Then in his customary excitable mood he dropped his brushes and stood up.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” he exclaimed, looking over his drooping glasses.

“Why, certainly I believe you, if you are serious.  Are you truly a baron?”

“It was this way,” he said.  “My grandfather was a baron.  My father was the younger of two brothers.  His brother got the title and what was left of the estate.  That he managed to go through with, and then he died.  Now, no one has bothered about the title—­”

“And you’re going back to claim it?”

“Exactly.”

I took it all lightly at first, but in time I began to perceive that it was a serious ambition.  He truly wanted to be Baron S——­ and add to himself the luster of his ancestors.

With all this, the man was really not so much an aristocrat in his mood as a seeker after life and new experiences.  Being a baron was merely a new experience, or promised to be.  He had the liveliest sympathies for republican theories and institutions—­only he considered his life a thing apart.  He had a fine mind, philosophically and logically poised.  He could reason upon all things, from the latest mathematical theorem to Christian Science.  Naturally, being so much of an individualist, he was not drifting toward any belief in the latter, but was never weary of discussing the power of mind—­a universal mind even—­its wondrous ramifications and influences.  Also he was a student of the English school of philosophy, and loved to get up mathematical and mechanical demonstrations of certain philosophic truths.  Thus he worked out by means of a polygon, whose sides were of unequal lengths, a theory of friendship which is too intricate to explain here.

From now on I watched his career with the liveliest interest.  He was a charming and a warm friend, and never neglected for a moment the obligations which such a relationship demands.

I heard from him frequently in many and various ways, dined with him regularly every second or third week, and rejoiced with him in his triumphs, now more and more frequent.  One spring he went to Europe and spent the summer in tracing down his baronial claims, looking up various artists and scientists and attending several scientific meetings here and there at the same time.  He did the illustrations for one of Kipling’s fast express stories which one of the magazines published, and came back flushed and ready to try hard for a membership in the American Water-Color Society.

I shall never forget his anxiety to get into that mildly interesting body.  He worked hard and long on several pictures which should not only be hung on the line but enlist sufficient interest among the artists to gain him a vote of admission.  He mentioned it frequently and fixed me with his eyes to see what I thought of him.

“Go ahead,” I said; “you have more right to membership perhaps than many another I know.  Try hard.”