Avenue, but they have--how shall I say? To twist what Whistler said of
his model: Character, character is what these clothes have. They
suggest, many of these young women, the type that has never got back
from--

"Do you know Chelsea at all?" asks one of them, of an anarchic-looking
young man.

Never got back, as I was about to say, from Chelsea. A couple of other
anarchic-looking young men are viewing a painting in the manner that a
painting, or perhaps this particular painting, is intended to be viewed;
that is by squinting at it first over the tops of their hands and then
through their fingers. They discuss it darkly, in low, passionate tones.
They advance upon it; and, a few inches before it, one, as though holding
a brush in his hand, sweeps eloquently with his arm, following the
contour of the painted figure. Legerdemain kind of thing, painting,
isn't it? Sort of a black art, when you see into the science of it.

Well, I declare! Here's a friend of mine--there, talking with the
Titian-haired lady in the exotic gown. Now, he is coming over to us.

He says he wants us to know Ben-Gunn, who is here, "one of the new
crowd," he says. My friend is very keen on the new crowd; everything
else he declares is "passe." Anyhow, it is a very valuable experience to
talk with an exhibitor at an art exhibition. Your mind is impregnated,
until it swells dizzily in your head. That would be he, the
illiterate-looking little creature with the uncombed and
unsanitary-looking mop.

There! I knew he would say something, something that would never leave