"That she"s exactly the model I"ve been looking for to pose for those outdoor ill.u.s.trations Fillmore wants. One of the series is to be a girl on a step ladder, picking apple blossoms. She is to be on her knees, and one foot is to be stretched out behind her. The picture demands a perfect foot and ankle, and this girl has them. Her features and hair, too, are just the type I want. She would know how to pose, too. You can see that from her air as she sits there. And that"s half the battle. If they do not have the faculty of posing naturally they could never be taught."
I felt much humiliated, and I was very angry, but I must remember, I told myself, that I had married an artist. I foresaw, however, many complications in our lives together. If every time we took a trip anywhere, d.i.c.ky was to spend his time planning to secure the services of some possible model I could see very little pleasure for me in our outings.
But I knew an apology was due d.i.c.ky, and I gathered courage to make it.
"I am sorry to have annoyed you, d.i.c.ky," I said at last. "But I did not dream that you were looking at her as a possible model."
"And looked at from any other standpoint it was rather raw of me,"
admitted d.i.c.ky. "But let"s forget it. She"ll probably drop off the train at Forest Hills or Kew Gardens, she looks like the product of those suburbs, and I"ll never see her again."
But his prediction was not fulfilled.
"Marvin!"
The conductor shouted the word as the train drew up to one of the most forlorn looking railroad stations it was ever my lot to see.
d.i.c.ky and I rose from our seats, he with subdued excitement, I with a feeling of depression. For the girl who had claimed so much of our attention was getting off at Marvin after all.
I remembered the bargain I had made with my conscience.
"What do you know about that?" d.i.c.ky exclaimed, as he saw her go down the aisle ahead of us. "She also is getting off here. I wonder who she is?"
"Listen, d.i.c.ky," I said rapidly. "Walk ahead, see in which direction she goes, and ask the station master if he knows who she is. I know something which I will tell you when you have done that. Perhaps you may have her for a model, after all."
d.i.c.ky gave me one swift glance of mingled surprise and admiration, then did as I asked. As I followed him down the aisle and noted the eagerness with which he was hurrying, I felt a sudden qualm of doubt.
Was I really doing the wisest thing?
I waited quietly on the station platform until d.i.c.ky rejoined me.
"Her name"s Draper," he said. "The station agent doesn"t know much about her, except that she visits a sister, Mrs. Gorman, here every summer. He never saw her here in the winter before. I got Mrs.
Gorman"s address, 329 Sh.o.r.e Road, called Sh.o.r.e Road because it never gets anywhere near the sh.o.r.e. Much good the address will do me, though. Queer she doesn"t take the bus. It must be a mile to her sister"s home. She"s probably one of those walking bugs."
"She didn"t take the bus because she could not afford it," I said quietly.
d.i.c.ky stared at me in amazement.
"How do you know?" he said finally. "Do you know her? No, of course you don"t. But how in creation--"
"Listen, d.i.c.ky," I interrupted. "I"ve turned too many dresses of my own not to recognize makeshifts when I see them. Everything that girl has on except her stockings and gloves has been remodelled from her old stuff. Her pumps are not suitable at all for walking; they are evening pumps, of a style two years old at that. But she has covered them with spats, so that no one will suspect that she wears them from necessity, not choice."
"Well, I"ll be--" d.i.c.ky uttered his favorite expletive. "It takes one woman to dissect another. She looked like the readiest kind of ready money to me. Why, say, if what you say is true, she ought to be glad to earn the money I could pay her for posing. I could get her lots of other work, too."
"Perhaps she wouldn"t like to do that sort of thing."
"What sort of thing? What"s wrong with it?" d.i.c.ky asked belligerently.
"Oh, you mean figure posing! She wouldn"t have to do that at all if she didn"t want to. Plenty of good nudes. It"s the intangible, high-bred look and ability to wear clothes well that"s hard to get."
