"Do you feel that? I strove for it," he said in a clear, penetrating voice, calculated to attract the attention, if not the interest, of those even outside the charmed though widening circle. "I strove for just that, feeling that here, above all, it was the one desideratum. At times I feared--" he turned to the impassive Mongolian a puckered forehead--"that I might be sacrificing somewhat of the virile. But no! I said--surely I can sacrifice all things, all considerations, save one." "You were right," said Ling Hop, cryptically, feeling that he was called upon to say something, but still with that faint adumbration of the inevitable letter. "In these days of strange, wild gods, in whose temples the heathen riot in flames and flares and orgies of color, it seems to me incumbent upon the saner among the craft to cling perhaps closer than ever to the great canons that the great masters have set forth for us. What do these new men worship? Color--color--blobs and blotches of raw, crude color! They think of nothing else, these barbarians. Let drawing, arrangement, construction even, go--they say--and with bloodshot eyes they dance in one wild debauch of life and light! It is not art!" Casting an imperceptibly alert eye to right and left, Pelgram saw that he was now in possession of the maximum audience he was likely to achieve. In a near-by corner, blockaded by three attentive gentlemen who seemed much less interested in art than in nature, sat Miss Maitland, within easy though obstructed earshot. She could hardly help hearing, and with an inward sigh of satisfaction the artist gave himself over utterly to the exordium which for some inexplicable reason formed the nucleus of his idea of a properly conducted studio affair. He felt that he was going to be very eloquent, and he felt reasonably secure from interruption, for no one in that company would have the temerity to question, on his own hearthstone, his pronunciamentos. No one,--except perhaps the irrepressible Wilkinson,--and it was with the greatest relief that he beheld Charlie safely out of hearing and engaged in rapt converse with Isabel. "Yes, those of us who believe, who still hold the immortal things sacred, have a great trust vested in us. It is for us, the few still faithful, to keep the lustral fires pure from defilement by the unbelievers. What would the great draughtsmen of old, the great true colorists among the masters, say if we should betray them to the wild, criminal vagaries of these falsest of false prophets?" He turned savagely upon Ling Hop, who replied, with entire truth, and with a certain feeling for caution which showed that he could be trusted in any crisis:-- "Yes. What?"