Or, again, perhaps, it was those rare moments, when--on some walk that carried them beyond the outskirts of the town, and brought the mountains into unobstructed view--the clouds of bitterness were lifted; and the man spoke with poetic feeling of the realities of life, and of the true glory and mission of the arts; counseling his friend with an intelligence as true and delicate as it was rare and fine.
It was nearly two months after Conrad Lagrange had introduced the young man at the house on Fairlands Heights.

The hour was late.

The painter--returning from a dinner and an evening at the Taine home--found the novelist, with pipe and dog, in a deserted corner of the hotel veranda.

Dropping into the chair that was placed as if it awaited his coming, the artist--with no word of greeting to the man--bent over the brown head that was thrust so insistently against his knee, as Czar, with gently waving tail, made him welcome.

Looking affectionately into the brown eyes while he stroked the silky coat, the young man answered in the language that all dogs understand; while the novelist, from under his scowling brows, regarded the two intently.
"They were disappointed that you were not there," said the painter, presently.