Part 14 (1/2)
”I must now plod along without interruption,” she answered.
”I had thought of making another study. The finished thing is all right, but one doesn't come across a face like yours very often.”
”No,” put in Frieda, ”and it's a good thing for you that you've had the exclusive painting of it. If she had continued as a model and been done by every Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry----”
”True. Since I can't paint her again, I'm glad no one else will. No, thank you, I won't have any more tea. How's the new picture, Frieda?”
For a few minutes the two monopolized the conversation. To some extent they spoke a jargon of their own, to which Frances and I listened with little understanding.
”And what do you think of it, Dave?” he asked, turning abruptly to me.
”It is a beautiful thing,” I answered. ”If I had Frieda's imagination and her sense of beauty, I should be the great, undiscovered American novelist. She makes one believe that the world is all roses and violets and heliotropes, touched by suns.h.i.+ne and kissed by soft breezes. It is tenanted only by sprites and G.o.dlings, according to her magic brush.”
”The world is no such thing,” he retorted, sharply.
”The world is what one's imagination, one's sentiment and one's conscience makes it,” I a.s.serted, ”at least during some precious moments of every lifetime.”
”Oh! I know. You can sit at that old machine of yours and throw your head back and see more upon your ceiling than the cracked plaster, and Frieda does the same thing. Now my way is to take real flesh and blood, yes, and dead lobsters and codfish and dowagers and paint them in the best light I can get on them, but it's the light I really see.”
”It is nothing of the kind,” I emphatically disclaimed. ”It is the light your temperament sees, and your rendering of it is not much closer to truth than Caruso's 'Celeste Ada' can be to an ordinary lover's appeal.
There is no such thing as realism in painting, while, in literature, it has chiefly produced monsters.”
”Isn't he a dear old donkey?” Gordon appealed to the two women.
”One of those animals once spoke the truth to a minor prophet,” remarked Frances, quietly.
”You are quoting the only recorded exception,” he laughed, ”but the hit was a good one. Yet Dave is nothing but an incurable optimist and a chronic wearer of pink gla.s.ses.”
”That, I think, is what makes him so loveable,” put in Frieda, whereat Frances smiled at her, and I might have blushed had I not long ago lost the habit.
Gordon rose, with the suddenness which characterizes his movements, and declared he must run away at once. He shook hands all around, hastily, and declined my offer to see him down to the door.
”In Italy,” said Frieda, ”I have eaten a sauce made with vinegar and sweet things. They call it _agrodolce_, I believe, and the Germans make a soup with beer. Neither of them appeal to me at all. Gordon is a wonderful painter, but he's always trying to mix up art with iconoclasm.
It can't spoil his pictures, I'm sure, but it may--what was the expression Kid Sullivan was fond of using? Oh yes, some day it may hand out a jolt to him. He has a perfectly artistic temperament and the greatest talent, but he stirs up with them a dreadful mess of cynicism and cold-blooded calculation. My dear Dave, let you and I stick to our soft colors and minor tones. If either of us ever abandoned them, we should be able to see nothing but dull grays.”
”We understand our limitations, Frieda,” I told her, ”and there is nothing that fits one better to enjoy life. Gordon says that it is all foolishness, and can't understand that a fellow should walk along a mile of commonplace hedge and stop because he has found a wild rose. The latter, with due respect to him, is as big a truth as the privet, and a pleasanter one.”
Presently, Frieda, after consuming a third cup of tea and finis.h.i.+ng the crackers, said that she must be going home. I insisted on accompanying her down the stairs and naturally followed her to her domicile, where she informed me that she was going to wash her hair and forbade my entering.
On the other side of the street, on my return, I saw Frances going into Dr. Porter's office. He has prevailed upon her to let him do something to her throat, and she goes in once or twice a week. He has begged her to come as a special and particular favor to him. I'm sure I don't know what he expects to accomplish, for he is somewhat reticent in the matter. Perhaps he may have thought it well to arouse a little hope in her. I am afraid that in her life she sees a good deal of the dull grays Frieda was speaking of.
And now a few more weeks have gone by and the middle of winter has come.
On Sunday afternoons we always have tea in my room, except when we go through the same function at Frieda's. To my surprise, Gordon's visits have been repeated a number of times. Frieda and he abuse one another most unmercifully, like the very best of friends, and he persistently keeps on observing Frances. It looks as if she exerted some strange fascination upon him, of which she is perfectly ignorant. He never goes beyond the bounds of the most simple friendliness, but, sometimes, she sharply resents some cynical remark of his, without seeming to disturb him in the least.
Meanwhile, my friend Willoughby Jones has told me that Gordon is doing Mrs. Van Rossum's portrait, while the younger lady roams about the studio and eats chocolates, talking about carburetors and tarpon-tackle.
The family will leave soon in search of the balmy zephyrs of Florida. My friend's chatter also included the information that Gordon might soon take a run down there.