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Updated: June 16, 2025
The old gods are jealous gods, and at the ten thousandth time they take their own at last." "Yes. At last," said Ling Hop, observing that a response was expected of him. Pelgram turned to the portrait. "And this! portrait painting! to which all the masters finally turn. What would they these colorists make out of portrait painting?"
Pelgram went by with his arm familiarly passed through that of a phlegmatic-looking young Chinaman whom he led up to Miss Maitland's portrait.
With unerring maladroitness Pelgram had chosen the time of all others when his star was burning with its feeblest flame. She continued to sit passively, while the waves of the artist's eloquence rolled over her. "I will not ask you if you love me it is enough to tell you that I love you more than all the world. But can you not give me one single word of hope?" He paused expectantly.
The three men rose quickly, and even the languid face of Stanwood Pelgram took on a look of a little sharper interest than he had so far shown. From the tea table Miss Hurd cordially greeted the newcomer. "Tea, Helen?" she asked. "You're quite late. What have you been doing?" "Thank you, Isabel," the other replied. "Quite strong, and with sugar and lemon both."
Several tall potted plants nearly hid the alcove from the studio at large, and Pelgram noted with satisfaction that the remaining guests were mostly grouped about Wilkinson at the other end. He turned, to gain time for thought, to the pile of frames in the corner, and presently pulled forth the portrait of which he had spoken. "Not so interesting an arrangement as I made of you," he commented.
Pelgram gave a preliminary cough, and glanced hastily about the room, but calculating that his audience would be larger later on, he restrained himself. "What is art?" he slowly repeated, half-closing his eyes and smiling mystically on his guests. "What is art?" Miss Long hung breathlessly on his words.
Some one had observed that Pelgram regarded the appearance of his person and of his studio as of more serious importance than that of his canvases, but his commissions withal came in sufficient numbers to permit his extensive indulgence in bodily and domestic adornment. Granting him to be an ass, he certainly was a reasonably successful one, and he was even generally held to be a talented one.
Wilkinson had not been invited, but on hearing his cousin say that she was starting for the studio, he promptly announced that he would accompany her. He knew that Pelgram disliked him intensely, but he did not feel the slightest hesitation on that account in accepting the artist's hospitality, and in fact quite enjoyed the prospect of a dash into the enemy's country.
But to Pelgram the vague liquid sound fell dulcetly on the ear, and by Miss Long and Miss Heatherton no flaw in this art criticism could be discerned.
Miss Maitland, seeing the flames approaching the magazine with alarming rapidity, hastily started a back-fire, adapting Wilkinson's style to her purpose with a success which repartee not being her strongest point astonished even herself. "Charlie's views on art," she said to the smoldering Pelgram, "are always interesting because they are so wholly free and natural.
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