“That’s very kind of you; and of course she can tell you all about it later—add the details. She told me to say that if you didn’t mind turning up again this afternoon late, she’ll be ready to answer any questions. Naturally, she’s used to that too!” This sent a slight shiver through French, with its hint of glib replies insensibly shaped by repeated questionings. He knew, of course, that after Fingall’s death there had been an outpouring of articles on him in the journals and the art-reviews of every country: to correct their mistakes and fill up their omissions was the particular purpose of his book. But it took the bloom—another layer of bloom—from his enthusiasm to feel that Mrs. Paul’s information, meagre as it was, had already been robbed of its spontaneity, that she had only been reciting to him what previous interrogators had been capable of suggesting, and had themselves expected to hear. Perhaps Mr. Paul read the disappointment in his looks, and misinterpreted it, for he added: “You can’t think how I feel the absurdity of trying to talk to _you_ about Fingall!” His modesty was disarming. French answered with sincerity: “I assure you I shall like nothing better than going there with you,” and Donald Paul, who was evidently used to assuming that the sentiments of others were as genuine as his own, at once brightened into recovered boyishness. “That’s jolly.—Taxi!” he cried, and they were off. IV Almost as soon as they entered the flat, French had again to hail the reappearance of his “luck.” Better, a thousand times better, to stand in this place with Donald Paul than with Horace Fingall’s widow! Donald Paul, slipping the key into the rusty lock, had opened the door and drawn back to let the visitor pass. The studio was cold and empty—how empty and how cold! No one had lived in the flat since Fingall’s death: during the first months following it the widow had used the studio to store his pictures, and only now that the last were sold, or distributed for sale among the dealers, had the place been put in the hands of the agents—like Mrs. Morland’s house in Kensington. In the wintry overhead light the dust showed thick on the rough paint-stained floor, on the few canvases leaning against the walls, and the painter’s inconceivably meagre “properties.” French had known that Fingall’s studio would not be the upholstered setting for afternoon teas of Lady Brankhurst’s vision, but he had not dared to expect such a scornful bareness. He looked about him reverently. Donald Paul remained silent; then he gave one of his shy laughs. “Not much in the way of cosy corners, eh? Looks rather as if it had been cleared for a prize fight.” French turned to him. “Well, it _was_. When he wrestled with the Angel until dawn.”