THE GOAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 15 June 1907, Page 3

THE GOAL.

The studio was iu darkness. By the window one spot of red light showed itsell in the red gloom; it was the lighted end of lialph l'alerson's cigar. It was a cheap cigar, and its rank tkivor struck unpleasantly upon his palate; but lialph l'aterson continued to smoke it. "For my sins," he said to himself, "and they lire many—against art and against my fellow artists if 1 am to believe what tlie world says of me." Jtalph l'aterson was engaged in that dreariest of all dreary tasks; he was marshalling to all undesired goal an unwilling conscience; ho was explaining elaborately to himself why it was that fates had been unkind when they had tinown bin) into the world minus an artUic love of—or patience under—misfortune, plus the artistic delight in painting pictures for his fellow-beings, which the great public would have none of, despite his persistency. There was upon the easel by the window a canvas. Kalph in the darkness could not see_.it; but he was intensely conscious of its presence with him in the room. It was an old canvas, ten, fifteen years old; one of the last of those earlier paintings of his which had won him in his youth a certain fame with picture dealers of a fifth-rate taste—(hey were the expression of the Ralph l'aterson of fifteen years ago, who had never dreamt any but the most unexciting dreams of comfortable, homely fame. They had been the product of an artist who had seen 110 life outside the narrowing artistic conventions of an unambitious art school in a little manufacturing town in the Midlands.

This one of these was a terrible thing, or so it seemed to lialph Paterson as he sat here in the black darkness and called it fo mind—but its kind had brought liiin in a livelihood!

There was merit in it, merit because it gave promise of better things; it was that merit which twisted lialph Paterson's lips as he thought upon it. "What is merit, promise?" he said aloud.

He l-osc and began to pace to and fro in the darkness. A simple enough feat; for the room was bare of aught but the necessities; a bed, an easel, a cheap washstaud thrust in flic corner, a row of pegs behind the door.

■And he had begun differently! Ho laughed at tlie thought of the first few years of comparative affluence, follow.in 8 t,lc *alc of several canvases, when he hail, returning from a strenuous apprenticeship to a new ideal in the Latin Quarter, lived upon his small capital and high hopes. Those, days were far enough away now!

lie iossed t lu* end ol his cigar awav Will) ;m exclamation. Tie crossed the window. u.l stood theie looking down upon the hurrying crowd below. The night was wet, and a sea of dripping umbrellas move.! past in an endless stream, their owners unseen by the walrlier ahovo.

Xiiinberlcss women! Women out on such a night! One. another, and another, and another! A sea of women, and everyone her own distinctive self. Ah. how slight was the diTercnce dividing them from one another, and yet— to him, how great!

He was thinking of one woman. . He wondered. . . . ]j„t no, it was inconceivable she could have wailed for him! Waited, too, for what!

lie said aloud. "Ihit there is thjs one, tbis hist chance, sink or swim. To-

Yos. c.ime to this that he had slaked his all on one last throw; his Inline as an artist, the wooer of fortune, t'nme. applause, rested upon a t.uesUon oi to-morrow's ruling.

And thu contingency was sci remote: tlii' possibility Unit tlie picture lie had sent in might lie Imng in (lie Aeadeii*for tins year. This was his vow, after years of contemptuous of tin"port judgment that hud in the past throw his out again, and yet again, from among those whose work they approved, and he condemned.

He was giving himself his last chance! And, meantime!

lie dropped the Mind and walked to the door. He took down from it his cap. ITe went out into the wet night.

"ft is really remarkably like SelinaSclina ten, of iiffeen years ago. What did you say was the name of the artist?

• • • . Ralph Patersonl . . . . Rillph Patterson—why I remember him quite well. Tie painted very nicely when he was a young man, before he went to Paris or somewhere to gain teehm.pie, or color, or something or another he hadn't got. But whatever he gained it was less than what he lost—and he cotildn't find a public for the wretched tilings he called portraits, and his sitters called libels—when he came back. 1 have he.tid that he went-under, starved in a garret. We all thought he had dM—Kelina, too, for she had a kind of liking for him. Selina was like that, always looking after the lame dogs. .

