"Live," Fosdick replied enigmatically.
"We all live."
"Very few do."
"You mean emotional—heart experiences, like Nan's affairs? … Sometimes I wonder if that wouldn't be—interesting. But it would give John such a shock! … Well, here are the pictures. There's Mrs. Leason's portrait,—flatters her, don't you think?"
Fosdick, leaning his fat hands on his heavy stick, slowly made the round of the canvasses, concluding with the portrait of Mrs. Leason.
"Got some talent in him," he pronounced; "a penny worth. If he can only keep away from this sort of thing," pointing with his stick to the portrait, "he might paint in twenty years."
"But why shouldn't he do portraits? They all have to, to live."
"It isn't the portrait,—it's the sort of thing it brings with it. You met him, I suppose?"
"Yes; dined with him at Mrs. Leason's last week."
"I thought so. That's the beginning of his end."