'Everything,' he replied, 'I'm fed up.'
'What with?'
'Life. Beautiful women. This beastly photography business.'
I was amazed. Even in the East rumours of his success had reached me, and on my return to London I found that they had not been exaggerated. In every photographers' club in the Metropolis, from the Negative and Solution in Pall Mall to the humble public-houses frequented by the men who do your pictures while you wait on the sands at seaside resorts, he was being freely spoken of as the logical successor to the Presidency of the Amalgamated Guild of Bulb-Squeezers.
'I can't stick it much longer,' said Clarence, tearing the camera-portrait into a dozen pieces with a dry sob and burying his face in his hands. 'Actresses nursing their dolls! Countesses simpering over kittens! Film stars among their books! In ten minutes I go to catch a train at Waterloo. I have been sent for by the Duchess of Hampshire to take some studies of Lady Monica Southbourne in the castle grounds.'
A shudder ran through him. I patted him on the shoulder. I understood now.
'She has the most brilliant smile in England,' he whispered.
'Come, come!'
'Coy yet roguish, they tell me.'
'It may not be true.'