"I didn"t hear what you said. I know, tarlatan. Nice frizzy stuff. That sounds good. And it won"t matter crumpling it?"
"Of course not."
"Because you see I want you to be lying on a pile of rugs and cushions just as if you"d been dancing hard and had fallen asleep where you sank down."
So, in the time of celandines and snowdrops, Jenny would come to the studio every day; and when they had lunched together intimately and delightfully, she would go downstairs to change her frock, while Maurice arranged her resting-place.
The dove-gray tarlatan skirt, resilient like the hair-spring of a watch, suited the poise of Jenny"s figure. She wore gray silk stockings clocked with vivid pink, a _crepe de Chine_ blouse the color of mist, and round her head a fillet of rosy velvet. Altogether, she looked an Ariel woven magically from the smoke of London. Once or twice she actually fell fast asleep among the rugs; but generally she lay in a dream, just conscious of the flow of Maurice"s comments and rhapsodies.
"It"s an extraordinary thing," he began on one occasion. "But as I sit here fashioning your body out of wax, you yourself become every moment more and more of a spirit. I"ve a queer fancy working in my brain all the time that this is really you, here under my hands. I suppose it"s the perpetual concentration on one object that puts everything else out of proportion. One thing, however, I do realize: you"re making yourself every day more necessary to my life. Honestly, when you"re not here, this studio is infernal. You seem to endow it with your presence, to infuse it with your personality. It"s so romantic, you and I all alone on the tops of the houses, more alone than if we were on a beach in winter. I wish I could tell you the glorious satisfaction I feel all the time."
"Darling," she murmured drowsily.
"Sleepy girl, are you?"
"A bit."
Just then came a knock at the door, and Ronnie Walker looked in.
"Hullo, Ronnie," said Maurice, with a hint of ungraciousness in his tone.
"I say, old chap, would you think me an intrusive scoundrel if I made some drawings of Jenny?"
Maurice"s annoyance at interruption was mollified by the pride of ownership.
"Rather not. Any time. Why not now?"
So Ronnie sat there, making little _croquis_ of Jenny with soft outlines elusive as herself. After a while, with his sketch-book under his arm, he stole quietly from the room. The next day he came back with two water-colors, of which the first showed a room shadowy with dawn and Jenny fast asleep before a silver mirror, wrapped in a cloak of clouded blue satin. The second represented a bedroom darkened by jalousies faintly luminous with the morning light, when through one c.h.i.n.k, glittering with motes, a narrow sunbeam made vivid her crimson lips.
The painter showed his pictures to Maurice.
"Oh, Ronnie," said the latter. "You put me out of temper with my own work."
"My dear chap, I"m awfully sorry," apologized Ronnie, and, without waiting, hurried from the studio.
"Whatever"s the matter?" asked Jenny, awakened by this brief interview.
"I wish people wouldn"t come in and interrupt me when I"m at work,"
Maurice grumbled. "It"s frightfully inconsiderate. You don"t want to look at d.a.m.ned paintings when you"re working in another medium."
"Who were they of?"
"You, of course."
"Why didn"t he show them to me?"
"Because I jumped down his throat, I suppose."
"Whatever for?"
"Can"t you understand how annoying it must be to have to look at another person"s treatment of your subject?"
"I think it was very nasty of you not to let him show me the pictures."
"You seem more interested in Ronnie"s work than in mine."
"Well, you never let me look at what you"ve done."
"It isn"t finished yet."
"You can be horrid."
"Look here, Jenny, for goodness" sake don"t start criticising me. I can"t stand it. I never could. I"ve noticed lately you"ve taken to it."
"Oh, I"ve not."
"Well, you give me that impression."
Jenny rose from the cushions and, running her hands down the tarlatan till it regained its buoyancy, she moved slowly across to Maurice"s side.
"Kiss me, you silly old thing, and don"t say any more unkind things, because they make me unhappy."
Maurice could not be disdainful of her as, leaning over him, she clasped cool hands beneath his chin and with tender kisses uprooted from his forehead a maze of petulant lines.
"You little enchanting thing," he murmured. "You disarm me with your witcheries."
"And he"s not going to be cross any more?"
"He can"t be. Alas, my sweet one is too sweet."
"If you only knew what it meant for Jenny Pearl to be the soppy one."
"That"s love," Maurice explained.
"Is it? I suppose it is."
The sunshine of February was extinguished by a drench of rain. March came in with storms of sleet followed by a long stretch of dry easterly gales, when the studio, full of firelight and daffodils, was a pleasant refuge from the gray winds. After Ronnie"s visit the statue had been put aside for a while; the lovers spent most of their time in hearth-rug conversations, when Jenny would prattle inconsequently of youthful days and Maurice would build up a wonderful future. Vexatious riddles of conduct were ignored like the acrostics of old newspapers, and Jenny was happier than she had ever been. Her nature had always demanded a great deal from the present. Occurrences the most trivial impressed themselves deeply upon her mind, and it was this zest for the ephemeral which made her recollections of the past so lively. As a natural corollary to this habit of mind, she was profoundly deficient in speculation or foresight. The future exhausted her imagination at once: her intellect gasped long before she reached the prospect of eternity. A month made her brain reel.
Having succeeded in postponing all discussion of their natural att.i.tude, Jenny set out to enjoy the present which endowed her with Maurice"s company, with fragrant intimacies, and long, contented hours. He himself was most charming when responsibilities, whether of art or life, were laid aside. Jenny, a b.u.t.terfly herself, wanted nothing better than to play in the air with another b.u.t.terfly.
Then Maurice suddenly woke up to the fact that, summer being imminent, no more time must be wasted. Work on the statue was resumed in a fever of industry. April came in more like a beldame than a maid. In the studio, now full of rose-pink tulips, the statue rapidly progressed. One morning April threw off her disguises and danced like a fairy.
"I shall finish the model to-day," Maurice announced.
The sun went in and out all the afternoon. Now the windows were a-wash with showers; in a moment they were sparkling in a radiancy.
"Finished," the artist cried, and dragged Jenny to look and admire.