“Don’t you?” repeated Annan.  “Or is it a masterpiece beyond my vulgar ken?”

“Well—­no.  Kelly was evidently trying to get at something new—­work out some serious idea.  No, I don’t think it’s rotten at all.  I rather like it.”

“It looks too much like her; that’s why it’s rotten,” said Annan.  “Thank God I’ve a gift for making pretty women out of my feminine clients, otherwise I’d starve.  Kelly, you haven’t made Valerie pretty enough.  That’s the trouble.  Besides, it’s muddy in spots.  Her gown needs dry-cleaning.  But my chief criticism is the terrible resemblance to the original.”

“Ah-h, what are you talking about!” growled Burleson; “did you ever see a prettier girl than Valerie West?”

Ogilvy said slowly:  “She’s pretty—­to look at in real life.  But, somehow, Kelly has managed here to paint her more exactly than we have really ever noticed her.  That’s Valerie’s face and figure all right; and it’s more—­it reflects what is going on inside her head—­all the unbaked, unassimilated ideas of immaturity whirring in a sequence which resembles logic to the young, but isn’t.”

“What do you mean by such bally stuff?” demanded Burleson, bluntly.

Annan laughed, but Ogilvy said seriously: 

“I mean that Kelly has painted something interesting.  It’s a fascinating head—­all soft hair and delicious curves, and the charming indecision of immature contours which ought some day to fall into a nobler firmness....  It’s as interesting as a satire, I tell you.  Look at that perfectly good mouth and its delicate sensitive decision with a hint of puritanical primness in the upper lip—­and the full, sensuous under lip mocking the upper and giving the lie to the child’s eyes which are still wide with the wonder of men and things.  And there’s something of an adolescent’s mystery in the eyes, too—­a hint of languor where the bloom of the cheek touches the lower lid—­and those smooth, cool, little hands, scarcely seen in the shadow—­did you ever see more purity and innocence—­more character and the lack of it—­painted into a pair of hands since Van Dyck and Whistler died?”

Neville, astonished, stood looking incredulously at the canvas around which the others had gathered.

Burleson said:  “There’s something honest and solid about it, anyway; hanged if there isn’t.”

“Like a hen,” suggested Ogilvy, absently.

“Like a hen?” repeated Burleson.  “What in hell has a hen got to do with the subject?”

“Like you, then, John,” said Annan, “honest, solid, but totally unacquainted with the finer phases of contemporary humour—­”

“I’m as humorous as anybody!” roared Burleson.

“Sure you are, John—­just as humorously contemporaneous as anybody of our anachronistic era,” said Ogilvy, soothingly.  “You’re right; there’s nothing funny about a hen.”

“And here’s a highball for you, John,” said Neville, concocting a huge one on the sideboard.