Part 17 (1/2)

”Oh, yes! Put that on the easel,” he said. ”That seems to be in a rather different style. Now, my dear sir, if you keep on all your life working like that, I'll take back what I said. A man capable of doing that can take Sargent's place, some day, but he'll have to stick to his last to keep it up. How much do you want for it?”

”It--it isn't for sale,” said Gordon, hesitating.

Lorimer stood before the picture, with his hands clasped behind his back, for several minutes. Then he turned again to Gordon.

”Already sold, is it?”

”No, Mr. Lorimer, it is not. But it's about the best thing I ever did, and yet I think I can improve on it. I shall keep it for comparison, as I intend to try another from the same model, in a somewhat different manner. After it is finished, I shall be glad to have you look at it again, and perhaps----”

”I'm afraid that what I said rather sticks in your crop, Mr. McGrath, but don't be offended. When I began life my knowledge of men was about the only a.s.set I had. It didn't come by study and I take no credit for it. I was born with it, as a colt may be born with speed in him. Some Frenchman has said that the moneymaking instinct is like the talent of certain pigs for smelling truffles. In Perigord they pay a high price for a shoat with that kind of a nose. I have learned something about painting because I love it, and I know how to make money. But if I stopped for a year, I'd get so rusty I'd be afraid to buy a hundred shares. Same way with you. If you stop painting and putting in the best that's in you, then you'll go back. That's the reason I wanted this picture, but I'm willing to wait and see the other. Let me know when it's finished. Glad to have met you, Mr. Cole. Thank you for showing me the pictures, Mr. McGrath. Must run downtown now. Hope to see you again soon.”

He walked off, st.u.r.dily, Gordon accompanying him to the door while I sat down in front of the picture.

Ay, Lorimer was a mighty good judge; of that there could be no doubt. He had at once appreciated the powerful rendering, the subtle treatment, the beauty that radiated from the canvas, grippingly.

But I could only see Frances, the woman beautiful, who, unlike most others, has a soul to illumine her comeliness. I filled my eyes with her perfection of form, tall, straight and slender, with all the grace that is hers and which Gordon's picture has taught me to see more clearly. I felt as if a whiff of scented breeze came to me, wafted through the glinting ma.s.ses of her hair. The eyes bent upon the slumbering child, I felt, might at any moment be lifted to her friend Dave, the scribbler, who, for the first time in his life, was beginning to learn that a woman's loveliness may be beyond the power of a poet's imagining or even the wondrous gift of a painter. The scales had indeed fallen from my eyes! At first I had thought that Gordon had idealized her, mingling his fancy with the truth and succeeding in gilding the lily. But now, I knew that all his art had but limned some of the tints of her sunshot hair and traced a few points of her beauty.

I did not wonder that he was eager to try again. Wonderful though his painting was, the man's ambition was surging in him to excel his own work and attain still greater heights. Could he possibly succeed?

”Well, what do you think of millionaires now that you have met one in the flesh?” asked Gordon, returning.

”This one is pretty human, it seems to me, and pretty shrewd.”

”You're not such a fool as you look, Dave,” said my friend quietly, but with the twinkle in his eyes that mitigates his words. ”One moment I could have clubbed him over the head, if I'd had at hand anything heavier than a mahlstick, but I daresay he knew what he was talking about. I'll have to work harder.”

”You already toil as hard as a man can, and are doing some great stuff,”

I replied. ”The trouble is that you keep altogether too busy. It might be worth your while to remember that a man who accomplishes so much is at least ent.i.tled to eight hours' sleep a day.”

”You're a fine one to preach, you old night owl.”

”In the first place, I am only David Cole. Besides, I put in a full allowance of time in bed. Mrs. Milliken daren't come in before eleven.

Then, I don't smoke strong perfectos, especially in the morning, and I have a drink of claret perhaps once a week.”

”Yes, I'll paint you with a halo around your old bald head, some day,”

he retorted.

”And now, what shall I say to Frances?” I asked, deeming it urgent to revert to my errand.

”I don't want her! Busy with other things!”

I looked at him, in surprise and disappointment, and walked off towards the hall where hung my hat and coat.

”Very well,” I said, ”I shall try and find something else for her to do.

Good-by, Gordon.”

”Good-by, Dave. Come in again soon, won't you?”

I made some noncommittal reply and rushed over to the elevator, ringing several times. When I reached the street I hurried to the cars, thinking that _la donna_ may be _mobile_, but that as a weatherc.o.c.k Gordon was the limit. I got out at the Fourteenth Street station and soon reached home, at the very same time as a big scarlet runabout which I had noticed in the street, in front of the studio building. It halted with a grinding of brakes.