Crucial Instances Part 8

He stared, as though suddenly recalled from a long distance. "Mrs. Davant?"

"We were to have met her--this afternoon--now--"

"At the gallery? Oh, that's all right. I put a stop to that; I went to see her after I left you; I explained it all to her."

"All?"

"I told her I was going to begin all over again."

Claudia's heart gave a forward bound and then sank back hopelessly.

"But the panels--?"

"That's all right too. I told her about the panels," he rea.s.sured her.

"You told her--?"

"That I can't paint them now. She doesn't understand, of course; but she's the best little woman and she trusts me."

She could have wept for joy at his exquisite obtuseness. "But that isn't all," she wailed. "It doesn't matter how much you've explained to her. It doesn't do away with the fact that we're living on those panels!"

"Living on them?"

"On the money that she paid you to paint them. Isn't that what brought us here? And--if you mean to do as you say--to begin all over again--how in the world are we ever to pay her back?"

Her husband turned on her an inspired eye. "There's only one way that I know of," he imperturbably declared, "and that's to stay out here till I learn how to paint them."

"COPY"

A DIALOGUE

_Mrs. Ambrose Dale--forty, slender, still young--sits in her drawing-room at the tea-table. The winter twilight is falling, a lamp has been lit, there is a fire on the hearth, and the room is pleasantly dim and flower-scented. Books are scattered everywhere--mostly with autograph inscriptions "From the Author"--and a large portrait of_ Mrs. Dale, _at her desk, with papers strewn about her, takes up one of the wall-panels. Before_ Mrs. Dale _stands_ Hilda, _fair and twenty, her hands full of letters_.

_Mrs. Dale_. Ten more applications for autographs? Isn't it strange that people who'd blush to borrow twenty dollars don't scruple to beg for an autograph?

_Hilda (reproachfully)_. Oh--

_Mrs. Dale_. What's the difference, pray?

_Hilda_. Only that your last autograph sold for fifty--

_Mrs. Dale (not displeased)_. Ah?--I sent for you, Hilda, because I'm dining out to-night, and if there's nothing important to attend to among these letters you needn't sit up for me.

_Hilda_. You don't mean to work?

_Mrs. Dale_. Perhaps; but I sha'n't need you. You'll see that my cigarettes and coffee-machine are in place, and: that I don't have to crawl about the floor in search of my pen-wiper? That's all. Now about these letters--

_Hilda (impulsively)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale--

_Mrs. Dale_. Well?

_Hilda_. I'd rather sit up for you.

_Mrs. Dale_. Child, I've nothing for you to do. I shall be blocking out the tenth chapter of _Winged Purposes_ and it won't be ready for you till next week.

_Hilda_. It isn't that--but it's so beautiful to sit here, watching and listening, all alone in the night, and to feel that you're in there _(she points to the study-door)_ _creating_--._(Impulsively.)_ What do I care for sleep?

_Mrs. Dale (indulgently)_. Child--silly child!--Yes, I should have felt so at your age--it would have been an inspiration--

_Hilda (rapt)_. It is!

_Mrs. Dale_. But you must go to bed; I must have you fresh in the morning; for you're still at the age when one is fresh in the morning!

_(She sighs.)_ The letters? _(Abruptly.)_ Do you take notes of what you feel, Hilda--here, all alone in the night, as you say?

_Hilda (shyly)_. I have--

_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. For the diary?

_Hilda (nods and blushes)_.

_Mrs. Dale (caressingly)_. Goose!--Well, to business. What is there?

_Hilda_. Nothing important, except a letter from Stroud & Fayerweather to say that the question of the royalty on _Pomegranate Seed_ has been settled in your favor. The English publishers of _Immolation_ write to consult you about a six-shilling edition; Olafson, the Copenhagen publisher, applies for permission to bring out a Danish translation of _The Idol's Feet_; and the editor of the _Semaph.o.r.e_ wants a new serial--I think that's all; except that _Woman's Sphere_ and _The Droplight_ ask for interviews--with photographs--

_Mrs. Dale_. The same old story! I'm so toed of it all. _(To herself, in an undertone.)_ But how should I feel if it all stopped?

_(The servant brings in a card.)_

_Mrs. Dale (reading it)_. Is it possible? Paul Ventnor? _(To the servant.)_ Show Mr. Ventnor up. _(To herself.)_ Paul Ventnor!

_Hilda (breathless)_. Oh, Mrs. Dale--_the_ Mr. Ventnor?

_Mrs. Dale (smiling)_. I fancy there's only one.

_Hilda_. The great, great poet? _(Irresolute.)_ No, I don't dare--

_Mrs. Dale (with a tinge of impatience)_. What?

_Hilda (fervently)_. Ask you--if I might--oh, here in this corner, where he can't possibly notice me--stay just a moment? Just to see him come in? To see the meeting between you--the greatest novelist and the greatest poet of the age? Oh, it's too much to ask! It's an historic moment.

_Mrs. Dale_. Why, I suppose it is. I hadn't thought of it in that light. Well _(smiling)_, for the diary--

_Hilda_. Oh, thank you, _thank you_! I'll be off the very instant I've heard him speak.

_Mrs. Dale_. The very instant, mind. _(She rises, looks at herself in the gla.s.s, smooths her hair, sits down again, and rattles the tea-caddy.)_ Isn't the room very warm?--_(She looks over at her portrait.)_ I've grown stouter since that was painted--. You'll make a fortune out of that diary, Hilda--