She went to the glass, and crossing her arms on a little table near, she looked at herself, laughing. “Would anyone think it to look at me? I look so very sound and complete, and yet I am rotten at the core, a sort of Dead Sea apple. What a hackneyed order of fruit to belong to, I am not even original—ugh! I am inclined to think if I were a downright bad woman, who had sinned, sinned solidly, and all for love—I wish to Heaven I could get the feelings of one of them just for five minutes, to understand this temptation which to me is so utterly incomprehensible—Well, I really think that Humphrey would do better to marry a woman of this sort than me. It has come to a pretty pass when I—I, Gwen Waring, have taken to envying that sort of person!” She raised her head, got to her feet, and went down and played for an hour, then she went out and walked, walked, walked, till she hadn’t a leg to stand on, and could no more think than she could fly. About a week before his marriage, Strange ran up to London for a couple of days, but even to Gwen he did not specify the nature of his business, which altogether concerned Brydon’s launching in life. When he reached the studio, he found things looking pretty bad. Like many a better man, if his Art didn’t drive him Brydon couldn’t drive his Art; besides, his health was below par, there were days and days when he couldn’t so much as paint a potboiler, then he starved. He was learning Italian just now, to solace himself. Strange perceived, however, that the soft vowels hardly appealed to an empty stomach. Brydon was a haggard and distressful object, sitting with Dante on the table before him, smoking cheap tobacco, and with the ghastly beginning of a sketch crying shame on him from every corner. “Goodness, how outrageously jolly you look! Is it engagement or ten thousand a year?” “Oh, I’m all right, which is more than you look! Taken to shag, I see—well, I can stomach a lot, but not that. Would you mind chucking that pipe somewhere where it won’t smell, and try some of my stuff, just to oblige me? Overheated Arab and shag are the two stinks I draw the line at. Hallo!” he remarked, looking at one of the sketches. “I am taking a holiday.” He was going on to lie a little—but with a shrug he changed his course. “I have to, as a matter of fact. I can’t paint, I’ve lost the way—do you ever forget the way to write?” he asked. “Do I? The deuce I do! We all do at times, then we feel like throat-cutting or ‘Rough on Rats.’ However, I came on business. I have some spare cash and I want to invest it, and on looking round I have come to the conclusion you would be rather a good thing to put some of it into.” “I?”