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Tietjens said:

'I haven't said anything at all that I can remember.' The obstinacy of his hard race awakened in Macmaster:

'"Since",' he quoted,

"when we stand side by side

Only hands may meet,

Better half this weary world

Lay between us, sweet!

Better far tho' hearts may break

Bid farewell for aye!

Lest thy sad eyes, meeting mine,

Tempt my soul away!"

'You can't,' he continued, 'say that that isn't poetry Great poetry.'

'I can't say,' Tietjens answered contemptuously. 'I don't read poetry except Byron. But it's a filthy picture...'

Macmaster said uncertainly:

'I don't know that I know the picture. Is it in Chicago?' 'It isn't painted!' Tietjens said. 'But it's there!' He continued with sudden fury:

'Damn it. What's the sense of all these attempts to justify fornication? England's mad about it. Well, you've got your John Stuart Mills and your George Eliots for the high-class thing. Leave the furniture out! Or leave me out at least. I tell you it revolts me to think of that obese, oily man who never took a bath, in a grease-spotted dressing-gown and the underclothes he's slept in, standing beside a five-shilling model with crimped hair, or some Mrs. W. Three Stars, gazing into a mirror that reflects their fetid selves and gilt sunfish and drop chandeliers and plates sickening with cold bacon fat and gurgling about passion.'