'Not at all,' he said emphatically. 'What is farcical comedy but burlesque of the most vicious kind? Burlesque of domestic life, throwing ridicule on virtuous wives and jealous husbands, making heroes and heroines of men and women of loose morals? What is melodrama but burlesque of incidents and of passions, fatiguing to the eye and stupefying to the intellect? I repeat, art in England is a dishonoured corpse, and the man who dares to call himself an artist, and to talk about his art with any more reverence than a grocer feels for his sanded sugar, or a violin-seller for his sham Cremonas, is treated with the derision one would show to a modern Englishman who should fall down and worship a mummy.' All which, being interpreted, meant that Mr. Fabian Scott saw no immediate prospect of an engagement good enough for his deserts. 'Well, even if art is in a bad way, artists still seem to rub on very comfortably,' I said, glancing round the room. Fabian swept the place with a contemptuous glance from right to left, as if it had been an ill-kept stable. 'One finds a corner to lay one's head in, of course,' he admitted disdainfully; 'but even that may be gone to-morrow,' he added darkly, plunging one hand into a suggestive heap of letters and papers on a side table as he passed it. 'Bills?' I asked cheerfully. He gave me a tragic nod and strode on. 'You should marry,' I ventured boldly, 'some girl with seven or eight hundred a year, for instance, with a little love of art on her own account to support yours.' Fabian stopped in front of me with his arms folded. He was the most unstagey actor on the stage, and the stagiest off I ever met. He gave a short laugh, tossing back his head. 'A girl with seven hundred a year marry _me_, an _artist_! My dear fellow, you have been in Sleepy Hollow too long. You form your opinions of life on the dark ages.' 'No I don't,' I said very quietly. 'I know a girl with eight hundred a year, who likes you well enough to marry you if you were to ask her.' 'These rapid modern railway journeys--A heavy breakfast--with perhaps a glass of cognac on an empty stomach'--murmured Fabian softly, gazing at me with kindly compassion. 'She is seventeen, the daughter of an artist, an artist herself by every instinct. Her name is Babiole Ellmer,' I went on composedly. Fabian started. 'Babiole Ellmer! Pretty little Babiole!' he cried, with affectionate interest at once apparent in his manner; 'but,' he hesitated and flushed slightly, 'I don't understand. The little girl--dear little thing she was, I remember her quite well, with her coquettish Scotch cap and her everlasting blushes. She was no heiress then, certainly.' A bitter little thought of the different manner in which he would have treated her in that case crossed my mind. 'I've adopted her. I allow her eight hundred a year during my life, and of course afterwards----'