“What a pretty compliment,” said Esther.  “It is more flattering than the picture.”

“You can prove its truth, Miss Dudley,” said Hazard.  “It is easy to show that I am right.  Paint Miss Brooke yourself!  Give to her the soul of the Colorado plains!  Show that beauty of subject is the right ideal!  You will annihilate Wharton and do an immortal work.”

Hazard’s knack of fixing an influence wherever he went had long been the wonder of Strong, but had never surprised or amused him more than now, when he saw Esther, after a moment’s hesitation, accept this idea, and begin to discuss with Hazard the pose and surroundings which were to give Catherine Brooke’s picture the soul of the Colorado plains.  Hazard drew well and had studied art more carefully than most men.  He used to say that if he had not a special mission for the church, as a matter of personal taste he should have preferred the studio.  He not only got at once into intimate relations with Esther and Catherine, but he established a sort of title in Esther’s proposed portrait.  Strong laughed to himself at seeing that even Mr. Dudley, who disliked the clergy more than any other form of virtue, was destined to fall a victim to Hazard’s tact.

When the clergyman walked away from Strong’s rooms that afternoon, he felt, although even to himself he would not have confessed it, a little elated.  Instinct has more to do than vanity with such weaknesses, and Hazard’s instinct told him that his success, to be lasting, depended largely on overcoming the indifference of people like the Dudleys.  If he could not draw to himself and his church the men and women who were strong enough to have opinions of their own, it was small triumph to draw a procession of followers from a class who took their opinions, like their jewelry, machine-made.  He felt that he must get a hold on the rebellious age, and that it would not prove rebellious to him.  He meant that Miss Dudley should come regularly to church, and on his success in bringing her there, he was half-ready to stake the chances of his mission in life.

So Catherine’s portrait was begun at once, when Catherine herself had been barely a week in New York.  To please Esther, Mr. Dudley had built for her a studio at the top of his house, which she had fitted up in the style affected by painters, filling it with the regular supply of eastern stuffs, porcelains, and even the weapons which Damascus has the credit of producing; one or two ivory carvings, especially a small Italian crucifix; a lay figure; some Japanese screens, and eastern rugs.  Her studio differed little from others, unless that it was cleaner than most; and it contained the usual array of misshapen sketches pinned against the wall, and of spoiled canvases leaning against each other in corners as though they were wall flower beauties pouting at neglect.