Fairfax, smoking, struggled with the emotions rising in him and which he had no notion of betraying to his friend. In the corner where Dearborn had rolled it, for he made the whole studio pretty much his own now, was the statue Fairfax was making of his mother. It was covered with a white cloth which took the lines and form of the head and shoulders. It stood ghostly amongst the shadows of the room and near it, on a stool, were Antony's sculpting tools, his broad wooden knives and a barrel of plaster. His gaze wandered to these inanimate objects, nothing in themselves, but which suggested and made possible and real his art--the reason for his existence. Now, when he stopped modelling Mrs. Faversham, he would go on with the bust of his mother. He turned his eyes to Dearborn. "I have been up there for five weeks; I have been entertained there like a friend; I have eaten and drunk; I have accepted her hospitality; I have gone with her to the plays and opera. I have pretty well lived on her money." "All men of the world do that," Dearborn said reasonably. "It's an awfully nice thing for a woman to have a handsome young man whom she can call on when she likes." Fairfax ignored this and went on. "I have met her friends, delightful and distinguished people, who have invited me to their houses. I have never gone, not once, not even to see Potowski. Now I shall go up next Sunday and finish my work, and then I'm going away." Dearborn crossed his thin legs, his beloved knit slippers, a remnant of his mother's affection, dangling on the toe of his foot. He made a telescope of his manuscript and peered through it as though he saw some illumination at the other end. "You are not serious, Tony?" Antony left the sofa and came over to his friend. Five weeks of comparative comfort and comparative release from the anxiety of existence--that is, of material existence--had changed him wonderfully. His contact with worldly people, the entertainments of Paris, the stimulant to his mind and senses, his pleasures, had done him good. His face was something fuller. He had come home early from dining with Mrs. Faversham, and in his evening dress there was an elegance about him that added to his natural distinction. In the lapel of his coat drooped a few violets from the _boutonniere_ that had been placed by his plate. "Cedersholm is coming next week." He lit a fresh cigarette. "Well," returned Dearborn, coolly, "he is neither the deluge nor the earthquake, but he may be the plague. What has he got to do with you, old man?" "She is going to marry him."