nderson in return for his nod gave him a fetching smile.
Angela chilled.

Elizabeth Stein passed by and he nodded to her.

"Who is she?" asked Angela.

"She's a socialist agitator and radical. She sometimes speaks from a
soap-box on the East Side."

Angela studied her carefully. Her waxen complexion, smooth black hair
laid in even plaits over her forehead, her straight, thin, chiseled
nose, even red lips and low forehead indicated a daring and subtle soul.
Angela did not understand her. She could not understand a girl as good
looking as that doing any such thing as Eugene said, and yet she had a
bold, rather free and easy air. She thought Eugene certainly knew
strange people. He introduced to her William McConnell, Hudson Dula, who
had not yet been to see them, Jan Jansen, Louis Deesa, Leonard Baker and
Paynter Stone.

In regard to Eugene's picture the papers, with one exception, had
nothing to say, but this one in both Eugene's and Angela's minds made up
for all the others. It was the _Evening Sun_, a most excellent medium
for art opinion, and it was very definite in its conclusions in regard
to this particular work. The statement was:

"A new painter, Eugene Witla, has an oil entitled 'Six O'clock' which
for directness, virility, sympathy, faithfulness to detail and what for
want of a better term we may call totality of spirit, is quite the best
thing in the exhibition. It looks rather out of place surrounded by the
weak and spindling interpretations of scenery and water which so readily
find a place in the exhibition of the Academy, but it is none the weaker
for that. The artist has a new, crude, raw and almost rough method, but
his picture seems to say quite clearly what he sees and feels. He may
have to wait--if this is not a single burst of ability--but he will have
a hearing. There is no question of that. Eugene Witla is an artist."

Eugene thrilled when he read this commentary. It was quite what he would
have said himself if he had dared. Angela was beside herself with joy.
Who was the critic who had said this, they wondered? What was he like?
He must be truly an intellectual personage. Eugene wanted to go and look
him up. If one saw his talent now, others would see it later. It was for
this reason--though the picture subsequently came back to him unsold,
and unmentioned so far as merit or prizes were concerned--that he
decided to try for an exhibition of his own.

CHAPTER V

The hope of fame-