She started eagerly forward toward the easel. But the artist, with a quick motion, drew a curtain across the canvas, to hide his work; while he checked her with--"Not yet, please. I don't want you to see it until I say you may."
"How mean of you," she protested; charmingly submissive. Then, eagerly--"And do you want me to-morrow? You do, don't you?"
"Yes, please--at the same hour."
When the Quaker Maiden's dress was safely hidden under her wrap, Mrs.
Taine stood, for a moment, looking thoughtfully about the studio; while the artist waited at the door, ready to escort her to the automobile. "I am going to love this room," she said slowly; and, for the first time, her voice was genuinely sincere, with a hint of wistfulness in its tone that made him regard her wonderingly.
She went to him impulsively. "Will you, when you are famous--when you are a great artist and all the great and famous people go to you to have their portraits painted--will you remember poor me, I wonder?"
"Am I really going to be famous?" he returned doubtfully. "Are you so sure that this picture will mean success?"
"Of course I am sure--I _know_. You want to succeed don't you?"
Aaron King returned her look, for a moment, without answering. Then, with a quick, fierce determination that betrayed a depth of feeling she had never before seen in him, he exclaimed, "Do I want to succeed! I--I must succeed. I tell you I _must_."
And the woman answered very softly, with her hand upon his arm, "And you shall--you shall."
Conrad Lagrange and Czar found the artist on the front porch, pulling moodily at his pipe.
"Is it all over for to-day?" asked the novelist as he stood looking down upon the young man with that peculiarly piercing, baffling gaze.
"All over," replied the artist, answering the greeting thrust of Czar's muzzle against his knee, with caressing hand. "Where did you fly to?"
The other dropped into a chair. "I would fly anywhere to escape being entertained by that Ragtime' piece of human nonentity--Louise Taine. I saw them coming, just in time." He was filling his pipe as he spoke. "And how did the work go?"
"All right," replied the painter, indifferently.
The older man shot a curious sidewise glance at his moody companion; then, striking a match, he gave careful attention to his pipe. Watching the cloud of blue smoke, he said quizzingly, "I suppose 'Her Majesty' was royally apparelled for the occasion-properly arrayed in purple and fine linen; as befits the dignity of her state?"
The artist turned at the mocking, suggestive tone and answered savagely, "I suppose you have got to know, damn you! I'm painting her as a Quaker Maiden."
Conrad Lagrange's reply was as surprising in its way as was the outburst of the artist. Instead of the tirade of biting sarcasm and stinging abuse that the painter expected, the older man only gazed at him from under his scowling brows and, shaking his head, sadly, said with sincere regret and understanding "You poor fellow! It must be hell." Then, as his keen mind grasped the full significance of the artist's words, he murmured meditatively, "The personification of the age masquerading in Quaker gray--Shades of the giants who used to be! What an opportunity--if you only had the nerve to do it."
The artist flung out his hand in protest as he rose from his chair to pace up and down the porch. "Don't, Lagrange, don't! I can't stand it, just now."
"All right." said the other, heartily, "I won't." Rising, he put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Come, let's go for a look at the roses, before Yee Kee calls us to dinner."
In the garden, the artist's eye caught sight of something white lying in the well-kept path. With an exclamation, he went quickly to pick it up. It was a dainty square of lace--a handkerchief--with an exquisitely embroidered "S" in the corner.
The two men looked at each other in silence; with smiling, questioning eyes.
Chapter VIII
The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait
Aaron King was putting the last touches to his portrait of the woman who--Conrad Lagrange said--was the personification of the age.
From that evening when the young man told his friend the story of his mother's sacrifice, their friendship had become like that friendship which passeth the love of women. While the novelist, true to his promise, did not cease to flay his younger companion--for the good of the artist's soul--those moments when his gentler moods ruled his speech were, perhaps, more frequent; and the artist was more and more learning to appreciate the rare imagination, the delicacy of feeling, the intellectual brilliancy, and the keenness of mental vision that distinguished the man whose life was so embittered by the use he had made of his own rich gifts.
The novelist steadily refused to look at the picture while the work was in progress. He said, bluntly, that he preferred to run no risk of interfering with the young man's chance for fame; and that it would be quite enough for him to look upon his friend's shame when it was accomplished; without witnessing the process in its various stages. The artist laughed to hide the embarrassing fact that he was rather pleased to be left to himself with this particular picture.
Conrad Lagrange did not, however, refuse to accompany his friend, occasionally, to the house on Fairlands Heights; where the painter continued to spend much of his time. When Mrs. Taine made mocking references to the novelist's promise not to leave the artist unprotected to her tender mercies, he always answered with some--as she said--twisty saying; to the effect that the present situation in no way lessened his determination to save the young man from the influences that would accomplish the ruin of his genius. "If"--he always added--"if he is worth saving; which remains to be seen." Always, at the Taine home, they met James Rutlidge. Frequently the celebrated critic dropped in at the cottage in the orange grove.
Under the skillful management of Rutlidge,--at the request of Mrs.
