thought, among other things, that to her it did matter; for, in the first place, a painter who doesn't sell isn't likely to be able to pay his models; and, in the second place, no self-respecting girl cares to sit very long for unsaleable pictures. It interferes, of course, with her market value. Who's going to employ an unsuccessful man's model?

For a week Ernest toiled on almost without stopping, but it was easy toil compared to the stocking trade. The study grew apace under his eager fingers; the model declared confidentially to her family he was ruining her prospects. 'I'm as yellow as a guinea,' she said; and as for expression, why, you'd think I was goin' to die in about three weeks in a gallopin' consumption.' Not such the elder sister in 'Papa's Return '-that rosy-cheeked, round-faced, English middle-class girl whom Ernest had elaborated by his Protean art out of the features and form of the self-same model.

At the end of the week he was working hard in his studio one evening to save the last ray of departing sunlight, when Bertha burst in suddenly with a very scared face. 'Oh, Ernest!' she cried, 'do come up and look at Joan. She seems so ill. I can't think what's the matter with her.'

'as

Ernest flung down his brush, and forgot in a moment, as a father will, all about the Elusive. It eluded him instantly. He followed Bertha to the little room at the top of the house that served as nursery. ('Keep your child always,' he used to say, near as you can to heaven.') Little Joan, just three years old at that time, lay listless and glassy-eyed in the nurse's arms. Ernest looked at her with a vague foreboding of evil. He saw at once she was very ill. 'This is serious,' he said in a low voice. 'I must go for the doctor.'

When the doctor came, discreetly uncertain, he shook his head and looked wise, and declined to commit himself. He was rather of opinion, though, it might perhaps turn out to be scarlet fever.

Scarlet fever! Bertha's heart stood still in her bosom, and so did Ernest's. For the next ten days the model had holiday; the Elusive was permitted to elude unchased; the studio was forsaken day and night for the nursery. It was a very bad case, and they fought it all along the line, inch by inch, unflinchingly. Poor little Joan was very ill indeed. It made Ernest's heart bleed to see her chubby small face grow so thin and yet so fiery. Night after night they sat up and watched. What did Ernest care now for art or the ideal? That one little atomy of solid round flesh

VOL. XX. NO. CXX.

R R

was more to him than all the greatest pictures in Christendom. 'Rafael did this, Andrea painted that!' Ah, God! what did it matter, with little Joan's life hanging poised in the balance between life and death, and little Joan's unseeing eyes turned upward, white between the eyelids, toward the great blank ceiling? If Joan were to die, what would be art or posterity? The sun in the heavens might shine on as before, but the sun in Ernest and Bertha's life would have faded out utterly.

At last the crisis came. 'If she gets through to-night,' the doctor said in his calm way, as though he were talking of somebody else's baby, 'the danger's practically over. All my patients in the present epidemic who've passed this stage have recovered without difficulty.'

They watched and waited through that livelong night in breathless suspense and terror and agony. You who are parents know well what it means. Why try to tell others? They could never understand; and if they could, why, heaven forbid we should harrow them as we ourselves have been harrowed.

At last, towards morning, little Joan dropped asleep. A sweet, deep sleep. Her breathing was regular. Father and mother fell mute into one another's arms. Their tears mingled. They dared not utter one word, but they cried long and silently.

From that moment, as the doctor had predicted, little Joan grew rapidly stronger and better. In a week she was able to go out for a drive-in a hansom, of course-no carriages for the struggling! Exchequer, much depleted by expenses of illness, felt even that hansom a distinct strain upon it.

Next morning Ernest had heart enough to begin work again. He sent word round accordingly to the model.

In the course of the day Bernard Hume dropped in. He was anxious to see how the Ideal and the Elusive got on after the crisis. He surprised Ernest at his easel. Hullo!' he cried with a little start, straightening his long spine, 'what does all this mean, Grey? You don't mean to say you're back at "Papa's Return"? Have you yielded once more to Gath and Askelon?'

