e in the shadowy debatable land between things
colored exactly alike--claim his earnest interpretation. When he
rarely speaks, it is usually an important contribution to the world's
artistic knowledge on some such subject as 'The Influence of Rubens'
Grandmother on his Portraits of his Second Wife' or 'The True Alma
Mater of Alma Tadema.'"

The artist, whose round smooth face was pink with rage, almost choked,
but was wholly unable to reply. That he should be made the gross butt
of a man such as Wilkinson was bad enough, but that this should take
place in the presence of ladies--and especially of Helen Maitland--was
almost unendurable.

Miss Maitland, seeing the flames approaching the magazine with alarming
rapidity, hastily started a back-fire, adapting Wilkinson's style to
her purpose with a success which--repartee not being her strongest
point--astonished even herself.

"Charlie's views on art," she said to the smoldering Pelgram, "are
always interesting because they are so wholly free and natural. Most
art critics are checked and biased by having studied their subject and
formed certain fixed impressions which are bound to come to the surface
in their criticisms; some critics are influenced by having gone so far
as to look at meritorious pictures in an endeavor to analyze and
appreciate them intelligently; but Charlie labors under no such
restraints. Once he went into the Louvre, but it was to get out of the
rain. Except for an acute sense of smell, he could not detect an oil
painting from a water color, even if he should try; and except for an
abnormal self-confidence he would hesitate in the first step of
criticism--a careful consideration of the value of the canvas as
compared with that of the frame. It is therefore because Charlie is
the only self-admitted art critic who knows nothing whatever of the
subject, that his opinions are so interesting, for they are sure to be
absolutely impartial and free from all bias of every kind. But where
he heard of Alma Tadema is a puzzle to me, unless that name has been
utilized by the manufacturer of some new tooth powder or popular cigar
that has failed to attract my notice in the street car advertisements,"
she concluded thoughtfully.

The harassed artist turned with a look of almost abject canine
gratitude toward his defender. Intervention from any source was
welcome, but Miss Maitland's unexpected appearance as his belligerent
partisan lifted him with a singl