there once and had been simply wild about it.
Vernabelle said it was times like this, with a few real people, that she
got her biggest ideas; that life in the rough was too terribly a
labyrinth, didn't we think, stunning one with its immensity, while in
these dear little half-lighted moments the real came out unafraid, if
we understood what she meant. Many of us said we did.

It was when we got up to go that Vernabelle told me things about Cousin
Egbert. She said he must have great reserve strength in his personality.
She said he fairly frightened her, he was so superbly elemental.

"It is not so much Mr. Floud that frightens me," says she, "as the
inevitability of him--just beautifully that! And such sang fraw!"

Poor Egbert was where he had to overhear this, and I had never seen him
less sang fraw--if that's the word. He looked more like a case of nettle
rash, especially when Vernabelle gripped his hand at parting and called
him comrade!

We finally groped our way through the smoke of the door and said what a
lovely time we'd had, and Metta said we must make a practice of dropping
in at this hour. Vernabelle called us all comrade and said the time had
been by way of being a series of precious moments to her, even if these
little studio affairs did always leave poor her like a limp lily. Yep;
that's the term she used and she was draped down a bookcase when she said
it, trying to look as near as possible like a limp lily.

The awestruck group split up outside. Nothing like this had ever entered
our dull lives, and it was too soon to talk about it. Cousin Egbert
walked downtown with me and even he said only a few little things. He
still called the lady a glass blower, and said if she must paint at all
why not paint family pictures that could be hung in the home. He said,
what with every barroom in the state closed, there couldn't be much
demand for them Grinitch paintings. He also said, after another block,
that if he owned this lady and wanted to get her in shape to sell he'd
put her out on short sand grass, short almost to the roots, where she'd
wear her teeth down. And a block later he said she hadn't ought to be
calling everyone comrade that way--it sounded too much like a German.
Still and all, he said, there was something about her. He didn't say
what.

So now the Latin Quarter had begun, and in no time at all it was going
strong. It seemed like everybody had long been wanting to get away from
it all but hadn