And even among those who considered Pelgram's asinine qualities plainly predominant, there was an admission of his certain artistic readiness, a cleverness in his grouping, a superficial dexterity in his brush work, a smartness and facility in the method of his pursuit of false gods. The irrepressible Wilkinson had struck true to the mark of his weaknesses, but something could well be said for the unhappy poseur in whom his shaft had quivered. Some one had observed that Pelgram regarded the appearance of his person and of his studio as of more serious importance than that of his canvases, but his commissions withal came in sufficient numbers to permit his extensive indulgence in bodily and domestic adornment. Granting him to be an ass, he certainly was a reasonably successful one, and he was even generally held to be a talented one. For all his work was cursed by his indecision, he was surprisingly steady along the line of personal relations. At one time he would devote himself wholly to the production of exotic-looking pastels; at another time to nothing but the strangest of nocturnes in which the colors were washed on in a kind of sauce so thin that the frames, instead of being placed on easels, had to be laid flat on table tops in order to keep the pictures from running off their canvases onto the floor while being painted. But with people, his first likes and dislikes were definite and usually final, and this quality of personal consistency had come to a fixed focus on Helen Maitland. Helen, for her part, had never given him any other encouragement than to express her approval of some of his pictures that she honestly liked, but Pelgram needed no other encouragement. His cosmos bulged with ego of such density that he and his pastels and nocturnes were crowded together in it indistinguishably. Admiration of his work was necessarily admiration of himself. It was only a question of degree. With an extraordinary manifestation of good taste and common sense, amounting almost to inspiration, he had some time since decided that he would like to marry Miss Maitland, but his admiration for her was so deep that his self-assurance was shaken to the point of hesitation. Thus far he had not ventured to speak, but his heart bounded at her swift defense of him and her effective attack on Wilkinson. In the brief pause, while Wilkinson was rallying his forces for another charge on Pelgram's tonal battlements, John M. Hurd entered the room.