V.
Gaston Probert made his plan, imparting it to no one but his friend Waterlow, whose help indeed he needed to carry it out. These confidences cost him something, for the clever young painter found his predicament amusing and made no scruple of showing it. Probert was too much in love, however, to be discountenanced by sarcasm. This fact is the more noteworthy as he knew that Waterlow scoffed at him for a purpose—had a theory that that kind of treatment would be salutary. The French taste was in Waterlow's "manner," but it had not yet coloured his view of the relations of a young man of spirit with parents and pastors. He was Gallic to the tip of his finest brush, but the humour of his early American education could not fail to obtrude itself in discussion with a friend in whose life the principle of authority played so large a part. He accused Probert of being afraid of his sisters, which was a crude way (and he knew it) of allud-
