Part 9 (1/2)
”He was a nasty cad,” said Jane promptly.
”Of course he was,” said Paul. ”But why did he say it? Do you think there's anything beastly in being a model?”
”Certainly not.” She added in modification: ”That is if you like it.”
”Well, supposing I don't like it?”
She did not reply for a minute or two. Then: ”If you really don't like it, I should be rather glad.”
”Why?” asked Paul.
She raised a piteous face.
”Yes, tell me,” he insisted. ”Tell me why you agree with that cad Higgins?”
”I don't agree with him.”
”You must.”
They fenced for a while. At last he pinned her down.
”Well, if you want to know,” she declared, with a flushed cheek, ”I don't think it's a man's job.”
He bit his lip. He had asked for the truth and he had got it. His own dark suspicions were confirmed. Jane glanced at him fearful of offence.
When they had walked some yards he spoke. ”What would you call a man's job?”
Jane hesitated for an answer. Her life had been pa.s.sed in a sphere where men carpentered or drove horses or sold things in shops. Deeply impressed by the knowledge of Paul's romantic birth and high destiny she could not suggest any such lowly avocations, and she did not know what men's jobs were usually executed by scions of the n.o.bility. A clerk's work was certainly genteel; but even that would be lowering to the hero. She glanced at him again, swiftly. No, he was too beautiful to be penned up in an office from nine to six-thirty every day of his life. On the other hand her feminine intuition appreciated keenly the withering criticism of Higgins. Ever since Paul had first told her of his engagements at the Life Schools she had shrunk from the idea. It was all very well for the boy; but for the man--and being younger than he, she regarded him now as a man--there was something in it that offended her nice sense of human dignity.
”Well,” he said. ”Tell me, what do you call a man's job?”
”Oh, I don't know,” she said in distress; ”something you do with your hands or your brain.”
”You think being a model is undignified.”
”Yes.”
”So do I,” said Paul. ”But I'm doing things with my brain, too, you know,” he added quickly, anxious to be seen again on his pedestal. ”I am getting on with my epic poem. I've done a lot since you last heard it. I'll read you the rest when we get home.”
”That will be lovely,” said Jane, to whom the faculty of rhyming was a never-ceasing wonder. She would sit bemused by the jingling lines and wrapt in awe at the minstrel.
They sat on a bench by the flower-beds, gay in their spring charm of belated crocus and hyacinth and daffodil, with here and there a precocious tulip. Paul, sensitive to beauty, discoursed on flowers. Max Field had a studio in St. John's Wood opening out into a garden, which last summer was a dream of delight. He described it. When he came into his kingdom he intended to have such a garden.
”You'll let me have a peep at it sometimes, won't you?” said Jane.
”Of course,” said Paul.
The lack of enthusiasm in his tone chilled the girl's heart. But she did not protest. In these days, in spite of occasional outspokenness she was still a humble little girl wors.h.i.+pping her brilliant companion from afar.
”How often could I come?” she asked.
”That,” said he, in his boyish pashadom, ”would depend on how good you were.”