hindrances. The rapture of that discovery, he thought, almost wiped out
his father's debt to him.

He knew now that not Bohemia, but Paris, was his El Dorado. In wild haste
he made ready for his journey, leaving the rigid trappings of his home to
be sold after him. But his dead father was to give him one more pang--the
scales were to swing uneven at the last. For when he would have packed
the only possession, other than a few necessities, he planned to carry
with him, he found his mother's picture gone. Dying, his father, it
appeared, had wandered from his bed, detached the portrait, and with his
own hands burnt it in the stove. The motive of the act Stefan could not
comprehend. He only knew that this man had robbed him of his mother
twice. All that remained of her was her wedding ring, which, drawn from
his father's cash-box, he wore on his little finger. With bitterness amid
his joy he took the train once more, and saw the lights of the town's
shabby inn blink good-bye behind its frazzled shades.




III


Byrd had lived for seven years in Paris, wandering on foot in summer
through much of France and Italy. His little patrimony, stretched to the
last sou, and supplemented in later years by the occasional sale of his
work to small dealers, had sufficed him so long. His headquarters were in
a high windowed attic facing north along the rue des Quatre Ermites. His
work had been much admired in the ateliers, but his personal unpopularity
with, the majority of the students had prevented their admiration