were meagre. His studio was the one bare, undecorated room in the house; it was absolutely destitute of all the luxuries that painters of these days affect. There were a couple of easy-chairs, and a table near the fire-place—a great open fire-place on which he burnt huge logs of wood; for the rest, there were the actual necessities to his work, but that was all. He spent most of his time in the studio; he worked there, and sat there, day in, day out, save when he went for his two hours' drive, or took his way to the gorgeous salle à manger to eat his solitary meals. It was in the studio that his pictures were sold to eager buyers, who thought it an honour to stand in his presence. The other rooms of the house were always empty, waiting, it seemed, to form a setting to a life that refused to be lived, or belonging to a story that never was told, and that day by day slipt back farther and farther into the past.
There were many anecdotes told of Carbouche, all of them turning on a certain savagery that seemed to be in him; as when he had painted the portrait of Alphonse Bubois, the millionaire, and had brought out the sinister expression on his face with a malignity that was almost startling. Or when his famous picture of the forest of St. Germain en Laye had suggested to everyone that its beauty was over rated—its terrace walk a long, straight road, its famous view merely an effect of distance and winding river that was, after all, well known in other views; even the dim city in the distance, with the thousands of human histories gathered together in the far-off mists, seemed to have some false quality in its poetry. "And, oh, that forest," said an English girl, who stood before the picture in its place of honour in the salon, "I felt once as I walked down the terrace, and looked into the trim depths, that it was artificial. Now I know that it is. I believe that every tree was reared in a square box painted green, and let into the ground beneath, like a theatre growth. Perhaps even the squirrels are shams, and their bushy tails were bought at the furrier's and sewn on to make believe."
"Ah, Carbouche is a great painter," said her companion, as they passed on; "but he always brings out the cynical side of the world, and the worst aspect of nature."
II.
"Carbouche sat down."
Carbouche had returned to Paris. The logs were piled on the studio fire, for the room was chilly after its long spell of emptiness. In the painter's life there was little warmth, little of anything but work and silence, and his surroundings seemed to express the condition of his soul. He strode up and down, looking at his easel, and the little, old-fashioned bureau for colours beside it. On a shelf to its left there were some brushes and a palette. Against the wall were one or two sketches, but they were slight and unfinished, for there was never any work of Carbouche's unsold, if money could buy it. The only other canvas in the room rested on the floor, with its face to the wall, half-hidden by an old worn portfolio. No one save Carbouche knew what was painted on it, and he had avoided looking at it for years, with a carefulness that was half scorn, half superstition. Before the blazing fire were the two easy-chairs, and on the little table between them an open box of cigarettes. Carbouche sat down, and, lighting a cigarette, smoked vigorously until the end was thrown among the blazing logs.
There was a faint rumbling in the distance. It came nearer, it entered the gateway, and he knew by the grinding sound peculiar to the turning of a carriage on gravel that a visitor had arrived. He waited half resentfully, impatient at the prospect of being disturbed.
The servant entered with a card, "Milor," and he hesitated. Carbouche took the card, and said slowly, as if he, too, found the name difficult.
"The Earl of Harlekston. Ah, one mo-
