The Hollow of Her Hand Part 28

"Yis, sor."

"On this table, if you please. And you might cut the strings while you're about it."

Pat put the bundles on the wicker table and cut the heavy twine in dignified silence. Carefully rolling it up in a neat ball, he stuck it in his pocket. Then he faced his employer.

"Is there annyt'ing else, sor?"

"I think not, at present."

"Not aven a cup av tea, sor?"

"No, thanks."

"Thin, if you will excuse me, I'll go about me work. I've had a pleasant day off, sor, thanks to ye. It's hard to go back to work afther such a splindid spell of idleness. Heigho! I'd like to be a gintleman av leisure all the time, that I would, sor. The touch I've had av it to-day may be the sp'iling av me. If you're a smart man, Mr. Brandon Booth, ye'll not be letting me off for a holiday like this again very soon."

Booth laughed outright. Pat's face wrinkled into a slow, forgiving grin.

"I love you, Pat," cried the painter, "in spite of the way you bark at me."

"It's a poor dog that don't know his own master," said Pat magnanimously. "Whin you're t'rough wid the magazines, I'll carry thim down to the cellar, sor."

"What's the matter with the attic?"

"Nothing at all, at all. I was only finking they'd be handier for you to get at in the cellar. And it's a dom sight cooler down there."

With that he departed, blinking slyly.

The young man drew a chair up to the table and began the task of working out the puzzle that now seemed more or less near to solution. He had a pretty clear idea as to the period he wanted to investigate. To the best of his recollection, the Studios published three or four years back held the key. He selected the numbers and began to run through them. One after another they were cast aside without result. In any other cause he would have tired of the quest, but in this his curiosity was so commanding that he stuck to the task without complaint. He was positive in his mind that what he desired was to be found inside the covers of one of these magazines.

He was searching for a vaguely remembered article on one of the lesser-known English painters who had given great promise at the time it was published but who dropped completely out of notice soon afterward because of a mistaken notion of his own importance. If Booth's memory served him right, the fellow came a cropper, so to speak, in trying to ride rough shod over public opinion, and went to the dogs. He had been painting sensibly up to that time, but suddenly went in for the most violent style of impressionism. That was the end of him.

There had been reproductions of his princ.i.p.al canvases, with sketches and studies in charcoal. One of these pictures had made a lasting impression on Booth: the figure of a young woman in deep meditation standing in the shadow of a window cas.e.m.e.nt from which she looked out upon the world apparently without a thought of it. A slender young woman in vague reds and browns, whose shadowy face was positively illuminated by a pair of wonderful blue eyes.

He came upon it at last. For a long time he sat there gazing at the face of Hetty Castleton, a look of half-wonder, half-triumph in his eyes. There could be no doubt as to the ident.i.ty of the subject. The face was hers, the lovely eyes were hers: the velvety, dreamy, soulful eyes that had haunted him for years, as he now believed. In no sense could the picture be described as a portrait.

It was a study, deliberately arranged and deliberately posed for in the artist's studio. He was mystified. Why should she, the daughter of Colonel Castleton, the grand-niece of an earl, be engaged in posing for what evidently was meant to be a commercial product of this whilom artist?

He remembered the painting itself as he had seen it in the exhibition at the National Academy when this fellow--Hawkright was his name--was at the top of his promise as a painter. He remembered going back to it again and again and marvelling at the subtle, delicate beauty of the thing. Now he knew that it was the face, and not the art of the painter that had affected him so enduringly.

The fellow had shown other paintings, but he recalled that none of them struck him save this one. After all, it WAS the face that made the picture memorable.

Turning from this skilfully coloured full page reproduction, he glanced at first casually over the dozen or more sketches and studies on the succeeding pages. Many of them represented studies of women's heads and figures, with little or no attempt to obtain a likeness. Some were half-draped, showing in a sketchy way the long graceful lines of the half-nude figure, of bare shoulders and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, of gauze-like fabrics that but illy concealed impressive charms. Suddenly his eyes narrowed and a sharp exclamation fell from his lips. He bent closer to the pages and studied the drawings with redoubled interest.

Then he whistled softly to himself, a token of simple amazement.

The head of each of these remarkable studies suggested in outline the head and features of Hetty Castleton! She had been Hawkright's model!

The next morning at ten he was at Southlook, arranging his easel and canvas in the north end of the long living-room, where the light from the tall French windows afforded abundant and well-distributed light for the enterprise in hand. Hetty had not yet appeared. Sara, attired in a loose morning gown, was watching him from a comfortable chair in the corner, one shapely bare arm behind her head; the free hand was gracefully employed in managing a cigarette. He was conscious of the fact that her lazy, half-alert gaze was upon him all the time, although she pretended to be entirely indifferent to the preparations. Dimly he could see the faint smile of interest on her lips.

"By Jove," he exclaimed with sudden fervour, "I wish I could get you just as you are, Mrs. Wrandall. Do you mind if I sketch you in--just to preserve the pose for the future--"

"Never!" she cried and forthwith changed her position. She laughed at the look of disappointment in his face.

"You've no idea how--er--attractive--" he began confusedly, but broke off with a laugh. "I beg your pardon. I couldn't help it."

"The potent appeal of a cigarette," she surmised shrewdly.

"Not at all," he said promptly. He was a bit red in the face as he turned to busy himself with the tubes and brushes. When he glanced at her again, he found that she had resumed her former att.i.tude.

Hetty came in at that moment, calm, serene and lovelier than ever in the clear morning light. She was wearing the simple white gown he had chosen the day before. If she was conscious of the rather intense scrutiny he bestowed upon her as she gave him her hand in greeting, she did not appear to be in the least disturbed.

"You may go away, Sara," she said firmly. "I shall be too dreadfully self-conscious if you are looking on."

Booth looked at her rather sharply. Sara indolently abandoned her comfortable chair and left them alone in the room.

"Shall we try a few effects, Miss Castleton?" he inquired, after a period of constraint that had its effect on both of them.

"I am in your hands," she said simply.

He made suggestions. She fell into the positions so easily, so naturally, so effectively, that he put aside all previous doubts and blurted out:

"You have posed before, Miss Castleton."

She smiled frankly. "But not for a really truly portrait," she said. "Such as this is to be."

He hesitated an instant. "I think I recall a canvas by Maurice Hawkright," he said, and at once experienced a curious sense of perturbation. It was not unlike fear.

Instead of betraying the confusion or surprise he expected, Miss Castleton merely raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

"What has that to do with me, Mr. Booth?" she asked.

He laughed awkwardly.

"Don't you know his work?" he inquired, with a slight twist of his lip.

"I may have seen his pictures," she replied, puckering her brow as if in reflection.

He stared for a second.

"Why do you look at me in that way, Mr. Booth?" she cried, with a nervous little laugh.

"Do you mean to say you--er--that is, you don't know Hawkright's work?"

"Is that so very strange?" she inquired plaintively.

"By Jove," he muttered, quite taken aback. "I don't understand.

I'm flabbergasted."

"Please explain yourself," she said stiffly.

"You must have a double somewhere, Miss Castleton," said he, still staring. "Some one who looks enough like you to be--"