Part 13 (2/2)

When a woman is really brave and strong, she makes a man feel like rather small potatoes. Her courage and determination were fine indeed, and I must say my admiration for her grew apace. After the hopes she had entertained; after the years spent in study, the fall must have seemed a terrible one to her. Yet she accepted the pittance offered to her, gratefully and with splendid pluck.

A week after this Gordon ran up to town in somebody's car, to make a selection of cravats at the only shop in New York where, according to him, a man could buy a decent necktie.

”Your limitations are frightful,” I told him. ”I know of a thousand.”

”I know you do,” he replied, ”and most of your ties would make a dog laugh. The rest of them would make him weep. Come along with me for a bite of lunch at the Biltmore.”

Over the Little Neck clam c.o.c.ktails he announced some great triumphs he had achieved at golf.

”And I can nearly hold my own with Miss Van Rossum at tennis,” he said.

”She's a wonder at it. We got arrested last Friday on the Jericho turnpike for going fifty miles an hour, but she jollied the policeman so that he only swore to thirty, and we were let off with a reprimand. Good thing she was at the wheel. If I'd been driving, I'd have been fined the limit.”

”You would have deserved it,” I told him.

”I think the old judge knew her father; pretty big gun on the island, you know. By the way, what's become of--of the Murillo young woman?”

I explained to him how she was occupied.

”The deuce! You could certainly have found something easier for her to do, if you'd tried hard enough,” he reproached me.

”I did all I could, and so did Frieda, but our hunt was in vain, on account of the baby.”

”Yes, there's that plagued infant,” he said, reflectively.

”I'll be glad, if you can shed the light of your genius on the situation, old man,” I told him. ”Among your enormous circle of friends----”

”You go to the devil! I'm not going to have people saying that Gordon McGrath is so interested in his model that he's trying to get rid of her by placing her somewhere or other. No, old boy, if I should hear of anything, I will let you know, but I'm not going to hunt for it. Do you know, that woman's got a wonderful face. Did you ever see such a nose and mouth? When she opens those big eyes of hers and looks at you and speaks in that hoa.r.s.e voice, it's quite pathetic. I--I think I'll take her on again, for a short time.”

”I'm afraid you won't,” I replied. ”I wouldn't advise her to lose steady employment for the purpose of posing a couple of weeks for you.”

”I suppose not. How do you like that Spanish omelette?”

Thus he cut short all reference to Frances, and, soon afterwards, we parted on the Avenue.

During the next two months there was little worthy of being chronicled.

Frances, I think, grew a little thinner, but always a.s.serted that she was in the best of health. Baby Paul was rapidly acc.u.mulating weight, and Frieda and I offered him a small baby carriage, which folded up most cleverly and took little room in the shop or at home. It was on the occasion of the completion of his fourth month that the presentation was made by my dear old friend.

”There, my dear, is a gimcrack thing David insisted on buying. The man at the store swore it couldn't possibly fold up suddenly with the baby in it. And now what do you think of my having that old blue dress of mine dyed black?”

The reply of Frances was a heartfelt one as to the perambulator, but discouraging in regard to the garment.

”Oh, never mind,” said Frieda. ”I'll make paint rags out of it, then. I only thought I'd help out the shop. Now let us get David to give us a cup of tea.”

We were talking cheerfully together, when Gordon dropped in from the skies, most unexpectedly. We were glad to see him and, since four people in my room crowded it considerably, my friend took a seat on the bed. I had first met him in the Bohemia of the Latin Quarter, when his necktie out-floated all others and any one prophesying that he would become the portrayer in ordinary to the unsubmerged would have been met with incredulous stares. At that time, for him, Beranger was the only poet and Murger the only writer. And now his clothes are built, while his shoes are designed. Yet, in my top floor, he showed some of the old Adam, joining gladly in our orgy of tea and wafers and utterly forgetting all pose. I noticed that he looked a great deal at Frances, but it was no impertinent stare. She was quite unconscious of his scrutiny or, if at all aware of it, probably deemed it a continuation of his method of artistic study. She had become accustomed to it in his studio.

”David tells me that you are lost to me as a model,” he said, suddenly, with a sort of eagerness that showed a trace of disappointment.

<script>