Part 12 (1/2)

”Yes. Mother insists on a permanent exhibition,” she replied deprecatingly.

He went from one to another, admiring, listening to her comments, and when they had been through the rooms he turned to her, saying:

”It's very wonderful to me. I stand a little in awe of you--you who have been in the Salon. I have great luck in cousins and I am luckier still in having an invitation to Mervaux.”

She had not expected him to speak of the pictures in any critical fas.h.i.+on. How could he know anything about art? She liked his simple att.i.tude. It was always more satisfactory than that of those who pretended to know and did not.

”And it's time for me to dress for dinner,” she said, ”though you need not hurry. Dinner at eight.”

He had not thought of Helen while he had been looking at the pictures.

After Henriette had gone he saw Helen huddled in the depths of a big chair in a corner half hidden by the open door, reading. With the brilliant light of Henriette departed, smaller lights became visible.

Helen also was his cousin. But he felt a peculiar awkwardness in speaking to her. He was even afraid that one of her tempers might break on him. He hesitated, as he thought of something to say, and his glance fell on the pile of charcoal drawings on the side table.

”Are those your drawings?” he asked.

”I plead guilty,” she responded equivocally.

”May I look?”

”Of course. Please do, if you would like to,” she said. ”They explain themselves,” she added, without rising, ”and it's at your own risk.”

He took up one of the drawings.

”But I think it corking!”

”Honestly?” she asked. ”Let me see which one it is!” She sprang up and looked over his shoulder, suddenly changed into a being of glowing vitality.

CHAPTER VIII

ANOTHER PHASE OF HELEN

Possibly Philip did know something about art, as the result of a good deal of reading and his visits to galleries. Possibly, too, he had an innate appreciation of it. To Helen, his interest had momentarily rekindled the enthusiasm for her work which the war had stifled. As they took up drawing after drawing, she rather than he was the critic.

”Bad, but I like that part, there!” she went on. ”This is sensational--not really good. Oh, cusses! Every time I look at that one it seems worse, and I thought it was so good at the start! Smudgy, but if you hold it off like that it's more like what I meant to do.

One knows what one wants to do and then one's stupid fingers will not.”

He was interested and more than interested, if silent. He was looking at her drawings and not her face. The effect was of the quality of her mind wrought by the cunning of her hand, and her voice was that of Henriette with a more emotional intonation than Henriette's, revealing the quality which even the cunning of her hand could not interpret.

There was more than he had supposed in this cousin.

”Haven't you ever exhibited?” he asked.

As he looked around it was almost with the expectation of seeing Henriette's face, which should go with Henriette's voice and the fervour of her talk; Henriette in the glory of enthusiasm, the enthusiasm which he knew she must possess and which he would like to arouse. But it was the face of Helen, sunburned and plain--almost too plain to have done such drawings.

”You think that I ought to?” she asked soberly. It was odd that she should seek his opinion when she had had that of M. Vailliant. ”I was going to when the war came,” she went on, still soberly. Then came the burst of confidence and her features lighted, their mobility alive with recollection as she told about the scene in the dining-room, forgetting herself, mimicking M. Vailliant and her own fears and the climax. She boasted of the thousand francs. She told him what she meant to do with that perfectly enormous sum; how she was going on drawing as long as she lived, caring for nothing else.

”Why wasn't she always like that?” Phil wondered. She ought to let her emotions always s.h.i.+ne out of her eyes, play in her features. Was she really plain? He was unconscious of it; conscious only of her amazing vitality which had a magnetism that made him the kind of rapt listener which is the best urging to another flow of talk.

”Here you are holding that drawing like a waiter with a card on a salver who can't get my lady to look up from her knitting!” she finally exclaimed.