Part 107 (2/2)

”It came of itself. Who's the man that says that we're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding?”

”He's right, whoever he is,--except about the misunderstanding. I don't think we could misunderstand each other.”

The blue smoke curled back from the ceiling in clouds. Then Torpenhow, insinuatingly--”d.i.c.k, is it a woman?”

”Be hanged if it's anything remotely resembling a woman; and if you begin to talk like that, I'll hire a red-brick studio with white paint tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and begonias and petunias and blue Hungarias to play among three-and-sixpenny pot-palms, and I'll mount all my pics in aniline-dye plush plasters, and I'll invite every woman who maunders over what her guide-books tell her is Art, and you shall receive 'em, Torp,--in a snuff-brown velvet coat with yellow trousers and an orange tie. You'll like that?”

”Too thin, d.i.c.k. A better man than you once denied with cursing and swearing. You've overdone it, just as he did. It's no business of mine, of course, but it's comforting to think that somewhere under the stars there's saving up for you a tremendous thras.h.i.+ng. Whether it'll come from heaven or earth, I don't know, but it's bound to come and break you up a little. You want hammering.”

d.i.c.k s.h.i.+vered. ”All right,” said he. ”When this island is disintegrated, it will call for you.”

”I shall come round the corner and help to disintegrate it some more.

We're talking nonsense. Come along to a theatre.”

CHAPTER VI

”And you may lead a thousand men, Nor ever draw the rein, But ere ye lead the Faery Queen 'Twill burst your heart in twain.”

He has slipped his foot from the stirrup-bar, The bridle from his hand, And he is bound by hand and foot To the Queen 'o Faery-land.

----Sir Hoggie and the Fairies.

Some weeks later, on a very foggy Sunday, d.i.c.k was returning across the Park to his studio. ”This,” he said, ”is evidently the thras.h.i.+ng that Torp meant. It hurts more than I expected; but the Queen can do no wrong; and she certainly has some notion of drawing.”

He had just finished a Sunday visit to Maisie,--always under the green eyes of the red-haired impressionist girl, whom he learned to hate at sight,--and was tingling with a keen sense of shame. Sunday after Sunday, putting on his best clothes, he had walked over to the untidy house north of the Park, first to see Maisie's pictures, and then to criticise and advise upon them as he realised that they were productions on which advice would not be wasted. Sunday after Sunday, and his love grew with each visit, he had been compelled to cram his heart back from between his lips when it prompted him to kiss Maisie several times and very much indeed. Sunday after Sunday, the head above the heart had warned him that Maisie was not yet attainable, and that it would be better to talk as connectedly as possible upon the mysteries of the craft that was all in all to her. Therefore it was his fate to endure weekly torture in the studio built out over the clammy back garden of a frail stuffy little villa where nothing was ever in its right place and n.o.body every called,--to endure and to watch Maisie moving to and fro with the teacups. He abhorred tea, but, since it gave him a little longer time in her presence, he drank it devoutly, and the red-haired girl sat in an untidy heap and eyed him without speaking. She was always watching him.

Once, and only once, when she had left the studio, Maisie showed him an alb.u.m that held a few poor cuttings from provincial papers,--the briefest of hurried notes on some of her pictures sent to outlying exhibitions. d.i.c.k stooped and kissed the paint-smudged thumb on the open page. ”Oh, my love, my love,” he muttered, ”do you value these things?

Chuck 'em into the waste-paper basket!”

”Not till I get something better,” said Maisie, shutting the book.

Then d.i.c.k, moved by no respect for his public and a very deep regard for the maiden, did deliberately propose, in order to secure more of these coveted cuttings, that he should paint a picture which Maisie should sign.

”That's childish,” said Maisie, ”and I didn't think it of you. It must be my work. Mine,--mine,--mine!”

”Go and design decorative medallions for rich brewers' houses. You are thoroughly good at that.” d.i.c.k was sick and savage.

”Better things than medallions, d.i.c.k,” was the answer, in tones that recalled a gray-eyed atom's fearless speech to Mrs. Jennett. d.i.c.k would have abased himself utterly, but that other girl trailed in.

Next Sunday he laid at Maisie's feet small gifts of pencils that could almost draw of themselves and colours in whose permanence he believed, and he was ostentatiously attentive to the work in hand. It demanded, among other things, an exposition of the faith that was in him.

Torpenhow's hair would have stood on end had he heard the fluency with which d.i.c.k preached his own gospel of Art.

A month before, d.i.c.k would have been equally astonished; but it was Maisie's will and pleasure, and he dragged his words together to make plain to her comprehension all that had been hidden to himself of the whys and wherefores of work. There is not the least difficulty in doing a thing if you only know how to do it; the trouble is to explain your method.

”I could put this right if I had a brush in my hand,” said d.i.c.k, despairingly, over the modelling of a chin that Maisie complained would not ”look flesh,”--it was the same chin that she had sc.r.a.ped out with the palette knife,--”but I find it almost impossible to teach you.

There's a queer grim Dutch touch about your painting that I like; but I've a notion that you're weak in drawing. You foreshorten as though you never used the model, and you've caught Kami's pasty way of dealing with flesh in shadow. Then, again, though you don't know it yourself, you s.h.i.+rk hard work. Suppose you spend some of your time on line lone. Line doesn't allow of s.h.i.+rking. Oils do, and three square inches of flashy, tricky stuff in the corner of a pic sometimes carry a bad thing off,--as I know. That's immoral. Do line-work for a little while, and then I can tell more about your powers, as old Kami used to say.”

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