in London's dearer now than living in Italy was when Lenbach (which he
pronounced Lenback) was young!'

'Oh! so you know all about Lenbach?'

'You lent me the article. However'--Fenwick rose--'is that our
bargain?'

The note in the voice was trenchant, even aggressive. Nothing of the
suppliant, in tone or attitude. Morrison surveyed him, amused.

'If you like to call it so,' he said, lifting his delicate eyebrows a
moment. 'Well, I'll take the risk.'

He left the room. Fenwick thrust his hands into his pockets, with a
muttered exclamation, and walked to the window. He looked out upon a
Westmoreland valley in the first flush of spring; but he saw nothing.
His blood beat in heart and brain with a suffocating rapidity. So his
chance was come! What would Phoebe say?

As he stood by the large window, face and form in strong relief
against the crude green without, the energy of the May landscape was,
as it were, repeated and expressed in the man beholding it. He was
tall, a little round-shouldered, with a large, broad-browed head,
covered with brown, straggling hair; eyes, glancing and darkish, full
of force, of excitement even, curiously veiled, often, by suspicion;
nose, a little crooked owing to an injury at football; and mouth, not
coarse, but large and freely cut, and falling readily into lines of
sarcasm.