FOR a week or two a great many people came to the gallery; but, even with Lewis as interpreter, the pictures failed to make themselves heard. During the first days, indeed, owing to the unprecedented idea of holding a paying exhibition in a private house, and to the mockery of the newspapers, the Gallery of Christian Art was thronged with noisy curiosity-seekers; once the astonished metropolitan police had to be invited in to calm their comments and control their movements. But the name of “Christian Art” soon chilled this class of sightseer, and before long they were replaced by a dumb and respectable throng, who roamed vacantly through the rooms and out again, grumbling that it wasn’t worth the money. Then these too diminished; and once the tide had turned, the ebb was rapid. Every day from two to four Lewis still sat shivering among his treasures, or patiently measured the length of the deserted gallery: as long as there was a chance of any one coming he would not admit that he was beaten. For the next visitor might always be the one who understood.

One snowy February day he had thus paced the rooms in unbroken solitude for above an hour when carriage-wheels stopped at the door. He hastened to open it, and in a great noise of silks his sister Sarah Anne Huzzard entered.

Lewis felt for a moment as he used to under his father’s glance. Marriage and millions had given the moon-faced Sarah some of the Raycie awfulness; but her brother looked into her empty eyes, and his own kept their level.

“Well, Lewis,” said Mrs. Huzzard with a simpering sternness, and caught her breath.

“Well, Sarah Anne — I’m happy that you’ve come to take a look at my pictures.”

“I’ve come to see you and your wife.” She gave another nervous gasp, shook out her flounces, and added in a rush: “And to ask you how much longer this . . . this spectacle is to continue . . . ”

“The exhibition?” Lewis smiled. She signed a flushed assent.

“Well, there has been a considerable falling-off lately in the number of visitors — ”

“Thank heaven!” she interjected.

“But as long as I feel that any one wishes to come . . . I shall be here . . . to open the door, as you see.”

She sent a shuddering glance about her. “Lewis — I wonder if you realize . . .?”

“Oh, fully.”

“Then WHY do you go on? Isn’t it enough — aren’t you satisfied?”

“With the effect they have produced?”

“With the effect YOU have produced — on your family and on the whole of New York. With a slur on poor Papa’s memory.”

“Papa left me the pictures, Sarah Anne.”

“Yes. But not to make yourself a mountebank about them.”

Lewis considered this impartially. “Are you sure? Perhaps, on the contrary, he did if for that very reason.”

“Oh, don’t heap more insults on our father’s memory! Things are bad enough without that. How your wife can allow it I can’t see. Do you ever consider the humiliation to HER?”

Lewis gave another dry smile. “She’s used to being humiliated. The Kents accustomed her to that.”

Sarah Anne reddened. “I don’t know why I should stay and be spoken to in this way. But I came with my husband’s approval.”

“Do you need that to come and see your brother?”

“I need it to — to make the offer I am about to make; and which he authorizes.”

Lewis looked at her in surprise, and she purpled up to the lace ruffles inside her satin bonnet.

“Have you come to make an offer for my collection?” he asked her humorously.

“You seem to take pleasure in insinuating preposterous things. But anything is better than this public slight on our name.” Again she ran a shuddering glance over the pictures. “John and I,” she announced, “are prepared to double the allowance mother left you on condition that this . . . this ends . . . for good. That that horrible sign is taken down tonight.”

Lewis seemed mildly to weigh the proposal. “Thank you very much, Sarah Anne,” he said at length. “I’m touched . . . touched and . . . and surprised . . . that you and John should have made this offer. But perhaps, before I decline it, you will accept MINE: simply to show you my pictures. When once you’ve looked at them I think you’ll understand — ”

Mrs. Huzzard drew back hastily, her air of majesty collapsing. “Look at the pictures? Oh, thank you . . . but I can see them very well from here. And besides, I don’t pretend to be a judge . . . ”

“Then come up and see Treeshy and the baby,” said Lewis quietly.

She stared at him, embarrassed. “Oh, thank you,” she stammered again; and as she prepared to follow him: “Then it’s NO............