"Yes,"--he answered smiling, as though more to himself than at her,--"we have never tried to make her acquaintance."
The woman caught him up quickly; "To make _her_ acquaintance? Why do you say, '_her_,' if you do not know who it is?"
The artist was confused. "Did I say, _her_?" he questioned, his face flushed with embarrassment. "It was a slip of the tongue. Neither Conrad Lagrange nor I know anything about our neighbor."
She laughed ironically. "And you _could_ know so easily."
"I suppose so; but we have never cared to. We prefer to accept the music as it comes to us--impersonally--for what it is--not for whoever makes it." He spoke coldly, as though the subject was distasteful to him, under the circumstances of the moment.
But the woman persisted. "Well, _I_ know who it is. Shall I tell you?"
"No. I do not care to know. I am not interested in the musician."
"Oh, but you might be, you know," she retorted.
"Please take the pose," returned Aaron King professionally. Mrs. Taine, wisely, for the time, dropped the subject; contenting herself with a meaning laugh.
The artist silently gave all his attention to the nearly finished portrait. He was not painting, now, with full brush and swift sure strokes,--as had been his way when building up his picture,--but worked with occasional deft touches here and there; drawing back from the canvas often, to study it intently, his eyes glancing swiftly from the picture to the sitter's face and back again to the portrait; then stepping forward quickly, ready brush in hand; to withdraw an instant later for another long and searching study. Presently, with an air of relief, he laid aside his palette and brushes; and turning to Mrs. Taine, with a smile, held out his hand. "Come," he said, "tell me if I have done well or ill."
"It is finished?" she cried. "I may see it?"
"It is all that I can do"--he answered--"come." He led her to the easel, where they stood side by side before his work.
The picture, still fresh from the painter's brush, was a portrait of Mrs.
Taine--yet not a portrait. Exquisite in coloring and in its harmony of tone and line, it betrayed in every careful detail--in every mark of the brush--the thoughtful, painstaking care--the thorough knowledge and highly trained skill of an artist who was, at least, master of his own technic.
But--if one might say so--the painting was more a picture than a portrait.
The face upon the canvas was the face of Mrs. Taine, indeed, in that the features were her features; but it was also the face of a sweetly modest Quaker Maid. The too perfect, too well cared for face of the beautiful woman of the world was, on the canvas, given the charm of a natural unconscious loveliness. The eyes that had watched the artist with such certain knowledge of life and with the boldness born of that knowledge were, in the picture, beautiful with the charm of innocent maidenhood.
The very coloring and the arrangement of the hair were changed subtly to express, not the skill of high-priced beauty-doctors and of fashionable hair-dressers, but the instinctive care of womanliness. The costume that, when worn by the woman, expressed so fully her true character; in the picture, became the emblem of a pure and deeply religious spirit.
Mrs. Taine turned impulsively to the artist, and, placing her hand upon his arm, exclaimed in delight, "Oh, is it true? Am I really so beautiful?"
The artist laughed. "You like it?"
"Like it? How could I help liking it? It is lovely."
"I am glad," he returned. "I hoped it would please you."
"And you"--she asked, with eager eyes--"are you satisfied with it? Does it seem good to you?"
"Oh, as for that," he answered, "I suppose one is never satisfied. I know the work is good--in a way. But it is very far from what it should be, I fear. I feel that, after all, I have not made the most of my opportunity."
He spoke with a shade of sadness.
Again, she put out her hand impulsively to touch his arm, as she answered eagerly, "Ah, but no one else will say that. No one else will dare. It will be the sensation of the year--I tell you. Just you wait until Jim Rutlidge sees it. Wait until it is hung for exhibition, and he tells the world about it. Everybody worth while will be coming to you then. And I--I will remember these hours with you, and be glad that I could help--even so little. Will you remember them, too, I wonder. Are you glad the picture is finished?"
"And are you not glad?" he returned meaningly.
They had both forgotten the painting before them. They did not see it.
They each saw only the other.
"No, I am not glad," she said in a low tone. "People would very soon be talking if I should come here, alone--now that the picture is finished."
"I suppose in any case you will be leaving Fairlands soon, for the summer," he returned slowly.
"O listen,"--she cried with quick eagerness--"we are going to Lake Silence. What's to hinder your coming too? Everybody goes there, you know.
Won't you come?"
"But would it be altogether safe?" He reflected doubtfully.
"Why, of course,--Mr. Taine, Louise, and Jim,--we are all going together--don't you see? I don't believe you want to go," she pouted. "I believe you want to forget."
Her alluring manner, the invitation conveyed in her words and voice, the touch of her hand on his arm, and the nearness of her person, fairly swept the man off his feet. With quick passion, he caught her hand, and his words came with reckless heat. "You know that I will not forget you. You know that I could not, if I would. Do you think that I have been so engrossed with my brushes and canvas that I have been unconscious of you?
