A Top-Floor Idyl Part 17

"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.

"I say, Dave! Tell her to come to-morrow morning. I am off to lunch at Ardsley. By-by."

It was Gordon, bearing in his pocket a summons for overspeeding, which he proudly exhibited.

"I got the car this week," he informed me. "It's a bird to go. So long!"

He was off again, skidding around the next corner in such fashion as to make me sympathize with his life insurance company, and I started up the stairs to see Frances. I must say that I was rather nervous. The task of telling her about that letter seemed, now that it was so nearly impending, a rather tough one to carry out. As usual in such cases, my footsteps became slow on the last of the stairs.

I knocked at the door, which was opened by Frieda.

"Come in, Dave," she said. "I thought I'd drop in to see that Baby Paul was none the worse for his experience. I might as well have saved my breath, as far as I can see. Frances needs a little bracing up; I think she's rather discouraged this morning."

"One moment," I excused myself. "I forgot a paper I wanted to show her."

My room appeared to have been ransacked, but I saw that Mrs. Milliken, in spite of my stern commands, had indulged her pa.s.sionate longing for putting things in order. A quarter of an hour's arduous searching, however, revealed the journal I sought. The door had been left open, and I walked right in.

"Good morning," I said. "I have seen Gordon this morning and he will be pleased to employ you again, Frances, and--and I have a paper here. It is yesterday's, and I found something that may perhaps interest you, and--and----"

But she had risen quickly and took the paper from me, her voice trembling a little.

"Where--what is it?" she asked eagerly.

It took me a minute to find that column again. When I pointed out the notice, she took the sheet from me, staring at it as if doubting her eyes.

"Yes--it is for Madame Paul Dupont. I--I must go there at once! Oh!

Frieda dear, will you mind little Paul for me while I am gone? I will go and return just as quick as I can and won't keep you very long."

"I will do anything you want me to, Frances, but you are not very familiar with downtown streets. I had better accompany you there. We can take little Paul with us."

"I had intended to offer my services as a guide," I put in.

Frances had sunk in her chair and was still looking at the paper, as if, between the lines, she might have been able to find more than the mere mention of her name.

"You must let me go, Dave," whispered Frieda to me. "She--she might faint, poor thing, or feel very badly, and--and a woman is better at such times. I will try to make her wait until we get back, before she opens the thing, and you can be here when we return."

Man, that is born of woman, is commonly her humble slave. I could do nothing but bow to my stout friend's will and retired to my room to leave their preparations unhampered by my presence. When I propose a dinner or the moving pictures, they always hurry as fast as they can and are usually ready in fifteen or twenty minutes. On this occasion, about ninety seconds seemed to suffice.

"Good-by, Dave," they called out to me, waving their hands and disappearing down the stairs.

I had any number of important things to do. A fine disorder, said Boileau, is an effect of art. It behooved me to disturb the beautifully orderly and thoroughly deplorable piling up of my books indulged in by Mrs. Milliken. Also, there were separate loose sheets of virginal paper to be separated from those bearing my written vagaries, for she had played havoc with them. Moreover, I had been told that my hair ought to be cut. Then, I ought to have sat down and continued a short story I had made a fine beginning of, about a poverty-stricken young lady finding an emerald necklace. The plot was most exciting and the ending possessed what the editors call a good punch. I had a plethora of things to do, wherefore I lighted my pipe and pondered upon what to begin with, seated the while in front of my window and observing the houses opposite.

It took me but a moment to decide that quietude would be wisdom. How could I accomplish anything requiring judgment and calmness of mind, while I was so obsessed with problems of many kinds! What would be the effect of that letter on Frances? Would it make her feel so badly, that she would be unable to go to Gordon's on the next day? Why had my friend first manifested eagerness to make another picture of Frances, then refused to employ her, and, finally, risked breaking his neck in his haste to have me make an appointment with her?

I have always been a poor hand at riddles and actually resent being asked why a chicken crosses the road. Such foolish queries const.i.tute a form of amus.e.m.e.nt quite unable to appeal to me. I dislike problems and complicated things that have to be solved. Once, I tried to write a detective story, but was wise enough to tear up the thing as soon as it was finished. In the first place, it looked like an effort to encourage crime, which I abhor, and my detective was so transparent and ingenuous that an infant would have penetrated his wiles. He was positively sheeplike in his mansuetude, whereas I had intended to make him a stern avenger of virtue.

An hour went by, and then another, during which I rushed to the bal.u.s.trade on the landing every time I heard the front door opening.

Disappointment came so often that I determined to move no more, until I could hear their voices. Since the stairs make Frieda quite breathless, she insists on talking all the time while she climbs them, and her puffing carries up at least two flights.

Finally, I heard them. For a wonder Frieda was silent, but there was no mistaking her ponderous step. Frances came behind, carrying Baby Paul.