"It is no more fair to say that," objected another Pagan, doggedly, "than to say that art has gone to religion for help. Their accounts are pretty evenly balanced." "Nonsense!" Rangely returned. "Art has never gained by being religious, but by being art; but religion owes its hold largely to the help art has given it." "And it has paid its debts by blackguarding art from every pulpit it has builded for it." "As Fenton used to say," Ainsworth remarked, "art has been used as the sugar-coating to the bitter pill of religion." "Oh, Fenton again," Bently exclaimed impatiently. "What did you bring him up for? Who the devil would have thought Fenton would have turned out so?" "I can tell you a piece of news," said Rangely. "The Election Committee blackballed Calvin this afternoon." "Good!" cried they all; and some body added: "But Fenton said he'd resign if Calvin wasn't elected." "Resign," echoed Rangely, "I guess he'll have to. He's been sent to Coventry by half the Club now for that Graves affair." "The Graves affair?" some one queried. "What's that? What else has he been doing? If a man starts to go to the devil, it does seem as if he never could get ahead fast enough." "Miss Graves was going to buy one of Flackerman's pictures, and heaven knows he needs the money; and Fenton, who has always pretended to be Flack's friend, talked her into taking one of his instead; or rather he got Calvin to go to her and do it. It was a stunning Flackerman, too; and we were all rejoicing over his luck." "I would not be too ready to believe that story," Grant Herman said. "I don't think Fenton's gone utterly to the bad all at once. He's living expensively, they say, and possibly he let Calvin go to Miss Graves; but I don't believe Arthur ever originated that sneaking scheme, and I shouldn't be surprised if he never knew the rights of the case." "He's done what so many artists have been bullied into doing before," Ainsworth observed. "If he has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, that is precisely what the patrons of art in this country demand that every man shall do who comes here. I could tell you of a dozen good fellows who've been spoiled in that way. I am far enough outside to look on in an unbiased way; but they treat us architects in the same fashion. Lots of the most rubbishy and conventional men we have, started out to be fair and work from conviction; and they simply had the choice between subservience and starvation, and cases of the choice of death from starvation haven't been over plenty." "Oh, a man is known by the tailor he keeps," threw in Rangely; "especially if he doesn't pay him." "It's all a game of cut-throat," Bently remarked philosophically; "art and business alike." "I should hate to have my throat cut," observed the German Pagan in a matter of fact tone; "it must let a dreadful draught into the system."