'IV lame dogs! Ralph Paterson turned and looked at the speaker, and sh-\ sui prised by his sudden unconscious mo\ement, stared back at him a moment with some interest. She said io herself: wonder if he is the author of some of the atrocities I have been freely <-rif ii-iVing for the last half-hour. Ho look* decidedly wolfish." She Matched h. i; n with undisguised iiuii-»meiit as he moved away, then she Mimed to her companion: 'T wi.-li you would !ii„| Srlina: would like to see '' ' :!1 ■ mv - I i '-lii-vo f.he still in ; liL' filst 1-L.011I." " '"his lame dog has done well for himself, at any rate," she thought. '-|Io

i'la" '.'"l. a good show f,„. J,j„ work." jf,,,. est les-. civ:- .still raked ill- room tor the '"■ i" ivho had looked at her so keenly. "Hi* face is fa ill ilia r," sin: said to li.t----"1 daresay ho know mo." She lii-iff.ii to move enterprisingly towards (ho doorway. where linlph Paterson had come to « pause, liis ilark face standing '"■-' h "I""'!' the sea of men and women who drifted past him. "He is a head above any of them," she (old herself with mitistaetion. "It simplifies mat!>TS wlh'll von arc looking lor a person "I a crowd like this. ]n that way both" he and Selina are very obliging people inde.'d. He would make a very good pair villi Minn, too: I wonder who he is. He !ias an air. though he is shabby; bid iben an artist ran ali'ord to do as lie likes ill the matter of dress, and he cer!:""'y ( ' ul ' l ljl ' ! >n ordinary every-day in'iividual with thai, head." flor jneouse■bought* ran on, and when she I'Mehed Ualpli i'aterson she had doeided :bal slio niii-r have met. him at soiu-.-anutiiei. and have forgotten. "Though he is not tile kind of man one inriids," she iidilnl to herself.

Mi" said now. at once holding out a band: "I can't I'm- the moment remember where [ have met yon. but I feel sure n.al we have seen I , lc ]i other before." And I hen, as he looked at her with dawning com prehension, and a certain amusel!>™l: ''l "in Marion Scfton, of .Scfto.i I'ark: perhaps we have met at Humpshire."

But that was improbable, as they were bolh aware. \, Jm; the less, lialph Pat•rsons smile came,, and.with it a cerlain reserve of m,uraw. "We have mot-yes. 1 am lialph Paterson."

_ His smile, she told herself, was charmnig, ninoh more charming than in the days Biifore he had gone awuy to Paris

to lose more than he had gained. She hidd at once, with ready appreciation o' the situation: "Then yon heard me call you a lame dog?" "i was that—until to-day," he said, t'he looked at him a moment keenly, i'iieu she said softly: ".Here comes fcelina. Need I introduce you to her--it is lifteeu years since she last saw you.

He had turned as she spoke, and hieyes followed the direction of hers; they rested upon ISelina Scarsdule with a eer tain fierce in them. "No, 1 think I should need 110 help to reine'iibiMncc," he said.

(She glanced at him. "They arc ill very cross with Sclina; she is thirtythree and unmarried still! Tho Sears dale women always marry in their teens; it is an unwritten law," she added quick !y. "Your picture. ... It is Seliua —iu her teens?"

Her eyes asked him a question, lie said ill answer to it: "She has always toil the one woman in the woild to

''And you with her the one man, believe that— and do not keep her wait my." lhe pair wero close upon them, Selin.i and the other. lie said abruptly: "Thank you." When he turned. Sellna was holding out her hands to liiin with a little excla" mation of astonishment and delight; be fore the expression in her eyes the other .Cornell looked ».way. Marion Seftons voice was sharp a:-, she .-aid quickly. "He's quite grey, and he has had a bad time that will mark him for ever; lni» 1111 glad he's got Selina."

And Ralph Paterson Has saying to Keliut: "It was an inspiration—staki all on— \ou!"J. t. Ilerbcrtson in M A..1 .