"Wait a second," said Graham. "I'll ring up a taxi and we'll all ride down together."
"Right-o!" said Peter. "I'll rush up to my room and get a pipe."
When he came down again he found Kenyon and Graham waiting at the open door. A taxicab was chugging on the curbstone. Kenyon got in first, with his long cigarette holder between his teeth and a rakish-looking opera hat balanced over his left eye. He carried a thin black overcoat. All about him there was the very essence of Piccadilly. Peter sat beside him and Graham opposite. The cab turned round, crossed Madison into Fifth Avenue and went quickly downtown. The great wide street, as shiny as that of the Champs Élysée, was comparatively clear of traffic. Peter looked at the passing houses with the intense and affectionate interest of the man who comes home again. At the corner of West Forty-second Street Graham stopped the cab. "It's only a short walk to the best of the cabarets," he said; "we'll let Peter go straight on. Come on, Nicholas, bundle out."
"Where are we going?" asked Kenyon, making a graceful exit.
"Louis Martin's, old boy," said Graham.
"Pretty hot stuff, I hope. Au revoir, Peter. Do your best to make the bearded paint merchant like you. You'll have some difficulty." And with that parting shot, contradicted by one of the winning smiles which he had inherited from his delightful but unscrupulous father, Nicholas Kenyon took Graham's arm and these two walked away in high spirits.
When the cab stopped at the high building on the corner of Gramercy Park, its door was opened by Ranken Townsend. "I timed you to arrive about now, my lad," he said cordially. "I took the opportunity of getting some air. It's mighty good to-night. Come right up." He continued to talk in the elevator, which had a long way to go. "Betty has gone to a party. You may meet her mother, I'm not sure. She's out at one of her meetings—she spends her life at meetings—and if she comes in tired, as she generally does, she probably won't come into the studio. However, that need only be a pleasure deferred. Do you speak? If so, she'll nail you for one of her platforms."
"I,—speak?" said Peter, with a shudder. "I'd rather be shot."
Townsend laughed, led the way into his apartment and into the studio. In the dim light of one reading lamp which stood on a small table at the side of a low divan, the room looked larger than it was. It reeked with the good ripe smell of pipe tobacco and seemed to be pervaded with the personality of the man who spent most of his life in it. One of the top windows was open and through it came the refreshing air that blew up from the Hudson. Peter caught a glimpse of the sky, which was alive with stars. It was a good place. He liked it. Work was done there. It inspired him.
The artist took Peter's hat and coat and hung them in the alcove. Then he went across the room and turned up the light that hung over a canvas. "How d'you like it?" he asked.