es at Manhattan Beach with
various and assorted wealthy young men.

And one evening Guilder came alone to his studio and found him lying on
the lounge, his lank, muscular hands, still clay-stained, hanging inert
to the floor above an evening paper fallen there.

"Hello, Guilder," he said, without rising, as the big architect shambled
loosely through the open doorway.

"How are you, Drene?"

"All right. It's hot."

"There's not a breath of air. It looks like a thunder-storm in the
west."

He pulled up a chair and sprawled on it, wiping his grave features with
a damp handkerchief.

"Drene," he said, "a philanthropic guy of sorts wants to add a chapel to
the church at Shallow Brook, Long Island. We've pinched the job. Can you
do an altar piece?"

"What sort?"

"They want a Virgin. It's to be called the Chapel of the Annunciation.
It's for women to repair to--under certain and natural circumstances."

"I've so much on hand--"

"It's only a single figure-barring the dove. Why don't you do it?"

"There are plenty of other men--"

"They want you. There'll be no difficulty about terms."

Drene said with a shrug:

"Terms are coming to mean less and less to me, Guilder. It costs very
little for me to live." He turned his gray, tired face. "Look at this
barn of a place; and go in there and look at my bedroom. I have no use
for what are known as necessities."

"Still, terms are terms--"

"Oh, yes. A truck may run over me. Even at that, I've enough to live
life out as I am living it here--between these empty walls--and that
expanse of glass overhead. That's about all life holds for me--a sheet
of glass and four empty walls--and a fistfull of wet clay."

"Are you a trifle morbid, Drene?"

"I'm not by any means; I merely prefer to live this way. I have
sufficient means to live otherwise if I wish. But this is enough of the
world to suit me, Guilder--and I can go to a noisy restaurant to eat in
when I'm so inclined--" He laughed a rather mirthless laugh and glanced
up, catching a peculiar expression in Guilder's eyes.

"You're thinking," said Drene coolly, "what a god I once set up on the
altar of domesticity. I used to talk a lot once, didn't I?--a hell of
a clamor I made in eulogy of the domestic virtues. Well, only idiots
retain the same opinions longer than twenty-four hours. Fixity is
imbecility; the inconstant alone progress; dissatisfaction is only a
synonym for intelligence; contentment translated mea