Claude laughed. He and his father got along admirably by rarely pursuing an argument beyond its illogical conclusion.
"What have you done with my particular 'libel'?"
"I had it sent upstairs, to join your other atrocities in the Chamber of Indecencies."
This was a nickname Mr. Rene Fontaine applied to a little room on the top floor where Claude had hung various "finds" in the later Impressionist, Cubist and Futurist styles.
"Tomb, not chamber," said Claude. "Everything there is practically buried."
"Not at all. Your friends are forever trotting upstairs. I even send people there myself. Only yesterday I invited J. Tuyler Harmon to go up. He said he enjoyed himself hugely."
"What brought the old rogue in here again?"
"His mistress. She's one of the chief patronesses of the Religion and Forward movement. She had to attend a committee meeting downtown. He escorted her from her apartments in the Plaza and waited here for her until the committee adjourned. Out of that waiting I made several handsome sales—but not of your pictures."
"Thus religion and art," said Claude, "are reconciled by the Mammon of Unrighteousness."
III