t painter. But he needed a jolt to
make him go out and really paint his own kind of stuff. And he needed
some one like you to put him across in a business way."

When she left, she left Larry thinking: thinking of her saying that
Hunt "needed a jolt to make him go out and really paint his own kind
of stuff." Hidden behind that remark somewhere could there be the
explanation for the break between these two? Larry began to see a
glimmer of light. It was entirely possible that Miss Sherwood, in so
finished and adroit a manner that Hunt had not discerned her purpose,
had herself given him this jolt or at least contributed to its force. It
might all have been diplomacy on her part, applied shrewdly to the
man she understood and loved. Yes, that might be the explanation. Yes,
perhaps she had been doing in a less trying way just what he was seeking
to do under more stressful circumstances with Maggie: to arouse him to
his best by indirectly working at definite psychological reactions.

That afternoon Hunt appeared at Cedar Crest, and while there dropped in
on Larry. The big painter, in his full-blooded, boyish fashion, fairly
gasconaded over the success of his exhibit. Larry smiled at the other's
exuberant enthusiasm. Hunt was one man who could boast without ever
being offensively egotistical, for Hunt, added to his other gifts, had
the divine gift of being able to laugh at himself.

Larry saw here an opportunity to forward that other ambition of his:
the bringing of Hunt and Miss Sherwood together. And at this instant
it flashed upon him that Miss Sherwood's seemingly casual remarks about
Hunt had not been casual at all. Perhaps they had been carefully thought
out and spoken with a definite purpose. Perhaps Miss Sherwood had been
very subtly appointing him her ambassador. She was clever enough for
that.

"Stop declaiming those self-written press notices of your unapproachable
superiority," Larry interrupted. "If you use your breath up like that
you'll drown on dry land. Besides, I just heard something better than
this mere articulated air of yours. Better because from a person in her
senses."

"Heard it from whom?"

"Miss Sherwood."

"Miss Sherwood! What did she say?"

"That you were a really great painter."

"Huh!" snorted Hunt. "Why shouldn't she say that? I've proved it!"

"Hunt," said Larry evenly, "you are the greatest painter I ever met,
but you also have the distinction of being the greatest of all damned