Part 8 (1/2)
he proceeded. ”Verlaine wrote you--_'Les Ingenus':_
”'From which the sudden gleam of whiteness shed Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming.'
”What if I'd kiss you?”
”Nothing,” she returned coldly.
”You're remarkable!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. ”If you are not already one of the celebrated beauties you're about to be. As cool as a fis.h.!.+ Look--Pleydon is going to rise and spill little Russia. Have you heard her sing Scriabine?” Linda ignored him in a sharp return of her interest in the big carelessly-dressed man. He put Susanna Noda aside and moved to the dim middle of the room. His features, Linda saw, were rugged and p.r.o.nounced; he was very strong.
For a moment he stood gazing at the Winged Victory, his brow gathered into a frown, while he made a caressing gesture with his whole hand.
Then he swung about and, from the heavy shadows of his face, he looked down at her. He was still for a disconcerting length of time, but through which Linda steadily met his interrogation. Then he bent over and seriously removed the man beside her.
”Adieu, Louis,” he said.
The weight of Pleydon's body depressed the entire divan. ”An ordinary man,” he told her, ”would ask how the devil you got here. Then he would take you to your home with some carefully chosen words for whatever parents you had. But I can see that all this is needless. You are an extremely immaculate person.
”That isn't necessarily admirable,” he added.
”I don't believe I am admirable at all,” Linda replied.
”How old are you?” he demanded abruptly.
She told him.
”Age doesn't exist for some women, they are eternal,” he continued. ”You see, I call you a woman, but you are not, and neither are you a child.
You are Art--Art the deathless,” his gaze strayed back to the Victory.
As she, too, looked at it, it seemed to Linda that the cast filled all the room with a swirl of great white wings and heroic robes. In an instant the incense and the dark colors, the uncertain pallid faces and bare shoulders, were swept away into a s.p.a.ce through which she was dizzily borne. The illusion was so overpowering that involuntarily she caught at the heavy arm by her.
XV
”Why did you do that?” he asked quickly, with a frowning regard. Linda replied easily and directly. ”It seemed as if it were carrying me with it,” she specified; ”on and on and on, without ever stopping. I felt as if I were up among the stars.” She paused, leaning forward, and gazed at the statue. Even now she was certain that she saw a slight flutter of its draperies. ”It is beautiful, isn't it? I think it's the first thing I ever noticed like that. You know what I mean--the first thing that hadn't a real use.”
”But it has,” he returned. ”Do you think it is nothing to be swept into heaven? I suppose by 'real' you mean oatmeal and scented soap. Women usually do. But no one, it appears, has any conception of the practical side of great art. You might try to remember that it is simply permanence given to beauty. It's like an amber in which beautiful and fragile things are kept forever in a lovely glow. That is all, and it is enough.
”When I said that you were Art I didn't mean that you were skilfully painted and dressed, but that there was a quality in you which recalled all the charming women who had ever lived to draw men out of the mud--something, probably, of which you are entirely unconscious, and certainly beyond your control. You have it in a remarkable degree. It doesn't belong to husbands but to those who create 'Homer's children.'
”That's a dark saying of Plato's, and it means that the _Alcestis_ is greater than any momentary offspring of the flesh.”
Linda admitted seriously, ”Of course, I don't understand, yet it seems quite familiar--”
”Don't, for Heaven's sake, repeat the old cant about reincarnation;” he interrupted, ”and sitting together, smeared with antimony, on a roof of Babylon.”
She hadn't intended to, she a.s.sured him. ”Tell me about yourself,” he directed. It was as natural to talk with him as it was, with others, to keep still. Her frank speech flowed on and on, supported by the realization of his attention.
”There really isn't much, besides hotels, all different; but you'd be surprised how alike they were, too. I mean the things to eat, and the people. I never realized how tired I was of them until mother married Mr. Moses Feldt. The children were simply dreadful, the children and the women; the men weren't much better.” She said this in a tone of surprise, and he nodded. ”I can see now--I am supposed to be too old for my age, and it was the hotels. You learn a great deal.”