a little chance or two of bettering your
opportunity."

"Forgive my asking you, but do you mean by keeping away yourself?" Paul
said with a blush.

"I'm an old idiot--my place isn't there," St. George stated gravely.

"I'm nothing yet, I've no fortune; and there must be so many others," his
companion pursued.

The Master took this considerably in, but made little of it. "You're a
gentleman and a man of genius. I think you might do something."

"But if I must give that up--the genius?"

"Lots of people, you know, think I've kept mine," St. George wonderfully
grinned.

"You've a genius for mystification!" Paul declared; but grasping his hand
gratefully in attenuation of this judgement.

"Poor dear boy, I do worry you! But try, try, all the same. I think
your chances are good and you'll win a great prize."

Paul held fast the other's hand a minute; he looked into the strange deep
face. "No, I _am_ an artist--I can't help it!"

"Ah show it then!" St. George pleadingly broke out. "Let me see before I
die the thing I most want, the thing I yearn for: a life in which the
passion--ours--is really intense. If you can be rare don't fail of it!
Think what it is--how it counts--how it lives!"

They had moved to the door and he had closed both his hands over his
companion's. Here they paused again and our hero breathed deep. "I want
to live!"

"In what sense?"

"In the greatest."

"Well then stick to it--see it through."

"With your sympathy--your help?"

"Count on that--you'll be a great figure to me. Count on my highest
appreciation, my devotion. You'll give me satisfaction--if that has any
weight with you." After which, as Paul appeared still to waver, his host
added: "Do you remember what you said to me at Summersoft?"

"Something infatuated, no doubt!"

"'I'll do anything in the world you tell me.' You said that."

"And you hold me to it?"

"Ah what am I?" the Master expressively sighed.

"Lord, what things I shall have to do!" Paul almost moaned as be
departed.

CHAPTER VI

"It goes on too much abroad--hang abroad!" These or something like them
had been the Master's remarkable words in relation to the action of
"Ginistrella"; and yet, though they had made a sharp impression on the
author of that work, like almost all spoken words from the same source,
he a week after the conversation I have noted left England for a long
absence and full of brave intentions. It is not a per