Part 53 (1/2)
”Doesn't _he_ speak well?”--and Nash appealed with radiance to their companion.
She took no notice of him, only repeating to Nick that she hadn't forgotten his friendly att.i.tude in Paris; and when he answered that he surely had done very little she broke out, first resting her eyes on him with a deep, reasonable smile and then springing up quickly; ”Ah well, if I must justify myself I liked you!”
”Fancy my appearing to challenge you!” laughed Nick in deprecation. ”To see you again is to want tremendously to try something. But you must have an infinite patience, because I'm an awful duffer.”
She looked round the walls. ”I see what you've done--_bien des choses_.”
”She understands--she understands,” Gabriel dropped. And he added to their visitor: ”Imagine, when he might do something, his choosing a life of shams! At bottom he's like you--a wonderful artistic nature.”
”I'll have patience,” said the girl, smiling at Nick.
”Then, my children, I leave you--the peace of the Lord be with you.”
With which words Nash took his departure.
The others chose a position for the young woman's sitting after she had placed herself in many different att.i.tudes and different lights; but an hour had elapsed before Nick got to work--began, on a large canvas, to ”knock her in,” as he called it. He was hindered even by the fine element of agitation, the emotion of finding himself, out of a clear sky, confronted with such a subject and launched in such a task. What could the situation be but incongruous just after he had formally renounced all manner of ”art”?--the renunciation taking effect not a bit the less from the whim he had all consciously treated himself to _as_ a whim (the last he should ever descend to!) the freak of a fortnight's relapse into a fingering of old sketches for the purpose, as he might have said, of burning them up, of clearing out his studio and terminating his lease. There were both embarra.s.sment and inspiration in the strange chance of s.n.a.t.c.hing back for an hour a relinquished joy: the jump with which he found he could still rise to such an occasion took away his breath a little, at the same time that the idea--the idea of what one might make of such material--touched him with an irresistible wand. On the spot, to his inner vision, Miriam became a rich result, drawing a hundred formative forces out of their troubled sleep, defying him where he privately felt strongest and imposing herself triumphantly in her own strength. He had the good fortune, without striking matches, to see her, as a subject, in a vivid light, and his quick attempt was as exciting as a sudden gallop--he might have been astride, in a boundless field, of a runaway horse.
She was in her way so fine that he could only think how to ”do” her: that hard calculation soon flattened out the consciousness, lively in him at first, that she was a beautiful woman who had sought him out of his retirement. At the end of their first sitting her having done so appeared the most natural thing in the world: he had a perfect right to entertain her there--explanations and complications were engulfed in the productive mood. The business of ”knocking her in” held up a lamp to her beauty, showed him how much there was of it and that she was infinitely interesting. He didn't want to fall in love with her--that _would_ be a sell, he said to himself--and she promptly became much too interesting for it. Nick might have reflected, for simplification's sake, as his cousin Peter had done, but with more validity, that he was engaged with Miss Rooth in an undertaking which didn't in the least refer to themselves, that they were working together seriously and that decent work quite gainsaid sensibility--the humbugging sorts alone had to help themselves out with it. But after her first sitting--she came, poor girl, but twice--the need of such exorcisms pa.s.sed from his spirit: he had so thoroughly, so practically taken her up. As to whether his visitor had the same bright and still sense of co-operation to a definite end, the sense of the distinctively technical nature of the answer to every question to which the occasion might give birth, that mystery would be lighted only were it open to us to regard this young lady through some other medium than the mind of her friends. We have chosen, as it happens, for some of the great advantages it carries with it, the indirect vision; and it fails as yet to tell us--what Nick of course wondered about before he ceased to care, as indeed he intimated to her--why a budding celebrity should have dreamed of there being something for her in so blighted a spot. She should have gone to one of the regular people, the great people: they would have welcomed her with open arms. When Nick asked her if some of the R.A.'s hadn't expressed a wish for a crack at her she replied: ”Oh dear no, only the tiresome photographers; and fancy _them_ in the future. If mamma could only do _that_ for me!” And she added with the charming fellows.h.i.+p for which she was conspicuous at these hours: ”You know I don't think any one yet has been quite so much struck with me as you.”
”Not even Peter Sherringham?” her host jested while he stepped back to judge of the effect of a line.
”Oh Mr. Sherringham's different. You're an artist.”
”For pity's sake don't say that!” he cried. ”And as regards _your_ art I thought Peter knew more than any one.”
”Ah you're severe,” said Miriam.
”Severe--?”
”Because that's what the poor dear thinks. But he does know a lot--he has been a providence to me.”
”Then why hasn't he come over to see you act?”
She had a pause. ”How do you know he hasn't come?”
”Because I take for granted he'd have called on me if he had.”
”Does he like you very much?” the girl asked.
”I don't know. I like _him_.”
”He's a gentleman--_pour cela_,” she said.
”Oh yes, for that!” Nick went on absently, labouring hard.
”But he's afraid of me--afraid to see me.”
”Doesn't he think you good enough?”
”On the contrary--he believes I shall carry him away and he's in a terror of my doing it.”