was no follower of things received.  She had been a friend of Renan and of Taine in her French days; and he, who was a Gallic with a leaning to the Anglican Church, had sometimes guessed with discomfort that Eugenie was in truth what his Low Church wife called a ‘free-thinker.’  She never spoke of her opinions, directly, even to him.  But the books she ordered from Paris, or Germany, and every now and then the things she let fall about them, were enough for any shrewd observer.  It was here too, perhaps, that she and Arthur were in closest sympathy; and every one knew that Arthur, poor old boy, was an agnostic.

And yet this daily pilgrimage—­and that light and sweetness it breathed into her aspect!—­

So one day he had asked her abruptly why she liked the little church so much, and its sacramental ‘goings-on.’

’One wouldn’t expect it, you know, darling—­from the things you read.’

Eugenie had coloured faintly.

’Wouldn’t you, papa?  It seems to me so simple.  It’s an Action—­not words—­and an action means anything you like to put into it—­one thing to me—­another to you.  Some day we shall all be tired, shan’t we?—­of creeds, and sermons, but never of “This do, in remembrance of Me!’”

And she had put up her hand to caress his, with such a timid sweetness of lip, and such a shining of the eye, that he had been silenced, feeling himself indeed in the presence of something he was not particularly well fitted to explore.

Well, if she was inconsequent, she was dear!—­and if her mystical fancies comforted and sustained her, nobody should ever annoy or check her in the pursuit of them.  He put a very summary stop to his wife’s ‘Protestant nonsense,’ whenever it threatened to worry Eugenie; though on other occasions it amused him.

* * * * *

The landlady in Bernard Street greeted them with particular effusion.  If they had only known, they represented to her—­cautious yet not unkindly soul!—­the main security for those very long arrears of rent she had allowed her lodger to run up.  Were they now come—­at this unusual hour—­to settle up with Mr. Fenwick?  If so, her own settling up—­sweet prospect!—­might be in sight.  Cuningham and Watson had recently left her, and taken a joint studio in Chelsea.  Their rooms, moreover, were still unlet.  Her anxieties therefore were many, and it was with lively expectation that she watched the ‘swells’ grope their way upstairs to Mr. Fenwick’s room.  She always knew it must come right some day, with people like that about.

Lord Findon and Eugenie mounted the stairs.  The studio door was half-open.  As they approached the threshold they heard Fenwick speaking.

’I say, hand me that rag—­and look sharp and bring me some more oil—­quick!  And where the devil is that sketch?  Well, get the oil—­and then look for it—­under that pile over there—­No!—­hi!—­stand still a moment—­just where you are—­I want to see the tone of your head against this background!  Hang it!—­the light’s going!’