“Too bad!” sighs Marjorie.  “It has sadly interfered with his career, I’m afraid.”

“Ain’t drivin’ him to sign work, is it?” says I.

“Goodness, no!” says Marjorie.  “Just the opposite.  Of course, Edith was a poor girl; but her Uncle Jeff is ever so rich.  They live with him, you know.  That’s the trouble—­Uncle Jeff.”

She’s a little vague about this Uncle Jeff business; but it helps explain why we roll up to a perfectly good marble front detached house just off Riverside Drive, instead of stoppin’ at one of them studio rookeries over on Columbus-ave.  And even I’m wise to the fact that strugglin’ young artists don’t have a butler on the door unless there’s something like an Uncle Jeff in the fam’ly.

From the dozen or more cars and taxis hung up along the block I judge this must be a regular card affair, with tea and sandwich trimmin’s.  It’s a good guess.  A maid tows us up two flights, though, before we’re asked to shed anything; and before we lands Marjorie is gaspin’ some, for she ain’t lost any weight since she collected Ferdy.  Quite a studio effect they’d made too, by throwin’ a couple of servants’ rooms into one and addin’ a big skylight.  There was the regulation fishnet draped around, and some pieces of tin armor and plaster casts, which proves as well as a court affidavit that here’s where the real, sure-fire skookum creative genius holds forth.

It’s a giddy bunch of lady gushers that’s got together there too, and the soulful chatter is bein’ put over so fast it sounds like intermission at a cabaret show.  I’m introduced proper to Brooks boy and Wifey; but I’d picked ’em both out at first glimpse.  No mistakin’ him.  He’s got on the kind of costume that goes with the fishnet and brass tea machine,—­flowin’ tie, velvet coat, baggy trousers, and all, even to the Vandyke beard.  It’s kind of a pale, mud-colored set of face alfalfa; but, then, Brooks boy is sort of that kind himself—­that is, all but his eyes.  They’re a wide-set, dreamy, baby-blue pair of lamps, that beams mild and good-natured on everyone.

But Mrs. Brooks Bladen is got up even more arty than Hubby.  Maybe it wa’n’t sugar sackin’ or furniture burlap, but that’s what the stuff looked like.  It’s gathered jaunty just under her armpits and hangs in long folds to the floor, with a thick rope of yellow silk knotted careless at one side with the tassels danglin’ below her knee, while around her head is a band of tinsel decoration that might have been pinched off from a Christmas tree.  She’s a tall, willowy young woman, who waves her bare arms around vivacious when she talks and has lots of sparkle to her eyes.

“You dear child!” is her greetin’ to Marjorie.  “So sweet of you to attempt all those dreadful stairs!  No, don’t try to talk yet.  We understand, don’t we, Brooks?  Nice you’re not sensitive about it, too.”

I caught the glare Marjorie shoots over, and for a minute I figured how the picture buyin’ deal had been queered at the start; but the next thing I knew Brooks boy is holdin’ Marjorie’s hand and beamin’ gentle on her, and she is showin’ all her dimples once more.  Say, they’re worth watchin’, some of these fluff encounters.