of a young Polish student, whose three pictures--two oils
and a pastel portrait, were destined to become the sensation of the
exhibit.

The afternoon was a happy one. The little group about Joseph made common
cause of rejoicing over the work of their protege. And, in later months,
Ivan, sore wounded, came to remember these hours as the last of the old,
free life of careless poverty, with its untold wealth of comradeship.

Certainly Joseph's much-lauded work _was_ good. There could be no
question of that. The boy's talent was pronounced, his style highly
individual, his conceptions normal, unimpressionistic, but beautifully
his own. One of his oils represented a peasant-girl of the south,
leaning upon a black fence, looking off into her own gray future, with
that wistful, patient gaze so common to the low-class Russian. The
background was a shadowy suggestion of steppe farm-land, unobtrusively
implying vast distances of bluish-gray. The other work, more pretentious
in subject but even more severely simple in treatment, was that of a
woman of fashion, seated by a table on which stood a lighted lamp, the
glow from which shone full upon her joy-lit face, on the
sewing-materials scattered about her, and on the little garment, newly
finished, which she was examining.

Joseph, his varnishing accomplished, stood about among groups of
flatterers, his ethereal face, framed in its pale-gold hair, betraying
very little of the elation that was tingling through him, as he listened
to the comments on his work made by these men who "understood." Still,
of all the extravagant words, not one meant to him so much as Ivan's
strong hand-clasp and his smiling:

"It is worth the thousand-mile walk;--yes, and the starvation too,
Joseph, isn't it?"

And Joseph bowed his head, in momentary, deep sincerity.

* * * * *

Nicholas Rubinstein was not wholly justified in his conclusion that
Joseph's manner to a poor and untitled Ivan would have lost the greater
part of its obsequiousness. Joseph did care for his benefactor,
honestly. But later in the afternoon there came a little incident which,
in some measure, bore out the old musician's instinctive scepticism.
Nearly every one in the room had gathered about one or another of the
samovar-tables, indulging in their favorite recreation of eating; and
busily talking shop. Ivan, however, still occupied with the work of his
protege, remained seated before the smalle