But how if he should refuse with scorn? What was the state of his balance, not in my eyes, but in his? When I had last seen him he had trembled in equilibrium, and to his fluctuations I had off-handedly applied the terms "worse" and "better." But what were such terms to him?... I will do as I did before--try to set it out in parallel columns. Here was a missing man, a man of unusual range and powers, to whose state of poise something had happened. It was this man's daily endeavour to accept nothing at second-hand, to disregard all names, labels, customs, tags, appearances, verdicts, records, precedents. His life was one long probing into the essential nature of things. I might, therefore, expect to find: The Derwent Rose who _or_ The Derwent Rose who might have had said, when I had replied, "Whisky? Well, it has offered him the whisky, interesting effects sometimes. "No, no--blast it, Somebody once called it a short no--water!" cut to a psychic experience. If a psychic experience is what you are after, why take the roundabout way? Let's try it." The Derwent Rose who _or_ The Derwent Rose who might have had torn off his collar, growled, "Well, what is there but who had also cried, extraordinary about that? "Good God, man, I'm Perhaps it isn't anything to not bragging of my make a song about, but don't conquests--don't think pretend you've never heard of I'm not ashamed!" such a thing before. It happens every night, you know." The Derwent Rose who had _or_ The Derwent Rose who might sat in a hansom with a have said, "Men are men and white satin slipper as women are women. This is also openly and innocently as Piccadilly Circus. Look round. I might have sat to Can't _you_ find anything Julia Oliphant for my better to do than to hunt for portrait. a man who is--not at home to anybody this evening?" The Derwent Rose who _or_ The Derwent Rose who cared loved beauty and hated nothing for the name of ugliness. anything, destroyed stale and outworn canons of beauty with a laugh, and sought a fresher loveliness in a world where nothing is common or unclean. But once more I had to give it up. That baffling down of golden beard had obliterated every physical indication. He might be in a church--for an assignation. He might be in a drinking-hell--lost in images of beauty and sweetness and power.