nd train your mind on this thing.
Here is a whole school of men, working in a new medium, along new ideas.
They can't all be crazy, you know."
"You like it?"
"Of course I don't like it, but it interests me. I haven't read or heard
anything about it, so it is a shock."
"You shall not make for yourselves false images," she said, shaking her
head.
"Maybe these maniacs are trying to break up the conventions of Painting
and Sculpture. They want more freedom."
"They are anarchists, vandals!"
"Possibly, but if they are necessary to the development of a bigger art
expression----"
"They ought to work in secret, and exhibit in the dark."
"No, no! We have to be prepared for it. Our old standards have got to
go."
"I feel as medieval as the Professor. I never really understood him
before."
"We ought to bring him here."
"I think it would kill him," Bambi answered.
They spent a couple of hours, and then went back to the club. For some
reason the Cubists had stirred Jarvis deeply. He divined something new
and sincere, where Bambi felt only pose and degeneracy.
"When you think of that awful street, and 'Damaged Goods,' and that
exhibit of horrors, all in two days, I don't wonder I feel like an old,
old woman," she said.
"Suppose we stay in to-night? There is some kind of special meeting
announced here, to discuss the drama. We might go in for a
little while."
"All right. But 'early to bed,' for to-morrow we set out on our
careers."
"You haven't told me what yours is, yet," he objected.
"Mine is a secret."
The dining-room of the club was entirely full when they went down, and
the hum of talk and laughter roused Bambi's tired sensibilities.
"It's quite jolly," she said. "Some of the people look interesting,
don't they?"
"I talked to that little man, over there, with the red necktie, while I
was waiting for you, and he has ideas."
"Lovely woman with him."
They chatted personalities for a while.
"Seems ages since we left home, doesn't it?"
"Yes. Big mental experiences obliterate time."
"The Professor has forgotten to write, of course."
"He has probably forgotten us."
"Oh, no!"
"I feel that I am getting rather well acquainted with you," he nodded
and smiled.
"How do you like me, now that you have met me?" she teased.
"You are an interesting specimen over-sensitized."
"Jarvis!" she protested. "I sound like a Cubist picture."
After dinner they drifted with the crowd
|