"Yes," assented the other; "and the head is hopelessly out of drawing."
"The man has a paintable face, too," the first rejoined. "I'd like to do him myself."
"Olyphant's well enough for composition," the second returned, "but when it comes to portraits, he simply isn't in it with Brashleigh. Seen his two yet?"
"Whose?" inquired the first speaker.
"Brashleigh's," was the answer. "Biggest things here. And as different as they make 'em. Best is a Wall Street man—Poole, I think, his name is."
"I know," the first interrupted. "Cyrus Poole; he's president of a big railroad somewhere out West. Lots of money. I wonder how Brashleigh got the job?"
"Guess he did Rupert de Ruyter for nothing. You know De Ruyter wrote him up in one of the magazines."
The two young art-students stood before the portrait a few seconds longer, looking at it intently. Then they moved off, the first speaker saying, "That head's out of drawing too."
It gave Miss Marlenspuyk something of a shock to learn that the heads of two of her friends were out of drawing; she wondered how serious the deformity might be; she felt for a moment almost as though she were acquainted with two of the startlingly abnormal specimens of humanity who are to be seen in dime museums. As these suggestions came to her one after the other, she smiled gently.
"I don't wonder that you are laughing at that picture, Miss Marlenspuyk," said a voice at her right. "It's no better than the regulation 'Sunset on the Lake of Chromo,' that you can buy on Liberty Street for five dollars, with a frame worth twice the money."