Riverdale and I—to wit one Harold Stirling by name—had been close friends almost since life began, at our private school, our public school, and again at college. And we were meeting now for the last time as undergraduates in Riverdale’s rooms at Cambridge. For the choice that comes, once at any rate in a lifetime, to all, had come to us, and we had chosen divergent, to some it would appear antagonistic, careers.

To judge from his personal appearance, Riverdale at any rate had chosen wisely for himself when he elected to become an artist. Smoking at his ease, in a picturesque environment of flowers and ferns, pictures and statuettes, he looked like what he was—a well-to-do indolent dreamer, who might possibly succeed as a painter, but would never make much of life in any other line. Fortunately for him he had no need to trouble himself about the future. A kindly fate had settled all this in advance, when his only surviving relative, an uncle, had made him a comfortable allowance of a thousand a year, adding the still more comfortable assurance that the family estate of Riverdale should be his when the time came that he himself should have no further use for it.

Study him, as the glow from a reading-lamp falls full on his features, and you will say that his personality is concentrated in his eyes. Sapphire blue they would have been called by a casual observer, but it always seemed to me that they held in them a deeper tint, as of violet or purple. But whatever their colour, they are about as rare in humanity as is a blue rose or a green chrysanthemum among the creations of the floral world. Not that they betoken much character, I think. It is simply their beauty, and perhaps their rarity, that constitutes the attraction. At any rate, veiled by long lashes, and set in Italian features, as was the case with Riverdale, it is impossible to hold them indicative of energy or activity in life.

It was a strange coincidence that had made bosom friends of two natures so antagonistic, to all appearance, as Riverdale’s and mine. But it was a coincidence that occurs oftener than would at first sight seem possible. Perhaps it is explicable by the well-known theory that every character is on the search for its complement. If so, it may well be that my own sturdy directness found its natural relaxation in the captivating indifferentism of my friend. Anyhow, the companionship had begun early at school, where a mutual admiration for one’s opposite is often the secret of a lifelong friendship. And as Riverdale’s good looks and careless insouciance had always been found irresistible, it was my own commonplace personality that was envied by my schoolfellows for the dignity it had acquired by his friendship.

And now that I have given you an idea of my friend, let me for once attempt the impossible and try to describe myself. An athlete I think I may call myself, for I have raced and rowed and played cricket and football ever since I was a boy of ten—of the type which is welcomed in all our schools as the recognised trainer of youth. Not so very plain, I hope, and certainly well set up in the way of muscles and sinews. But quite as certainly not in any way striking like Riverdale, and without the faintest pretension to anything remarkable in the direction of beauty. Finally, and to complete the portrait, fair in complexion, with blue eyes and a slight tendency to freckles, which I abominate. In all respects a worthy foil to Riverdale’s dreamy picturesqueness.

Left an orphan at an early date, with a comfortable income of £300 a year, I had never known the want of money, though I had no large balance to waste on the luxuries that had become necessaries to my friend. Without any real talent, and notwithstanding my devotion to athletics, I had taken a fair degree, and learned something of theology under the guidance of one of the leading minds at Cambridge. Only as yet I had come to no conclusions outside the main doctrines of our faith; and to what end my views were shaping themselves I had never paused on my way to consider. Experience and circumstances, as they developed themselves, would, I supposed, answer the question, and, having been confronted as yet by no definite difficulties, I had not troubled to bethink me how I should meet them.

“And now tell me, Eric,” I asked, “where are all the Cupids and Psyches and Fauns to go while you are painting dusky Venetians and the fair-haired beauties of Genoa?”

“Oh, I’ve taken a flat, Harold, in a house overlooking Battersea Park, and they’ll all be transferred there as soon as I am off to-morrow. By the way, you must look in on them now and then, and see that they are all right. And you must have that little gladiator I brought from Rome for yourself. It would never do to separate you, for I’m sure you’d never be happy without him. Rather like you, I think he is, with his steady sturdy gaze, as if he knew he had a tough business before him, but intended to make the best of it, and worry through. Lucky we weren’t born in each other’s shoes, any way for me, Harold. I couldn’t have faced life without funds, but should have drifted down and down till I ended the business with a dose of morphia.”

“What nonsense, Eric. I do wish you wouldn’t cheapen yourself like that. You’ve talent enough for both of us, and will be exhibiting in the Academy while I’m a country curate, and a poor one at that. By the way, if you don’t mind, I’d sooner have that Antinous than the gladiator. I don’t particularly want a replica of myself, if it’s all the same to you, while you might have posed for the Antinous, if you’d been handy; and it will be better than nothing to have it to look at when I haven’t got the original on the other side of the table. And now, old friend, good-bye. It’s past twelve already, and I’ve all my packing to do before the morning. For I shall be off long before a sybarite like you thinks of stirring. Let me hear from you now and then, and don’t let the foreign signoras and Roman models steal all your heart from me.”

The next day we had parted; he to enjoy life and study art in all the best galleries on the continent, and I to prepare myself for Ordination in a quiet village of the West.