An Engagement of Convenience

insons continued; for it naturally came to be the settled thing that he should dine with the Robinsons on most of the evenings that he was not engaged elsewhere or otherwise. The a

to him, he was thus stimulated to pick up again some of the old threads of his existence. He called on remote aunts in Eaton Square; on retired military uncles in South Kensington. And as the winter advanced he began to find a

wo occasions, induced him to show himself at some of the clubs. At the same time he began to cultivate again some of the smaller coteries of which he had once been so popular a lig

d saved him-as he put it-from attaching too cheap a price to himself. He was thus able to meet the Robinsons from a real

editor's cheque was a god-send, relieving him of immediate anxieties, but he dared not relax his efforts. His mornings were entirely devoted to the big canvas now, and he rose early to avail himself of every minute of light during these short wintry days. He worked with a passion and a concentration that he had neve

what had he to build upon beyond the coming fee for Miss Robinson's portrait? As the weeks went by, som

glint of wines, the clear light of cunning distillations. The great pineapples, the clusters of grapes, the baskets of peaches, all the fragrant store of Nature's bounty set out on a table that yet, by no stretch of imagination, could be conceived as "groaning"-all seemed to shine fatter and finer than at the houses of his society friends. And here, too, his footing was of an unique, admirable character. He had his place at the board practically as a matter of right. They ranked him as a god; yet felt that th