So Paul lived his queer sedulous life, month after month, year after year, known among the studios as a quaint oddity, drawn out indulgently by the men, somewhat petted, monkey-fashion, by the women, forgotten by both when out of their presence, but developing imperceptibly day by day along the self-centring line. A kindly adviser suggested a gymnasium to keep him in condition for professional purposes. He took the advice, and in the course of time became a splendid young animal, a being so physically perfect as to be what the good vicar of Bludston had called him in tired jest--a lusus naturae. But though proud of his body as any finely formed human may honorably be, a far higher arrogance saved him from Narcissus vanity. It was the inner and essential Paul and not the outer investiture that was born to great things. In his eighteenth year he gradually awoke to consciousness of change. One of his classmates at the Polytechnic institute, with whom he had picked a slight acquaintance, said one evening as they were walking homeward together: "I shan't be coming here after next week. I've got a good clerkship in the city. What are you doing?" "I'm an artist's model," said Paul. The other, a pale and perky youth, sniffed. His name was Higgins. "Good Lord! What do you mean?" "I'm a model in the life class of the Royal Academy School," said Paul, proudly. "You stand up naked in front of all kinds of people for them to paint you?" "Of course," said Paul. "How beastly!" said Higgins. "What do you mean?" "Just that," said Higgins. "It's beastly!" A minute or two afterward he jumped on a passing omnibus, and thenceforward avoided Paul at the Polytechnic Institute. This uncompromising pronouncement on the part of Higgins was a shock; but together with other incidents, chiefly psychological, vague, intangible phenomena of his spiritual development, it showed Paul the possibility of another point of view. He took stock of himself. From the picturesque boy he had grown into the physically perfect man. As a model he was no longer sought after for subject pieces. He was in clamorous demand at Life Schools, where he drew a higher rate of pay, but where he was as impersonal to the intently working students as the cast of the Greek torso which other students were copying in the next room. The intimacy of the studio, the warmth and the colour and the meretricious luxury were gone from his life. On the other hand he was making money. He had fifty pounds in the Savings Bank, the maximum of petty thrift which an incomprehensive British Government encourages, and a fair, though unknown, sum in an iron money-box hidden behind his washstand. Up to now he had had no time to learn how to spend money. When he took to smoking cigarettes, which he had done quite recently, he regarded himself as a man.