Ewing's Lady Part 13

"I studied with him there in the mountains till he died. I've nothing left of his but this portrait of my mother."

He took the unframed canvas from the tray of the trunk and held it before his guest.

"Do you get the right light there?"

It had been a bad quarter of an hour for Ewing, and, as he adjusted the picture, he felt a moment's satisfaction in having weathered it so plausibly. And now that the curious little gentleman seemed restored, it was pleasant to antic.i.p.ate his cultured appreciation of that work of art which was the boy's chief treasure.

"There isn't any shine across it now, is there?" he asked, and looked up with a shy, proud, waiting smile.

But the agitations that had gone before were as nothing to what now pa.s.sed in front of his dismayed eyes. One moment his guest hung staring at the canvas with a goblin horror; then, uttering a kind of sob, he shot incontinently out of the door.

The harried Ewing dropped the picture and rushed in pursuit. He came up with the little man at the head of the stairs. He was trembling, and his face was ashen gray; but after a few deep breaths he smiled and waved a hand jauntily to indicate humorous despair. It seemed to say, "I am frequently like this--it's annoying past words." He spoke of needing a restorative and suggested an advisable haste in the direction of the cafe.

"They've some choice old cognac downstairs. Suppose we chat over a bit of it. I'm rather done up. These absurd attacks of mine react on the heart. A noggin of brandy will fetch me about. You'll come?"

They were presently at a table in the hotel cafe.

"We've the room to ourselves," said Teevan genially. "Delightful old place, this; restful, reminiscent, mellow--and generally empty. I detest the cheap glitter of those uptown places with their rowdy throngs. They make me feel like a fish in a fiddle box, as our French cousins say.

You'll have soda with yours?"

Teevan drank his own brandy neat, and at once refilled his gla.s.s.

"Now for a chat about yourself, my young friend--for surely only a friend could have borne with me as tenderly as you have this evening.

You're a fellow of promise--the future clamors for you--your drawings enchant me."

Ewing reflected that his drawings had not been exposed, but the intention was kind, and he was grateful for that. Teevan drank more brandy with a dainty relish, and begged to hear of his young friend's adventures in the far hills.

Ewing expanded in the warmth of this kindly concern. He told, little by little, under adroit prompting, what he had to tell. Teevan displayed a gratifying interest, especially in what he recounted of his mother's death. But at intervals during this recital the young man became conscious, with astonishment, that there was an inexplicable look on the other's face, a look which he suddenly discovered to be an unbelievable veiled pleasure.

He fell back with a quick, blind repulsion, and the two stared at each other, the elder man dissolving with difficulty a monstrous smile. He appeared to recover himself with an effort, finding the lines about his mouth refractory, but his embarra.s.sment was so poignant that Ewing felt sorry for him.

"You _must_ forgive me, old fellow! These d.a.m.ned treacherous nerves of mine! I shall see that specialist chap of mine directly in the morning.

I'm so weak that the sadness of that poor lady's death set me off into something like hysteria."

It was one o'clock when they parted, and then only at a hint that the place would close its old-fashioned doors for the night. Ewing rejoiced to feel that he had made a desirable friend. He liked the little man well. Teevan had said at the last. "You should move on to Paris, my boy.

You'll need the touch they give only in that blessed rendezvous of the masters." Ewing went to his room realizing that the world of his dreams did actually abound in adventure. His first day had been memorable.

Teevan walked through Ninth Street to his own home, a few doors beyond the Bartell house. It was a place of much the same old-fashioned lines, that had withstood the north-setting current.

He let himself in and went to the dining room at the rear. Here he lighted a gas jet, took a decanter from the sideboard, and brought a gla.s.s and a bottle of soda from the butler's pantry. He sipped the drink and lighted a cigarette. His musings, as first reflected in his face, were agreeable. His mouth twitched pleasantly, his eyes glistened. At intervals he chuckled and muttered. With an increase of brandy in the gla.s.s he became more serious.

When Alden Teevan entered an hour later he found his father in a mood astonishingly savage. At sight of his son the little man became vocal with meaningless abuse. It was as if the presence of a listener incited him to continue aloud some tirade that he had pursued in silence. But the younger Teevan, lounging in the doorway, only stared with polite concern as he was greeted with these emotional phrases:

"--a d.a.m.ned milk-and-water Narcissus--a pretentious cub with the airs of a cheap manikin of the world--a squeaking parasite--a toadlike, d.a.m.ned obscenity----"

An easy smile came to the son's face as he noted the fallen tide in the decanter.

"Night-night, my quaint, amiable father--and cheery dreams!"

They studied each other a moment. The elder man seemed to meditate some disclosure, but stopped on the verge of it.

"That's all, my boy!"

The young man laughed again.

"It's enough, I fancy--but don't overdo it, Randy. You know one mustn't at your age."

"I'm taking care, taking care of everything, my boy--never you fear----"

The other pa.s.sed on, but stopped at the stairway and called back:

"I say, Randy!"

"Yes--yes----"

"Get to bed, you absurd little rat, you!"

CHAPTER XI

A NIGHT AT THE MONASTERY

Ewing awoke late the next morning, rejoicing that he need not cook his breakfast. After feeding his hill-born hunger with novel and exciting foods he sauntered out to become a wave on the tide that flooded those strange, heart-shaking streets. He mentally blazed his trail as he went.

His soul marched to the swift and cheerful stepping of the life about him. He remembered Ben's warnings and wished that expert in urban evil could see how little menacing was this splendid procession. That the Sat.u.r.day throng of shoppers and pleasure seekers was unaware of the greatness of the moment to him lent a zest of secrecy to his scouting.

Back and forth he wandered on Broadway, the moving crowds, volatile as quicksilver, holding him with a hypnotic power. Often he stopped before some shop, hotel, or theater that he had come to know in print. Not until five o'clock did he find that he was leg weary. Then he took his bearings and, in his own phrase, "made back to camp."

A boy brought him Piersoll's card at six, and Piersoll followed. He came with that alert self-possession which Ewing had come to consider typical of these dwellers in a crowd where each is the inconsiderable part of a great organic body, and must yet preserve his unique oneship.

"Bully old place, this," Piersoll began. "My mother came to b.a.l.l.s here thirty years ago. Show me your stuff."

He dropped into one of the armchairs and lighted a cigarette.

Ewing opened a portfolio and placed drawings along the wall. Piersoll slid his chair closer and studied them.

"They're only little things I've seen," murmured Ewing. "I haven't had a chance to see much."

Piersoll blew out smoke and arose to put one of the drawings in a better light. He gazed at this closely, swept his eye again over the others, and exclaimed, "All right! Bully! Good drawing, and the real thing.

That's the point--you've drawn only what you've seen. They're not all equally interesting, but they're all true. You'll do."

"I'm glad you like them. I never knew if they were good."

"They're better than I expected, from Mrs. Laithe's talk. She was so keen about them, I made allowances."

"Mrs. Laithe seemed to think I might sell them."