Part 19 (1/2)
Ruth came over to him and sat down on a low chair at his side. She put her arm round his waist and rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
”Is he pining for his horrid Vince girl, the poor boy?”
”He certainly is,” said Kirk. ”Or at any rate, for some understudy to her.”
”We must think. Do they _all_ call you Kirk?”
”I've never met one who didn't.”
”What horrible creatures you artists are!”
”My dear kid, you don't understand the thing at all. When you're painting a model she ceases to be a girl at all. You don't think of her as anything except a sort of lay-figure.”
”Good gracious! Does your lay-figure call you Kirk too?”
”It always looks as if it were going to.”
Ruth shuddered.
”It's a repulsive thing. I hate it. It gives me the creeps. I came in here last night and switched on the light, and there it was, goggling at me.”
”Are you getting nervous?”
Ruth's face grew grave.
”Do you know, Kirk, I really believe I am. This morning as I was dressing, I suddenly got the most awful feeling that something terrible was going to happen. I don't know what. It was perfectly vague. I just felt a kind of horror. It pa.s.sed off in a moment or two; but, while it lasted--ugh!”
”How ghastly! Why didn't you tell me before? You must be run down. Look here, let's shut up this place and get out to Florida or somewhere for the winter!”
”Let's don't do anything of the kind. Florida indeed! For the love of Mike, as Steve would say, it's much too expensive. You know, Kirk, we are both frightfully extravagant. I'm sure we are spending too much money as it is. You know you sold out some of your capital only the other day.”
”It was only that once. And you had set your heart on that pendant.
Surely to goodness, if I drag you away from a comfortable home to live in a hovel, the least I can do is to----”
”You didn't drag me. I just walked in and sat down, and you couldn't think how to get rid of me, so in despair you married me.”
”That was it. And now I've got to set to work and make a fortune and--what do you call it?--support you in the style to which you have been accustomed. Which brings us back to the picture. I don't suppose I shall get ten dollars for it, but I feel I shall curl up and die if I don't get it finished. Are you _absolutely_ determined about the Vince girl?”
”I'm adamant. I'm granite. I'm chilled steel. Oh! Kirk, can't you find a nice, motherly old model, with white hair and spectacles? I shouldn't mind _her_ calling you by your first name.”
”But it's absurd. I told you just now that an artist doesn't look on his models as human beings while----”
”I know. I've read all about that in books, and I believed it then.
Why, when I married you, I said to myself: 'I mustn't be foolish.
Kirk's an artist, I mustn't be a comic-supplement wife and object to his using models!' Oh, I was going to be so good and reasonable. You would have loved me! And then, when it came to the real thing, I found I just could not stand it. I know it's silly of me. I know just as well as you do that Miss Vince is quite a nice girl really, and is going to make a splendid Mrs. Travelling Salesman, but that doesn't help me.
It's my wicked nature, I suppose. I'm just a plain cat, and that's all there is to it. Look at the way I treat your friends!”
Kirk started.