“Ah! permit me to congratulate you, old man,” said Rutlidge, addressing the artist familiarly.  “It is too much, I suppose, to expect a look at it this afternoon?”

“Thanks,”—­returned the artist,—­“you are all coming to-morrow, at three, you know.  I would rather not show it to-day.  It is a little late for the best light; and I would like for you to see it under the most favorable conditions possible.”

The critic was visibly flattered by the painter’s manner and by his well-chosen emphasis upon the personal pronoun.  “Quite right”—­he said approvingly—­“quite right, old boy.”  He turned to the novelist—­“These painter chaps, you know, Lagrange, like to have a few hours for a last touch or two before I come around.”  He laughed pompously at his own words—­the others joining.

When Mrs. Taine and her companions were gone, the artist said hurriedly to his friend, “Come on, let’s get it over.”  He led the way back to the studio.

“I thought the light was too bad,” said the older man, quizzingly, as they entered the big room.

“It’s good enough for your needs,” retorted the painter savagely.  “You could see all you want by candle-light.”  He jerked the curtain angrily aside, and—­without a glance at the canvas—­walked away to stand at the window looking out upon the rose garden—­waiting for the flood of the novelist’s scorn to overwhelm him.  At last, when no sound broke the quiet of the room, he turned—­to find himself alone.

Conrad Lagrange, after one look at the portrait on the easel, had slipped quietly out of the building.

The artist found his friend, a few minutes later, meditatively smoking his pipe on the front porch, with Czar lying at his feet.

“Well,” said the painter, curiously,—­anxious, as he had said, to have it over,—­“why the deuce don’t you say something?”

The novelist answered slowly, “My vocabulary is too limited, for one reason, and”—­he looked thoughtfully down at Czar—­“I prefer to wait until you have finished the portrait.”

“It is finished,” returned the artist desperately.  “I swear I’ll never touch a brush to the damned thing again.”

The man with the pipe spoke to the dog at his feet; “Listen to him, Czar—­listen to the poor devil of a painter-man.”

The dog arose, and, placing his head upon his master’s knee, looked up into the lined and rugged face, as the novelist continued, “If he was only a wee bit puffed up and cocky over the thing, now, we could exert ourselves, so we could, couldn’t we?” Czar slowly waved a feathery tail in dignified approval.  His master continued, “But when a fellow can do a crime like that, and still retain enough virtue in his heart to hear his work shrieking to heaven its curses upon him for calling it into existence, it’s best for outsiders to keep quite still.  Your poor old master knows whereof he speaks, doesn’t he, dog?  That he does!”