"Mere Perigord twenty times!" smiled Henriette.
Madame Ribot was appalled by the task, though she had seen and heard so much of Helen"s charcoals. She and Henriette stood by perfunctorily, while Helen turned severe critic. None of them seemed good to her, as she thought of how they would look on a wall at an exhibition, with connoisseurs picking them to pieces.
"Oh, cusses! I can"t do it! I never can!" she declared. "My fate is to wear a white cap and feed people broth and keep their temperature chart in order!" She slapped one Mere Perigord in the face in disgust.
"Remember," said Henriette, "that charcoal is very limited."
In the midst of the selection a limousine rolled up to the door and a roly-poly little man, with close-cropped beard and eyes as shrewd as Madame Ribot"s own, alighted and sent in the card of "M. Vailliant, Art Dealer."
Madame Ribot received him. As he entered the room Henriette was standing by the near side of the table in front of Helen, in whose heart was great fear, any faith she might have had in her charcoals shrivelling in his presence. M. Vailliant bowed to both, his glance swiftly moving about the room as if counting the number of the scattered drawings; but to Henriette, whose beauty dominated her surroundings, he made a particularly low bow.
"Mademoiselle, I see that you are ready for me," he said, with still another bow to Henriette. And Helen felt the shrivelling sensation more deeply.
"Both my daughters are artists, and one paints," said Madame Ribot, with the reflection of pride in the tribute which M. Vailliant had instinctively paid to Henriette, some of whose paintings were on the walls. Indeed, they were everywhere about the chateau. "I am rather fond of this one, myself," she added, nodding toward a landscape which faced the dealer. It had had honourable mention at the Salon, but it had not sold.
Looking from Henriette to the picture and then back at Henriette, the art dealer breathed an "Ah!" in a way that implied that a place in the Salon was the obvious one for Henriette.
"Naturally, I know of your work," he said, with another bow.
"My daughter has never had an exhibition, though she has quite enough pictures now," went on Madame Ribot. "There are others in the next room. Perhaps you would like to see them, too."
Most charming Madame Ribot was when she was interested in any purpose, and she led the way into the room, Henriette meantime standing in the doorway and studying M. Valliant"s face. Helen remained beside her pile of charcoals, trying to resist the desire to fly to the fields away from the whole business. She could feel her heart pounding and her temples throbbing. When she had a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece she realised that it was from herself that she particularly wanted to escape.
"Excellent technique," M. Vailliant remarked. "But an exhibition of paintings--that is a great undertaking. One of the big houses will take you up one day and make your vogue. There is no hurry."
"It was mother who was speaking of the exhibition, not I," said Henriette casually. "You came to see my sister"s charcoals."
"So I did," agreed the dealer. "Charcoals are more in keeping with the modest pretensions of my establishment. Quick returns and small profits, as they say at the Bon Marche."
"You will stretch a point for her, won"t you?" said Henriette, as she drew aside to allow him to return to the other room. "She"s worked so hard and it means so much to her."
But Helen had overheard. A dash of red shot into her cheeks, as her shoulders gave a nervous shrug. The dealer looked from the beautiful to the plain girl with that sense of contrast between the two which Helen had felt a thousand times.
"Where do I begin?" he asked, almost perfunctorily.
Some one had told Helen that one should blow one"s own trumpet to an art dealer; that many an artist had been started on a career by making the most of his personality. But when she was conscious of how poor her drawings were she could not play the herald of her own skill. As for personality, one must have something to start with.
"Those four I picked out for the least bad," she said, handing them to him.
Not a sign on the dealer"s face, as he looked them through, while her temples throbbed.
"More academic than the one I had seen--better drawing, but----" he shook his head.
The throbbing ceased. Helen knew the truth. There would be no exhibition. She felt faint; there was no heart left in her.
"And these?" asked M. Vailliant, looking at a time-coloured board on top of a pile on a chair.
"Discarded. They were too awful--some of them just dashed off for fun."
"Oh!"
M. Vailliant spread his legs as he bent over the pile; he puffed out his lips and sucked them in, his only sign of emotion, as he began separating the drawings into two piles% Then he applied the same process to those on the table, without question or comment. Helen did not know what to make of him. She was dizzy with curiosity and hope.
When he was through, still silent like some general over a war-map, this master of artistic fate, who knew that the real master was the public who paid his rent, made a single pile of those which he had chosen.
"And these?" He found he had missed some against the wall behind a portiere.
"Oh, cartoons I call them--not a bit worth while!" said Helen.
"Caricatures, perhaps. I just did them for the sport of it."
M. Vailliant did not seem to hear her. He went through the cartoons twice, still keeping up that motion of his lips as if he were alternately blowing soap bubbles and sucking in a string.
"Have you ever tried etching?" he asked.
"No. I"d like it, but--I----" gasped Helen.
"I would if I were you," he said, so very matter-of-factly that she was puzzled. "Ever tried painting?"
"I--yes----" she faltered. His shrewd eyes were looking at her sharply.
"Have you anything that you"ve done?"
"Yes, but it"s awful--just splotches of colour. I see colour that way.
Shall I get it?" she asked.
"Why not? Let"s see the whole shop while we are at it."
Helen ran upstairs, wondering if he were making fun of her. Not one word of praise had he spoken. He had given no sign of enthusiasm. Yet he had asked her if she had ever tried etching and wanted to see this painting which she drew from under a pile of clothes on the cupboard shelf. Well, if the great art dealer had come from Paris to see the whole shop, then he should see it. Let him be amused. She did not care. He could not hurt her feelings; he should not see that she minded when he told her the worst.
"Helen"s painting is only for fun," Henriette was explaining to M.
Vailliant as they waited for Helen"s return. "Please don"t be too critical. She is very sensitive."
"Oh, no. I realise that she is not a serious painter like you, Mademoiselle. I thought I should like to see what ideas of colour she had. Why not?" M. Vailliant mused, as he picked out two from the pile of charcoals on the table and laid them on top in a sort of bored, add-six-and-multiply-by-four manner.
When Helen returned with her painting, a little thing of a wet shepherd and his dog in a burst of soft, apologetic sunlight through the mist, he took it from her with a casual nod and having set it on the mantelpiece stepped slowly backward and resumed his lip-movements, which he interrupted long enough to ask Helen if she had had any lessons in painting.
"I"ve only watched Henriette and taken some of her colours and splotched, as I call it," she replied almost defiantly.
But he only muttered, "Impressionistic!" between his puffs and suckings.
"Yes, that is what I should say!" put in Henriette.
"I know it!" exclaimed Helen, with an abruptness that startled him out of his mannerism into an intense glance at her. She was laughing, her chin up, the regular teeth showing in a white line. If ever eyes had invited any critic to shoot his sharpest darts they were hers. "And the exhibition?" she demanded. "Shall we hold it in the Salon itself or at the Louvre?"
M. Vailliant opened his mouth as if he were about to say something emotional; then rubbed his chin and stepped to one side to have another look at the painting.
"Of course I don"t think it is as good as Millet--not quite," Helen proceeded, forcing her measure a trifle. "Isn"t it wonderful to find a genius at Mervaux so unexpect----" She broke off her satire helplessly.
"Quite!" said M. Vailliant, looking at her and rubbing his chin again.