"It's my only extravagance."

"Do you or do you not maintain a luxurious apartment in Gramercy Park,
when you are not down here posing in your attic as an honest
working-man?"

"Oh, see here, Mrs. Staten, I won't stand for that!" he expostulated.
"You know perfectly well I keep my room here because it's the only place
I can work in quietly--"

"And because Peter Quick Banta would break his foolish old heart if you
left him entirely," supplemented the sculptress.

Julien flushed and stood looking like an awkward child. "Did you tell
all this stuff to Miss Holland?" he asked.

"Oh, no! She thinks that your pot-boiling is a desperate and barely
sufficient expedient to keep the wolf from the door. So she is planning
to help you realize your destiny."

"Which is?" he queried with lifted brows.

"To be a great painter."

The other winced. "As you know, I've meant all along, as soon as I've
saved enough--"

"Oh, yes; _I_ know," broke in the Bonnie Lassie, who can be quite
ruthless where Art is concerned, "and _you_ know; but time flies and