And when these eyes had seen, their owners talked.

Nor did they, by any means, all talk against the portrait.

Some were as loud in its praise as were others in its condemnation; all of which, of course, but helped to attract more eyes to the cause of it all.
For Bertram and his friends these days were, naturally, trying ones.
William finally dreaded to open his newspaper.

(It had become the fashion, when murders and divorces were scarce, occasionally to "feature" somebody's opinion of the Henshaw portrait, on the first page--something that had almost never been known to happen before.) Cyril, according to Marie, played "perfectly awful things on his piano every day, now." Aunt Hannah had said "Oh, my grief and conscience!" so many times that it melted now into a wordless groan whenever a new unfriendly criticism of the portrait met her indignant eyes.
Of all Bertram's friends, Billy, perhaps not unnaturally, was the angriest.

Not only did she, after a time, refuse to read the papers, but she refused even to allow certain ones to be brought into the house, foolish and unreasonable as she knew this to be.
As to the artist himself, Bertram's face showed drawn lines and his eyes sombre shadows, but his words and manner carried a stolid indifference that to Billy was at once heartbreaking and maddening.
"But, Bertram, why don't you do something?
Why don't you say something?
Why don't you act something ?" she burst out one day.
The artist shrugged his shoulders.
"But, my dear, what can I say, or do, or act ?" he asked.
"I don't know, of course," sighed Billy.