What is that painted thing beside your own beautiful self? Do you think that because I must turn myself into a machine to make a photograph of your beauty, I am insensible to its charm? I am not a machine. I am a man; as you are a woman; and I--"
She checked him suddenly--stepping aside with a quick movement, and the words, "Hush, some one is coming."
The artist, too, heard voices, just without the door.
Mrs. Taine moved swiftly across the room toward her wrap. Aaron King, going to his easel, drew the velvet curtain to hide the picture.
Chapter IX
Conrad Lagrange's Adventure
Certainly, when Conrad Lagrange fled so precipitately from Louise Taine, that afternoon, he had no thought that the trivial incident was to mark the beginning of a new era in his life; or that it would work out in the life of his dearest friend such far reaching results. His only purpose was to escape an hour of the frothy vaporings of the poor, young creature who believed herself so interested in art and letters, and who succeeded so admirably in expressing the spirit of her environment and training.
With his pipe and book, the novelist hid himself in the rose garden; finding a seat on the ground, in an angle of the studio wall and the Ragged Robin hedge, where any one entering the enclosure would be least likely to observe him. Czar, heartily approving of his master's action, stretched himself comfortably under the nearest rose-bush, and waited further developments.
Presently, the novelist heard his friend, with Mrs. Taine, come from the house and enter the studio. For a moment, he entertained the uncomfortable fear that the artist, in a spirit of sheer boyish fun that so often moved him, would bring Mrs. Taine to the garden. But the moment passed, and the novelist,--mentally blessing the young man for his forbearance,--with a chuckle of satisfaction, lighted his pipe and opened his book. Scarcely had he found his place in the pages, however, when he was again interrupted--this time, by the welcome tones of their neighbor's violin.
Putting his book aside, the man reclining in the shelter of the roses, with half-closed eyes, yielded himself to the fancy of the spirit that called from the depths of the fragrant orange grove.
The mass of roses in the hedge and on the wall of the studio above his head dropped their lovely petals down upon him. The warm, slanting rays of the afternoon sun, softened by the screen of shining leaves and branches, played over the bewildering riot of color. Here and there, golden-bodied bees and velvet-winged butterflies flitted about their fairy-like duties.
Far above, in the deep blue, a hawk floated on motionless wings and a lonely crow laid his course toward the distant mountain peaks that gleamed, silvery white, above the blue and purple of the lower ridges and the tawny yellow of their foothills. The air was saturated with the fragrance of the rose and orange blossoms, of eucalyptus and pepper trees, and with the thousand other perfumes of a California spring.
The music ceased. The man waited--hoping that it would begin again. But it did not; and he was about to take up his book, once more, when Czar arose, stretched himself, stood for a moment in a picturesque, listening attitude, then trotted off among the roses; leaving the novelist with an odd feeling of uneasy expectancy--half resolved to stay, half determined to go. The thought of Louise in the house decided him, and he kept his place, hidden as he was, in the corner--a whimsical smile hovering over his world-lined features as though, after all, he felt himself entering upon some enjoyable adventure.
Presently, he heard indistinctly, somewhere in the other end of the garden, a low murmuring voice. As it came nearer, the man's smile grew more pronounced It was a wonderfully attractive voice, clear and full in its pure-toned sweetness. The unseen speaker was talking to the novelist's dog. The smile on the man's face was still more pronounced, as he whispered to himself, "The rascal! So this is what he has been up to!"
Rising quietly to his knees, he peered through the flower-laden bushes.
A young woman of rare and exquisite beauty was moving about the garden--bending over the roses, and talking in low tones to Czar, who--to his hidden master--appeared to appreciate fully the favor of his gentle companion's intimacy. The novelist--old in the study of character and trained by his long years of observation and experience in the world of artificiality--was fascinated by the loveliness of the scene.
Dressed simply, in some soft clinging material of white, with a modestly low-cut square at the throat, and sleeves that ended in filmy lace just below the elbow--her lithe, softly rounded form, as she moved here and there, had all the charm of girlish grace with the fuller beauty of ripening womanhood. As she bent over the roses, or stooped to caress the dog, in gentle comradeship, her step, her poise, her every motion, was instinct with that strength and health that is seldom seen among those who wear the shackles of a too conventionalized society. Her face,--warmly tinted by the golden out-of-doors, firm fleshed and clear,--in its unconscious naturalness and in its winsome purity was like the flowers she stooped to kiss.
As he watched, the man noticed--with a smile of understanding--that she kept rather to the side of the garden toward the house; where the artist, at his easel by the big, north light, could not see her through the small window in the end of the room; and where, hidden by the tall hedge, she would not be noticed from Yee Kee's kitchen. Often, too, she paused to listen, as if for any chance approaching step--appearing, to the fancy of the man, as some creature from another world--poised lightly, ready to vanish if any rude observer came too near. Soon,--after a cautious, hesitating, listening look about,--she slipped, swift footed as a fawn, across the garden, and--followed by the dog--disappeared into the latticed rose-covered arbor against the southern wall.