"Well, what is it?"

"That you pray your gods--if you have any--to be merciful, and bestow upon
you either less genius or more intelligence to appreciate it."

* * * * *

At three o'clock, the following afternoon, the little party from Fairlands
Heights came to view, the portrait Or,--as Conrad Lagrange said, while the
automobile was approaching the house, "Well, here they come--'The Age',
accompanied by 'Materialism', 'Sensual', and 'Ragtime'--to look upon the
prostitution of Art, and call it good." Escorted by the artist, and the
novelist, they went at once to the studio.

The appreciation of the picture was instantaneous--so instantaneous, in
fact, that Louise Taine's lips were shaped to deliver an expressive "oh"
of admiration, even _before_ the portrait was revealed. As though the
painter, in drawing back the easel curtain, gave an appointed signal, that
"oh" was set off with the suddenness of a sky-rocket's rush, and was
accompanied in its flight by a great volume of sizzling, sputtering,
glittering, adjectival sparks that--filling the air to no purpose
whatever--winked out as they were born; the climax of the pyrotechnical
display being reached in the explosive pop of another "oh" which released
a brilliant shower of variegated sighs and moans and ecstatic looks and
inarticulate exclamations--ending, of course, in total darkness.

Mrs. Taine hastened to turn the artist's embarrassed attention to an
appreciation that had the appearance, at least, of a more enduring value.
Drawing, with affectionate solicitude, close to her husband, she
asked,--in a voice that was tremulous with loving care and anxiety to