"What does it mean, Mad?" asked Miss Carver in the same dreamy way, continuing her work.
"Yes, Madeline," said Berry, "explain yourself."
"Mr. Berry!" cried Miss Swan warningly.
"That"s me; Alonzo W., Jr. Go on!"
"You forget yourself," said the girl, with imperfect severity.
"Well, you forgot me first," said Berry, with affected injury. "Ain"t it hard enough to sit here night after night, strumming on the old banjo, while another fellow is going down to posterity as a Roman Youth with a red shawl round his neck, without having to hear people say they"re in love with that head of his?"
Miss Carver now stopped her work, and looked from her friend, with her head bowed in laughter on the back of her hand, to that of Berry bent in burlesque reproach upon her, and then at Lemuel, who was trying to control himself.
"But I can tell you what, Miss Swan; you spoke too late, as the man said when he swallowed the chicken in the fresh egg. Mr. Barker has a previous engagement. That so, Barker?"
Lemuel turned fire-red, and looked round at Miss Carver, who met his glance with her clear gaze. She turned presently to make some comment on Miss Swan"s sketch, and then, after working a little while longer, she said she was tired, and was going to make some tea.
The girls both pressed Lemuel to stay for a cup, but he would not; and Berry followed him downstairs to explain and apologise.
"It"s all right," said Lemuel. "What difference would it make to them whether I was engaged or not?"
"Well, I suppose as a general rule a girl would rather a fellow wasn"t,"
philosophised Berry. He whistled ruefully, and Lemuel drawing a book toward him in continued silence, he rose from the seat he had taken on the desk in the little office, and said, "Well, I guess it"ll all come out right. Come to think of it, _I_ don"t know anything about your affairs, and I can tell "em so."
"Oh, it don"t matter."
He had pulled the book toward him as if he were going to read, but he could not read; his head was in a whirl. After a first frenzy of resentment against Berry, he was now angry at himself for having been so embarra.s.sed. He thought of a retort that would have pa.s.sed it all off lightly; then he reflected again that it was of no consequence to these young ladies whether he was engaged or not, and at any rate it was n.o.body"s business but his own. Of course he was engaged to Statira, but he had hardly thought of it in that way. "Manda Grier had joked about the time when she supposed she should have to keep old maid"s hall alone; when she first did this Lemuel thought it delightful, but afterwards he did not like it so much; it began to annoy him that "Manda Grier should mix herself up so much with Statira and himself.
He believed that Statira would be different, would be more like other ladies (he generalised it in this way, but he meant Miss Swan and Miss Carver), if she had not "Manda Grier there all the time to keep her back. He convinced himself that if it were not for "Manda Grier, he should have had no trouble in telling Statira that the art-students were sketching him; and that he had not done so yet because he hated to have "Manda ask her so much about them, and call them that Swan girl and that Carver girl, as she would be sure to do, and clip away the whole evening with her questions and her guesses. It was now nearly a fortnight since the sketching began, and he had let one Sunday night pa.s.s without mentioning it. He could not let another pa.s.s, and he knew "Manda Grier would say they were a good while about it, and would show her ignorance, and put Statira up to asking all sorts of things. He could not bear to think of it, and he let the next Sunday night pa.s.s without saying anything to Statira. The sittings continued; but before the third Sunday came Miss Swan said she did not see how she could do anything more to her sketch, and Miss Carver had already completed her study. They criticised each other"s work with freedom and good humour, and agreed that the next thing was to paint it out and rub it out.
"No," said Berry; "what you want is a fresh eye on it. I"ve worried over it as much as you have,--suffered more, I believe,--and Barker can"t tell whether he looks like a Roman Youth or not. Why don"t you have up old Evans?"
Miss Swan took no apparent notice of this suggestion; and Miss Carver, who left Berry"s snubbing entirely to her, said nothing. After a minute"s study of the pictures, Miss Swan suggested, "If Mr. Barker had any friends he would like to show them to?"
"Oh no, thank you," returned Lemuel hastily, "there isn"t anybody," and again he found himself turning very red.
"Well, I don"t know how we can thank you enough for your patience, Mr.
Barker," said the girl.
"Oh, don"t mention it. I"ve--I"ve enjoyed it," said Lemuel.
"Game--every time," said Berry; and their evening broke up with a laugh.
