e swing from the abysmal humiliation of
ridicule to the highest summit of hope. Helen had always been polite
to him, but never before had she warmed to his outspoken defense. She
had usually expressed an interest in his work, but as a matter of fact
some of it was worthy of her quite impersonal interest. In his own
set, men accustomed to formulate their opinions with complete
independence and considerable shrewdness frequently remarked that Stan
was an awful ass, but he could paint some. This was the common last
analysis, the degree of qualifying favor being measured in each case by
the comparative pause between the last two words and the accent and
inflection upon the ultimate.

And even among those who considered Pelgram's asinine qualities plainly
predominant, there was an admission of his certain artistic readiness,
a cleverness in his grouping, a superficial dexterity in his brush
work, a smartness and facility in the method of his pursuit of false
gods. The irrepressible Wilkinson had struck true to the mark of his
weaknesses, but something could well be said for the unhappy poseur in
whom his shaft had quivered. Some one had observed that Pelgram
regarded the appearance of his person and of his studio as of more
serious importance than that of his canvases, but his commissions
withal came in sufficient numbers to permit his extensive indulgence in
bodily and domestic adornment. Granting him to be an ass, he certainly
was a reasonably successful one, and he was even generally held to be a
talented one.

For all his work was cursed by his indecision, he was surprisingly
steady along the line of personal relations. At one time he would
devote himself wholly to the production of exotic-looking pastels; at
another time to nothing but the strangest of nocturnes in which the
colors were washed on in a kind of sauce so thin that the frames,
instead of being placed on easels, had to be laid flat on table tops in
order to keep the pictures from running off their canvases onto the
floor while being painted. But with people, his first likes and
dislikes were definite and usually final, and this quality of personal
consistency had come to a fixed focus on Helen Maitland.

Helen, for her part, had never given him any other encouragement than
to express her approval of some of his pictures that she honestly
liked, but Pelgram needed no other encouragement. His cosmos bulged
with ego of such density that he and his