“Really?  Your name is Innocent?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered him—­“I’m afraid it’s a very unusual name—­”

“It is indeed!” he said with emphasis.  “Innocent by name and by nature!  Will you come?”

She rose at once, and they moved away together.

CHAPTER II

Chance and coincidence play curious pranks with human affairs, and one of the most obvious facts of daily experience is that the merest trifle, occurring in the most haphazard way, will often suffice to change the whole intention and career of a life for good or for evil.  It is as though a musician in the composition of a symphony should suddenly bethink himself of a new and strange melody, and, pleasing his fancy with the innovation, should wilfully introduce it at the last moment, thereby creating more or less of a surprise for the audience.  Something of this kind happened to Innocent after her meeting with the painter who bore the name of her long idealised knight of France, Amadis de Jocelin.  She soon learned that he was a somewhat famous personage,—­famous for his genius, his scorn of accepted rules, and his contempt for all “puffery,” push and patronage, as well as for his brusquerie in society and carelessness of conventions.  She also heard that his works had been rejected twice by the Royal Academy Council, a reason he deemed all-sufficient for never appealing to that exclusive school of favouritism again,—­while everything he chose to send was eagerly accepted by the French Salon, and purchased as soon as exhibited.  His name had begun to stand very high—­and his original character and personality made him somewhat of a curiosity among men—­one more feared than favoured.  He took a certain pleasure in analysing his own disposition for the benefit of any of his acquaintances who chose to listen,—­and the harsh judgment he passed on himself was not altogether without justice or truth.

“I am an essentially selfish man,” he would say—­“I have met selfishness everywhere among my fellow men and women, and have imbibed it as a sponge imbibes water.  I’ve had a fairly hard time, and I’ve experienced the rough side of human nature, getting more kicks than halfpence.  Now that the kicks have ceased I’m in no mood for soft soap.  I know the humbug of so-called ’friendship’—­ the rarity of sincerity—­and as for love!—­there’s no such thing permanently in man, woman or child.  What is called ‘love’ is merely a comfortable consciousness that one particular person is agreeable and useful to you for a time—­but it’s only for a time—­ and marriage which seeks to bind two people together till death is the heaviest curse ever imposed on manhood or womanhood!  Devotion and self-sacrifice are merest folly—­the people you sacrifice yourself for are never worth it, and devotion is generally, if not always, misplaced.  The only thing to do in this life is to look after yourself,—­serve yourself—­please yourself!  No one will do anything for you unless they can get something out of it for their own advantage,—­you’re bound to follow the general example!”