But under no circumstances could he face Reginald in his present state of mind.  He was convinced that if in the fleeting vision of a moment the other man’s true nature should reveal itself to him, he would be so terribly afraid as to shriek like a maniac.  So he dressed particularly slowly in the hope of avoiding an encounter with his host.  But fate thwarted this hope.  Reginald, too, lingered that morning unusually long over his coffee.  He was just taking his last sip when Ernest entered the room.  His behaviour was of an almost bourgeois kindness.  Benevolence fairly beamed from his face.  But to the boy’s eyes it had assumed a new and sinister expression.

“You are late this morning, Ernest,” he remarked in his mildest manner.  “Have you been about town, or writing poetry?  Both occupations are equally unhealthy.”  As he said this he watched the young man with the inscrutable smile that at moments was wont to curl upon his lips.  Ernest had once likened it to the smile of Mona Lisa, but now he detected in it the suavity of the hypocrite and the leer of the criminal.

He could not endure it; he could not look upon that face any longer.  His feet almost gave way under him, cold sweat gathered on his brow, and he sank on a chair trembling and studiously avoiding the other man’s gaze.

At last Reginald rose to go.  It seemed impossible to accuse this splendid impersonation of vigorous manhood of cunning and underhand methods, of plagiarisms and of theft.  As he stood there he resembled more than anything a beautiful tiger-cat, a wonderful thing of strength and will-power, indomitable and insatiate.  Yet who could tell whether this strength was not, after all, parasitic.  If Ethel’s suspicions were justified, then, indeed, more had been taken from him than he could ever realise.  For in that case it was his life-blood that circled in those veins and the fire of his intellect that set those lips aflame!

XXVII

Reginald Clarke had hardly left the room when Ernest hastily rose from his seat.  While it was likely that he would remain in undisturbed possession of the apartment the whole morning, the stake at hand was too great to permit of delay.

Palpitating and a little uncertain, he entered the studio where, scarcely a year ago, Reginald Clarke had bidden him welcome.  Nothing had changed there since then; only in Ernest’s mind the room had assumed an aspect of evil.  The Antinous was there and the Faun and the Christ-head.  But their juxtaposition to-day partook of the nature of the blasphemous.  The statues of Shakespeare and Balzac seemed to frown from their pedestals as his fingers were running through Reginald’s papers.  He brushed against a semblance of Napoleon that was standing on the writing-table, so that it toppled over and made a noise that weirdly re-echoed in the silence of the room.  At that moment a curious family resemblance between Shakespeare,