'No,' Ernest answered firmly, looking him back in the face, 'I've yielded to Duty. You can go now, Miss Baker. I've done about as much as I'm good for to-day. My hand's too shaky. And now, Hume, I'll speak out to you. All these days and nights while little Joan's been ill I've thought it all over and realised to myself which is the truest heroism. It's very specious and very fine to talk in deep bass about the talents that God has bestowed

upon one in trust for humanity. I can talk all that stuff any day with the best of you. But I've married Bertha, and I've helped to put little Joan into the world, and I'm responsible to them for their daily bread, their life and happiness. It may be heroic to despise comfort and fame and wealth and security for the sake of high art and the best that's in one. I dare say it is; but I'm sure it's a long way more heroic still to do work one doesn't want to do for wife and children. It's easy enough to follow one's own natural bent: I was perfectly happy-serenely happy-those seven days I painted away at the Elusive. But it's very hard indeed to give all that up for the sake of duty. What you came to preach to me was only a peculiarly seductive form of self-indulgence—the indulgence of one's highest and truest self, but still self-indulgence. If I'd followed you, everybody would have praised and admired my single-hearted devotion to the cause of art; but Joan and Bertha would have paid for it. No man can make a public for anything new and personal in any art whatever without waiting and educating his public for years. If he's rich, he can afford to wait and educate it, as your own friend Browning did. If he's a bachelor, rich or poor, he can still afford to do it, because nobody but himself need suffer for it with him. But if he's poor and married-ah, then it's quite different. He has given hostages to fortune; he has no right to think first of anything at all but the claims of his wife and children upon him. I call it more heroic, then, to work at any such honest craft as will ensure their livelihood, than to go astray after the Ashtaroth of specious ideals such as you set before me.'

Bernard Hume's lip curled. This was what the Church knows as Invincible Ignorance. He had done his best for the man, and the old Adam had conquered. And what are you going to do,' he asked with a contemptuous smile, about "The Quest of the Ideal" ?'

6

Ernest laid down his palette, and thrust his hand silently into his trousers pocket. He drew forth a knife, and opened it deliberately. Then, without a single word, he walked across the floor to the Study of the Elusive. With one ruthless cut he slashed the canvas across from corner to corner. Then he slashed the two cut pieces again transversely. After that he took down the drawing of the design from the smaller easel, and solemnly thrust it into the studio fire. It burnt by slow degrees, for the cardboard was thick. His heart beat hard. As long as it smouldered he watched it intently. As the last of the mailed knights disappeared

in white smoke up the studio chimney he drew a long breath. 'Good-bye,' he said in a choking voice; 'Good-bye to the Ideal.'

'And good-bye to you,' Bernard Hume made answer, 'for I call it desecration.'

Bernard Hume is now of opinion that he used once vastly to overrate Ernest Grey's capabilities. The man had talent, perhaps -some grain of mere talent-but never genius. As for Ernest, he has toiled on ever since, more or less contentedly (probably less), at the hosiery business, and makes quite a decent living now out of his portraits of children and his domestic figure-pieces. The model considers them all really charming.

It's everybody's case, of course: but still-it's a tragedy.

GRANT ALLEN.

Day and Night in the Guiana Forest.

OUR

UR camp fire has gone out, and we wake up chilled and cramped as the faint light of dawn begins to glow on the eastern horizon amidst banks of dark clouds. We are encamped on the edge of the forest, our hammocks slung between the trees, while below the dark waters of the river are flowing rapidly. Behind, and on either side, the foliage is dripping with moisture, and the river is obscured by a dense mist. The dew has been falling heavily since midnight, sliding from the foliage above in great drops, which fall to the ground at regular intervals. It is over a hundred feet to the top of the giant Mora, and as each drop reaches the ground it splashes in every direction. Even under our blankets we feel the insidious creeping chill of excessive dampness, which our negro boatmen call cold. It is useless trying to sleep, so we turn out and stretch our cramped limbs. Round the now blazing fire we congregate, and discuss our morning coffee with a relish only known to those who have felt the depression of a morning in the forest. At such times the sun is welcomed as a friend; but later in the day, when his rays pour down on the open river, he will be carefully avoided.

Where the dense bank of foliage slopes out into the river the leaves of the giant arums are covered with films of water, ready to drench the boatman who goes to bale out our canoe. The seats are all thoroughly wetted, and look very uncomfortable. Even our clothes feel damp, while ordinary boots get soaked in such a manner that they can hardly ever be dried.

Darkness still reigns in the forest; but the birds know that morning is near, and even before the faintest indications of dawn are visible begin calling to each other as if congratulating themselves that the sun is rising. At last the stars, which have shone so brilliantly through the night, begin to pale and fade, and presently objects become more and more distinct. The veil of darkness imperceptibly unrolls itself, and here and there a cloud