Circe by Babington White Author:Mary Elizabeth Braddon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SCENE THE EIGHTH. OUT OF TOWN. " S'il m'fitait donnfi de dire a quel supplice Je voudrais condamner mon plus fier ennemi, C'est toi, pale souci d'une amour... more » dedaignee !" The day after Signor Carlo Yitzi's textit{debut was Sunday, and Mr. Mocatti being of a philosophical turn of mind, and not given to any idle superstition in the way of church-going, devoted his morning to a round of calls upon his artist acquaintance. Some of these knew Laurence Bell, and they shook their heads ominously when the dealer spoke of his protege. " It looked as if he was going to do great things last year," said a painter of some repute; " but since then he has grownidle and conceited?a hanger-on of Madame d'Aspramonte's. I am afraid you won't get a great haul out of Mr. Bell's success, Mo- catti. The young man promised well; but he has dried up, sir?dried up." Mr. Mocatti left his friends depressed and meditative. He felt his disappointment very keenly. He had hoped so much from the little boy he had picked up on a London door-step?so much textit{kudos, and so much solid pudding in the shape of pecuniary recompense. It was not the fear of money loss which so deeply affected him, though he had a very sincere regard for his money, and considerable pleasure in the augmentation of his wealth. But in this case his hopes had soared above the mere acquisition of so much vulgar dross. He had been sneered at as a pretender; his proteges had been denounced as charlatans; his art decried as tricky and commonplace?of theshop, shoppy. To Laurence Bell he had looked for the assertion of his own taste and judgment. He had boasted of his textit{trouvaille?his unconscious genius, who was to astound the slow-coaches of the Academy ?his budding Raffaelle. Nor was this all. Latent in Antonio Mocatti's self...« less