Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/49

A Puritan Bohemia The hostess was sitting by a white-fringed table, making coffee in a Turkish coffee-pot. On the wall, just above the gleaming glass and silver, hung a mask of Dante. The sneering face of a Nôtre Dame devil looked down from the corner.

"My conclusion is," Howard Stanton was remarking, "that, unless I can make my art express my best thought about life, I must abandon my art. And the sum and substance of that thought is this: that life is just a chance to enter into other people's lives and help develop them."

His face wore an expression unnecessarily heroic. Helen Wistar was looking at him with the old, rapt expression of the lecture-room. He always took himself seriously when she was near.

"Nobody must speak for a minute," begged Anne, "or I shall spill the water."

She slowly poured the coffee into tiny Sèvres cups and gave the tray to Annabel, who had just removed the salad plates and was anxiously waiting. Annabel wore