Part 8 (1/2)

CHAPTER III-MY LADY OF MYSTERY

_Being a single autobiographical chapter from the life of Francis Sedgwick, with editorial comment by Professor Chester Kent._

Dear Kent: Here goes! I met her first on June 22, at three o'clock in the afternoon. Some wonderful cloud effects after a hard rain had brought me out into the open. I had pitched my easel in the hollow, on the Martindale Road, so as to get that clump of pine against the sky.

There I sat working away with a will, when I heard the drumming of hoofs, and a horse with a girl in the saddle came whizzing round the turn almost upon me. Just there the rain had made a puddle of thick sticky mud, the mud-pie variety. As the horse went by at full gallop, a fine, fat, mud pie rose, soared through the air, and landed in the middle of my painting. I fairly yelped.

To get it all off was hopeless. However, I went at it, and was cursing over the job when I heard the hoofs coming back, and the rider pulled up close to me.

”I heard you cry out,” said a voice, very full and low. ”Did I hurt you?

I hope not.”

”No,” I said without looking up. ”Small thanks to you that you didn't!”

My tone silenced her for a moment. Somehow, though, I got the feeling that she was amused more than abashed at my resentment. And her voice was suspiciously meek when she presently spoke again.

”You're an artist, aren't you?”

”No,” I said, busily sc.r.a.ping away at my copperplate. ”I'm an archeologist, engaged in exhuming an ancient ruin from a square mile of mud.”

She laughed; but in a moment became grave again. ”I'm so sorry!” she said. ”I know I shouldn't come plunging around turns in that reckless way. May I-I should like to-buy your picture?”

”You may not,” I replied.

”That isn't quite fair, is it?” she asked. ”If I have done damage, I should be allowed to repair it.”

”Repair?” said I. ”How do you propose to do it? I suppose that you think a picture that can be bought for a hundred-dollar bill can be painted with a hundred-dollar bill.”

”No; I'm not altogether a Philistine,” she said, and I looked up at her for the first time. Her face-(_Elision and Comment by Kent_: _I know her face from the sketches. Why could he not have described the horse?

However, there's one point clear: she is a woman of means._)

She said, ”I don't wonder you're cross. And I'm truly sorry. Is it quite ruined?”

At that I recovered some decency of manner. ”Forgive a hermit,” I said, ”who doesn't see enough people to keep him civilized. The daub doesn't matter.”

She leaned over from the saddle to examine the picture. ”Oh, but it isn't a daub!” she protested. ”I-I know a little about pictures. It's very interesting and curious. But why do you paint it on copper?”

I explained.

”Oh!” she said. ”I should so like to see your prints!”

”Nothing easier,” said I. ”My shack is just over the hill.”

”And there is a Mrs.-” her eyes suggested that I fill the blank.

”Sedgwick?” I finished. ”No. There is no one but my aged and highly respectable Chinaman to play propriety. But in the case of a studio, _les convenances_ are not so rigid but that one may look at pictures unchaperoned.”

”I'm afraid it wouldn't do,” she answered, smiling. ”No, I'll have to wait until-” A shadow pa.s.sed over her face. ”I'm afraid I'll have to give it up.”

Chance settled that point then and there. As she finished, she was in my arms. The girth had loosened, and the saddle had turned with her. I had barely time to twist her foot from the stirrup when the brute of a horse bolted. As it was, her ankle got a bit of a wrench. She turned quite white, and cried out a little. In a moment she was herself again.