“So you are settled in London at last!” she said. “I hear nearly a year now.... You see you are quite a celebrity----” A burst of laughter from the group about the bed made him start--and he glanced suspiciously over his shoulder. But they were oblivious of him. “Come, Caroline,” he said hoarsely, “you needn’t wound me more than my own miserable thoughts have been doing for these many days.” “Then let us have no talk of help,” she said, dropping her voice also. “Anthony has got some night-work on the papers at last. We are at the end of the siege. Besides--how do you know I am not on the eve of another masterpiece?” She laughed--a little sadly. “You mustn’t judge me too closely by my gowns--they are a little out of the fashion, beyond a doubt, but we may blossom again next spring.” He drew a chair, a poor rickety piece of furniture, before the stove, and sat down upon it. She smiled as it struck her how, unconsciously, he had, even in a troubled state of mind, taken the warmest place in the room. He sat for some while, gazing drearily into the furnace. She wished he would say his say, and let her get back to her work. At last he spoke in a low voice: “Ah, Caroline, you and Anthony are the true artists--I only a fair-weather one.... I have always dreaded the attic. I never could put aside discomfort.... Anthony was quite right--I am painting the most soulless things.... They pay.” She felt relieved. Anthony had evidently not gone with his hat in his hand. “Well--we do not yearn for the attic heights precisely,” she said drily. He let the flippancy pass. He was too interested in himself to trouble about their tastes. “I am too successful,” he said. She smiled: “I am not sure it isn’t best so,” she said--“for you can help the struggling ones to live----” “Don’t stab me with that weapon”--he winced--“it is just exactly what I have forgotten to do.” And he added half to himself: “Fame has been my very God.” Loud laughter filled the room. Noll yawned drowsily at the far end of the attic. “But how _do_ you tickle a trout?” he asked. Caroline repressed a desire to laugh. She shrugged her shoulders: “Ah, Paul--you still worship at the old shrine--Fame, Posterity, and all the Clap-Trap!... After all, the ages have their own intellectuals?” “I do not think we should wholly neglect posterity,” he said largely. He was deft in throwing the catchpenny. “We ought, if we paint a great picture, to paint it with colours that will not decay.” She smiled sadly, flipped over some proofs, and read: