He took the unframed canvas from the tray of the trunk and held it before his guest. "Do you get the right light there?" It had been a bad quarter of an hour for Ewing, and, as he adjusted the picture, he felt a moment's satisfaction in having weathered it so plausibly. And now that the curious little gentleman seemed restored, it was pleasant to anticipate his cultured appreciation of that work of art which was the boy's chief treasure. "There isn't any shine across it now, is there?" he asked, and looked up with a shy, proud, waiting smile. But the agitations that had gone before were as nothing to what now passed in front of his dismayed eyes. One moment his guest hung staring at the canvas with a goblin horror; then, uttering a kind of sob, he shot incontinently out of the door. The harried Ewing dropped the picture and rushed in pursuit. He came up with the little man at the head of the stairs. He was trembling, and his face was ashen gray; but after a few deep breaths he smiled and waved a hand jauntily to indicate humorous despair. It seemed to say, "I am frequently like this--it's annoying past words." He spoke of needing a restorative and suggested an advisable haste in the direction of the cafe. "They've some choice old cognac downstairs. Suppose we chat over a bit of it. I'm rather done up. These absurd attacks of mine react on the heart. A noggin of brandy will fetch me about. You'll come?" They were presently at a table in the hotel cafe. "We've the room to ourselves," said Teevan genially. "Delightful old place, this; restful, reminiscent, mellow--and generally empty. I detest the cheap glitter of those uptown places with their rowdy throngs. They make me feel like a fish in a fiddle box, as our French cousins say. You'll have soda with yours?" Teevan drank his own brandy neat, and at once refilled his glass. "Now for a chat about yourself, my young friend--for surely only a friend could have borne with me as tenderly as you have this evening. You're a fellow of promise--the future clamors for you--your drawings enchant me." Ewing reflected that his drawings had not been exposed, but the intention was kind, and he was grateful for that. Teevan drank more brandy with a dainty relish, and begged to hear of his young friend's adventures in the far hills. Ewing expanded in the warmth of this kindly concern. He told, little by little, under adroit prompting, what he had to tell. Teevan displayed a gratifying interest, especially in what he recounted of his mother's death. But at intervals during this recital the young man became conscious, with astonishment, that there was an inexplicable look on the other's face, a look which he suddenly discovered to be an unbelievable veiled pleasure.