“We crossed together on the _Gothic_ the last time I went to the States,” Monsieur Jolyesse reminded him, “and you were so amiable as to introduce me to several charming persons who added greatly to the enjoyment of my visit.” “Of course, of course,” French assented; and seeing that the painter was in need of a listener, the young man reluctantly lifted his rugs from the next chair. It was because Jolyesse, on the steamer, had been so shamelessly in quest of an article that French, to escape his importunities, had passed him on to the charming persons referred to; and if he again hung about in this way, and recalled himself, it was doubtless for a similarly shameless purpose. But French was more than ever steeled against the celebrating of such art as that of Jolyesse; and, to cut off a possible renewal of the request, he managed—in answer to a question as to what he was doing with himself—to mention casually that he had abandoned art criticism for the writing of books. The portrait painter was far too polite to let his attention visibly drop at this announcement; too polite, even, not to ask with a show of interest if he might know the subject of the work Mr. French was at the moment engaged on. “Horace Fingall—_bigre_!” he murmured, as if the aridity of the task impressed him while it provoked his pity. “Fingall—Fingall—” he repeated, his incredulous face smilingly turned to French, while he drew a cigarette from a gold case as flat as an envelope. French gave back the smile. It delighted him, it gave him a new sense of the importance of his task, to know that Jolyesse, in spite of Fingall’s posthumous leap to fame, still took that view of him. And then, with a start of wonder, the young man remembered that the two men must have known each other, that they must have had at least casual encounters in the crowded promiscuous life of the painters’ Paris. The possibility was so rich in humour that he was moved to question his companion. “You must have come across Fingall now and then, I suppose?” Monsieur Jolyesse shrugged his shoulders. “Not for years. He was a savage—he had no sense of solidarity. And envious—!” The artist waved the ringed hand that held his cigarette. “Could one help it if one sold more pictures than he did? But it was gall and worm-wood to him, poor devil. Of course he sells _now_—tremendously high, I believe. But that’s what happens: when an unsuccessful man dies, the dealers seize on him and make him a factitious reputation. Only it doesn’t last. You’d better make haste to finish your book; that sort of celebrity collapses like a soap-bubble. Forgive me,” he added, with a touch of studied compunction, “for speaking in this way of your compatriot. Fingall had aptitudes—immense, no doubt—but no technique, and no sense of beauty; none whatever.” French, rejoicing, let the commentary flow on; he even felt the need to stimulate its flow. “But how about his portrait of his wife—you must know it?”