and when his colleagues ran in to see him they were apt to keep a hand on the door-knob and to plead a pressing engagement. At least they had been till Kate came; but now they began to show a disposition to enter and sit down. Caspar, who was no fool, perceived the change, and perhaps detected its cause; at any rate, he showed no special gratification at the increased cordiality of his friends, and Kate, who followed him in everything, took this as a sign that guests were to be discouraged.
There was one exception, however: Ned Stanwell, who was deplorably good-natured, had always lent a patient ear to Caspar, and he now reaped his reward by being taken into Kate’s favour. Before she had been a month in the building they were on confidential terms as to Caspar’s health, and lately Stanwell had penetrated farther, even to the inmost recesses of her anxiety about her brother’s career. Caspar had recently had a bad blow in the refusal of his
“Vos that you yelling for the shanitor, Mr. Sdanwell?” inquired an affable voice through the doorway; and Stanwell, turning with a laugh, confronted the squat figure of a middle-aged man in an expensive fur coat, who looked as if his face secreted the oil which he used on his hair.
“Hullo, Shepson—I should say I was yelling. Did you ever feel such an atmosphere? That fool has forgotten to light the stove. Come in, but for heaven’s sake don’t take off your coat.”
Mr. Shepson glanced about the studio with a look which seemed to say that, where so much else was lacking, the absence of a fire hardly added to the general sense of destitution.
“Vell, you ain’t as vell fixed as Mr. Mungold—ever been to his studio, Mr. Sdanwell? De most ex_quis_ite blush hangings, and a gas-fire, choost as natural—”
“Oh, hang it, Shepson, do you call
“A peauty-doctor?”
“Yes—oh, well, you wouldn’t see,” murmured Stanwell, mentally storing his epigram for more appreciative ears. “But you didn’t come just to make me envious of Mungold’s studio, did you?” And he pushed forward a chair for his visitor.
The latter, however, declined it with an affable motion. “Of gourse not, of gourse not—but Mr. Mungold is a sensible man. He makes a lot of money, you know.”
“Is that what you came to tell me?” said Stanwell, still humorously.
“My gootness, no—I was downstairs looking at Holbrook’s sdained class, and I shoost thought I’d sdep up a minute and take a beep at your vork.”
“Much obliged, I’m sure—especially as I assume that you don’t want any of it.” Try as he would, Stanwell could not keep a note of eagerness from his voice. Mr. Shepson caught the note, and eyed him shrewdly through gold- rimmed glasses.
“Vell, vell, vell—I’m not prepared to commit myself. Shoost let me take a look round, vill you?”
“With the greatest pleasure—and I’ll give another shout for the coal.”
Stanwell went out on the landing, and Mr. Shepson, left to himself, began a meditative progress about the room. On an easel facing the improvised dais stood a canvas on which a young woman’s head had been blocked in. It was just in that happy state of semi-evocation when a picture seems to detach itself from the grossness of its medium and live a wondrous moment in the actual; and the quality of the head in question—a vigorous dusky youthfulness, a kind of virgin majesty—lent itself to this illusion of vitality. Stanwell, who had re-entered the studio, could not help drawing a sharp breath as he saw the picture-dealer pausing with tilted head before this portrait: it seemed, at one moment, so impossible that he should not be struck with it, at the next so incredible that he should be.
Shepson cocked his parrot-eye at the canvas with a desultory “Vat’s dat?” which sent a twinge through the young man.
“That? Oh—a sketch of a young lady,” stammered Stanwell, flushing at the imbecility of his reply. “It’s Miss Arran, you know,” he added, “the sister of my neighbour here, the sculptor.”
“Sgulpture? There’s no market for modern sgulpture except tombstones,” said Shepson disparagingly, passing on as if he included the sister’s portrait in his condemnation of her brother’s trade.
Stanwell smiled, but more at himself than Shepson. How could he ever have supposed that the gross fool would see anything in his sketch of Kate Arran? He stood aside, straining after detachment, while the dealer continued his round of exploration, waddling up to the canvases on the walls, prodding with his stick at those stacked in corners, prying and peering sideways like a great bird rummaging for seed. He seemed to find little nutriment in the course of his search, for the sounds he emitted expressed a weary distaste for misdirected effort, and he completed his round without having thought it worth while to draw a single canvas from its obscurity.
As his visits always had the same result, Stanwell was reduced to wondering why he had come again; but Shepson was not the man to indulge in vague roamings through the field of art, and it was safe to conclude that his purpose would in due course reveal itself. His tour brought him at length face to face with the painter, where he paused, clasping his plump gloved hands behind his back, and shaking an admonitory head.
“Gleffer—very gleffer, of course—I suppose you’ll let me know when you want to sell anything?”
“Let you know?” gasped Stanwell, to whom the room grew so glowingly hot that he thought for a moment the janitor must have made up the fire.
Shepson gave a dry laugh. “Vell, it doesn’t sdrike me that you want to now—doing this kind of thing, you know!” And he swept a comprehensive hand about the studio.
“Ah,” said Stanwell, who could not keep a note of flatness out of his laugh.
“See here, Mr. Sdanwell, vot do you do it for? If you do it for yourself and the other fellows, vell and good—only
