is color: that palette had been set with the yellow,
red, and blue of sunshine, blossom and sky, and the paints had been
mixed with laughter. Nor did he tell them he himself had painted it.
This part of his life was guarded with the same care with which he
would have guarded his mother's secrets. Had he owned a shrine he
would have placed the picture over its altar that he might kneel
before it.

"These blue-eyed blondes," continued the first speaker meditatively
with his eyes on the portrait, "send a lot of men to the devil."

Gregg looked up, but made no reply. Both the tone of the man and his
words jarred on him.

"You can forget a brunette," he went on, "no matter how bewitching she
may be, but one of these peaches-and-cream girls--the blue-eyed,
red-lipped, white-skinned combination--takes hold of a fellow. This
man knew all about it--" and he waved his hand at the portrait.

"Is that all you see in it?" rejoined Gregg coldly. "Is there nothing
under the paint that appeals to you? Something of the soul of the
woman?"

"Yes, and that's just what counts in these blondes; that 'soul' you
talk about. That's what makes 'em dangerous. That's what captured
Hartman, I guess. Mrs. Bowdoin's got just that girl's coloring--not so
pretty," and he glanced at the canvas, "but along her lines. Old man
Bowdoin says he's ruined his home."

"Yes, and it's pretty rough I tell you on the old man," remarked a
third. "I saw him yesterday. The poor fellow is all broken up. There's
going to be a row, and a hot one, I hear. Pistols, divorce; the air's
blue; all sorts of things. Old fellow blusters, but he looks ten years
older."

Gregg had risen from his chair and stood facing the speaker, his brown
eyes flashing, his lips quivering. The talk had drifted in a direction
that set his blood to tingling.

"You tell me that Hartman has at last run away with Mrs. Bowdoin!" he
exclaimed angrily, his voice rising in intensity as he proceeded. "Has
he finally turned scoundrel and made an outcast of himself and of her?
I have been expecting something of the kind ever since I saw him in
Bowdoin's studio at his last reception. And do you really mean to tell
me that he has actually run off with her?"

"Well, not exactly run off--she's gone to her mother. She's only half
Bowdoin's age, you know. Hartman, of course, pooh-poohs the whole
thing."

"And he's Bowdoin's friend, I suppose you know!" Gregg continued in a
restrained, incisive tone.