When she tore open the envelope a number of newspaper clippings fluttered out. On one she caught a glimpse of the name of Ribot in a headline, which had such a ba.n.a.l effect that she let the clipping lie where it had fallen.
"As I have written already, the first week in October was the only time I had open," she was reading the manager"s letter mechanically at first. "But it does not seem to matter when Miss Helen Ribot exhibits.
As for your _succes d"estime_, read the enclosed reviews. More to the point, perhaps, is that I have already sold fifteen of your drawings.
Thinking that this might be as welcome as the clippings, I enclose a check for a thousand dollars on account.
"As to your question about settling in America, I know that M.
Vailliant advises against it; but my answer to him is that art is international and any artist works best in the surroundings which he likes best. One does or does not become an American. If you catch our spirit, as I think you will, then your place is secure, whether you do what you call real drawings or something more popular. I prefer your real drawings--and more of them, please.
"I want another exhibition in the spring and shall reserve the last week in February for you unless I hear otherwise, hoping, however, that you will be with us before then. Let me know your steamer and I shall meet you at the pier. My wife joins me in asking you to stay with us until you have found a satisfactory studio.
"P.S. Won"t you send a photograph of yourself? One of the magazines which is making a special article on your work wants it. Perhaps you have something which some friend has drawn of you; or, better, which you have done of yourself."
The letter pointed the way; it threw out the bridge on the other side of the promised land.
"And a picture of myself!" she thought, when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. "No, I"ll not send that." They would have to see her, though, and they would say in America, as everywhere else, How plain she is!
"I don"t have to exhibit my face, though!" she declared defiantly. "I needn"t meet people except those who have to do with my work."
Those unfinished sketches which she took out of her trunk for examination still seemed to have been done by another hand. She had lost her zest. The world wanted her drawings and she was not caring whether or not she ever made another one--that was the truth of her mood to-night. But she thought of herself as tired. A long walk after dinner and a good sleep would clear the cobwebs out of her mind. Yet she was looking out of her window at the stars after midnight and saw the sun-up after a restless night.
Once in America she would begin afresh; all her old verve and love of art would return. She could not start too soon. Leave to go to Paris, first! Bricktop could arrange this and meanwhile she could get her discharge from the hospital. She would go--go! She could not wait another day.
"Well, soon I"ll have his harness off and then Phil can speak," said Bricktop, who had a slack half-hour and was in a talking mood, which meant that you had to follow his lead or rather trail on his swell like a small boat in tow of a fast cruiser. "And let me tell you that if he hadn"t had a good const.i.tution and a nerve of steel there wouldn"t have been a chance. Another thing--you! You gave the inspiration to his will that kept the blood going out into the veins of all that tissue that had to wait to be fitted into its place. Why, you and I, Helen, have done a stunt that makes me wonder if the good Lord did not give a special dispensation to my clumsy old fingers in this case!"
She had heard this before. It helped her now and it hurt, too, as she listened, trying to smile.
"And he----"
"Yes, while I get my breath you may put in a word edgewise," continued Bricktop, with a gesture of amused condescension.
"He will be quite as he was before?"
"Quite, as I keep repeating. A few little scars that will go away in time. You see, it was a peculiar kind of side-wipe; doesn"t need much skin grafting. Why, what you can do with people"s faces! If everybody were taken young n.o.body need be bad-looking. We straighten crooked teeth, reconstruct mouths. Why not faces? Why, there was a woman in New York who felt badly about her face and I gave her a brand-new one.
Could have had plenty of patients of that kind and made loads of money.
It might have been "Bricktop on Beauty" instead of "Bricktop on Jaws."
Suggestion was too alliterative--I stuck to jaws."
Helen was laughing. One had to laugh when Bricktop, red-headed, freckled, with a manner as distinctly his own as any great comedian"s, was going full tilt. Besides, they were comrades, these two; they understood each other.
"Why shouldn"t everybody be pleasing to the eye? They will be, one of these days," he went on excitedly. "Why, Helen, I could make you good-looking----"
He clapped his hand over his mouth.
"My mother said that I would talk myself to death some day!" he gasped.
"Well, I"ve said it!"
She was smiling at his confusion in a way that cured it.
"You could! You could!" she exclaimed banteringly, as if she were teasing him for such a good opinion of himself.
"Yes, you bet I could!" he declared.
"Even my nose?" she said, with a defiant sort of scepticism.
Before she could prevent him he had thumb and forefinger on that nose and was pinching it and feeling of it in a way that made her cry out, "Stop!" indignantly and draw away.
"Perfectly easy! You have the cartilage for a Number One nose," he went on, his professional eagerness undisturbed. "All that happened was that the good Lord intended to make you fine-looking--and only the nose stands in the way--and was called off on a hurry case before He had sculped down the material. There"s too much of it!"
"I know it!" proclaimed Helen defiantly.
Bricktop was making gestures in his habitual fashion to indicate what he would do with that curse of hers if he were to have a chance.
"Why, I wouldn"t need to leave any scar except just in the dip of the nostril and under the point, where they wouldn"t show." His professional ambition was excited; a greedy look was in his eyes.
"Shame! