the man until the following morning, though Sir Nicolas, who had gone down into the garden that night, the first time for many weeks, was as full of the pair of them as he could be.
"Hildebrand," says he, "there's an American couple below which is worth the knowing. She's an artist from Boston, and she's come to the schools. It's the Greys, the railway people, they are; and rolling in the money. Did ye hear a fair-haired girl laughing at the top of her voice in the garden? Well, that's the one I mean. Faith, 'tis speaking manners these Americans have, for sure. She'd told me her history before we'd done the soup."
"Is she staying long, sir?" I asked.
"Three months certain, and likely longer. She's come here to be near the painting. It was her brother that sat opposite Jack Ames to-night. A white-faced man; with a liver, I'll wager. I'll know him better this time to-morrow."
It was extraordinary, I must say, to see how a little thing like this drew him out of himself. While he'd gone down to dinner telling me that I should find his body in the Morgue before the month was out, he came to bed all cheerful like a boy, and next morning he took an hour to dress himself. I saw him sitting down with the Americans to déjeúner; and after dinner he was three hours with the brother over at the billiard-room at the Cafe Rouge. Then I knew that the business had begun, and that luck had lifted us out of the groove again.