The next morning Lemuel stopped Miss Swan at the door of the breakfast room, and said, "I"ve been thinking over what you said last night, and I _should_ like to bring some one--a lady friend of mine--to see the pictures."
"Why, certainly, Mr. Barker. Any time. Some evening?" she suggested.
"Should you mind it if I came to-morrow night?" he asked; and he thought it right to remind her, "it"s Sunday night."
"Oh, not at all! To-morrow night, by all means! We shall both be at home, and very glad to see you." She hurried after Miss Carver, loitering on her way to their table, and Lemuel saw them put their heads together, as if they were whispering. He knew they were whispering about him, but they did not laugh; probably they kept themselves from laughing. In coming out from breakfast, Miss Swan said, "I hope your friend isn"t _very_ critical, Mr. Barker?" and he answered confusedly, "Oh, not at all, thank you." But he said to himself that he did not care whether she was trying to make fun of him or not, he knew what he had made up his mind to do.
Statira did not seem to care much about going to see the pictures, when he proposed it to her the next evening. She asked why he had been keeping it such a great secret, and he could not pretend, as he had once thought he could, that he was keeping it as a surprise for her. "Should _you_ like to see "em, "Manda?" she asked, with languid indifference.
"I d" know as I care much about Lem"s picture, s"long"s we"ve got _him_ around," "Manda Grier whipped out, "but I _should_ like t" see those celebrated girls "t we"ve heard s" much about."
"Well," said Statira carelessly, and they went into the next room to put on their wraps. Lemuel, vexed to have "Manda Grier made one of the party, and helpless to prevent her going, walked up and down, wondering what he should say when he arrived with this unexpected guest.
But Miss Swan received both of the girls very politely, and chatted with "Manda Grier, whose conversation, in defiance of any sense of superiority that the Swan girl or the Carver girl might feel, was a succession of laconic snaps, sometimes witty, but mostly rude and contradictory.
Miss Carver made tea, and served it in some pretty cups which Lemuel hoped Statira might admire, but she took it without noticing, and in talking with Miss Carver she drawled, and said "N-y-e-e-e-s," and "I don"t know as I d-o-o-o," and "Well, I should think as mu-u-ch," with a prolongation of all the final syllables in her sentences which he had not observed in her before, and which she must have borrowed for the occasion for the gentility of the effect. She tried to refer everything to him, and she and "Manda Grier talked together as much as they could, and when the others spoke of him as Mr. Barker, they called him Lem.
They did not look at anything, or do anything to betray that they found the studio, on which Lemuel had once expatiated to them, different from other rooms.
At last Miss Swan abruptly brought out the studies of Lemuel"s head, and put them in a good light; "Manda Grier and Statira got into the wrong place to see them.
"Manda blurted out, "Well, he looks "s if he"d had a fit of sickness in _that_ one;" and perhaps, in fact, Miss Carver had refined too much upon a delicate ideal of Lemuel"s looks.
"So he d-o-o-es!" drawled Statira. "And how funny he looks with that red thing o-o-o-n!"
Miss Swan explained that she had thrown that in for the colour, and that they had been fancying him in the character of a young Roman.
"You think he"s got a Roman n-o-o-se?" asked Statira through her own.
"I think Lem"s got a kind of a pug, m"self," said "Manda Grier.
"Well, "Manda Grier!" said Statira.
Lemuel could not look at Miss Carver, whom he knew to be gazing at the two girls from the little distance to which she had withdrawn; Miss Swan was biting her lip.
"So that"s the celebrated St. Albans, is it?" said "Manda Grier, when they got in the street. "Don"t know "s I really ever expected to see the inside "f it. You notice the kind of oilcloth they had on that upper entry, S"tira?"
They did not mention Lemuel"s pictures, or the artists; and he scarcely spoke on the way home.
When they parted, Statira broke out crying, and would not let him kiss her.
XX.
"I"m afraid your little friend at the St. Albans isn"t altogether happy of late," said Evans toward the end of what he called one of his powwows with Sewell. Their talk had taken a vaster range than usual, and they both felt the need, that people know in dealing with abstractions, of finally getting the ground beneath their feet again.
"Ah?" asked Sewell, with a twinge that allayed his satisfaction in this.
"What"s the matter with him?"
"Oh, the knowledge of good and evil, I suspect."
"I hope there"s nothing wrong," said Sewell anxiously.