y, and Strong insisted that his brain was the weak spot, and no
one ventured to hope that he would long hold out, but he lived on in
defiance of them.

"Good evening, Wharton," said the clergyman. "I have been trying to find
out from Strong what the heathen think of me. Tell us now the art view
of the case. How are you satisfied?"

"Tell me what you were sketching in church," said Strong. "Was it not
the new martyrdom of St. Stephen?"

"No," answered Wharton quietly. "It was my own. I found I could not look
up; I knew how bad my own work was, and I could not stand seeing it; so
I drew my own martyrdom rather than make a scandal by leaving the
church."

"Did you hear my sermon?" asked the clergyman.

"I don't remember," answered Wharton vaguely; "what was it about?"

Strong and Hazard broke into a laugh which roused him to the energy of
self-defense.

"I never could listen," he said. "It is a slow and stupid faculty. An
artist's business is only to see, and to-day I could see nothing but my
own things which are all bad. The whole church is bad. It is not
altogether worth a bit of Japanese enamel that I have brought round here
this evening to show Strong."

He searched first in one pocket, then in another, until he found what he
wanted in the pocket of his overcoat, and a warm discussion at once
began between him and Strong, who declared that he had a better piece.

"Mine was given me by a Daimio, in Kiusiu," said Strong. "It is the best
old bit you ever saw. Come round to my rooms a week from to-morrow at
five o'clock in the afternoon, and I will show you all my new japs. The
Dudleys are coming to see them, and my aunt Mrs. Murray, and Hazard has
promised to come."

"I saw you had Miss Dudley with you at church this morning," said
Wharton, still absorbed in study of his enamel, and quite unconscious of
his host's evident restlessness.

"Ah! then you could see Miss Dudley!" cried the clergyman, who could not
forgive the abrupt dismissal of his own affairs by the two men, and was
eager to bring the talk back to his church.

"I can always see Miss Dudley," said Wharton quietly.

"Why?" asked Hazard.

"She is interesting," replied the painter. "She has a style of her own,
and I never can quite make up my mind whether to like it or not."

"It is the first time I ever knew you to hesitate before a style," said
Hazard.

"I hesitate before every thing American," replied Wharton, beginning to
show a shade of