Part 35 (2/2)

Brune stood up. His face was quite calm now and his voice, when he spoke again, was firm and vibrating.

”I have some work that I should wish to finish. How long can you give me?”

”Three months.”

”One will do if my strength keeps up at all. Good-bye.”

There was a thin c.h.i.n.k of coins grating one against the other. The specialist said:--

”I will call on you to-morrow, between four and five. I have more directions to give you. To-day my time is so much taken up. Good-bye.”

The door closed.

In the waiting-room, a moment later, Brune was gathering up his coat and hat.

The two ladies eyed him curiously as he took them and pa.s.sed out.

”He does look a little pale, after all,” whispered one of them. A moment later he was in the street.

From the window of his consulting-room, Gerard Fane watched the tall figure striding down the pavement.

”I am sorry that man is going to die,” he said to himself.

And then he turned gravely to greet a new patient.

II

Gerard Fane's victoria drew up at the iron gate of No. 5 Ilbury Road, Kensington, at a quarter past four the following afternoon. A narrow strip of garden divided the sculptor's big red house from the road.

Ornamental ironwork on a brick foundation closed it in. The great studio, with its huge windows and its fluted pillars, was built out at one end. The failing sunlight glittered on its gla.s.s, and the dingy sparrows perched upon the roof to catch the parting radiance as the twilight fell. The doctor glanced round him and thought, ”How hard this man must have worked! In London this is a little palace.”

”Will you come into the studio, sir, please?” said the footman in answer to his summons. ”Mr Brune is there at present.”

”Surely he cannot be working,” thought the doctor, as he followed the man down a gla.s.s-covered paved pa.s.sage, and through a high doorway across which a heavy curtain fell. ”If so, he must possess resolution almost more than mortal.”

He pa.s.sed beyond the curtain, and looked round him curiously.

The studio was only dimly lit now, for daylight was fast fading. On a great open hearth, with dogs, a log-fire was burning; and beside it, on an old-fas.h.i.+oned oaken settle, sat a woman in a loose cream-coloured tea-gown. She was half turning round to speak to Reginald Brune, who stood a little to her left, clad in a long blouse, fastened round his waist with a band. He had evidently recently finished working, for his hands still bore evident traces of labour, and in front of him, on a raised platform, stood a statue that was not far from completion. The doctor's eyes were attracted from the woman by the log-fire, from his patient, by the lifeless, white, nude figure that seemed to press forward out of the gathering gloom. The sculptor and his wife had not heard him announced, apparently, for they continued conversing in low tones, and he paused in the doorway, strangely fascinated--he could scarcely tell why--by the marble creation of a dying man.

The statue, which was life size, represented the figure of a beautiful, grave youth, standing with one foot advanced, as if on the point of stepping forward. His muscular arms hung loosely; his head was slightly turned aside as in the att.i.tude of one who listens for a repet.i.tion of some vague sound heard at a distance. His whole pose suggested an alert, yet restrained, watchfulness. The triumph of the sculptor lay in the extraordinary suggestion of life he had conveyed into the marble. His creature lived as many mollusc men never live. Its muscles seemed tense, its body quivering with eagerness to accomplish--what? To attack, to repel, to protect, to perform some deed demanding manfulness, energy, free, fearless strength.

”That marble thing could slay if necessary,” thought Gerard Fane, with a thrill of the nerves all through him that startled him, and recalled him to himself.

He stepped forward to the hearth quietly, and Brune turned and took him by the hand.

”I did not hear you,” the sculptor said. ”The man must have opened the door very gently. Sydney, this is Dr Gerard Fane, who is kindly looking after me.”

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