Over the mantel were scattered photographs of stage divinities in profusion. Many of them had autographs scrawled across the face of the picture. In a niche in the wall a human skull, with a clay pipe stuck jauntily between the teeth, looked out over the smoke.
From the next room, beyond the open portieres, came the sound of a violin and a piano.
The air of Mascagni's "Intermezzo" died away, and for it was substituted a slow dirge-like melody. Belden, in the front room, broke out into an explosive, "Ah, that's the stuff! Everybody sing: 'For they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mohn-nin'.'" The wail of that solemn ballad went echoing through the house, all the men present joining in. Belden, who had been lying at full length on the floor, explaining the beauties of a charcoal drawing by Menzel to a group of three other artists—Marsboro, of the Telegraph, Evans, of the Standard, and a younger man, Stevely, who was still going to the Art School—had jumped to his feet and was slowly waving a pencil in mock leadership of a chorus. Vanstruther, who was stealing an evening from society for Bohemia's sake, was far back in a huge rocking chair; a fantastic work by Octave Uzanne on his knee, and his legs stretched out over the center table; he now held his pipe in his hand and hummed the refrain in a deep bass.
"Go on," urged Belden, as the last notes moaned themselves away in the smoke, "go on, give us something else!" But Stanley laid his violin down on a bookcase and declared that his arm was tired.
Vanstruther pulled at his pipe again, until he was sure he still had fire. Then he declared, oracularly, "Stanley, you look tremendously religious tonight. Been jilted?
"No, shaved. You confirm an impression I have that a man never feels so religious as when he has just been shaved. I assure you that in this way I could really read one of your 'shockers,' Van, and feel that I was doing my duty."
"Oh," Belden cut in, going over to one of the bookcases, "anything to stop Stanley from hearing himself talk. It makes him drunk. Seeing we had a ballad of Kipling's just now, suppose some one reads something of his. Then someone else can sit still, and think of his sins, while the pen-and-ink men make sketches of him. How'll that do, eh?
"All right." It was Vanstruther, whose voice came from over the smoke. "I'll read if you like; and Stanley can get a far-away expression into his countenance, while you other fellows put his ephemeral beauty on paper. What'll it be?"
Stanley, who was rolling himself onto a sofa in the corner, murmured, while he rolled a cigarette with a deft motion of his fingers, "Oh, give us that yarn about the things in a dead man's eye, what's the title again—'At the End of the Passage', isn't it? I'm in the mood for something of that pleasant sort. By the way, aren't we a man shy, Belden?"
"Yes. Young Lancaster hasn't arrived yet. I had a great time getting him to say he would come; he has scruples about Sunday, and all that sort of thing; but he'll turn up pretty soon, I know. Here's the book, Van." He handed the volume across the table. Stanley, after a few chaffing remarks had passed back and forth, was arranged into a position that would give the artists a sharp profile to work from. The artists began sharpening pencils, and pinning paper on drawing boards. And then, for a time, there was nothing but the sounds of pens and pencils going over paper, and Vanstruther's voice reading that story of Indian heat and hopelessness. In the other room McRoy, the man who had been playing Stanley's piano accompaniment, was reading Swinburne to himself.