He felt as if the world were
under his feet and he spoke to Melissa with an air of lofty
condescension which should have amused her, but which she received with
the utmost humility.
"Well," he said, "what do you think of that for a crowd? Wasn't that a
swell mob? Didn't you notice what a lot of bang-up people there were at
the studio this afternoon?"
"Of course I didn't know many of them," Melissa returned humbly; "but I
could see that there were a lot of people that everybody seemed to
know. I'm glad that you were pleased."
Orin pulled out a big cigar and bit the end off it excitedly.
"Pleased!" he echoed. "I was more than pleased--I was delighted. All
the committee were there, of course, and half the fashionable women of
Boston."
"I heard a lady telling another who the artists were," Milly observed,
glad to find a subject upon which she could talk to Orin easily.
"O yes, there were a lot of artists there, but they don't count for
much in getting a fellow commissions."
Stanton had evidently no intention of being satirical, but spoke with
straightforward plainness what he would have regarded, had he given the
matter any thought at all, as being a truth too obvious to need any
disguises. His Philistinism was of the perfectly ingrained, inborn
sort, which never having appreciated that it is naked has never felt
the need of being ashamed; and he let it be seen on any occasion with a
frankness which arose from the fact that it had never occurred to him
that there was any reason why he should conceal it.
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