Part 32 (1/2)

”Perhaps not. He claims to paint character; possibly I might succeed in chiseling character, but give me a beautiful model, and as a rule I am content to show the surface only. Besides, the bust was for her, and I made the best of my subject.”

”And in the Agricultural piece?” asked Quarles.

”Naturally I idealized her.”

”I suppose he is not the born artist that Musgrave is?” I said, when Forbes had left us.

”I don't know,” returned Quarles. ”We will go and have another look at the bust, and I think on the way home we might drop in and have another look at Musgrave's picture.”

”That portrait bothers me,” I said. ”One might suppose it was the key to the mystery.”

”I am not sure that it isn't,” Quarles answered.

Further acquaintance with the Academy picture had rather a curious effect upon me. I do not think I lost anything of my original sense of repulsion, but I was strangely conscious that there was something attractive in the face. I was astonished to find what a likeness there was between the portrait and the bust. The impression created by one became mingled with the impression made by the other.

I said as much to Quarles.

”That is tantamount to saying they are both fine pieces of work,”

he answered.

”And means, I suppose, that the real woman was somewhere between the two,” said Zena.

”Possibly, but with Musgrave's idea the predominant truth,” said Quarles.

”Why?” asked Zena.

Quarles shrugged his shoulders. He had no answer to give.

”The day after to-morrow, Wigan, we will go to the Agricultural Inst.i.tute.”

”Why not to-morrow?”

”To-morrow I am busy. Did you know I was writing an article for a psychological review?”

On the following evening I took Zena to a theater--to the Olympic. I suppose I chose the Olympic with a sort of idea that I was keeping in touch with the case I had in hand, that if any one chanced to see me there they would conclude that I was following up some clue. It is hateful to feel that there is nothing to be done, more hateful still that people should imagine you are beaten or are neglecting your work.

Zena told me the professor had been out all day, but she did not know what business he was about. He was certainly not engaged in writing his article.

The Olympic was by no means full that night; the disappearance of the dancer was evidently having a disastrous effect upon the receipts.

The next day I went to the Agricultural Inst.i.tute with Quarles. He had got a card of introduction to the secretary.

The building had recently been enlarged, and at the top of the first flight of the staircase stood a group representing the triumph of modern methods.

Standing or crouching, and full of energy, were figures symbolic of science and machinery, while in the foreground was a rec.u.mbent figure from whose hands the sickle had fallen.

The woman was sleeping, her work done; yet she suggested that there was beauty in those old methods which, for all their utility, was lacking in the new.

”It is probably the best work that Lovet Forbes has done,” said the secretary, who came round with us.