I was sent to a
private school at Folkestone, where I got the small Latin, and no Greek
at all, that I boast of. Do you know Folkestone? The wind on the cliffs,
the pine-trees down their slopes, the vessels in the channel, the faint
coast of France in clear weather? I was to have gone from there to one
of the universities, but my mother died, and my father soon after,--the
only sorrows I've ever had,--and I decided, on my own, to cut the
university career, and jump into the study of pictorial art. Since then,
I've always done as I liked."
"You don't seem to have made any great mistakes."
"No. I've never gone hunting trouble. Unlike most people who are doomed
to uneventful happiness, I don't sigh for adventure."
"Then your life has been uneventful since you jumped into the study of
art?"
"Entirely. Cast always in smooth and agreeable lines. I studied first in
a London studio, then in Paris; travelled in various parts of Europe and
the United States; lived in London and New York; and there you are. I've
never had to work, so far. But the money my father left me has gone--I
spent the principal because I had other expectations. And now this other
little fortune, that I meant to use frugally, is in dispute. I may be
deprived of it by a decision to be given shortly. In that case, I shall
have to earn my mutton chops like many a better man."
"You seem to take the prospect very cheerfully."
"Oh, I shall be fortunate. Good fortune is my destiny.
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