."

"The world is no such thing," he retorted, sharply.

"The world is what one's imagination, one's sentiment and one's
conscience makes it," I asserted, "at least during some precious moments
of every lifetime."

"Oh! I know. You can sit at that old machine of yours and throw your
head back and see more upon your ceiling than the cracked plaster, and
Frieda does the same thing. Now my way is to take real flesh and blood,
yes, and dead lobsters and codfish and dowagers and paint them in the
best light I can get on them, but it's the light I really see."

"It is nothing of the kind," I emphatically disclaimed. "It is the light
your temperament sees, and your rendering of it is not much closer to
truth than Caruso's 'Celeste Aida' can be to an ordinary lover's appeal.
There is no such thing as realism in painting, while, in literature, it
has chiefly produced monsters."

"Isn't he a dear old donkey?" Gordon appealed to the two women.

"One of those animals once spoke the truth to a minor prophet," remarked
Frances, quietly.

"You are quoting the only recorded exception," he laughed, "but the hit
was a good one. Yet Dave is nothing but an incurable optimist and a
chronic wearer of pink glasses."

"That, I think, is what makes him so loveable," put in Frieda, whereat
Frances smiled at her, and I might have blushed had I not long ago lost
the habit.

Gordon rose, with the suddenness which characterizes his movements, and
declared he must run away at once. He shook hands all around, hastily,
and declined my offer to see him down to the door.

"In Italy," said Frieda, "I have eaten a sauce made with vinegar and
sweet things. They call it _agrodolce_, I believe, and the Germans make
a soup with beer. Neither of them appeal to me at all. Gordon is a
wonderful painter, but he's always trying to mix up art with iconoclasm.
It can't spoil his pictures, I'm sure, but it may--what was the
expression Kid Sullivan was fond of using? Oh yes, some day it may hand
out a jolt to him. He has a perfectly artistic temperament and the
greatest talent, but he stirs up with them a dreadful mess of cynicism
and cold-blooded calculation. My dear Dave, let you and I stick to our
soft colors and minor tones. If either of us ever abandoned them, we
should be able to see nothing but dull grays."

"We understand our limitations, Frieda," I told her, "and there is
nothing that fits one better to enjoy life. Gordon says that it is all
fool