Studio and sculptor were each unique. A little man of crippled frame, Karl Richter delighted in the muscular and the colossal and walked a pigmy amidst his own creations. Michael Angelo was his god; but his manner was his own, and the Indians and cow-boys he loved best to express were remote enough from the great Florentine's subjects to acquit him of imitation. His frail physique notwithstanding, he had been at pains to see for himself the primitive life he adored, and the idler who coined "The Oasis" dubbed the sculptor's place "The Wigwam," and spread a facetious tale that Richter went about his work in blanket and moccasins, and habitually smoked a calumet which had once belonged to Sitting Bull. Richter never denied this myth, which by now had received the sanction of print, and took huge satisfaction in the crestfallen glances unknown callers gave his conventional dress. However, the studio itself, a transformed stable, was sufficiently picturesque. It overflowed with spoils from ranch and tepee, and, thanks to the Wild West show which furnished MacGregor occasional Arabs, sometimes sheltered genuine, if sophisticated, red men.
About this time Jean left Mrs. St. Aubyn's, whose neighborhood Paul, after dejected silence, had again begun to haunt. She had thus far eluded him, but meet they must, she felt, if she remained; and with Amy's abrupt departure, which now came to pass, she changed to a boarding-house of Atwood's recommending in Irving Place.
"There are no signs of the trade about it, fashionable or unfashionable," he said. "It's just a homelike place, neither too large nor too small, where you will see mainly art students. Many of them, like you, are making their own way, and all of them are dead in earnest. All the illustrators know Mrs. Saunders. Half of us have lived under her roof some time or other."
"You, too!"
He smiled at her tone.
"I wasn't born with a golden spoon, you know. Some New Yorkers aren't. I inherited a little money, but I'm not a plutocrat yet, even if editors do smile upon me. Julie and I thoroughly mastered the gentle art of scrimping at one time. Have I ever mentioned my sister, Mrs. Van Ostade?"
"You spoke of her the day I saw you first."
"At the birches?" he returned, surprised.
"You said she would not understand."
His eyes sobered.