“Huh, nobody wants that stuff!” snorted Hunt.  “It’s too good.  Sell it!  You’re off your bean, young fellow!”

“I can sell anything, my bucko,” Larry returned evenly.  “All I need is a man who has plenty of money and a moderate willingness to listen.  I’ve sold pictures of an oil derrick on a stock certificate, exact value nothing at all, for a masterpiece’s price—­so I guess I could sell a real picture.”

“Aw, you shut up!”

“The real trouble with you,” commented Larry, “is that, though you can paint, as a business man, as a promoter of your own stock, the suckling infant in that picture is a J. Pierpont Morgan of multiplied capacity compared to—­”

“Stop making that noise like a damned fool!”

This amiable pastime of throwing stones at each other was just then interrupted by the entrance of Maggie for an appointed sitting, before going to her business of carrying a tray of cigarettes about the Ritzmore.  She gave Hunt a pleasant “good-morning,” the pleasantness purposely stressed in order to make more emphatic her curt nod to Larry and the cold hostility of her eye.  During the hour she posed, Larry, moving leisurely about his kitchen duties, addressed her several times, but no remark got a word from her in response.  He took his rebuffs smilingly, which irritated her all the more.

“Maggie, I’ll get my real clothes late this afternoon; how about my dropping in at the Ritzmore for a cup of tea, and letting me buy some cigarettes and talk to you when you’re not busy?” he inquired when Hunt had finished with her.

“You may buy cigarettes, but you’ll get no talk!” she snapped, and head high and dark eyes flashing contempt, she swept past him.

Hunt watched her out.  As the door slammed behind her, he remarked dryly, his eyes searching Larry keenly: 

“Our young queen doesn’t seem wildly enthusiastic about you or your programme.”

“She certainly is not.”

“Don’t let that worry you, young fellow.  That’s a common trait of her whole tribe; women simply cannot believe in a man!”

There was an emphasis and a cynicism in this last remark which caused Larry to regard the painter searchingly.  “You seem to know what it is.  Don’t mean to butt in, Hunt, if there are any trespassing signs up—­ but there’s a woman in your case?”

“Of course there is—­there’s always a woman; that’s another reason I’m here,” Hunt answered.  “She didn’t believe in me—­didn’t believe I could paint—­didn’t believe in the things I wanted to do—­so I just picked up my playthings and walked out of her existence.”

“Wife?” queried Larry.

“Thank God, no!” exclaimed Hunt emphatically.  “No—­’I thank whatever gods there be, I am the captain of my soul!’ Oh, she’s all right—­ altogether too good for me,” he added.  “Here, try this tobacco.”

Larry picked up the pouch flung him and accepted without remark this being abruptly shunted off the track.  But he surmised that this woman in the background of Hunt’s life meant a great deal more to the painter than Hunt tried to indicate by his attempt to dismiss her casually—­and Larry wondered what kind of woman she was, and what the story had been.