now. He
had wanted time to do some of the pictures he was working on, to take in
a little money for drawing, to find a suitable place to live in. He had
looked at various studios in various sections of the city and had found
nothing, as yet, which answered to his taste or his purse. Anything with
a proper light, a bath, a suitable sleeping room, and an inconspicuous
chamber which might be turned into a kitchen, was difficult to find.
Prices were high, ranging from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five and
one hundred and fifty a month. There were some new studios being erected
for the rich loungers and idlers which commanded, so he understood,
three or four thousand dollars a year. He wondered if he should ever
attain to any such magnificence through his art.

Again, in taking a studio for Angela and himself there was the matter of
furniture. The studio he had with Smite and MacHugh was more or less of
a camp. The work room was bare of carpets or rugs. The two folding beds
and the cot which graced their individual chambers were heirlooms from
ancient predecessors--substantial but shabby. Beyond various drawings,
three easels, and a chest of drawers for each, there was no suitable
household equipment. A woman came twice a week to clean, send out the
linen, and make up the beds.

To live with Angela required, in his judgment, many and much more
significant things. His idea of a studio was some such one as that now
occupied by Miriam Finch or Norma Whitmore. There ought to be furniture
of a period--old Flemish or Colonial, Heppelwhite or Chippendale or
Sheraton, such as he saw occasionally knocking about in curio shops and
second hand stores. It could be picked up if he had time. He was
satisfied that Angela knew nothing of these things. There ought to be
rugs, hangings of tapestry, bits of brass, pewter, copper, old silver,
if he could afford it. He had an idea of some day obtaining a figure of
the Christ in brass or plaster, hung upon a rough cross of walnut or
teak, which he could hang or stand in some corner as one might a shrine
and place before it two great candlesticks with immense candles smoked
and dripping with wax. These lighted in a dark studio, with the outlines
of the Christ flickering in the shadows behind would give the desired
atmosphere to his studio. Such an equipment as he dreamed of would have
cost in the neighborhood of two thousand dollars.

Of course this was not to be thought of at this period. H