“My dear Doctor—­if I don’t paint what the public likes, I starve; all the same I’m going to paint in my own way; in the end I shall come out on top.”

“It pays to work in the groove, my friend, until you’ve made your name; after that—­do what you like, they’ll lick your boots all the same.”

“Ah, you don’t love your work.”

Dawney answered slowly:  “Never so happy as when my hands are full.  But I want to make money, to get known, to have a good time, good cigars, good wine.  I hate discomfort.  No, my boy, I must work it on the usual lines; I don’t like it, but I must lump it.  One starts in life with some notion of the ideal—­it’s gone by the board with me.  I’ve got to shove along until I’ve made my name, and then, my little man—­then—­”

“Then you’ll be soft!”

“You pay dearly for that first period!”

“Take my chance of that; there’s no other way.”

“Make one!”

“Humph!”

Harz poised his brush, as though it were a spear: 

“A man must do the best in him.  If he has to suffer—­let him!”

Dawney stretched his large soft body; a calculating look had come into his eyes.

“You’re a tough little man!” he said.

“I’ve had to be tough.”

Dawney rose; tobacco smoke was wreathed round his unruffled hair.

“Touching Villa Rubein,” he said, “shall I call for you?  It’s a mixed household, English mostly—­very decent people.”

“No, thank you.  I shall be painting all day.  Haven’t time to know the sort of people who expect one to change one’s clothes.”

“As you like; ta-to!” And, puffing out his chest, Dawney vanished through a blanket looped across the doorway.

Harz set a pot of coffee on a spirit-lamp, and cut himself some bread.  Through the window the freshness of the morning came; the scent of sap and blossom and young leaves; the scent of earth, and the mountains freed from winter; the new flights and songs of birds; all the odorous, enchanted, restless Spring.

There suddenly appeared through the doorway a white rough-haired terrier dog, black-marked about the face, with shaggy tan eyebrows.  He sniffed at Harz, showed the whites round his eyes, and uttered a sharp bark.  A young voice called: 

“Scruff!  Thou naughty dog!” Light footsteps were heard on the stairs; from the distance a thin, high voice called: 

“Greta!  You mustn’t go up there!”

A little girl of twelve, with long fair hair under a wide-brimmed hat, slipped in.

Her blue eyes opened wide, her face flushed up.  That face was not regular; its cheek-bones were rather prominent, the nose was flattish; there was about it an air, innocent, reflecting, quizzical, shy.

“Oh!” she said.

Harz smiled:  “Good-morning!  This your dog?”

She did not answer, but looked at him with soft bewilderment; then running to the dog seized him by the collar.