When, at last, they returned to the parlor, they found another caller had arrived during their absence, a small, shabbily dressed man, with a high, bald head and weak, near-sighted eyes. It was Turner Joyce. Oakley knew him just as he was beginning to know every other man, woman, and child in the town.
Joyce rose hastily, or rather stumbled to his feet, as the doctor and Oakley entered the room.
“I told you I was coming up, doctor,” he said, apologetically. “Miss Constance has been very kind. She has been telling me of the galleries and studios. What a glorious experience!”
A cynical smile parted Ryder's thin lips.
“Mr. Joyce feels the isolation of his art here.” The little man blinked doubtfully at the speaker, and then said, with a gentle, deprecatory gesture, “I don't call it art.”
“You are far too modest. I have heard my foreman speak in the most complimentary terms of the portrait you did of his wife. He was especially pleased with the frame. You must know. Miss Constance, that Mr. Joyce usually furnishes the frames, and his pictures go home ready to the wire to hang on the wall.”
Mr. Joyce continued to blink doubtfully at Ryder. He scarcely knew how to take the allusion to the frames. It was a sore point with him.
Constance turned with a displeased air from Ryder to the little artist. There was a faint, wistful smile on her lips. He was a rather pathetic figure to her, and she could not understand how Ryder dared or had the heart to make fun.
“I shall enjoy seeing all that you have done, Mr. Joyce; and of course I wish to see Ruth. Why didn't she come with you to-night?”
“Her cousin, Lou Bentick's wife, is dead, and she has been over at his house all day. She was quite worn out, but she sent you her love.”