lovable woman," I declared.

"That's probably why she never had a love story," conjectured Gordon.
"Always had so much affection for the general that she could never
descend to the particular. By the way, I went to her studio for a look
at her portrait of Professor Burberry."

"It's good, isn't it?"

"Man alive! It's so good, I should think the old fellow would be
offended. Through her big dabs of paint he's shown up to the life. You
can see his complacency bursting out like a flaming sunflower. Upon his
homely mug are displayed all the platitudes of Marcus Aurelius. He is
instinct with ignorance that Horace was a drummer for Italian wines and
an agent for rural residences, just a smart advertiser, a precursor of
the fellows who write verse for the Road of Anthracite or canned soup,
and Burberry has never found it out. He would buy splinters from the
wooden horse of Troy, and only avoids gold bricks because they're
modern. It's a stunning picture!"

That's one reason why I am so fond of Gordon. He's a great portraitist,
and far more successful than Frieda, but he is genuine in his admiration
of good work. He is rather too cynical, of course, but at the bottom of
it there usually lies good advice to his friends. I'm very proud he
continues to stick to me.

"I understand he was greatly pleased," I told him, "and I was awfully
glad that Frieda got the commission. She needed it."

"Yes, I told her that she ought to go off for a rest in the country," he
remarked, "but it seems she has one of her other queer ideas that must
be worked out at once. She itched to be at it, even while she was
painting Burberry. Mythological, I think, as usual, that latest notion
of hers. Some demigod whispering soft nothings to a daughter of men.
Showed me a dozen charcoal compositions for it, all deucedly clever. And
how are the other animals in the menagerie you live in now?"

That's a way Gordon has. From one subject he leaps to another like a
canary hopping on the sticks of his cage; but there is method in his
madness. He swiftly exhausts the possibilities of a remark and goes to
another without losing time.

"The animals," I answered, "are a rather dull and probably uninteresting
lot. First, come two girls who live in a hall bedroom, together."

"It shows on their part an admirable power of concentration."

"I suppose so; their conversation is chiefly reminiscent and plentifully
dotted with 'says I' and 'says she' and 'says he.'