ed meantime, but seemed to get stronger.

"I don't know what there is about your stuff, Witla, that gets me,"
Mathews said to him one day, "but you do something to it. Now why did
you put those birds flying above that smokestack?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Eugene. "It's just the way I feel about it.
I've seen pigeons flying like that."

"It's all to the good," replied Mathews. "And then you handle your
masses right. I don't see anybody doing this sort of thing over here."

He meant in America, for these two art workers considered themselves
connoisseurs of pen and ink and illustration generally. They were
subscribers to _Jugend_, _Simplicissimus_, _Pick-Me-Up_ and the radical
European art journals. They were aware of Steinlen and Cheret and Mucha
and the whole rising young school of French poster workers. Eugene was
surprised to hear of these men and these papers. He began to gain
confidence in himself--to think of himself as somebody.

It was while he was gaining this knowledge--finding out who was who and
what and why that he followed up his relationship with Angela Blue to
its logical conclusion--he became engaged to her. In spite of his
connection with Ruby Kenny, which continued unbroken after the dinner,
he nevertheless felt that he must have Angela; partly because she
offered more resistance than any girl since Stella, and partly because
she appeared to be so innocent, simple and good hearted. And she was
altogether lovely. She had a beautiful figure, which no crudity of
country dressmaking could conceal. She had her wonderful wealth of hair
and her large, luring, water-clear blue eyes. She had colorful lips and
cheeks, a natural grace in walking, could dance and play the piano.
Eugene looked at her and came to the conclusion after a time that she
was as beautiful as any girl he had ever seen--that she had more soul,
more emotion, more sweetness. He tried to hold her hand, to kiss her, to
take her in his arms, but she eluded him in a careful, wary and yet half
yielding way. She wanted him to propose to her, not because she was
anxious to trap him, but because her conventional conscience told her
these things were not right outside a definite engagement and she wanted
to be engaged first. She was already in love with him. When he pleaded,
she was anxious to throw herself in his arms in a mad embrace, but she
restrained herself, waiting. At last he flung his arms about her as she
was sitting at the piano one