CHAPTER XVII
It was almost spring. The florists' windows were full of yellow primroses, of hyacinths, of blood-red tulips. Sunshades and dimity gowns appeared in the dry-goods shops. In the street, a vender's cry of "Strawberries, fresh strawberries!" floated across fast-falling snow.
The annual March exhibition of the Art Club opened to-day. Pieces of clever work covered the walls of the club-rooms. There were landscapes, seascapes, faces, figures, interiors. A white Indian mosque jostled the corner of an old New England garden; a view of Siberian convict life, in the style of Verestschagin, rested by the portrait of an anæmic woman, painted in the manner of Whistler; and a daring study (inspired by Zorn) of six people in a theatre box, full in the glare of electric light, hung close to Anne Bradford's tiny picture of the old sailor.
In most of the work a mannerism was
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