iginal mark.
Jezebel and Potiphar's wife in combination with Salome and the daughters
of Lot couldn't disturb his confidence in them or in himself. And--in my
opinion--he paints that way, too." And he went away laughing and
swinging his athletic shoulders and twirling his cane, his hat not
mathematically straight on his handsome, curly head.

"There strides a joyous bounder," observed Ogilvy.

"Curious," mused Annan. "His family is oldest New York. You see 'em that
way, at times."

Burleson, who came from New England, grunted his scorn for Manhattan,
ancient or recent, and, nodding a brusque adieu, walked away with
ponderous and powerful strides. And the others followed, presently, each
in pursuit of his own vocation, Annan and Ogilvy remaining together as
their common destination was the big new studio building which they as
well as Neville inhabited.

Passing Neville's door they saw it still ajar, and heard laughter and a
piano and gay voices.

"Hi!" exclaimed Ogilvy, softly, "let's assist at the festivities.
Probably we're not wanted, but does that matter, Harry?"

"It merely adds piquancy to our indiscretion," said Annan, gravely,
following him in unannounced--"Oh, hello, Miss West! Was that you
playing? Hello, Rita"--greeting a handsome blonde young girl who
stretched out a gloved hand to them both and nodded amiably. Then she
glanced upward where, perched on his ladder, big palette curving over
his left elbow, Neville stood undisturbed by the noise below, outlining
great masses of clouds on a canvas where a celestial company, sketched
in from models, soared, floated, or hung suspended, cradled in mid air
with a vast confusion of wide wings spreading, fluttering, hovering,
beating the vast ethereal void, all in pursuit of a single exquisite
shape darting up into space.

"What's all that, Kelly? Leda chased by swans?" asked Ogilvy, with all
the disrespect of cordial appreciation.

"It's the classic game of follow my Leda," observed Annan.

"Oh--oh!" exclaimed Valerie West, laughing; "such a wretched witticism,
Mr. Annan!"

"Your composition is one magnificent vista of legs, Kelly," insisted
Ogilvy. "Put pants on those swans."

Neville merely turned and threw an empty paint tube at him, and
continued his cloud outlining with undisturbed composure.

"Where have you been, Rita?" asked Ogilvy, dropping into a chair.
"Nobody sees you any more."

"That's because nobody went to the show, and that's why the