“Very well, Monsieur,” was the answer: “return to your room and forget I ever broke in upon your meditations.” “Who are you?” asked Luc. “A painter--perhaps a poet.” “What have you done with your life,” asked the Marquis, “that at your age you seem so hopeless?” The painter smiled bitterly. “I have wasted all my years in the quest of glory.” Luc felt the blood beating at his heart. “And you have found----?” he questioned half fearfully. “I have found that there is no such thing as glory on earth. And I have no belief in any heaven.” As he spoke these words his face took on another tinge of pallor and a certain rigidity came over his features, giving them a look of death. “You are unfortunate,” said Luc; “but you cannot say glory is not there because you have not achieved it with a paint-brush and a few yards of canvas.” The painter broke into long and harsh laughter. “That is good, very good!” he cried. “And you still believe in it, though you have failed to gain it with your sword and your cannon and all your noisy details of war?” The Marquis rose and paced up and down the waxed, uneven floor. The painter’s laughter ended suddenly. “If you could question the god, the creature, the beast who made me,” he said fiercely, “you would see that I commenced my life searching for the ideal--the ideal love, the ideal work, the ideal reward at the end of it; and though my heart was pure, my courage high, and my industry enormous, I failed in everything--the world played me false every time, every time; and now I am a moral bankrupt, who does not even possess the asset of hope.” “You have had terrible experiences, to make you speak like this,” answered the Marquis, in a moved tone. “I have had all experiences, and I have found out that glory is only the lure used to beguile us to our wretched, our solitary ends.” “I think,” said Luc, “you never discovered the true meaning of it.” The painter lifted eyes in which there gleamed the feeble remains of what had once been the noble fires of enthusiasm and ambition. “I understand the meaning very well,” he replied; then he rose from his chair and stood looking out at the neat quiet street. Luc was silent. Tremendous thoughts assailed him--why could he not bring comfort down from the clouds to console this man?--why could he not lend him a spark from his own fire to rekindle the desire for glory in his breast? Presently he said-- “Monsieur, you are still so young.” The words sounded commonplace even to himself, and the artist made no answer. “I should like to see your pictures,” said the Marquis. Now the light was strengthening, he observed a pile of canvases standing against the wall by the side of the bed. The painter answered without turning his head-- “I painted a picture once that Watteau, or Boucher, or Fragonard might have been pleased to sign. It was a portrait of the woman I loved.” “Where is it now?” asked Luc.