As for the model he should choose to study, she ought to be thoroughly feminine, he thought; young, probably blonde, well formed, not very deeply experienced, and with every human capacity for good and bad alike.
He would approach her frankly, tell her what he required, offer her the pay of an artist"s model, three dollars a day; and, if she accepted, she could have her head and do what she liked. All that concerned him was to make his observations and record them.
In the blue starlight people pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed like ghosts along the sh.e.l.l-road--the white summer gowns of young girls were constantly appearing in the dusk, taking vague shape, vanishing. On the lagoon, a guitar sounded very far away. The suave scent of oleander grew sweeter.
Spectral groups pa.s.sed in clinging lingerie; here and there a ghost lingered to lean over the coquina wall, her lost gaze faintly accented by some level star. One of these, a slender young thing, paused near to Brown, resting gracefully against the wall.
All around her the whip-poor-wills were calling breathlessly; the perfume of oleander grew sweeter.
As for the girl herself, she resembled the tenth muse. Brown had never attempted to visualise his mistress; it had been enough for him that she was Thalomene, daughter of Zeus, and divinely fair.
But now, as he recognised the face he had noticed that evening in the dining-room, somehow he thought of his muse for the first time, concretely. Perhaps because the girl by the coquina wall was young, slim, golden haired, and Greek.
His impulse, without bothering to reason, was to hop from the wall and go over to where she was standing.
She looked around calmly as he approached, gave him a little nod in recognition of his lifted hat.
"I"m John Brown, 4th," he said. "I"m stopping at the Villa Hibiscus. Do you mind my saying so?"
"No, I don"t mind," she said.
"There is a vast amount of nonsense in formality and convention," said Brown. "If you don"t mind ignoring such details, I have something important to say to you."
She looked at him unsmilingly. Probably it was the starlight in her eyes that made them glimmer as though with hidden laughter.
"I am," said Brown, pleasantly, "an author."
"Really," she said.
"When I say that I am an author," continued Brown seriously, "I mean in the higher sense."
"Oh. What is the higher sense, Mr. Brown?" she asked.
"The higher sense does not necessarily imply authorship. I do not mean that I am a mere writer. I have written very little."
"Oh," she said.
"Very little," repeated Brown combatively. "You will look in vain among the crowded counters piled high with contemporary fiction for anything from my pen."
"Then perhaps I had better not look," she said so simply that Brown was a trifle disappointed in her.
"Some day, however," he said, "you may search, and, perhaps, not wholly in vain."
"Oh, you are writing a book!"
"Yes," he said, "I am, so to speak, at work on a novel."
"Might one, with discretion, make further inquiry concerning your novel, Mr. Brown?"
"_You_ may."
"Thank you," she said, apparently a trifle disconcerted by the privilege so promptly granted.
"_You_ may," repeated Brown. "Shall I explain why?"
"Please."
"You will not mistake me, I am sure. Will you?"
She turned her pretty face toward him.
"I don"t think so," she said after a moment. The starlight was meddling with her eyes again.
XIV
So Brown told her about his theory; how he desired to employ a model, how he desired to study her; what were his ideas of the terms suitable.
He talked fluently, earnestly, and agreeably; and his pretty audience listened with so much apparent intelligence and good taste that her very att.i.tude subtly exhilarated Brown, until he became slightly aware that he was expressing himself eloquently.
He had, it seemed, much to say concerning the profession and practice of good literature. It seemed, too, that he knew a great deal about it, both theoretically and practically. His esteem and reverence for it were unmistakable; his enthusiasm worthy of his courage.
He talked for a long while, partly about literature, partly about himself. And he was at intervals a trifle surprised that he had so much to say, and wondered at the valuable acc.u.mulations of which he was unburdening himself with such vast content.
The girl had turned her back to the lagoon and stood leaning against the coquina wall, facing him, her slender hands resting on the coping.
Never had he had such a listener. At the clubs and cafes other literary men always wanted to talk. But here under the great southern stars n.o.body interrupted the limpid flow of his long dammed eloquence. And he ended leisurely, as he had begun, yet auto-intoxicated, thrillingly conscious of the spell which he had laid upon himself, upon his young listener--conscious, too, of the spell that the soft air and the perfume and the stars had spun over a world grown suddenly and incredibly lovely and young.
She said in a low voice: "I need the money very much.... And I don"t mind your studying me."
"Do you really mean it?" he exclaimed, enchanted.
"Yes. But there is one trouble."
"What is it?" he asked apprehensively.
"I _must_ have my mornings to myself."
He said: "Under the terms I must be permitted to ask you any questions I choose. You understand that, don"t you?"
"Yes," she said.
"Then--why must you have your mornings to yourself?"
"I have work to do."