“There is one thing would lift him out of it, or ought to,” remarked Harrington, with a glance around the circle. “I am, of course, speaking of Troyon.” “What?” asked Morris. “The news that Roberts paid thirty thousand dollars for a picture for which the painter was glad to get three thousand francs,” a reply which brought a roar from the group, Morris joining in heartily. The circle had now widened to the filling of a dozen chairs, Morris's way of putting things being one of the features of club nights, he, as usual, dominating the talk, calling out “Period”--his way of notifying some speaker to come to a full stop, whenever he broke away from the facts and began soaring into hyperbolics--Morgan, Harrington and the others laughing in unison at his sallies. The clouds of tobacco smoke grew thicker. The hum of conversation louder; especially at an adjoining table where one lean old Academician in a velvet skull cap was discussing the new impressionistic craze which had just begun to show itself in the work of the younger men. This had gone on for some minutes when the old man turned upon them savagely and began ridiculing the new departure as a cloak to hide poor drawing, an outspoken young painter asserting in their defence, that any technique was helpful if it would kill off the snuff-box school in which the man under the skull cap held first place. Morris had lent an ear to the discussion and again took up the cudgels. “You young fellows are right,” he cried, twisting his body toward their table. The realists have had their day; they work a picture to death; all of them. If you did but know it, it really takes two men to paint a great picture--one to do the work and the other to kill him when he has done enough.” “Pity some of your murderers, Holker, didn't start before they stretched their canvases,” laughed Harrington. And so the hours sped on. All this time Peter had been listening with one ear wide open--the one nearest the door--for any sound in that direction. French masterpieces, Impressionism and the rest of it did not interest him to-night. Something else was stirring him--something he had been hugging to his heart all day. Only the big and little coals in his own fireplace in Fifteenth Street, and perhaps the great back-log, beside himself, knew the cause. He had not taken Miss Felicia into his confidence--that would never have done--might, indeed, have spoilt everything. Even when he had risen from Morris's coterie to greet Henry MacFarlane--Ruth's father--his intimate friend for years, and who answered his hand-shake with--“Well, you old rascal--what makes you look so happy?--anybody left you a million?”--even then he gave no inkling of the amount of bottled sunshine he was at the precise moment carrying inside his well-groomed body, except to remark with all his twinkles and wrinkles scampering loose: