Part 1 (2/2)
She looked him steadily in the face now, her intent and questioning regard shading off into a somewhat arch smile.
”I can't think of any way,” said she, ”unless it would be by posing for me.”
”There's another way,” he answered, ”and the only one I'd care about.”
She suddenly became absorbed in the contemplation of the paints on her palette, at which she made little thrusts with a brush; and at last she queried, doubtfully, ”How?”
”I've heard or read,” he answered, ”that no artist ever rises to the highest, you know, until after experiencing some great love. I--can't you think of any other way besides the posing?”
She brought the brush close to her eyes, minutely inspecting its point for a moment, then seemed to take in his expression with a swift sweeping glance, resumed the examination of the brush, and finally looked him in the face again, a little red spot glowing in her cheek, and a glint of fire in her eye. I was too dense to understand it, but I felt that there was a trace of resentment in her mien.
”Oh, I don't know about that!” she said. ”There may be some other way. I haven't met all your friends, and you may be the means of introducing me to the very man.”
I did not hear his reply, though I confess I tried to catch it. She resumed her work of copying one of the paintings. This she did in a mechanical sort of way, slowly, and with crabbed touches, but with some success. I thought her lacking in anything like control over the medium in which she worked; but the results promised rather well. He seemed annoyed at her sudden accession of industry, and looked sometimes quizzically at her work, often hungrily at her. Once or twice he touched her hand as she stepped near him; but she neither reproved him nor allowed him to retain it.
I felt that I had taken her measure by this time. She was some Western country girl, well supplied with money, blindly groping toward the career of an artist. Her accent, her dress, and her occupation told of her origin and station in life, and of her ambitions. The blindness I guessed,--partly from the manner of her work, partly from the inherent probabilities of the case. If the young man had been eliminated from this problem with which my love-sick imagination was busying itself, I could have followed her back confidently to some rural neighborhood, and to a year or two of painting portraits from photographs, and landscapes from ”studies,” and exhibiting them at the county fair; the teaching of some pupils, in an unnecessary but conscientiously thrifty effort to get back some of the money invested in an ”art education” in Chicago; and a final reversion to type after her marriage with the village lawyer, doctor or banker, or the owner of the adjoining farm. I was young; but I had studied people, and had already seen such things happen.
But the young man could not be eliminated. He sat there idly, his every word and look surcharged with pa.s.sion. As I wondered how long it would be until they were as happy as Alice and I, the thought grew upon me that, however familiar might be the type to which she belonged, he was uncla.s.sified. His accent was Eastern--of New York, I judged. He looked like the young men in the magazine ill.u.s.trations--interesting, but outside my field of observation. And I could not fail to see that girl must find herself similarly at odds with him. ”But,” thought I, ”love levels all!” And I freshly interrogated the pictures and statues for transportation to my own private Elysium, forgetful of my unconscious neighbors.
My attention was recalled to them, however, by their arrangements for departure, and a concomitant slightly louder tone in their conversation.
”It's just a spectacular show,” said he; ”no plot or anything of that sort, you know, but good music and dancing; and when we get tired of it we can go. We'll have a little supper at Auriccio's afterward, if you'll be so kind. It's only a step from McVicker's.”
”Won't it be pretty late?” she queried.
”Not for Chicago,” said he, ”and you'll find material for a picture at Auriccio's about midnight. It's quite like the Latin Quarter, sometimes.”
”I want to see the real Latin Quarter, and no imitation,” she answered.
”Oh, I guess I'll go. It'll furnish me with material for a letter to mamma, however the picture may turn out.”
”I'll order supper for the Empress,” said he, ”and--”
”And for the ill.u.s.trious Sir John,” she added. ”But you mustn't call me that any more. I've been reading her history, and I don't like it. I'm glad he died on St. Helena, now: I used to feel sorry for him.”
”Transfer your pity to the downtrodden Sir John,” he replied, ”and make a real living man happy.”
They pa.s.sed out and left me to my dreams. But visions did not return. My idyl was spoiled. Old-fas.h.i.+oned ideas emerged, and took form in the plain light of every-day common-sense. I knew the wonderfully gorgeous spectacle these two young people were going to see at the play that night, with its lights, its music, its splendidly meretricious Orientalism. And I knew Auriccio's,--not a disreputable place at all, perhaps; but free-and-easy, and distinctly Bohemian. I wished that this little girl, so arrogantly and ignorantly disdainful (as Alice would have been under the same circ.u.mstances) of such European conventions as the chaperon, so fresh, so young, so full of allurement, so under the influence of this smooth, dark, and pa.s.sionate wooer with the vibrant voice, could be otherwise accompanied on this night of pleasure than by himself alone.
”It's none of your business,” said the voice of that cold-hearted and slothful spirit which keeps us in our groove, ”and you couldn't do anything, anyhow. Besides, he's abjectly in love with her: would there be any danger if it were you and your Alice?”
”I'm not at all sure about him or his abjectness,” replied my uneasy conscience. ”He knows better than to do this.”
”What do you know of either of them?” answered this same Spirit of Routine. ”What signify a few sentences casually overheard? She may be something quite different; there are strange things in Chicago.”
”I'll wager anything,” said I hotly, ”that she's a good American girl of the sort I live among and was brought up with! And she may be in danger.”
”If she's that sort of girl,” said the Voice, ”you may rely upon her to take care of herself.”
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