"_Post hoc sed non ergo propter hoc_," he said to himself, in the Latin of his school debating-society days; but secretly he believed that in this case the effect was no less "because" than "after." On the morning after Celia had talked with her betrothed about the picture, Ralph gave the artist a sitting. The young man seemed so preoccupied that Tom rallied him a little on his absence of mind, inquiring if Thatcher wished his portrait to have an air of deep abstraction. "I was not thinking of that confounded old picture at all," the young man responded, smiling. "I was merely--well, I do not know exactly how to tell you what I was doing. Do you ever feel as if the reflective part of you, whatever that may be, had gone into its office for private meditation and shut your consciousness outside?" "Yes," Tom answered; "and I always comfort myself for being excluded by supposing that at least something of real importance must be under consideration or it would n't be worth the trouble to shut the doors so carefully." "Do you?" returned the sitter. "I had a jolly old clerical uncle who used to lock the door of his study and pretend to be writing the most awe-inspiring sermons, when he really was only having a well-fed nap. I am afraid," he went on, with a sigh and a change of manner, "that there is little of real importance has ever gone on in my mind. Do you know, I am half inclined to hate you." The artist looked up in surprise. "Hate me?" he echoed. "Why should you hate me?" "Because you are everything that I am not; because you succeed in everything and I never did anything in my life; because at this poker-table of life you win and I lose." A strange tinge of bitterness showed itself in Ralph's voice, and puzzled Claymore. It was not like Thatcher to be introspective, or to lament lost possibilities. The artist rubbed his brush on his palette with a thoughtful air. "Even if that were so," he said, "I don't see exactly why you should vent your disappointment on me. I'm hardly to blame, am I? But of course what you say is nonsense anyway." "Nonsense? It is n't nonsense. I've done nothing. I know nothing. I'm good for nothing; and the worst of it is that the girl I've wanted all my life realizes it just as well as I do. She is n't a fool; and of course she does n't care a rap about me."