“You think so?” Franks sat a little straighter, but still with vacant eye.  “Yes, not bad, I think.  But who knows whether I shall finish the thing.”

“If you don’t,” replied his friend, in a matter-of-fact tone, “you’ll do something better.  But I should finish it, if I were you.  If you had the courage to paint in the right sort of face—­the girl, you know.”

“What sort of face, then?”

“Sharp-nosed, thin-lipped, rather anaemic, with a universe of self-conceit in the eye.”

“They wouldn’t hang it, and nobody would buy it.  Besides, Warburton, you’re wrong if you think the slummers are always that sort.  Still, I’m not sure I shan’t do it, out of spite.  There’s another reason, too—­I hate beautiful women; I don’t think I shall ever be able to paint another.”

He sprang up, and paced, as of old, about the room.  Will purposely kept silence.

“I’ve confessed,” Franks began again, with effort, “that I made a fool of myself the other night.  But I wish you’d tell me something about your time at Trient.  Didn’t you notice anything?  Didn’t anything make you suspect what she was going to do?”

“I never for a moment foresaw it,” replied Will, with unemphasised sincerity.

“Yet she must have made up her mind whilst you were there.  Her astounding hypocrisy!  I had a letter a few days before, the same as usual—­”

“Quite the same?”

“Absolutely!—­Well, there was no difference that struck me.  Then all at once she declares that for months she had felt her position false and painful.  What a monstrous thing!  Why did she go on pretending, playing a farce?  I could have sworn that no girl lived who was more thoroughly honest in word and deed and thought.  It’s awful to think how one can be deceived.  I understand now the novels about unfaithful wives, and all that kind of thing.  I always said to myself—­’Pooh, as if a fellow wouldn’t know if his wife were deceiving him’!  By Jove this has made me afraid of the thought of marriage.  I shall never again trust a woman.”

Warburton sat in meditation, only half smiling.

“Of course, she’s ashamed to face me.  For fear I should run after her, she wrote that they were just leaving Trient for another place, not mentioned.  If I wrote, I was to address to Bath, and the letter would be forwarded.  I wrote—­of course a fool’s letter; I only wish I’d never sent it.  Sometimes I think I’ll never try to see her again; sometimes I think I’ll make her see me, and tell her the truth about herself.  The only thing is—­I’m half afraid—­I’ve gone through torture enough; I don’t want to begin again.  Yet if I saw her—­”

He took another turn across the room, then checked himself before Warburton.

“Tell me honestly what you think about it.  I want advice.  What’s your opinion of her?”

“I have no opinion at all.  I don’t pretend to know her well enough.”