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But when love, or whatever else by a less pretty name we may call the emotion which stirs within us, responsive to the glance or touch of a woman, sweeps man’s nature as the harpist the strings of his harp, all thoughts pass under the dominion of the master passion; even the thought of self, with all its impudent assertiveness, changes its accustomed force, and sinks to a secondary place.

Love is a disturber and routs philosophy, and as for matrimony, Robert rather agreed with the philosopher who said, “You will regret it whether you marry or not.” An old painter had once told him that in bringing too much comfort and luxury into the home of the artist, it frightened inspiration.

“Art,” he said, “needs either solitude, poverty or passion; too warm an atmosphere suffocates it. It is a mountain wind-flower that blooms fairest in a sterile soil.”

From the scene-house of Robert’s memory came visions strangely sweet; they came like the lapse of fading lesson days, gemmed here and there with joys, and crimsoned all over with the silken suppleness of youth and its delights.