ave it
accepted, thinking himself pledged to do so.

'Is your museum intended for the accommodation of the paintings of the
"open air" school?' asked Fagerolles, very gravely.

Gagniere pretended to admire the plan, nodding his head, but thinking
of something else; while Claude and Sandoz examined it with sincere
interest.

'Not bad, old boy,' said the former. 'The ornamentation is still
bastardly traditional; but never mind; it will do.'

Jory, becoming impatient at last, cut him short.

'Come along, let's go, eh? I'm catching my death of cold here.'

The band resumed its march. The worst was that to make a short cut they
had to go right through the official Salon, and they resigned themselves
to doing so, notwithstanding the oath they had taken not to set foot in
it, as a matter of protest. Cutting their way through the crowd, keeping
rigidly erect, they followed the suite of galleries, casting indignant
glances to right and left. There was none of the gay scandal of their
Salon, full of fresh tones and an exaggeration of sunlight, here. One
after the other came gilt frames full of shadows; black pretentious
things, nude figures showing yellowish in a cellar-like light, the
frippery of so-called classical art, historical, genre and landscape
painting, all showing the same conventional black grease. The works
reeked of uniform mediocrity, they were characterised by a muddy
dinginess of tone, despite their primness--the primness of impoverished,
degenerate blood. And the friends quickened their steps: they ran to
escape from that reign of bitumen, condemning everything in one lump
with their superb sectarian injustice, repeating that there was nothing
in the place worth looking at--nothing, nothing at all!

At last they emerged from the galleries, and were going down into the
garden when they met Mahoudeau and Chaine. The former threw himself into
Claude's arms.

'Ah, my dear fellow, your picture; what artistic temperament it shows!'

The painter at once began to praise the 'Vintaging Girl.'

'And you, I say, you have thrown a nice big lump at their heads!'

But the sight of Chaine, to whom no one spoke about the 'Woman taken
in Adultery,' and who went silently wandering around, awakened Claude's
compassion. He thought there was something very sad about that execrable
painting, and the wasted life of that peasant who was a victim of
middle-class admiration. He always gave him the delight of a little
praise;