high a pedestal of honour, trusting him with such perfect and unquestioning faith, that for very manhood’s sake he could not bring himself to tear the veil from her eyes.  Moreover he really loved her in a curious, haphazard way of love, —­more than he had ever loved any one of her sex,—­and, when in her presence and under her influence, he gained a glimmering of consciousness of what love might mean in its best and purest sense.

He laughed at himself however for this very thought.  He had always pooh-pooh’d the idea of love as having anything divine or uplifting in its action,—­nevertheless in his more sincere moments he was bound to confess that since he had known Innocent his very art had gained a certain breadth and subtlety which it had lacked before.  It was a pleasure to him to see her eyes shine with pride in his work, to hear her voice murmur dulcet praises of his skill, and for a time he took infinite pains with all his subjects, putting the very best of himself into his drawing and colouring with results that were brilliant and convincing enough to ensure success for all his efforts.  Sometimes—­lost in a sudden fit of musing—­he wondered how his life would shape itself if he married her?  He had avoided marriage as a man might avoid hanging,—­ considering it, not without reason, the possible ruin of an artist’s greater career.  Among many men he had known, men of undoubted promise, it had proved the fatal step downward from the high to the low.  One particular “chum” of his own, a gifted painter, had married a plump rosy young woman with “a bit o’ money,” as the country folks say,—­and from that day had been steadily dragged down to the domestic level of sad and sordid commonplace.  Instead of studying form and colour, he was called upon to examine drains and superintend the plumber, mark house linen and take care of the children—­his wife believing in “making a husband useful.”  Of regard for his art or possible fame she had none,—­while his children were taught to regard his work in that line as less important than if he had been a bricklayer at so much pence the hour.

“Children!” thought Jocelyn—­“Do I want them? ...  No—­I think not!  They’re all very well when they’re young—­really young!—­two to five years old is the enchanting age,—­but, most unfortunately, they grow!  Yes!—­they grow,—­often into hideous men and women—­a sort of human vultures sitting on their fathers’ pockets and screaming ‘Give!  Give!’ The prospect does not attract me!  And she?—­Innocent?  I don’t think I could bear to watch that little flower-like face gradually enlarging into matronly lines and spreading into a double chin!  Those pretty eyes peering into the larder and considering the appearance of uncooked bacon!  Perish the thought!  One might as well think of Shakespeare’s Juliet paying the butcher’s bill, or worse still, selecting the butcher’s meat!  Forbid it, O ye heavens!  Of course if ideals could be realised, which they never are, I can see myself wedded for pure