The little beast had the assurance of the devil. He praised, blamed, patronized, puffed his pipe, and dwelt with superiority on topics which are best left alone, until Wilmot wanted to kick him downstairs. Scupper, aware of Wilmot's dislike for him, and thoroughly cognizant of its causes, did his best to goad the "young prude" (as he chose to consider him) into open hostility. He strutted, boasted, puffed, and talked loosely without avail. Wilmot maintained a beautiful calm, and the more he raged internally the more Chesterfieldian and gorgeously at ease his manners became. Barbara enjoyed the contest between the terrier and the Newfoundland hugely. Personally she disliked Scupper almost as much as she liked Wilmot, but artistically she admired him tremendously and felt that his judgments and criticisms were the most valuable things to be had in the whole city. Wilmot not only kept his temper, but outstayed his antagonist. The latter gone, he turned upon Barbara, and she in mock terror held up her hands for mercy; but Wilmot was not in a merciful mood. "When you imagine that you are uplifting the cause of art, Barbs, are you sure that you aren't debasing it? You won't marry a man who has always loved you. _Art._ You put marble and bronze higher than little children. _Art._ You allow disreputable, unwashed men to talk in your presence as that man talked. _Art._ You hire people of bad character to sit for you, and people of no character. All art. You treat them in a spirit of friendliness and camaraderie. You affect to place art above all considerations; above character, above morals; worse, you place it above cleanliness. "A man--yes, take him for all and all, a man--eats out his heart for you; desires only to live for you, only to die for you, only to lie at your feet afterward--that is nothing to you. You do not even care to listen. You would rather hear through a braggart, indecent mouth that ought to be sewed up what Rodin said about Phidias. It seems finer to you to be an artist than a woman, and you so beautiful and so dear!" Barbara made no answer. She looked a little hurt, possibly a little sullen. She had a way of looking a little sullen (it did not happen often) when she could not hit upon just the words she wanted to express her thoughts. She felt that her attitude toward life was almost entirely right, almost entirely justifiable, and she wanted to explain exactly why this was thus, and couldn't. So after a silence she said: "Oh, I'm just a little pig. Why bother about me? And besides, it's no use." "Don't say that, Barbara. There _must_ be use in it. Don't you know in your heart that some day you are going to marry me?" "No," she said. "Sometimes I've thought so, but I don't know it." She selected an arrow from her quiver, touched the point with venom, and because she had not enjoyed being scolded shot it into him. "And at the moment I don't think so."