"The best in the world. As a successful commercial artist, what possible interest would you have taken in me? You took me for a struggling young painter--that was the Bonnie La.s.sie"s fault, for I never lied to you about it--and after we"d started on that track I didn"t--well, I didn"t have the courage to risk losing you by quitting the masquerade."
"How you must have laughed at me all the time!"
He flushed to his angry eyes. "Do you think that is fair?" he retorted.
"Or kind? Or true?"
"I--I don"t know," she faltered. "You let me offer you money. And you"ve probably got as much as I have."
"I won"t have from now on, then. I"m going to paint. I thought, when you told me you were going away, that I couldn"t look at a canvas again. But now I know I was wrong. I"ve got to paint. You"ll have left me that, at least."
"Mr. Merrill thinks you"re ruining your career. And if you do, it"ll be my fault. I"ll never, never, never," said the patroness of Art desolately, "try to do any one good again!"
She turned toward the door.
"At least," said Julien in a voice which threatened to get out of control, "you"ll know that it wasn"t all masquerade. You"ll know why I"ll always keep the picture, even if I never paint another."
She stole a look at him over her shoulder and, with a thrill, saw the pa.s.sion in his eyes and the pride that withheld him from speaking.
"Suppose," she said, "I asked you to give it up."
"You wouldn"t," he retorted quickly.
"No, I wouldn"t. But--but--" Her glance, wandering away from him, fell on the joyous line of Beranger bold above the door.
""How good is life in an attic at twenty,"" she murmured. Then, turning to him, she held out her hands.
"I could find it good," she said with a soft little falter in her voice, "even at twenty-two."
Everything pa.s.ses in review before my bench, sooner or later. The two, going by with transfigured faces, stopped.
"Let"s tell Dominie," said Julien.
I waved a jaunty hand. "I know already," said I, "even if it hadn"t been announced to a waiting world."
"Wh-wh-why," stammered Bobbie with a blush worth a man"s waiting a lifetime to see, "it--it only just happened."
"Bless your dear, innocent hearts, both of you! It"s been happening for weeks. Come with me."
I lead them to the sidewalk fronting Thornsen"s elite Restaurant. There stood Peter Quick Banta, admiring his latest masterpiece of imaginative symbolism. It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in its powerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and of orange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials.
"J.T." and "R.H." Below, in no less than four colors, ran the legend, "Cupid"s Token."
"O Lord! Dad!" cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out with frantic feet. "How long has this been there?"
"What"re you doing? Leave it be!" cried the anguished artist. "It"s been there since noon."
"Never mind," put in Bobbie softly; "it"s very pretty and tasteful even though it is a little precipitate. But how"--she turned the lovely and puzzled inquiry of her eyes upon the symbolist--"how did you know?"
"Artistic intuition," said Peter Quick Banta with profound complacency.
"_I"m_ an artist."
THE HOUSE OF SILVERY VOICES
Wayfarers on the far side of Our Square used to stop before Number 37 and wonder. The little house, it seemed, was making music at them.
"Kleam, kleam, kleam, kleam," it would pipe pleasantly.
"BHONG! BHONG! BHONG!" solemn and churchly, in rebuke of its own levity.
"Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_!"
That was a duet in the middle register.
Then from some far-off aerie would ring the tocsin of an elfin silversmith, fast, furious, and tiny:
"Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping!"
We surmised that a retired Swiss bell-ringer had secluded himself in our remote backwater of the great city to mature fresh combinations of his art.
Before the Voices came, Number 37 was as quiet a house as any in the Square. Quieter than most, since it was vacant much of the time and the ceremonious sign of the Mordaunt Estate, "For Rental to Suitable Tenant," invited inspection. "Suitable" is the catch in that innocent-appearing legend. For the Mordaunt Estate, which is no estate at all and never has been, but an ex-butcher of elegant proclivities named Wagboom, prefers to rent its properties on a basis of prejudice rather than profit, and is quite capable of rejecting an applicant as unsuitable on purely eclectic grounds, such as garlic for breakfast, or a gla.s.s eye.
How the new tenant had contrived to commend himself to Mr.
Mordaunt-Wagboom is something of a mystery. Probably it was his name rather than his appearance, which was shiny, not to say seedy. He encountered the Estate when that incorporated gentleman was engaged in painting the front door, and, in a deprecating voice, inquired whether twenty-five dollars a month would be considered.
"Maybe," returned the Estate, whereupon the stranger introduced himself, with a stiff little bow, as Mr. Winslow Merivale.
Mr. Wagboom was favorably impressed with this, as possessing aristocratic implications.
"The name," he p.r.o.nounced, "is satisfactory. The sum is satisfactory. It is, however, essential that the lessor should measure up in character and status to the standards of the Mordaunt Estate." This he had adapted from the prospectus of a correspondence school, which had come to him through the mail, very genteelly worded. "Family man?" he added briskly.
"Yes, sir."
"How many of you?"
"Two."
"Wife?"
"No, sir," said the little man, very low.
"Son? Daughter? What age?"
"I have never been blessed with a child."
"Then who--"
"w.i.l.l.y Woolly would share the house with me, sir."
For the first time the Mordaunt Estate noticed a small, fluffy poodle, with an important expression, seated behind the railing.