We had walked past the unpainted little shack that but for the word "Marvin" in large letters painted across one end of it would never have been taken for a railroad station. Without looking where we were going we found ourselves in front of an immense poster on a large board back of the station. The letters upon it were visible yards away.
"Marvin," it read, "the prettiest, quaintest village on the south sh.o.r.e. Please don"t judge the town by the station."
He took my arm and turned me away from the billboard toward a wide, dusty road winding away from the station to the eastward.
"But, d.i.c.ky," I protested. "I thought you wanted to see about securing that girl as a model."
"Oh, that can wait," said d.i.c.ky carelessly.
My heart sang as I slipped my arm in d.i.c.ky"s. It was going to be an enjoyable day after all.
X
"GRACE BY NAME AND GRACE BY NATURE"
"What"s the matter, Madge? Got a grouch or something?"
d.i.c.ky faced me in the old hall of the deserted Putnam Manor Inn, where we had expected to find warmth and food and the picturesqueness of a century back. Instead of these things we had found the place in the hands of a caretaker. d.i.c.ky had asked to go through the house on the pretence of wishing to rent it.
"I haven"t a bit of a grouch." I tried to speak as cheerfully as I could, for I dreaded d.i.c.ky"s anger when I told him my feeling upon the subject of going over the house under false pretences. "But I don"t think it is right for us to go through the rooms. The woman wouldn"t have let us come in if you hadn"t said we wished to rent it. It"s deception, and I wish you wouldn"t insist upon my going any further. I can"t enjoy seeing the rooms at all."
d.i.c.ky stared at me for a moment as if I were some specimen of humanity he had never seen before. Then he exploded.
"Another one of your scruples, eh? By Jove, I wonder where you keep them all. You"re always ready to trot one out just in time to spoil any little thing I"m trying to do for your pleasure or mine."
"Please hush, d.i.c.ky," I pleaded. I was afraid the woman in the next room would hear him, he spoke in such loud tones.
"I"ll hush when I get good and ready." I longed to shake him, his tone and words were so much like those of a spoiled child. But he lowered his tone, nevertheless, and stood for a minute or two in sulky silence before the empty fireplace.
"Well! Come along," he said at last. "I"m sure there is no pleasure to me in looking over this place. I"ve seen it often enough when old Forsman had it filled with colonial junk, and served the best meals to be found on Long Island. It"s like a coffin now to me. But I thought you might like to look it over, as you had never seen it. But for heaven"s sake let us respect your scruples!"
I knew better than to make any answer. I wished above everything else to have this day end happily, this whole day to ourselves in the country, upon which I had counted so much. I feared d.i.c.ky would be angry enough to return to the city, as he had threatened to do when he found the inn closed. So it was with much relief that after we had gone back into the other room I heard him ask the caretaker if there were some place in the neighborhood where we could obtain a meal.
"Do you know where the Shakespeare House is?" she asked.
"Never heard of it," d.i.c.ky answered, "although I"ve been around here quite a bit, too."
"It"s about six blocks further down toward the bay," she said, still in the same colorless tone she had used from the first. "It"s on Sh.o.r.e Road. The Germans own it. Mr. Gorman, he"s a builder, and he built an old house over into a copy of Shakespeare"s house in England. Mrs.
Gorman is English. She serves tea there on the porch in the summer, and I"ve heard she will serve a meal to anybody that happens along any time of the year, although she doesn"t keep a regular restaurant.
That"s the only place I know of anywhere near. Of course, down on the bay there"s the Marvin Harbor Hotel. You can get a pretty good meal there."
"Thank you very much," said d.i.c.ky, laying a dollar bill down on the table near us.
I had a sudden flash of understanding. d.i.c.ky meant all the time to recompense the woman in this way for allowing us to see the house. But the principle of the thing remained the same. Why could he not have told her frankly that he wished to look at the house and given her the dollar in the beginning?
I did not ask the question, however, even after we had left the old mansion and were walking down the road. I felt like adopting the old motto and leaving well enough alone.