“That’s what a joint like this brings a man to,” mused Hal. “First, intellectual dishonesty, in other words, blinking; and next, total blindness of the mind’s eye.” Amouretta’s lively blue glance dismayed him. Was that girl with pearls really a Price—a Price of deeper and fresher inspiration than was to be discerned in those Prices the great Farintosh was soon to show, on the Avenue? He could not believe his eyes. Yet there was the signature. It did not look like Maurice’s usual signature; but then, there was nothing like Maurice, in the whole thing. A new departure indeed! Hal’s spirit quailed. “They always said Maurice Price could paint anything, in any way; but this stumps me. And it sure does give me a pain all over when I try to like it. Perhaps there’s something in one of those eyes that gets me, somehow. Is there, or isn’t there? If there is, hanged if I know whether it’s the near eye or the off eye!” Still playing the part of a buyer, Hal writhed in the buyer’s seat, a spurious Renaissance antique discarded by Maurice. Hal was always immaculately dressed. Through thick and thin, he had kept his air of purple and fine linen about him. Never a morning without a white flower in his buttonhole; and day after day, his eternally crumpled bright blond hair was all that saved him from the dandiacal. But now! You would have been sorry for him had you found him humped in his counterfeit throne, his cigarette awry on his lip, and his carnation lying all forlorn on the parquet. Had fate allowed him but ten seconds more, he would have set himself right. Too late! Mr. William Saltonstall had just entered the gallery. The ruler of the Court of New Departures had hard work to pull himself together, and recapture his pleasant alertness. It must be done, however; Mr. Saltonstall was too good a client to lose. Hal sprang to his feet, kicked the carnation under the throne, and with it cast aside for the moment his problem of the true and the false in art, as if it were an entangling garment that would burden him in a race.... IV The next day, Maurice Price, packing up his belongings to return to the city in time for the November elections, was puzzled by a telegram from his helter-skelter cousin. Just what could it mean? In telegrams, if in no other form of composition, the youth resorted to punctuation; he felt that periods gave clearness, an idea he had picked up while doing war work for the Government. Can sell picture period Top price cash down period On condition immediate withdrawal from gallery period Buyer buyer waits your wire period WRAYNE