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 drawing, and I should like to know under what auspices, or whose."

Vaudreuil shrugged his shoulders. "My uncle," he said, "was régisseur of an abortive art theatre in Lyon. Ibsen held no thrall for the makers of silk. I spent my childhood back-stage; my sister and I played Nora's children; and I constructed miniature settings out of bits of cardboard. When I first came to Paris I danced in a ballet at the Chatelêt. For one production I submitted designs, which were accepted. I knew Casimir in the days before he had become a cult, and he let me paint in a corner of his studio. His criticism of my work was valuable."

"Who is Casimir?" asked Grover timidly.

But it seemed a matter of indifference to Vaudreuil that the name of Casimir had not yet penetrated the consciousness of this particular outlander.

"Since Cézanne," he said calmly, "he is probably the first innovator of any real consequence."

Grover's mind leaped ahead to an interview and foresaw a contemptuous dismissal as soon as this rare genius should get a glimpse of the old-fashioned sketches in his chaste portfolio.

"Does Casimir take pupils?" he asked.

"He has a small group of disciples who imitate him and pick up crumbs of wisdom they can't digest. No painter who respects himself will seek to impose a method of painting. The best he can hope to do is to point out to a less experienced painter wherein he is