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"We will have our coffee in the art gallery," Laura said, "and please smoke." He lit a cigarette, and the two passed into the great glass-roofed rotunda. "Here is the one I like best," said Laura, standing before the Bougereau. "Yes?" he queried, observing the picture thoughtfully. "I suppose," he remarked, "it is because it demands less of you than some others. I see what you mean.
Beyond where the Fifth Avenue was was the Hoffman House where one went to dine as well as to feast the eyes on the twenty-five-thousand-dollar Bougereau of "Nymphs and Satyr," and "Pan and Bacchante." Then the Albermarle and Saint James, the Brunswick, and the famous south-west corner of the Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street.
It pleases you because it satisfies you so easily. You can grasp it without any effort." "Oh, I don't know," she ventured. "Bougereau 'fills a place. I know it," he answered. "But I cannot persuade myself to admire his art." "But," she faltered, "I thought that Bougereau was considered the greatest one of the greatest his wonderful flesh tints, the drawing, and colouring."
The "Madonna degli Alberetti," for example, with its unexpected apple-green screen, almost Bougereau carried out to the highest power, would, if hung in any exhibition to-day, be remarkable but not anachronistic. And then one thinks of the Gethsemane picture in our National Gallery, and of the Christ recently acquired by the Louvre, and marvels.
"Possibly not a very high order of art," he said; "a little too 'easy, perhaps, like the Bougereau, but 'Consolation' should appeal very simply and directly, after all. Do you care for Beethoven?" "I I am afraid " began Laura, but he had continued without waiting for her reply. "You remember this? The 'Appassionata, the F minor sonata just the second movement."
Ah, but she would make amends now. No more Verdi and Bougereau. She would get rid of the "Bathing Nymphs." Never, never again would she play the "Anvil Chorus." Corthell should select her pictures, and should play to her from Liszt and Beethoven that music which evoked all the turbulent emotion, all the impetuosity and fire and exaltation that she felt was hers. She wondered at herself.
Unpinning her hat, laying it on the table beside her, passing her hands over the undisordered folds of her hair, Miss Jakes looked about her at the old-gold brocade of the furniture, the many mirrors in ornate gold frames, the photographs from Bougereau, the long, crisp lace curtains.
We bought most of 'em while we were abroad, year before last. Laura says this is the best." He indicated a large "Bougereau" that represented a group of nymphs bathing in a woodland pool. "H'm!" said the broker, "you wouldn't want some of your Sunday-school superintendents to see this now. This is what the boys down on the Board would call a bar-room picture." But Jadwin did not laugh.
Marian's fluent chatter stimulated her to try to talk as fast also, though Mademoiselle Bougereau, their teacher, found a great deal of fault with Marian, and said that many of the phrases which came so glibly out of her mouth partook of the nature of slang, and were not finished or elegant French.
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