Barty spent the winter hard at work, but with lots of play between, and was happy among his painter fellows--and sketching and caricaturing, and skating and sleighing with the English who remained in Düsseldorf, and young von this and young von that. I have many of his letters describing this genial, easy life--letters full of droll and charming sketches. [Illustration: "HE MIGHT HAVE THROWN THE HANDKERCHIEF AS HE PLEASED"] He does not mention the fair Julia much, but there is no doubt that the remembrance of her much preoccupied him, and kept him from losing his heart to any of the fair damsels, English and German, whom he skated and danced with, and sketched and sang to. As a matter of fact, he had never yet lost his heart in his life--not even to Julia. He never said much about his love-making with Julia to me. But his aunt did--and I listened between the words, as I always do. His four or five years' career in London as a thoroughgoing young rake had given him a very deep insight into woman's nature--an insight rare at his age, for all his perceptions were astonishingly acute, and his unconscious faculty of sympathetic observation and induction and deduction immense. And, strange to say, if that heart had never been touched, it had never been corrupted either, and probably for that very reason--that he had never been in love with these sirens. It is only when true love fades away at last in the arms of lust that the youthful, manly heart is wrecked and ruined and befouled. He made up his mind that art should be his sole mistress henceforward, and that the devotion of a lifetime would not be price enough to pay for her favors, if but she would one day be kind. He had to make up for so much lost time, and had begun his wooing so late! Then he was so happy with his male friends! Whatever void remained in him when his work was done for the day could be so thoroughly filled up by Henley and Bancroft and Armstrong and du Maurier and the rest that there was no room for any other and warmer passion. Work was a joy by itself; the rest from it as great a joy; and these alternations were enough to fill a life. To how many great artists had they sufficed! and what happy lives had been led, with no other distraction, and how glorious and successful! Only the divine Julia, in all the universe, was worthy to be weighed in the scales with these, and she was not for the likes of Mr. Nobody of Nowhere. Besides, there was the faithful Martia. Punctually every evening the ever-comforting sense of the north filled him as he jumped into bed; and he whispered his prayers audibly to this helpful spirit, or whatever it might be, that had given him a sign and saved him from a cowardly death, and filled his life and thoughts as even no Julia could.