"Oh, no," he said, "not entirely. I couldn't, you know. But I shall be in a position now only to do my best work!" Toftrees assented with pleasure. The trait interested him. "I'm glad of that," he said. "To the artist, life without expression is impossible." Toftrees spoke quite sincerely. Although his own production was not of a high order he was quite capable of genuine appreciation of greater and more serious writers. It does not follow--as shallow thinkers tell us--that because a man does not follow his ideal that he is without one at all. They smoked cigars and talked. As a matter of form the host offered Ingworth a drink, which was refused; they were neither of them men who took alcohol between meals from choice. They chatted upon general matters for a time. "And what of our friend the Poet?" Toftrees asked at length, with a slight sneer in his voice. Ingworth flushed up suddenly and a look of hate came into his curious eyes. The acute man of the world noticed it in a second. Before Ingworth had left for his mission in Italy, he had been obviously changing his views about Gilbert Lothian. He had talked him over with Toftrees in a depreciating way. Even while he had been staying at Mortland Royal he had made confidences about Lothian's habits and the life of his house in letters to the popular author--while he was eating the Poet's salt. But Toftrees saw now that there was something deeper at work. Was it, he wondered, the old story of benefits forgot, the natural instinct of the baser type of humanity to bite the hand that feeds? Toftrees knew how lavish with help and kindness Lothian had been to Dickson Ingworth. For himself, he detested Lothian. The bitter epigrams Lothian had made upon him in a moment of drunken unconsciousness were by no means forgotten. The fact that Lothian had probably never meant them was nothing. They had some truth in them. They were uttered by a superior mind, they stung still. "Oh, he's no friend of mine," Ingworth said in a bitter voice. "Really? I know, of course, that you have disapproved of much that Mr. Lothian seems to be doing just now, but I thought you were still friends. It is a pity. Whatever he may do, there are elements of greatness in the man." "He is a blackguard, Toftrees, a thorough blackguard." "I _am_ sorry to hear that. Well, you needn't have any more to do with him, need you? He isn't necessary to your literary career any more. And even if you had not come into your inheritance, your Italian work has put you in quite a different position." Ingworth nodded. He puffed quickly at his cigar. He was bursting with something, as the elder and shrewder man saw, and if he was not questioned he would come out with it in no time. There was silence for a space, and, as Toftrees expected, it was broken by Ingworth. "Look here, Toftrees," he said, "you are discreet and I can trust you." The other made a grave inclination of his head--it was coming now!