His father, it appeared, had come down on him for having, after so long, nothing to show, and hoped that on his next return this deficiency would be repaired. _The_ thing, the Master complacently set forth was--for any artist, however inferior to himself--at least to 'do' something. 'What can you do? That's all I ask!' _He_ had certainly done enough, and there was no mistake about what he had to show. Lance had tears in his eyes when it came thus to letting his old friend know how great the strain might be on the 'sacrifice' asked of him. It wasn't so easy to continue humbugging--as from son to parent--after feeling one's self despised for not grovelling in mediocrity. Yet a noble duplicity was what, as they intimately faced the situation, Peter went on requiring; and it was still for a time what his young friend, bitter and sore, managed loyally to comfort him with. Fifty pounds more than once again, it was true, rewarded both in London and in Paris the young friend's loyalty; none the less sensibly, doubtless, at the moment, that the money was a direct advance on a decent sum for which Peter had long since privately prearranged an ultimate function. Whether by these arts or others, at all events, Lance's just resentment was kept for a season--but only for a season--at bay. The day arrived when he warned his companion that he could hold out--or hold in--no longer. Carrara Lodge had had to listen to another lecture delivered from a great height--an infliction really heavier at last than, without striking back or in some way letting the Master have the truth, flesh and blood could bear. 'And what I don't see is,' Lance observed with a certain irritated eye for what was after all, if it came to that, owing to himself too; 'what I don't see is, upon my honour, how _you_, as things are going, can keep the game up.' 'Oh the game for me is only to hold my tongue,' said placid Peter. 'And I have my reason.' 'Still my mother?' Peter showed a queer face as he had often shown it before--that is by turning it straight away. 'What will you have? I haven't ceased to like her.' 'She's beautiful--she's a dear of course,' Lance allowed; 'but what is she to you, after all, and what is it to you that, as to anything whatever, she should or she shouldn't?' Peter, who had turned red, hung fire a little. 'Well--it's all simply what I make of it.' There was now, however, in his young friend a strange, an adopted insistence. 'What are you after all to _her_?' 'Oh nothing. But that's another matter.' 'She cares only for my father,' said Lance the Parisian. 'Naturally--and that's just why.' 'Why you've wished to spare her?' 'Because she cares so tremendously much.' Lance took a turn about the room, but with his eyes still on his host. 'How awfully--always--you must have liked her!' 'Awfully. Always,' said Peter Brench.