"I'll drop in and see your work some afternoon," promised the Painter, warmed by their evident intention of leaving; and he escorted them to the landing, warning them against the dangerous steepness of his stairway, which wound down in almost murky darkness. Ten minutes later the centre panel of his door displayed a card bearing these words: "At home only after six o'clock." "I wonder I never thought of doing this before," he reflected, as he lit a cigarette and strolled off to a neighboring restaurant; "I am always out by that hour." * * * * * Several weeks elapsed before he saw Miss Price again, for he promptly forgot his promise to visit her studio and inspect her work. His own work was very absorbing just then, and the short winter days all too brief for its accomplishment. He was struggling to complete the large canvas that Miss Snell had so volubly admired during her visit, and it really seemed to be progressing. But the weather changed suddenly from frost to thaw, and he woke one morning to find little runnels of dirty water coursing down his window and dismally dripping into the muddy street below. It made him feel blue, and his big picture, which had seemed so promising the day before, looked hopelessly bad in this new mood. So he determined to take a day off, and, after his coffee, strolled out into the Luxembourg Gardens. There the statues were green with mouldy dampness, and the paths had somewhat the consistency of very thin oatmeal porridge. Suddenly the sun came out brightly, and he found a partially dry bench, where he sat down to brood upon the utter worthlessness of things in general and the Luxembourg statuary in particular. The sunny façade of the palace glittered in the brightness. One of his own pictures hung in its gallery. "It is bad," he said to himself, "hopelessly bad," and he gloomily felt the strongest proof of its worthlessness was its popularity with the public. He would probably go on thinking this until the weather or his mood changed.