Page:The Wheel of Time, Collaboration, Owen Wingrave (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/107

 COLLABORATION

know how much people care for my work, but they like my studio (of which, indeed, I am exceedingly fond myself), as they show by their inclination to congregate there at dusky hours on winter afternoons, or on long, dim evenings, when the place looks well with its rich combinations and low-burning lamps, and the bad pictures (my own) are not particularly visible. I won't go into the question of how many of these are purchased, but I rejoice in the distinction that my invitations are never declined. Some of my visitors have been good enough to say that on Sunday evenings in particular there is no pleasanter place in Paris—where so many places are pleasant—none friendlier to easy talk and repeated cigarettes, to the exchange of points of view and the comparison of