He turned to Miss Van Patten.
“I was afraid we’d have to give up our duets if you had a guest. But we can go on with them now—mayn’t we? Unless Mr. Van Patten needs quiet.”
“Oh, he’s much improved,” the girl assured him.
Langdon entered into a rhapsody over some new music which had just been sent him from New York. Manifestly Barnes was not needed here. He made his apologies.
“But I say,” exclaimed Langdon as Barnes was leaving, “I want to hear something about that country.”
“Whenever you wish,” answered Barnes.
He retreated to the library and finding paper there sat down to write home. He headed his letter “Schuyler headquarters.”
“Dear Mother,” he began, “I saw your eyes yesterday in the straggling mist of some cotton-blossom clouds and they brought you very near to me. This is a wonderful country. I know that enough of you has survived the apartment houses and the Acme to allow you to enjoy it if you were here. The hawthorn in your blood would respond to the glad sunshine and the unsmirched sky. And the quiet too is such as you would like. You remember the walks we used to take in the Park on clear mornings when it seemed like a fairy island? It is like that here. I want to thank you right now for the times you took me to the Zoo. I didn’t think then that the information I picked up would prove so valuable. I don’t know what I should have done here without my knowledge of polar bears. One of the great delights of Art is that sooner or later every tittle of information one picks up is used. Art wastes nothing except time.
“My exercise has kept me in the best of condition. This morning I made only four miles but before that I have consistently covered fifteen. I think I shall linger a little here. I’ve found material for a big picture. The subject is different from anything you’ve ever seen of mine. I think even father might appreciate this. I’ve about decided to attempt it in oils; a sort of study in black and gold and damson preserves.” He scratched out damson preserves and substituted crimson. “I’m uncertain about the size of the canvas. Sometimes I think it ought to be heroic, like the Santa Barbara at Venice, and at other times I feel as though I can convey the impression of its fineness only in a miniature. Then again I feel as though it ought to be swept in with bold color strokes, and at other times as though it ought to be just suggested in grays. You see—”
Someone came to the door.