a very different type was his companion, Julius Burger. He came of a
curious blend, a German father and an Italian mother, with the robust
qualities of the North mingling strangely with the softer graces of the
South. Blue Teutonic eyes lightened his sun-browned face, and above
them rose a square, massive forehead, with a fringe of close yellow
curls lying round it. His strong, firm jaw was clean-shaven, and his
companion had frequently remarked how much it suggested those old Roman
busts which peered out from the shadows in the corners of his chamber.
Under its bluff German strength there lay always a suggestion of Italian
subtlety, but the smile was so honest, and the eyes so frank, that one
understood that this was only an indication of his ancestry, with no
actual bearing upon his character.

In age and in reputation he was on the same level as his English
companion, but his life and his work had both been far more arduous.
Twelve years before he had come as a poor student to Rome, and had lived
ever since upon some small endowment for research which had been awarded
to him by the University of Bonn.

Painfully, slowly, and doggedly, with extraordinary tenacity and
singlemindedness, he had climbed from rung to rung of the ladder of
fame, until now he was a member of the Berlin Academy, and there was
every reason to believe that he would shortly be promoted to the Chair
of the greatest of German Universities. But the singleness of purpose
which had brought him to the same high level as the rich and brilliant
Englishman, had caused him in everything outside their work to stand
infinitely below him. He had never found a pause in his studies in
which to cultivate the social graces. It was only when he spoke of his
own subject that his face was filled