dispose of them if it allow any future state."

"For my part," declared Herman, "I've heard Fenton talk nonsense as
long as I want to; let's look at the pictures."

An informal exhibition had been arranged, consisting of pictures loaned
by friends, and including several by members of the club. The most
important of the latter was a gypsy which Bently had just completed,
and which exhibited that artist's defects and excellences in the
emphatic manner usual with his productions. The _motif_ was better
than the _technique_, but Bently's splendid feeling for color
somehow carried him through, and made the picture not only striking but
rich and suggestive.

"If you could learn to draw, Tom," Fenton said, as they stood looking
at it, "you'd be the biggest man in America."

"Is that the new model you were talking about?" asked Rangely.

"Yes," Bently answered. "Isn't she a stunner?"

"I thought that shoulder was something new," put in Fenton. "The girl
poses well; trust a woman with shoulders like that to know how to
display them."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Grant Herman in sudden and rare irritation,
"can you never have done slurring at women? Didn't you have a mother?
In heaven's name let some woman escape your tongue for her sake!"

Such an outburst from their host produced a profound sensation upon the