Bartlett.—"Well, I don't know. I thought perhaps—I supposed—I imagined somehow from something she said, or that happened—it was offensive to Miss Wyatt."
General Wyatt.—"Why, bless your heart, man, she minds it no more than I do!"
Bartlett.—"You don't say so! Why, I haven't smoked any for the last two weeks, because—because— And I'm almost dead for a pipe!"
General Wyatt.—"Why, poor fellow! Why, here! Take a cigar!"
Bartlett, significantly shaking his head.—"Oh, no, no! I said a pipe." He rushes to an old studio jacket which the landlady has hung for him on the back of a chair; he dives in one pocket and gets out a pipe, plunges into another and extracts a pouch of tobacco. He softly groans and murmurs with impatience while he makes these explorations. Upon their success: "So lucky Mrs. Ransom brought down that coat. I couldn't have lived to get up-stairs after it!" Stuffing his pipe in a frenzy, he runs to the General for a match; that veteran has already lighted it, and extends it toward him. Bartlett stoops over the flame, pipe in mouth. As the General drops the extinct match upon the floor the painter puffs a great cloud, in which involved he is putting on his studio jacket when Constance appears at the door. He instinctively snatches his pipe from his lips and puts it in his pocket.
III.
Constance, Bartlett, and General Wyatt.