of his father's discarded Templar swords, and pose before the long
mirrors ranting and scowling. At another time he would devote his
attention to literature, making up endless stories with which he
terrified himself, telling them to himself in a low voice for hours
after he had got into bed. Sometimes he would write out these stories
and read them to his father after supper, standing up between the
folding doors of the library, acting out the whole narrative with
furious gestures. Once he even wrote a little poem which seriously
disturbed the Old Gentleman, filling him with formless ideas and vague
hopes for the future.

In a suitable environment Vandover might easily have become an author,
actor or musician, since it was evident that he possessed the
fundamental _afflatus_ that underlies all branches of art. As it was,
the merest chance decided his career.

In the same library where he had found the famous encyclopædia article
was "A Home Book of Art," one of those showily bound gift books one sees
lying about conspicuously on parlour centre tables. It was an English
publication calculated to meet popular and general demand. There were a
great many full-page pictures of lonely women, called "Reveries" or
"Idylls," ideal "Heads" of gipsy girls, of coquettes, and heads of
little girls crowned with cherries and illustrative of such titles as
"Spring," "Youth," "Innocence." Besides these were sentimental pictures,
as, for instance, one entitled "It Might Have Been," a sad-eyed girl,
with long hair, musing over a miniature portrait, and another especially
impressive which represented a handsomely dressed woman flung upon a
_Louis Quinze_ sofa, weeping, her hands clasped over her head. She was
alone; it was twilight; on the floor was a heap of opened letters. The
picture was called "Memories."