Ah! But he was furious. Like every ageing artist of genuine accomplishment, he knew--none better--that there is no satisfaction save the satisfaction of fatigue after honest endeavour. He knew--none better--that wealth and glory and fine clothes are nought, and that striving is all. He had never been happier than during the last two years. Yet the finest souls have their reactions, their rebellions against wise reason. And Priam's soul was in insurrection then. He wanted wealth and glory and fine clothes once more. It seemed to him that he was out of the world and that he must return to it. The covert insults of Mr. Oxford rankled and stung. And the fat foreman had mistaken him for a workman cadging for a job. He walked rapidly to the bridge and took a cab to Conduit Street, where dwelt a firm of tailors with whose Paris branch he had had dealings in his dandiacal past. An odd impulse perhaps, but natural. A lighted clock-tower--far to his left as the cab rolled across the bridge--showed that a legislative providence was watching over Israel. _Alice on the Situation_ "I bet the building alone won't cost less than seventy thousand pounds," he said. He was back again with Alice in the intimacy of Werter Road, and relating to her, in part, the adventures of the latter portion of the day. He had reached home long after tea-time; she, with her natural sagacity, had not waited tea for him. Now she had prepared a rather special tea for the adventurer, and she was sitting opposite to him at the little table, with nothing to do but listen and refill his cup. "Well," she said mildly, and without the least surprise at his figures, "I don't know what he could have been thinking of--your Priam Farll! I call it just silly. It isn't as if there wasn't enough picture-galleries already. When what there are are so full that you can't get in--then it will be time enough to think about fresh ones. I've been to the National Gallery twice, and upon my word I was almost the only person there! And it's free too! People don't _want_ picture-galleries. If they did they'd go. Who ever saw a public-house empty, or Peter Robinson's? And you have to pay there! Silly, I call it! Why couldn't he have left his money to you, or at any rate to the hospitals or something of that? No, it isn't silly. It's scandalous! It ought to be stopped!" Now Priam had resolved that evening to make a serious, gallant attempt to convince his wife of his own identity. He was approaching the critical point. This speech of hers intimidated him, rather complicated his difficulties, but he determined to proceed bravely. "Have you put sugar in this?" he asked. "Yes," she said. "But you've forgotten to stir it. I'll stir it for you." A charming wifely attention! It enheartened him. "I say, Alice," he said, as she stirred, "you remember when first I told you I could paint?" "Yes," she said. "Well, at first you thought I was daft. You thought my mind was wandering, didn't you?"