“I’ve noticed,” Marden broke in on Serle’s ugly revery, “that painters seem to have lots of time on their hands. I beg your pardon. You have quite as much reason for advancing a similar remark about a professional man. Here I am lounging as if I had no office or desk loaded with unanswered correspondence. But I assure you I don’t often dissipate this way, and I take it you are of the same opinion regarding yourself.” He paused. “You spoke of painters loafing. What made you single out that particular profession? I believe it may be called a profession,” Vincent laughed. “Oh! You said you were a painter----” “Yes, but you were not thinking of me, I’ll wager. You’ve only seen me half an hour.” “You’re right; I was not thinking of painters, or of you in general, but of a particular case that came under my personal observation.” “Yes, yes,” eagerly responded Serle, as he mentally abused the lawyer for his measured, pedantic delivery. “Your story interests.” Marden glanced at the other’s flaming cheeks and replied, rather abruptly: “But you haven’t heard it yet. However, it’s not much of a yarn. It happened--several years ago. A lady, a client, came to me for advice. She was married, married, I say, to an artist, a painter--a big, good-for-nothing fellow, who was lazy, who drank, ran after his models and spent her money.” Marden was interrupted. “Excuse me, you said the lady was rich?” “Did I?” “Certainly, spent her money was your last phrase.” “Oh!--Well, perhaps I shouldn’t have said her money. She had no money. I meant that her husband had money and didn’t spend it on her. A mere slip of the tongue.” “Good. I’m a regular cross-examiner, you see.” “True. You might prove a difficult witness in the chair. My friend--my client, informed me that her husband was so lazy that he remained in bed until one or two o’clock in the afternoon; then he would slowly dress and saunter for a walk, and often she did not see him until the next morning.” “How did he make a living?” “Oh, I suppose he painted a portrait or two and managed to get on.” “A portrait or two? That would hardly pay household expenses--that is, unless your friend--I mean your client’s husband, was a Sargent or a Boldini. Then they could have struggled along at the rate of one portrait every year.” Serle laughed so harshly that Marden looked at him wonderingly. “I see you are acquainted with the artistic temperament, as they call it in the newspapers,” observed the lawyer. “Not as they call it, but as it is. My dear sir, an artist is not built to put in a ton of coal every day. A man whose brain is delicately adjusted, whose whole soul is in his eyes----” “When he sees a pretty girl?” The sly tone of Marden angered the painter.