CHAPTER LV.
ARTHUR MERLIN'S GREAT PICTURE.
Arthur Merlin had sketched his great picture of Diana and Endymion a hundred times.

He talked of it with his friends, and smoked scores of boxes of cigars during the conversations.

He had completed what he called the study for the work, which represented, he said, the Goddess alighting upon Latmos while Endymion slept.

He pointed out to his companions, especially to Lawrence Newt, the pure antique classical air of the composition.
"You know," he said, as he turned his head and moved his hands over the study as if drawing in the air, "you know it ought somehow to seem silent, and cool, and remote; for it is ancient Greece, Diana, and midnight.

You see ?" Then came a vast cloud of smoke from his mouth, as if to assist the eyes of the spectator.
"Oh yes, I see," said every one of his companions--especially Lawrence Newt, who did see, indeed, but saw only a head of Hope Wayne in a mist.
The Endymion, the mountain, the Greece, the antiquity, were all vigorous assumptions of the artist.