“In the new Salon.  It was a little gray, dusky thing, three foot by two, and their flaming miles of canvas murdered it.  I am not a scene-painter,” he went on a little savagely.  “I don’t paint with a broom, and I have no ambition to do the sun, or an eruption of Vesuvius.  So I doubt if I shall exhibit there again until the vogue alters.  Oh, they are clever enough, those fellows! even the trickiest of them can draw, which is the last thing they learn here, and one or two are men of genius.  But I should dearly like to set them down, en plein air too, if they insist upon it, with the palette of Velasquez.  I went out and wandered in the Morgue afterwards, and I confess its scheme of colour rested my eyes.”

“Do I know your picture?” asked Rainham to change the subject, finding him a little grim.  “Is it the thing you were doing here?”

Oswyn’s head rested on one thin, colour-stained hand which shaded his eyes.

“No,” he said with a suggestion of constraint, “it was an old sketch which I had worked up—­not the thing you knew.  I shall not finish that——­”

“Not finish it!” cried Rainham.  “But of course you must! why, it was superb; it promised a masterpiece!”

“To tell you the truth,” said Oswyn, “I can’t finish it.  I have painted it out.”

Rainham glanced at him with an air of consternation, of reproach.

“My dear fellow,” he said, “you are impossible!  What in the world possessed you to do such a mad thing?”

The painter hesitated a moment, looking at him irresolutely beneath his heavy, knitted brows.

“I meant to tell you,” he said, after a while; “but on the whole I think I would rather not.  It is rather an unpleasant subject, Rainham, and if you don’t mind we will change it.”

Oswyn had risen from his chair, with his wonted restlessness, and was gazing out upon the lazy, evening life of the great river.  The monotonous accompaniment to their conversation, which had been so long sustained by the drip and splash outside, had grown intermittent, and now all but ceased; while a faint tinge of yellowish white upon the ripples, and a feathery rift in the gray dome of sky, announced a final effort on the part of the setting sun.

The yard door swung noisily on its hinges, and a light step and voice became audible, and the sound of familiar conference with the dockman.  Rainham lifted his head inquiringly, and Oswyn, shrugging his shoulders, left the window and regained his seat, picking up his sketch on the way.

“Yes,” he said in answer to a more direct inquiry on the other’s part, “I think it was Lightmark.”

Almost as he spoke there was a step on the stair, followed by a boisterous knock at the door, and Dick entered effusively.

“Well, mon vieux, how goes it?  Why, you’re all in the dark!  They didn’t tell me you were engaged....  Oh, is that you, Oswyn?  How do you do?”