Part 4 (1/2)

Hagar turned on her quickly, astonished, eager, his face s.h.i.+ning with a look superadded to his artistic excitement.

She put her finger to her lip, and nodded backward to the other room. He understood. ”Yes, I know,” he said, ”the light comedy manner.” He waved his hand toward the drawing. ”But is it not in the right vein?”

”It is painfully, horribly true,” she said. She looked from him to the canvas, from the canvas to him, and then made a little pathetic gesture with her hands. ”What a jest life is!”

”A game--a wonderful game,” he replied, ”and a wicked one, when there is gambling with human hearts.”

Then he turned with her toward the other room. As he pa.s.sed her to draw aside the curtain she touched his arm with the tips of her fingers so lightly--as she intended--that he did not feel it. There was a mute, confiding tenderness in the action more telling than any speech. The woman had had a brilliant, varied, but lonely life. It must still be lonely, though now the pleasant vista of a new career kept opening and closing before her, rendering her days fascinating yet troubled, her nights full of joyful but uneasy hours. The game thus far had gone against her. Yet she was popular, merry and amiable!

She pa.s.sed composedly into the other room. Hagar greeted the young girl, gave her books and papers, opened the piano, called for some refreshments and presented both with a rose from a bunch upon the table. The young girl was perfectly happy to be allowed to sit in the courts without and amuse herself while the artist and his model should have their hour with pencil and canvas.

The two then went to the studio again, and, leaving the curtain drawn back, Hagar arranged Mrs. Detlor in position and began his task. He stood looking at the canvas for a time, as though to enter into the spirit of it again; then turned to his model. She was no longer Mrs. Detlor, but his subject, near to him as his canvas and the creatures of his imagination, but as a mere woman in whom he was profoundly interested (that at least) an immeasurable distance from him. He was the artist only now.

It was strange. There grew upon the canvas Mrs. Detlor's face, all the woman of it, just breaking through sweet, awesomely beautiful, girlish features; and though the work was but begun there was already that luminous tone which artists labor so hard to get, giving to the face a weird, yet charming expression.

For an hour he worked, then he paused. ”Would you like to see it?” he said.

She rose eagerly, and a little pale. He had now sketched in more distinctly the figure of the man, changed it purposely to look more like Telford. She saw her own face first. It shone out of the canvas. She gave a gasp of pain and admiration. Then she caught sight of Telford's figure, with the face blurred and indistinct.

”Oh!” she said with a shudder. That--that is like him. How could you know?”

”If that is the man,” he said, ”I saw him this morning. Is his name Mark Telford?”

”Yes,” she said, and sank into a chair. Presently she sprang to her feet, caught up a brush and put it into his hand. ”Paint in his face. Quick!

Paint in his face. Put all his wickedness there.”

Hagar came close to her. ”You hate him?” he said, and took the brush.

She did not answer by word, but shook her head wearily, as to some one far off, expressing neither yes nor no.

”Why?” he said quietly--all their words had been in low tones, that they might not be heard--”why, do you wear that ring, then?”

She looked at her hand with a bitter, pitiful smile. ”I wear it in memory of that girl who died very young”--she pointed to the picture--”and to remind me not to care for anything too much lest it should prove to be a lie.” She nodded softly to the picture. ”He and she are both dead; other people wear their faces now.”

”Poor woman!” he said in a whisper. Then he turned to the canvas and, after a moment, filled in from memory the face of Mark Telford, she watching him breathlessly, yet sitting very still.

After some minutes he drew back and looked at it.

She rose and said: ”Yes, he was like that; only you have added what I saw at another time. Will you hear the sequel now?”

He turned and motioned her to a seat, then sat down opposite to her.

She spoke sadly. ”Why should I tell you? I do not know, except that it seemed to me you would understand. Yet I hope men like you forget what is best forgotten; and I feel--oh, do you really care to hear it?”

”I love to listen to you.”

”That girl was fatherless, brotherless. There was no man with any right to stand her friend at the time--to avenge her--though, G.o.d knows, she wished for no revenge--except a distant cousin who had come from England to see her mother and herself; to marry her if he could. She did not know his motives; she believed that he really cared for her; she was young, and she was sorry for his disappointment. When that thing happened”--her eyes were on the picture, dry and hard--”he came forward, determined--so he said--to make the deceiver pay for his deceit with his life. It seemed brave, and what a man would do, what a southerner would do. He was an Englishman, and so it looked still more brave in him. He went to the man's rooms and offered him a chance for his life by a duel. He had brought revolvers. He turned the key in the door and then laid the pistols he had brought on the table. Without warning the other s.n.a.t.c.hed up a small sword and stabbed him with it. He managed to get one of the revolvers, fired, and brought the man down. The man was not killed, but it was a long time before he--Mark Telford there--was well again. When he got up, the girl”--

”Poor girl!”