it were not true."

Miss Heatherton, on whom his inspired gaze at this juncture rested,
closed her eyes, as though she feared to disturb even by a glance the
continuity of this astonishing harangue. At the footstool of Olympus sat
Miss Long, in patient ecstasy.

"These painters--anarchists of the craft, I call them--would force us to
leave off painting quiet interiors," continued Pelgram, lowering his
voice with mournful impressiveness, "because, forsooth, interiors are
inane, undramatic things unless relieved by color! Not _our_ color, but
the bright, blazing color that roars and raves. Still-lifes they condemn
unless they swim in seas of pure emotion. For with them color is
emotion, emotion color. . . . To be sure, _we_ know better, but I repeat
that a heavy charge is on us. We must march loyally forward, keeping our
banners high. We must go on painting a modest lady, dressed in dark
blue, sitting on a gray chair with a shiny wooden floor beneath her--to
show that these things can sometimes make an artistic harmony worthy of
being translated for all time into a picture that shall never die. What
if this has been done ten thousand times before? The old gods are
jealous gods, and at the ten thousandth time they take their own at last."

"Yes. At last," said Ling Hop, observing that a response was expected of
him.

Pelgram turned to the portrait.

"And this!--portrait painting!--to which all the masters finally turn.
What would _they_--these colorists--make out of portrait painting?"

Evidently his mind recoiled from the thought, for he turned aside with a
gesture of resignation. And Miss Long and Miss Heatherton were never to
know what horrid fate awaited portrait painting at _their_ hands, for
from the rim of the circle came the cheerful voice of Wilkinson:--

"Money, old chap, money. That's what they'd make out of portrait
painting. And after all, that's the only satisfactory standard of
success, established for every school of art--what will the picture
bring? Now isn't that so?"

Pelgram's upper lip drew viciously back from his teeth; Wilkinson,
pleasantly advancing, smiled with content; the flotsam had floated away
as noiselessly as youth; and the artist, collecting his forces to reply,
saw that, except for the two rapt sycophants at his elbow, he was alone.
He laughed a short laugh.

"With many, no doubt it is," he snapped.

His adversary continued his placid progress down the room until h