“And is the house among the reeds still secure?” he half-crooned to it.  “And is the missus quite well, and are the neighbors flourishing?  There, dear, home with you,” and he flung it into the air.

“That bird’s very tame,” said Darcy, slightly bewildered.

“It is rather,” said Frank, following its flight.

* * * * *

During dinner Frank chiefly occupied himself in bringing himself up-to-date in the movements and achievements of this old friend whom he had not seen for six years.  Those six years, it now appeared, had been full of incident and success for Darcy; he had made a name for himself as a portrait painter which bade fair to outlast the vogue of a couple of seasons, and his leisure time had been brief.  Then some four months previously he had been through a severe attack of typhoid, the result of which as concerns this story was that he had come down to this sequestered place to recruit.

“Yes, you’ve got on,” said Frank at the end.  “I always knew you would.  A.R.A. with more in prospect.  Money?  You roll in it, I suppose, and, O Darcy, how much happiness have you had all these years?  That is the only imperishable possession.  And how much have you learned?  Oh, I don’t mean in Art.  Even I could have done well in that.”

Darcy laughed.

“Done well?  My dear fellow, all I have learned in these six years you knew, so to speak, in your cradle.  Your old pictures fetch huge prices.  Do you never paint now?”

Frank shook his head.

“No, I’m too busy,” he said.

“Doing what?  Please tell me.  That is what every one is for ever asking me.”

“Doing?  I suppose you would say I do nothing.”

Darcy glanced up at the brilliant young face opposite him.

“It seems to suit you, that way of being busy,” he said.  “Now, it’s your turn.  Do you read?  Do you study?  I remember you saying that it would do us all—­all us artists, I mean—­a great deal of good if we would study any one human face carefully for a year, without recording a line.  Have you been doing that?”

Frank shook his head again.

“I mean exactly what I say,” he said, “I have been doing nothing.  And I have never been so occupied.  Look at me; have I not done something to myself to begin with?”

“You are two years younger than I,” said Darcy, “at least you used to be.  You therefore are thirty-five.  But had I never seen you before I should say you were just twenty.  But was it worth while to spend six years of greatly-occupied life in order to look twenty?  Seems rather like a woman of fashion.”

Frank laughed boisterously.

“First time I’ve ever been compared to that particular bird of prey,” he said.  “No, that has not been my occupation—­in fact I am only very rarely conscious that one effect of my occupation has been that.  Of course, it must have been if one comes to think of it.  It is not very important.  Quite true my body has become young.  But that is very little; I have become young.”