“And his star trick?”

“He’s a secessionist sculptor.”

“What’s that?”

“He is one of the ultra-modern men who has seceded 210 from the Society of American Sculptors to form, with a few others, a new group.”

“Is he any good?”

“Well, Jim, I don’t know,” she said candidly. “I don’t think I am quite in sympathy with his work.”

“What sort is it?”

“If I understand him, he is what is termed, I believe, a concentrationist. For instance, in a nude figure which he is exhibiting in his studio, it’s all a rough block of marble except, in the middle of the upper part, there is a nose.”

“A nose!”

“Really, it is beautifully sculptured,” insisted Palla.