proceeds of it. But of late he had been absorbed in his big picture,
and there had been few or no small earnings. Perhaps, if he hadn't
written those articles to the _Mirror_, there would have been time for
some? Well, why shouldn't he write them? His irritable pride took fire
at once at the thought of blame.

No one could say, anyway, that he had spent money in amusement. Why,
he had scarcely been out of Bloomsbury!--the rest of London might not
have existed for him. A gallery-seat at the Lyceum Theatre, then in
its early fame, and hot discussions of Irving and Ellen Terry with
such artistic or literary acquaintance as he had made through the
life-school or elsewhere--these had been his only distractions. He
stood amazed before his own virtues. He drank little--smoked little.
As for women--he thought with laughter or wrath of Phoebe's touch of
jealousy! There was an extremely pretty girl--a fair-haired, conscious
minx--drawing in the same room with him at the British Museum.
Evidently she would have been glad to capture him; and he had loftily
denied her. If he had ever been as susceptible as Phoebe thought him,
he was susceptible no more. Life burned with sterner fire!

And yet, for all these self-denials, Morrison's money and his own
savings were nearly gone. Funds might hold out till after Christmas.
What then?

He had heard once or twice from Morrison, asking for news of the
pictures promised. Lately he had left the letters unanswered; but he
lived in terror of a visit. For he had nothing to offer him--neither
money nor pictures. His only picture so far--as distinguished from
exercises--was the 'Genius Loci.' He had begun that in a moment of
weariness with his student work, basing it on a number of studies