"I hoped you were above such mercenary considerations."
"I am trying to make myself so," he retorted. "I think about three successful plays would be tonic enough to bring my conscience up to proper art levels."
Herman had taken little part in this colloquy, smoking in silence, and regarding his companions. Fenton had thus far been even more quiet, scarcely contributing a word to the conversation; and the sculptor's thoughts turned upon the handsome young fellow, sitting in one of his favorite twisted attitudes in a German chair, his beardless face paler than usual, though a red spot glowed in either cheek, and his dilated pupils betrayed his excitement. He was smoking steadily, but with little apparent knowledge of either his cigar or his surroundings.
"Upon my word," mused Herman. "A cheerful looking man for a bridegroom he is. If he were going to the scaffold he could hardly seem more melancholy. What in the world is the matter with him? I wonder if he has been dragged into a marriage he doesn't like. How Mrs. Greyson watches him."
Helen was indeed watching Fenton closely, although to a less keen observer than Herman her surveillance would hardly have been apparent. She, too, was thinking of Fenton's downcast air, and knowing him more intimately than did the sculptor, she reasoned less doubtfully, although perhaps not more accurately than the latter concerning what was passing in the mind of her silent friend.
"He surely loves Miss Caldwell," she thought, "but he is so foolish. He is thinking now that he will never meet these comrades again as an unhampered man. He feels just now all he is giving up. I should like him better to remember what he is gaining. Are all men inherently selfish, I wonder. It is well for Miss Caldwell's peace of mind that she cannot see him now. Perhaps when he is with her he sees only the other side; I am sure I hope so."
She turned away with a sigh, and saw Herman looking at her. Their eyes met in one of those brief glances of intelligence which serve as fine fibers to knit people together.
The conversation soon turned upon the opinion a certain critic had expressed concerning a picture then on exhibition.
"Bah!" cried Fenton suddenly; "what does he know about art?—he is bow-legged!"
"Hallo!" exclaimed Rangely, "have you waked up? I thought we were safe from you for the whole evening."