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 Grover to follow. The hard glitter had returned to the dark eyes as Mme. Casimir performed the last rites over the devastated table and retired to the corner by the window to resume her knitting.

And now, thought Grover with a sigh of relief, as he followed the other men downstairs and across the cold gray court, now that food is disposed of, perhaps art will have a hearing.

"My wife," chuckled Casimir, as he unlocked the door to his atelier, "is not allowed in this room. She calls me Bluebeard. I let her have her way about everything else; but with my work she shan't interfere. Once my paintings are finished, I give her a free hand. She hatches them out into real estate and government bonds."

They were standing in a studio that had the austerity of a tomb. The only furnishings were a dais, two easels, a couch, a few plain chairs, and some pieces of colored cloth thrown over a table on which reposed three lemons and an egg-plant.

Vaudreuil examined the half-finished canvas on the easel and exclaimed over the subtlety with which the painter had worked out the relationship between the objects,—whatever that might mean. To Grover the painting looked like the effort of an imbecile child. To avoid being drawn into the discussion he mounted