"That is not enthusiastic."

"You mustn't ask me; I'm not an art critic."

"What a pity."

"A pity that I'm not an art critic?"

"No. A pity for a beautiful girl to do anything but exist."

Wilmot's eyebrows went up a little. The beggar's speech surprised him,
and pleased him, since it expressed a favorite thought of his own.

"Is any of her work on exhibition? Having seen her once, one takes an
interest, you know."

"I think there is nothing that can be seen," said Wilmot coolly, "except
upon special invitation. And I think she is very shy of showing anything
that she has done."

"True artists," said Blizzard, who criminally was an artist himself and
knew what he was talking about, "live in the future."

Again Wilmot's eyebrows went up a little. Why should a legless beggar be
able to make loans of fifteen thousand dollars, and why should he be
able to talk like a gentleman?

"I am interested in art," continued Blizzard; "sometimes I have earned a
few dollars by sitting for my portrait."