Taine,--the newspapers were already busy with the name and work of Aaron King. True, the critic had never seen the artist's work; but, never-the-less, the papers and magazines throughout the country often mentioned the high order of the painter's genius. There were little stories of his study and success abroad; tactful references to his aristocratic family; entertaining accounts of his romantic life with the famous novelist in the orange groves of Fairlands, and of how, in his California studio among the roses, the distinguished painter was at work upon a portrait of the well-known social leader, Mrs. Taine--this being the first portrait ever painted of that famous beauty. That the picture would create a sensation at the exhibition, was the unanimous verdict of all who had been permitted to see the marvelous creation by this rare genius whose work was so little known in this country.
Said Conrad Lagrange--"It is all so easy."
Once or twice, the artist or his friend had seen the woman of the disfigured face; and the novelist still tried in vain to fix her in his memory. Every day, they heard, in the depths of the neighboring orange grove, the music of that unseen violin. They spoke, often, in playful mood, of the spirit that haunted the place; but they made no effort to solve the mystery of the carefully tended rose garden. They knew that whoever cared for the roses worked there only in the early morning hours; and they carefully avoided going into the yard back of the house until after breakfast. They felt that an investigation might rob them of the peculiar humor of their fancy--a fancy that was to them, both, such a pleasure; and gave to their home amid the orange-trees and roses such an added charm.
But the other member of the trio of friends was not so reticent. Czar had formed an--to his most proper dogship--unusual habit. Frequently, when the three were sitting on the porch in the evening, he would rise suddenly from his place beside his master's chair, and walking sedately to the side of the porch facing that neighboring gable and chimney, would stand listening attentively; then, without so much as a "by-your-leave," he would leap to the ground, and vanish somewhere around the corner of the house. Later, he would come sedately back; greeting each, in turn, with that insistent thrust his soft muzzle against a knee; and assuring them, in the wordless speech of his expressive, brown eyes, that his mission had been a most proper one, and that they might trust him to make no foolish mistakes that would mar the peace and harmony of their little household.
The men never failed to agree with him that it was all right. In fact, so fully did they trust him that they never even stepped to the corner of the porch to see where he went; nor would they leave their chairs until he had returned.
Upon those days when Mrs. Taine came to the studio,--being always careful that Louise accompanied her as far as the house,--Conrad Lagrange vanished. The man swore by all the strange and wonderful gods he knew--and they were many--that he feared to spend an hour with that effervescing young female devotee of the Arts--lest the mountains in their wrath should fall upon him.
But that day, when Mrs. Taine came for the last sitting, the novelist--engaged in interesting talk with the artist--forgot.
"You are caught," cried the painter, gleefully, as the big automobile stopped at the gate.
"I'll be damned if I am," retorted the novelist, with no profane intent but with meaning quite literal; and, seizing a book, he bolted through the kitchen--nearly upsetting the startled Yee Kee.
"What's matte'," inquired the Chinaman, putting his head in at the living-room door; his almond eyes as wide as they could go, with an expression of celestial consternation that convulsed the artist. Catching sight of the automobile, his oriental features wrinkled into a yellow grin of understanding; "Oh! see um come! Ha! I know. He all time go, she come.
He say no like lagtime gal. Dog Cza', him all time gone, too; him no like lagtime--all same Miste' Laglange. Ha! I go, too," and he, in turn, vanished.
"You are early, to-day," said Aaron King, as he escorted Mrs. Taine to the studio.
Just inside the door, she turned impulsively to face him--standing close, her beautifully groomed and voluptuous body instinct with the lure of her sex, her too perfect features slightly flushed, and her eyes submissively downcast. "And have you forgotten that this is the last time I can come?"
she asked in a low tone.
"Surely not"--he returned calmly--"you are coming to-morrow, with the others, aren't you?" Her husband with James Rutlidge and Louise Taine were invited for the next day, to view the portrait.
"Oh, but that will be so different!" She loosed the wrap she wore, and threw it aside with an indescribable familiar gesture. "You don't realize what these hours have meant to me--how could you? You do not live in my world. Your world is--is so different You do not know--you do not know."
With a sudden burst of passion, she added, "The world that I live in is hell; and this--this--oh, it has been heavenly!"
Her words, her voice, the poise of her figure, the gesture with outstretched arms--it was all so nearly an invitation, so nearly a surrender of herself to him, that the man started forward impulsively.
For the moment he forgot his work--he forgot everything--he was conscious only of the woman who stood before him. But even as the light of triumph blazed up in the woman's eyes, the man halted,--drew back; and his face was turned from her as he listened to the sweetly appealing message of the gentle spirit that made itself felt in the music of that hidden violin. It was as though, in truth, the mountains, themselves,--from their calm heights so remote from the little world wherein men live their baser tragedies,--watched over him. "Don't you think we had better proceed with our work?" he said calmly.
The light in the woman's eyes changed to anger which she turned away to hide. Without replying, she went to her place and assumed the pose; and, as she had watched him day after day when his eyes were upon the canvas, she watched him now. Since that first day, when she had questioned him about the unseen musician, they had not mentioned the subject, although--as was inevitable under the circumstances--their intimacy had grown. But not once had he turned from his work in that listening attitude, or looked from the window as though half-expecting some one, without her noting it. And, always, her eyes had flashed with resentment, which she had promptly concealed when the painter, again turning to his easel, had looked from his canvas to her face.
Scarcely was the artist well started in his work, that afternoon, when the music ceased. Presently, Mrs. Taine broke her watchful silence, with the quite casual remark; "Your musical neighbor is still unknown to you, I suppose?"