Landon shrugged and buttered a roll. "You let her alone," he said.
"Reveal to me instantly her name, titles, and quality!" shouted Ellis, unsheathing a Japanese sword.
"Her name," said Landon, "is O'Connor; her quality is that of a shopgirl. She is motherless and alone, and inhabits a kennel across the hall. Don't make eyes at her. She'll probably believe whatever the first gentlemanly blackguard tells her."
Ellis said: "Why may I not—in a delicately detached and gayly impersonal, yet delightfully and evasively irrational manner, calculated to deceive nobody——"
"That would sound very funny in the Latin Quarter. This is New York." He rose, frowning. Presently he picked up the sponge. "Better let a lonely heart alone, unless you're in earnest," he said, and flung the sponge back into a bucket of water, dried his hands, and looked around.
"Have you sold any pictures yet?"
"Not one. I thought I had a Copper King nailed to the easel, but Fate separated us on a clinch and he got away and disappeared behind the bars of his safe deposit. How goes the market with you?"
"Dead. I can live on my furniture for a while."
"I thought you were going in on that competition for the Department of Peace at Washington."