"An effective detail," he said to Eugene, as one critic might say to another, pointing to a line of white snow on the window of one side of the bus. Another dash of snow on a man's hat rim took his eye also. "I can feel the wind," he added. Eugene smiled. M. Charles passed on in silence to the steaming tug coming up the East River in the dark hauling two great freight barges. He was saying to himself that after all Eugene's art was that of merely seizing upon the obviously dramatic. It wasn't so much the art of color composition and life analysis as it was stage craft. The man before him had the ability to see the dramatic side of life. Still-- He turned to the last reproduction which was that of Greeley Square in a drizzling rain. Eugene by some mystery of his art had caught the exact texture of seeping water on gray stones in the glare of various electric lights. He had caught the values of various kinds of lights, those in cabs, those in cable cars, those in shop windows, those in the street lamp--relieving by them the black shadows of the crowds and of the sky. The color work here was unmistakably good. "How large are the originals of these?" he asked thoughtfully. "Nearly all of them thirty by forty." Eugene could not tell by his manner whether he were merely curious or interested. "All of them done in oil, I fancy." "Yes, all." "They are not bad, I must say," he observed cautiously. "A little persistently dramatic but--" "These reproductions--" began Eugene, hoping by criticising the press work to interest him in the superior quality of the originals. "Yes, I see," M. Charles interrupted, knowing full well what was coming. "They are very bad. Still they show well enough what the originals are like. Where is your studio?" "61 Washington Square." "As I say," went on M. Charles, noting the address on Eugene's card, "the opportunity for exhibition purposes is very limited and our charge is rather high. We have so many things we would like to exhibit--so many things we must exhibit. It is hard to say when the situation would permit--If you are interested I might come and see them sometime." Eugene looked perturbed. Two hundred dollars! Two hundred dollars! Could he afford it? It would mean so much to him. And yet the man was not at all anxious to rent him the show room even at this price. "I will come," said M. Charles, seeing his mood, "if you wish. That is what you want me to do. We have to be careful of what we exhibit here. It isn't as if it were an ordinary show room. I will drop you a card some day when occasion offers, if you wish, and you can let me know whether the time I suggest is all right. I am rather anxious to see these scenes of yours. They are very good of their kind. It may be--one never can tell--an opportunity might offer--a week or ten days, somewhere in between other things."