be any good at it?’ No, I do not, Mr St. John, I don’t indeed.”

Chapter Three.

When St. John left the studio it was with so sore a feeling of resentment against Miss Erskine that it seemed to him most unlikely that he would ever re-enter it. It was not that he disliked her; he did not, but he had an uncomfortable conviction that she disliked him, and felt aggrieved at his presence even while she suffered it on account of the fee. He remembered with some vexation that he had almost forced her into accepting him as a pupil, for poor as she undoubtedly was she had plainly evinced that she had no desire to instruct him. Never mind, he would atone for his persistence by sending her his cheque and troubling the studio no more; that at any rate would show her that he had no wish to intrude. This decision being final he dismissed the matter from his mind, and, as a proof of the consistency of human nature, on Friday morning at the specified hour he stood on the dirty steps outside Miss Erskine’s lodgings knocking with his walking-stick on the knockerless door. The modest Isobel opened it after a wait of some five minutes—minutes in which he had time to recall his past determination and to wonder at himself for having so speedily altered his mind—and having opened it startled him considerably by firing at him without giving him time for speech the vague yet all comprehensive information.

“She’s hout.”

“Miss Erskine?” he queried in very natural astonishment.

“Yus; been gone over ’arf a nour.”

“But,” remonstrated St. John, “the Art School opens at half past nine, it is after that now.”

“Carnt ’elp it, she’s hout.”

“It is a very strange procedure,” he exclaimed in visible annoyance. “I come to the Art School at the hour it should open and Miss Erskine is out.”

“Well!” snapped the damsel waxing impatient in her turn, “wot of that? The Art School aint hout, is it? You can go up if yer want to.”

The permission was not very gracious but St. John accepted it nevertheless, and striding past her into the narrow passage began the ascent. He had not mounted two stairs however, before the slipshod Isobel called him back, and he noticed with 

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