Only the eyes, much darker than the hair, and the rich brown of the sable cloak where it touched the white, gave accent and force to the ethereal pallor, the supreme refinement, of the rest--face, dress, hands.

Nothing but civilisation in its most complex workings could have produced such a type; that was what prevailed dimly in Fenwick's mind as he wrestled with his picture.

Sometimes his day's work left him exultant, sometimes in a hell of despair.
'I went to see Mr.Welby's studio yesterday,' he said, hastily, after another minute or two, seeing her droop with fatigue.
Her face changed and lit up.
'Well, what did you see ?' 'The two Academy pictures--several portraits--and a lot of studies.' 'Isn't it fine--the "Polyxena" ?' Fenwick twisted his mouth in a trick he had.
'Yes,' he said, perfunctorily.
She coloured slightly, as though in antagonism.
'That means that you don't admire it at all ?' 'Well, it doesn't say anything to me,' said Fenwick, after a pause.
'What do you dislike ?' 'Why doesn't he paint flesh ?' he said, abruptly--'not coloured wax.' 'Of course there is a decorative convention in his painting'-- her tone was a little stiff--'but so there is in all painting.' Fenwick shrugged his shoulders.
'Go and look at Rubens--or Velasquez.' [Illustration: _Eugenie_] 'Why not at Leonardo--and Raphael ?' 'Because they are not _moderns_--and we can't get back into their skins.

Rubens and Velasquez _are_ moderns,' he protested, stoutly.
'What is a "modern" ?' she asked, laughing.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, 'You are--and it is only fashion--or something else--that makes you like this archaistic stuff!' But he restrained himself, and they fell into a skirmish, in which, as usual, he came off badly.

As soon as he perceived it, he became rather heated and noisy, trying to talk her down.