"Of course I didn't know many of them," Melissa returned humbly; "but I could see that there were a lot of people that everybody seemed to know. I'm glad that you were pleased." Orin pulled out a big cigar and bit the end off it excitedly. "Pleased!" he echoed. "I was more than pleased--I was delighted. All the committee were there, of course, and half the fashionable women of Boston." "I heard a lady telling another who the artists were," Milly observed, glad to find a subject upon which she could talk to Orin easily. "O yes, there were a lot of artists there, but they don't count for much in getting a fellow commissions." Stanton had evidently no intention of being satirical, but spoke with straightforward plainness what he would have regarded, had he given the matter any thought at all, as being a truth too obvious to need any disguises. His Philistinism was of the perfectly ingrained, inborn sort, which never having appreciated that it is naked has never felt the need of being ashamed; and he let it be seen on any occasion with a frankness which arose from the fact that it had never occurred to him that there was any reason why he should conceal it. He was one of those artists who never would be able wholly to separate his idea of the muse from that of a serving-maid; and he viewed art from the strictly utilitarian standpoint which considers it a means toward the payment of butcher and baker and candlestick maker. He was not indifferent to the opinion of his fellow sculptors; but the criticism of Alfred Irons, which he knew to be backed by a substantial bank account, would have outweighed in his mind the judgment of Michael Angelo or Phidias. Milly, of course, had no ideas about art beyond a faint sentimental tendency to regard it as a mysterious and glorious thing which one could not wholly escape in Boston; while her thrifty New England nurture enabled her to appreciate perfectly the force of the considerations Orin brought forward. "I am glad you are getting commissions," she said, "but it must be nice to have the artists like your work, for after all, don't you think rich people depend a good deal upon what the artists say?" "Oh yes, they do, some," admitted the sculptor. He puffed his cigar, and with the aid of a penknife performed upon his nails certain operations of the toilet which are more usually attended to in private. Milly sat nervously trying to think of something to say, and wondering what had brought the sculptor to visit her. She was too kindly to suspect that possibly he had come because in her company he could enjoy the pleasure of giving free rein to his self-conceit. The words of her companion of the afternoon had given her a new sense of the honor of a visit from her prospective brother-in-law, although this increased her diffidence rather than her pleasure. "Was Mr. Fenton there this afternoon?" she asked, at length, simply for the sake of saying something. The face of her companion darkened.