His studio in New York was not a fashionable resting place. It was a work-shop. You could have tea there, of course, and you were sure to meet people you knew and liked, but it was quite as much of a work-shop as any you could mention. He was not a dabbler in art, not a mere dauber of pigments: he was an ARTIST. People argued that because he was a thoroughbred and doomed to be rich, his conscious egotism would show itself at once in the demand for ridiculously high prices. In that they happily were fooled, not to say disappointed. He began by painting the portrait of a well-known society woman of great wealth, who sat to him because she wanted to "take him up," and who was absolutely disconsolate when he announced, at the end of the sittings, that his price was five hundred dollars. She would not believe her ears.
"Why, my dear Brandon, you will be ruined—utterly ruined—if it becomes known that you ask less than five thousand," she had cried, almost in tears. "No one will come to you."
He had smiled. "A master's price is for a master, not for a tyro. If they want to pay five thousand dollars for a portrait, I can recommend a dozen or more gentlemen whose work is worth it. Mine isn't. Some day I hope to be able to say five thousand with a great deal more assurance than I now say five hundred, Mrs. Wheeler, but it won't be until I have courage, not nerve."
"But NOBODY will sit for a five hundred dollar portrait," she expostulated. "Really, Brandon, I prefer to pay five thousand. I can't—I simply cannot tell people that I paid only five—"
"Will you give six hundred?" he asked, his smile broadening.
"Absurd!"
"Seven hundred?"
"Why, it sounds as if you were jewing me up, not I trying to jew you down," she cried, dismayed.
"That's the point," he said, with mock gravity. "If my price isn't what it ought to be in your opinion, it is only fair that I should make concessions. My picture is worth five hundred dollars, but I am willing to do a little better than that by you. I will make it seven-fifty to you, but not a cent more."
"Can't I jew you up any higher, dear boy?"