Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/54

44 convictions which belonged almost to the undiscussable part of life. He had not in general a high sense of success, but what kept it down particularly was his indocile hand, the fact that, such as they were, Waterlow's purples and greens, for instance, were far beyond him. If he had not failed there other failures would not have mattered, not even that of not having a country; and it was on the occasion of his friend's agreement to paint that strange, lovely girl, whom he liked so much and whose companions he failed to like, that he felt supremely without a vocation. Freshness was there at least, if he had only had the method. He prayed earnestly, in relation to methods, for a providential reinforcement of Waterlow's sense of this quality. If Waterlow had a fault it was that he was sometimes a little stale.

He avenged himself for the artist's bewildering treatment of his first attempt to approach Miss Francie by indulging, at the end of another week, in a second. He went about six o'clock, when he supposed she would have returned from her day's wanderings, and his prudence was rewarded by the sight of the young lady sitting in the court of the hotel with her father and sister. Mr. Dosson was new to Gaston Probert, but the visitor's intelligence embraced him. The little party was as usual expecting Mr. Flack at any moment, and they had collected down stairs, so that he might pick them up easily. They had, on the first floor,