remember, too, the odd little pang with which he heard it, a half
spasm of altogether absurd jealousy. Of course the feeling did not
last. There was no recurrence of it when he heard that Franks had
again seen Miss Elvan before she left Ashtead; nor when he learnt
that the artist had been spending a day or two at Bath. Less than a
month after their first meeting, Franks won Rosamund's consent. He
was frantic with exultation. Arriving with the news at ten o'clock
one night, he shouted and maddened about Warburton's room until
finally turned out at two in the morning. His circumstances being
what they were, he could not hope for marriage yet awhile; he must
work and wait. Never mind; see what work he would produce! Yet it
appeared to his friend that all through the next twelvemonth he
merely wasted time, such work as he did finish being of very slight
value. He talked and talked, now of Rosamund, now of what he was
_going_ to do, until Warburton, losing patience, would cut him short
with "Oh, go to Bath!"--an old cant phrase revived for its special
appropriateness in this connection. Franks went to Bath far oftener
than he could afford, money for his journey being generally borrowed
from his long-enduring friend.

Rosamund herself had nothing, and but the smallest expectations
should her father die. Two years before this, it had occurred to her
that she should like to study art, and might possibly find in it a
means of self-support. She was allowed to attend classes at South
Kensington, but little came of this except a close friendship with a
girl of her own age, by name Bertha Cross, who was following the art
course with more serious purpose. When she had been betrothed for
about a year, Rosamund chanced to spend a week in London at her
friend's house, and this led to acquaintance between Franks and the
Crosses. For a time, Warburton saw and heard less of the artist, who