"If I were a little more orthodox," she replied, "I might quote Scripture upon life's being some thing more than meat. Oh, Arthur, what is the use of all this fencing? All that is asked of you is to be honest; and to be honest the life of an artist in America to-day must be a protest against dominant Philistinism; nobody has ever acknowledged that oftener or more emphatically than you have." "But the artists," returned he, not meeting her eyes, "are too self-centered. Look at the Pagans; what efforts have they ever made to win society? Society is ready enough to take them in." "Arthur! Is it you who say that? To quote yourself against yourself, 'every work of art is an effort to conquer Philistinism.' Patronage seems already to have sucked the life out of you." "You may say what you like," Fenton remarked defensively; "you cannot make me angry." "That may be your misfortune," rejoined she sadly, "but I fear it is your fault." "The sin of a thing," he said, putting down his brushes impatiently, "oftener consists in regarding it as a sin than in the thing itself." He went to the round window, for his studio was high up in the building, and removed the Japanese umbrella which served as its screen. He threw himself upon a pile of cushions, regarding darkly the tops of the trees in the Old Granary burying-ground opposite. "_Que voulez-vous_?" he demanded coolly, after a moment's silence. "You are unreasonable; you always are. I must live. I don't know why you have a right to object to that. I have married a wife who is well connected, and I always meant to make her connections help me, Philistines or not. Even the godly Israelites made a virtue of spoiling the Egyptians." "But that was in departing from their country." "We won't argue," the artist declared sulkily. "Argument is only disputing about definitions, and we should never agree. I don't expect you to think I'm right. As a matter of fact I have my doubts myself. You might at least allow me the satisfaction of humbugging myself if I am able." She regarded him sadly. The chance remarks about Edith's relatives seemed to throw a new and sinister light upon the reasons of his marriage. She wondered if she had not been mistaken in following her impulse to come here, and whether words could effect any thing. "But Edith?" she said at length, and as if half to herself; "does not her honesty rebuke you? Don't you feel unworthy of her?" "Well, and if her severe virtue does repel me?" he asked, a hard look coming into his face, "am I to blame for that also?" "You are speaking of your wife!"