"Mr. Calvin; and don't you see that Mr. Calvin's name in a matter of art is worth a dozen of the other two."
"Yes," Rangely assented, rather doubtfully, "in the matter of giving commissions it certainly is."
Mrs. Staggchase smiled indulgently, playing with the ring in which blazed a splendid ruby, and which she was putting on and off her finger.
"If you think," she said, "that you are going to entrap me into a discussion of the merits of art and Philistinism, you are mistaken. I told you long ago that I was a Philistine of the Philistines, deliberately and avowedly. The true artistic soul which you delight to call Pagan is only the servant of Philistinism, and I own that I prefer to stand with the ruling party. As, indeed," she added, with a mischievous gleam in her eye, "do many who will not confess it."
Rangely flushed. The thrust too closely resembled reproaches which in his more sensitive moments he received at the hand of his own inner consciousness, so to speak, not to make him wince. He felt himself, besides, becoming involved in a painful position. He had long been the intimate friend of Grant Herman, and felt that the sculptor had a right to expect whatever aid he could give him in a matter like this.
"But who," he asked, "is your protege?"
"His name," Mrs. Staggchase replied, "is Orin Stanton. He is a fellow of the greatest talent, and he has worked his way"—
Rangely put up his hand in a gesture of impatience.
"I know the fellow," he said. "He made a thing he called Hop Scotch, of which Fenton said the title was far too modest, since he'd not only scotched the subject but killed it."
"One never knew Mr. Fenton to waste the chance of saying a good thing simply for the sake of justice," Mrs. Staggchase observed, with unabated good humor. "But you are to help us in the Daily Observer, and there is to be no discussion about it. Since you know you are too good-natured not to oblige me in the end, why should you not do it gracefully and get the credit of being willing."