"Hurrah, Leslie!"

"Well, Carl!"

"Our pictures are sold!"

"What pictures?"

"What pictures?" mimicking the indifferent tone. "Oh! how indifferent we are! yet a year ago how blessed were the feet of the messenger who brought such tidings! Success falls upon you, my boy. Now with me a ready sale is quite an event. Of course I meant the pictures we sent to Paris!"

The same old studio at Rome into which we looked three years ago, and the same two artists we saw then. Carl Muller had just entered, waving an open letter over his head.

The gay, mercurial German looked as boyishly handsome as ever, as though time had forgotten him. Not so with Leslie Dane, who stood beside a half-finished picture, critically regarding it. He was handsomer than ever, as though the subtle hand of a sculptor had been at work upon his features chiseling the fine Greek outlines into rarer perfection and delicacy. A few lines of thought and care added rather than detracted from the interest with which one turned a second time to look at his face. The full lips half shaded by the dark mustache had lost a little of the almost womanly sweetness of the past and acquired a sterner curve. Into the dark eyes there had crept a gleam of brooding sadness, and a few silver threads shone in the clustering locks[Pg 84] about his white brow. His last three years had made their mark upon him in many subtle changes.

"I could have told you that yesterday, Carl," he said, smiling, "but you were out when my letter came, and I was so busy over my picture here that I forgot it when you returned."

"The agent wrote to you first then," said Carl. "He might have had the courtesy to drop me a line at the same time."

"Do not blame him too much, Carl," said Leslie Dane. "He was in a hurry about writing to me because he had a letter to inclose from the purchaser of the pictures."

"Another commission, you lucky dog!" exclaimed Carl Muller.

"It amounts to that, I suppose. He wants me to go to Paris and paint his wife's portrait. If I will not go to Paris he will come to Rome."

"If the mountain will not go to Mahomet, then Mahomet must go to the mountain," said Carl.

"Something that way," said Leslie, carelessly.

"You will accept, of course. The old fellow paid such an extravagant price for the pictures that another commission might be a temptation even to you who have lately been surfeited with success."

"The money certainly might be an object, but I think I shall refuse," was the abrupt reply.

"Refuse!" exclaimed Carl, in surprise, "and why, if I may ask?"

"The man is an American."

"So are you," cried the German, surprised at the dark frown that darkened on Leslie's brow. "Is that a disgrace?"

"I suppose not. Yet I will have nothing to do with my countrymen," said the artist, sternly.

Carl gave vent to a low whistle.

"Ye gods! An American—born under the shadow of the eagle's wing of liberty, a citizen of a land the most patriotic upon earth—coolly repudiating his country! I never expected to see such a novel sight under the sun!"

"You mistake me, Carl," said Leslie Dane, a little vexed. "I do not repudiate my native land. I revere her as the noblest country upon earth, but I am from henceforth an exile, self-expatriated from her shores, and I do not wish to meet anyone who can recall memories I would fain forget."

"You are a strange fellow, Leslie, I cannot understand your moods."

"You do not? Shall I explain, Carl? Listen, then."

Carl looked up into the dark face with its look of proud grief mingled with bitterness.

"No, no; forgive my levity," he said; "I would not intrude upon your secret, dear friend. Let it rest."

"It does not matter," said Leslie, his deep voice full of pain. "I will tell you, Carl. It is only this: One woman in that fair land where I was born has played me false and ruined my life. I hate and shun all Americans for her sake!"

He took up his brush and went to work at his picture without another word. Carl was silent also; he was recalling that episode[Pg 85] of three years ago when Leslie in his wild outbreak had painted out the portrait of his fair, false-hearted love.

"So he has not forgotten her," he thought; "and yet he has never breathed another word of her until to-day. Ah! she ............