MRS. TILSBURY. The Committee on Art of the Unseen Blushers were so struck with my picture of the street cleaner that they have asked me to submit to them some plans for decorating cellars.
MRS. BROWN. That doesn’t sound very complimentary. Cellars are so dark that no one will see your work.
MRS. TILSBURY. On the contrary, a great many people will see it. It is for the elevation of furnace men and the men who put away the coal. It is to give them a sense of the beautiful and an appreciation of the artistic. Spending so much of their time in dark hideous cellars, they lose so much of the higher life that it is really the duty of rich householders to remember these poor men who have been so long neglected and try to make the scene of their daily tasks more in harmony with their own luxurious drawing-rooms. I have been so happy this week working over these designs, for I have felt that I was doing good to others, and at the same time that I was indulging myself in my beloved art.
MRS. BROWN. And you have been neglecting Mildred?
MRS. TILSBURY. Not at all. She has been feeling rather tired as a result of the parade. She did not even go to the Suffragist’s Tea that Mrs. Thom gave yesterday.
MRS. BROWN. And Mr. Becker and Mr. Van Tousel? What have you done about them?
MRS. TILSBURY. She has refused to come down to see either of them because of headaches.
MRS. BROWN. Do you suppose that what that little Slavinsky girl said about Mr. Becker was true?
MRS. TILSBURY. What did she say?
MRS. BROWN. Don’t you remember? She said she saw him at the theatre with a lady friend.