Phases of an Inferior Planet Part 49

"And plunged me into a seven days' despair--for a cold."

"Oh, but such a cold!"

She seated herself on a low chair between two large curtained easels.

Then she rose to examine the portrait.

"I suppose the touching-up makes a great deal of difference," she remarked.

"A great deal," a.s.sented Nevins; "but don't you like it?"

She hesitated, her head first on one side, then on the other.

"Oh yes," she said, "but I should like it to be ideal, you know."

"Nonsense! You don't need to be idealized. To idealize means to wipe out character with turpentine and put in inanity with a paint-brush." Then he added: "Sit down just as you are, and turn your head towards the purple curtain on that easel. A little farther--there. I must have that expression."

He picked up his brush and worked steadily for twenty minutes. Then he frowned.

"You have suffered twelve changes of expression within the last sixty seconds," he said. "What are you thinking of?"

"Oh, lots of things."

"Keep to one, please."

She smiled.

"Which shall it be?"

His eyes lingered upon her in sudden brightness.

"Think of me," he responded.

"I do," returned Mariana, amiably; "but when I think of you I think of Mr. Ardly, and when I think of Mr. Ardly I think of The Gotham, and when I think of The Gotham I think of--Mr. Paul."

"Confound Mr. Paul!" retorted Nevins, crossly.

"Please don't," protested Mariana; and she added, "you know he disapproves of me very much."

"The scoundrel!"

"But a great many people do that."

"The scoundrels!"

"Oh no," said Mariana, plaintively; "it is only your kindness of heart that makes you say so."

He laid down his brush and looked at her.

"My G.o.d!--Mariana!" he exclaimed.

"Nevins," said a voice in the doorway.

He turned abruptly. Mariana, behind the curtained easel, paled suddenly.

"I knocked, my dear fellow," the voice went on, "and I thought you answered. So you _are_ alone. I came to look at the portrait."

"I am not alone," returned Nevins, awkwardly; "but come in, a--a--Algarcife."

Mariana rose from behind the easel and came forward. Her face was white, but she was smiling.

"He is painting every one's portrait," she said, "and I am one of everybody." She held out her hand. He took it limply, and it fell from his grasp.

"I beg your pardon," he said; "I did not know."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," responded Mariana. "Please look at the portrait. I want to--to rest."

He turned from her coldly.

"Since Mrs. Gore is so kind," he said to Nevins, "I will look at it. It will only detain you a moment."

He crossed the room and drew aside the curtain from a large canvas, then he fell back from the light and examined it carefully for a few seconds, suggesting an alteration or two, and making a favorable comment.

Mariana followed him with her eyes, her hands clasped before her, her face pallid, and the red of her lips shining like a scarlet thread.

"It--it is very like," she said, suddenly.

He bowed quietly, showing a slight surprise, as he might have done at the remark of a stranger. Then he turned to the door.

"I am sorry to have interrupted you," he said. "Good-morning."

When the door closed upon him Mariana stood for an instant with her head bent as if listening to his footsteps on the stairs. Then she turned to Nevins, a smile flashing across her face.

"We must go back to the portrait," she said. "It must be finished quickly--quickly. I am afraid of wrinkles."

CHAPTER IX

Mariana was walking under the elms that skirt the park on Fifth Avenue.

It was a mild December morning, and the sunshine fell in silvery waves through the bare branches of trees overhead and rippled lightly across the concrete sidewalk, while the slender shadows of the boughs a.s.sumed the effect of irregular lines drawn by crude fingers upon a slate. Far ahead, through the narrowing archway of naked elms, the perspective sloped in gradual incline, blending the changing shades of blue and gray into a vista of pale violet. On the low stone wall to her left the creepers showed occasional splashes of scarlet berries, glowing warm and vivid through the autumnal haze which tinted the atmosphere. December had reverted for a single day into the majesty of dead October.

Mariana walked slowly, the furs, which she found oppressive, open at the throat, and her m.u.f.f hanging idly from her hand. There was a rapt expression upon her face, and her eyes were sombre. She had the strained and preoccupied air of one whose mind has winged back to long-past days, leaving the body adrift in its relation to present events. All at once a tiny child, rolling a toy along the sidewalk, stumbled and fell before her feet, uttering shrieks of dismay. The incident recalled her to herself, and, as she stooped to lift it, she smiled at the profuse apologies of the nurse. Then she glanced about her, as if uncertain of the number of blocks that she had walked.

Three aspens, standing together in the park, arrested her gaze, and she looked at them with momentary intentness. Their slender bodies shone like leprous fingers, pointing heavenward, and on the topmost point of one a broken spray of frosted leaves shivered whitely. They recalled to her with a shudder the little graveyard on the old plantation, where she had spent her earliest childhood, and she was seized with a spasm of memory. She saw the forgotten and deserted graves, with the rank periwinkle corroding the marble slabs, and she saw the little brown lizards that crept out to bask upon them in the summer sunshine. With the recollection, death appeared to her hideous and loathsome, and she walked on quickly, her eyes on the pavement. A group of street-cleaners were seated against the stone wall, eating their mid-day meal, and she looked at the hunks of bread and ham with a feeling of sympathy for the consumers. Then, as she pa.s.sed, her thoughts swung to the owner of the house across the way whom she knew, and who was descending the front steps. At Sixty-seventh Street she turned into the park, her eyes drawn by the clump of pines darkly defined against the gray rock beyond. For the second time her errant thoughts went back to her childhood and to the great pine forest where the wind played lullabies through the white heat of August days. She felt a swift desire to throw herself beneath the little alien growth of pine, to lie on the soft gra.s.s, which was still like emerald deepened by bluish shadows, and to let the spicy needles fall upon her upturned face.

As she moved onward, a man crossing the park in a rapid walk approached her. It was Father Algarcife, and in a moment their glances met.

He raised his hat, and would have pa.s.sed on, but she stopped him by a gesture.