for a while, then:
"Louis?"
"Yes."
"Am I too frank with you?"
"Why?"
"I don't know; I was just thinking. I tell you pretty nearly everything. If I didn't have you to tell—have somebody—" She considered, with brows slightly knitted—"if I didn't have somebody to talk to, it wouldn't be very good for me. I realise that."
"You need a grandmother," he said, drily; "and I'm the closest resemblance to one procurable."
The imagery struck her as humorous and she laughed.
"Poor Kelly," she said aloud to herself, "he is used and abused and imposed upon, and in revenge he offers his ungrateful tormentor delicious breakfasts. What shall his reward be?—or must he await it in Paradise where he truly belongs amid the martyrs and the blessed saints!"
Neville grunted.
"Oh, oh! such a post-Raphaelite scowl! Job won't bow to you when you go aloft, Kelly. Besides, polite martyrs smile pleasantly while enduring torment…. What are you going to do with me to-day?" she added, glancing around with frank curiosity at an easel which was set with a full-length virgin canvas.
"Portrait," he replied, tersely.
"Oh," she said, surprised. He had never before painted her clothed.
From moment to moment, as she leisurely breakfasted, she glanced around at the canvas, interested in the new idea of his painting her draped; a trifle perplexed, too.
"Louis," she said, "I don't quite see how you're ever going to find a purchaser for just a plain portrait of me."
He said, irritably: "I don't have to work for a living every minute, do I? For Heaven's sake give me a day off to study."
"But—it seems like wasted time—"
"What is wasted time?"
"Why just to paint a portrait of me as I am. Isn't it?" She looked up smilingly, perfectly innocent of any self-consciousness. "In the big canvases for the Byzantine Theatre you always made my features too radiant, too glorious for portraits. It seems rather a slump to paint me as I am—just a girl in street clothes."
A singular expression passed over his face.
"Yes," he said, after a moment—"just a girl in street clothes. No clouds, no sky, no diaphanous draperies of silk; no folds of cloth of gold; no gemmed girdles, no jewels. Nothing of the old glamour, the old glory; no sunburst laced with mist; no 'light that never was on sea or land.' … Just a young girl standing in the half light of my studio…. And by God!—if I can not do it—the rest is worthless."
Amazed at his tone and expression she turned quickly, set back her cup, remained gazing at him, bewildered by the first note of bitterness she had ever heard in his voice.
He had risen and walked to his easel, back partly turned. She saw him fussing with his palette, colours, and brushes, watched him for a few moments, then she went away into the farther room where she had a glass shelf to herself with toilet requisites—a casual and dainty gift from him.
When she returned he was still bending over his colour-table; and she walked up and laid her hand on his shoulder—not quite understanding why she did it.
He straightened up to his full stature, surprised, turning his head to meet a very clear, very sweetly disturbed gaze.
"Kelly, dear, are you unhappy?"
"Why—no."
"You seem to be a little discontented."
"I hope I am. It's a healthy sign."
"Healthy?"
"Certainly. The satisfied never get anywhere…. That Byzanite business has begun to wear on my nerves."
"Thousands and thousands of people have gone to see it, and have praised it. You know what the papers have been saying—"
Under her light hand she felt the impatient movement of his shoulders, and her hand fell away.
"Don't you care for it, now that it's finished?" she asked, wondering.
"I'm devilish sick of it," he said, so savagely that every nerve in her recoiled with a tiny shock. She remained silent, motionless, awaiting his pleasure. He set his palette, frowning. She had never before seen him like this.
After a while she said, quietly: "If you are waiting for me, please tell me what you expect me to do, because I don't know, Kelly."
"Oh, just stand over there," he said, vaguely; "just walk about and stop anywhere when you feel like stopping."
She walked a few steps at hazard, partly turned to look back at him with a movement adorable in its hesitation.
"Don't budge!" he said, brusquely.
"Am I to remain like this?"
"Exactly."
He picked up a bit of white chalk, went over to her, knelt down, and traced on the floor the outline of her shoes.
Then he went back, and, with his superbly cool assurance, began to draw with his brush upon the untouched canvas.
From where she stood, and as far as she could determine, he seemed, however, to work less rapidly than usual—with a trifle less decision—less precision. Another thing she noticed; the calm had vanished from his face. The vivid animation, the cool self-confidence, the half indolent relapse into careless certainty—all familiar phases of the man as she had so often seen him painting—were now not perceptible. There seemed to be, too, a curious lack of authority about his brush strokes at intervals—moments of grave perplexity, indecision almost resembling the hesitation of inexperience—and for the first time she saw in his gray eyes the narrowing concentration of mental uncertainty.
It seemed to her sometimes as though she were looking at a total stranger. She had never thought of him as having any capacity for the ordinary and lesser ills, vanities, and vexations—the trivial worries that beset other artists.
"Louis?" she said, full of curiosity.
"What?" he demanded, ungraciously.
"You are not one bit like yourself to-day."
He made no comment. She ventured again:
"Do I hold the pose properly?"
"Yes, thanks," he said, absently.
"May I talk?"
"I'd rather you didn't, Valerie, just at present."
"All right," she rejoined, cheerfully; but her pretty eyes watched him very earnestly, a little troubled.
When she was tired the pose ended; that had been their rule; but long after her neck and back and thighs and limbs begged for relief, she held the pose, reluctant to interrupt him. When at last she could endure it no longer she moved; but her right leg had lost not only all sense of feeling but all power to support her; and down she came with a surprised and frightened little exclamation—and he sprang to
