Part 114 (1/2)
A light frost lay white on the shoulder of d.i.c.k's ulster. He, too, had forgotten the state of the weather. They laughed together, and with that laugh ended all serious discourse.
They ran inland across the waste to warm themselves, then turned to look at the glory of the full tide under the moonlight and the intense black shadows of the furze bushes. It was an additional joy to d.i.c.k that Maisie could see colour even as he saw it,--could see the blue in the white of the mist, the violet that is in gray palings, and all things else as they are,--not of one hue, but a thousand. And the moonlight came into Maisie's soul, so that she, usually reserved, chattered of herself and of the things she took interest in,--of Kami, wisest of teachers, and of the girls in the studio,--of the Poles, who will kill themselves with overwork if they are not checked; of the French, who talk at great length of much more than they will ever accomplish; of the slovenly English, who toil hopelessly and cannot understand that inclination does not imply power; of the Americans, whose rasping voices in the hush of a hot afternoon strain tense-drawn nerves to breaking-point, and whose suppers lead to indigestion; of tempestuous Russians, neither to hold nor to bind, who tell the girls ghost-stories till the girls shriek; of stolid Germans, who come to learn one thing, and, having mastered that much, stolidly go away and copy pictures for evermore. d.i.c.k listened enraptured because it was Maisie who spoke. He knew the old life.
”It hasn't changed much,” he said. ”Do they still steal colours at lunch-time?”
”Not steal. Attract is the word. Of course they do. I'm good--I only attract ultramarine; but there are students who'd attract flake-white.”
”I've done it myself. You can't help it when the palettes are hung up.
Every colour is common property once it runs down,--even though you do start it with a drop of oil. It teaches people not to waste their tubes.”
”I should like to attract some of your colours, d.i.c.k. Perhaps I might catch your success with them.”
”I mustn't say a bad word, but I should like to. What in the world, which you've just missed a lovely chance of seeing, does success or want of success, or a three-storied success, matter compared with----No, I won't open that question again. It's time to go back to town.”
”I'm sorry, d.i.c.k, but----”
”You're much more interested in that than you are in me.”
”I don't know, I don't think I am.”
”What will you give me if I tell you a sure short-cut to everything you want,--the trouble and the fuss and the tangle and all the rest? Will you promise to obey me?”
”Of course.”
”In the first place, you must never forget a meal because you happen to be at work. You forgot your lunch twice last week,” said d.i.c.k, at a venture, for he knew with whom he was dealing.
”No, no,--only once, really.”
”That's bad enough. And you mustn't take a cup of tea and a biscuit in place of a regular dinner, because dinner happens to be a trouble.”
”You're making fun of me!”
”I never was more in earnest in my life. Oh, my love, my love, hasn't it dawned on you yet what you are to me? Here's the whole earth in a conspiracy to give you a chill, or run over you, or drench you to the skin, or cheat you out of your money, or let you die of overwork and underfeeding, and I haven't the mere right to look after you. Why, I don't even know if you have sense enough to put on warm things when the weather's cold.”
”d.i.c.k, you're the most awful boy to talk to--really! How do you suppose I managed when you were away?”
”I wasn't here, and I didn't know. But now I'm back I'd give everything I have for the right of telling you to come in out of the rain.”
”Your success too?”
This time it cost d.i.c.k a severe struggle to refrain from bad words.
”As Mrs. Jennett used to say, you're a trial, Maisie! You've been cooped up in the schools too long, and you think every one is looking at you.
There aren't twelve hundred people in the world who understand pictures.
The others pretend and don't care. Remember, I've seen twelve hundred men dead in toadstool-beds. It's only the voice of the tiniest little fraction of people that makes success. The real world doesn't care a tinker's--doesn't care a bit. For aught you or I know, every man in the world may be arguing with a Maisie of his own.”
”Poor Maisie!”
”Poor d.i.c.k, I think. Do you believe while he's fighting for what's dearer than his life he wants to look at a picture? And even if he did, and if all the world did, and a thousand million people rose up and shouted hymns to my honour and glory, would that make up to me for the knowledge that you were out shopping in the Edgware Road on a rainy day without an umbrella? Now we'll go to the station.”