LITMIR.BIZ

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formal at first. Memories drifted to her of scenes where she had met him in imagination. In imagination she had been quite self-possessed. Now she was undeniably ill at ease. This was only because of her haunting anxiety lest she had spoiled this man's life.

      As she entered, the young man rose and held out his hand. He, apparently, was not embarrassed.

      "I am presuming upon our old acquaintance," he said. "Chance has brought me to the city——"

      "Why, Howard!" gasped Anne. She had not meant to be so formal as that.

      ​He had not changed, she thought, as he drew a wicker chair out for her from its position by the Van Dyck portrait. He had the same voice, the same light brown hair, though the lock over the forehead was gone. Anne suppressed a desire to tell him that he had grown, remembering that he was six feet two when she saw him last. She wondered vaguely at her own surprise in finding him so robust.

      "When did you return from Europe?" she asked stiffly, then repented having spoken. That seemed like alluding to their last meeting.

      "A year and a half ago. I studied in Paris first, then went to London for inspiration."

      "London!"

      "People do not usually go to London for art. But French art is dead, except for the Symbolists."

      This sweeping assertiveness seemed very familiar.

      "I got hold of some good ideas among ​the London Socialists. There's a movement afoot for the popularization of art. It is indirectly the work of Ruskin. After I came home I taught a year, just to send the message on."

      Anne lifted her eyebrows.

      "You have a new theory?"

      "I have," he answered. "Moreover, I've got a commission, to design frescoes for a room in the City Hall."

      "Here?" cried Anne eagerly. Then she corrected her manner.

      "You have been very successful. I saw notices of your two Sâlon pictures. Why did the Art Review call you an impressionist?"

      "It's a perfectly harmless term, as it doesn't mean anything."

      "You always were something of an impressionist in temperament!"

      Howard changed the subject abruptly. He had come to bespeak Miss Bradford's interest in a pupil of his, Miss Wistar, now at the Rembrandt Studios. Anne politely promised to call.

      ​The difficulties of finding their bearings in these new waters increased. They talked of Hazleton, of their childhood, of the water-colour exhibition. Finally they drifted into a half-merry quarrel over theories of work. Once again the old, boyish, emphatic manner broke through the new reserve.

      "Realism! There's nothing in it, French realism anyway, but impure taste and false accuracy."

      The caller accepted with apparent interest an invitation to come again. In the street he fell to thinking.

      "Anne has not changed in the least, but she looks tired. She has been working too hard. And her father's death was hard for her."

      He had not expected the reminder of old days to be so poignant.

      Anne went back to the studio and picked up her brushes. Howard had improved beyond her best hopes for him. He was not a blighted being, but was self-poised, interested in his work.

      ​"I am glad it has all ended sensibly," she said to herself. "He's very satisfactory, almost too satisfactory."

      Then her eyes clouded, and she could not see the thumb.

      ​

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      Helen Wistar had spent three days in finding appropriate furniture for her studio. She looked with satisfaction at the sofa-bed, draped with unhemmed brown denim, the pine chiffonnier, the huge screen covered with burlap. Three willow-ware cups, with plates to match, some plated spoons and forks, and a tiny coffee-pot decorated a shelf on the wall. These were for her housekeeping.

      "I'm so glad I'm here at last!" she said.

      She took the "Fabian Essays on Socialism" and Ruskin's "Political Economy of Art" out of her trunk and put them on the floor.

      Somebody knocked.

      The girl greeted her visitor with an embarrassed self-possession, gazing with wide-opened brown eyes as she heard her name.

      "Miss Bradford? Oh, do you know, I ​have a note of introduction to you from my old art teacher, Mr. Stanton!"

      She gracefully offered Anne a wooden kitchen chair, and seated herself on a pine box under the window.

      Anne was puzzled. The bare walls and cheap furniture wore the desolation of apparent poverty. But a gold-mounted travelling-bag stood in one corner. From the box where her hostess was sitting, the strong light bringing out all the rich colouring of her hair and lashes and curving cheeks, came the gleam of the silver furnishings of her toilet-table.

      "Yes," Anne was saying, "I knew Mr. Stanton when we were children. We went to the same village school. My father was the minister. His father owned the mills."

      "Mr. Stanton has very remarkable theories about art," observed the girl solemnly.

      "He used to have when I knew him," Anne replied, smiling in reminiscence. "What are the new ones?"

      "He thinks that art should not be ​monopolized by the cultured classes, but should be shared with common people."

      "That isn't precisely an art theory, is it?"

      "It is the new art," answered Helen with sudden dignity, "the art that is no longer selfish, but that recognizes the claims of human brotherhood."

      Decidedly the child was interesting. That little air of self-importance was charming, taken in connection with the rounded outlines of her face. Anne watched her hostess unobserved. Those gray eyes never seemed to see, yet nothing escaped them.

      "She is just a bewitching baby," said the caller to herself, "masquerading in the manner of a woman of the world."

      "Mr. Stanton always was an enthusiast," she remarked. "He has not changed, unless he has found an enthusiasm that lasts."

      "Oh, Miss Bradford!" cried Helen. "Don't!"

      A look of swift intelligence flashed into ​Anne's face, but she turned toward the girl with her usual inscrutable smile.

      "Mr. Stanton's teaching has opened a whole new world for me," said Helen bravely. Her face had grown severe over Anne Bradford's flippancy. "I see everything differently now. I never knew before that it is wrong to shut one's life away from poorer people, and to live selfishly with one's own beautiful things. Now, I don't want to keep any part of my life, my aim, or hope, or achievement, to myself."

      She stopped, excited and embarrassed.

      "The eagerness of the young to give what they have not got is very sweet," thought the guest.

      "I am carrying out one of Mr. Stanton's suggestions now," said Helen shyly. "I am going to study, of course, but that isn't what I am most interested in. I have come here in order to find out all about the lives of poor artists who have to struggle for an education. I am going to live with absolutely no luxuries, and am going to try to help them.

      ​"It was hard to come," she added. "My family disapprove. They say that it is very foolish and very improper."

      "Do they need you?"

      Red colour surged to Helen's cheeks.

      "That's the way everybody talks!" she cried. "If I were a man, I should by general consent have a right to live my own life. But just because

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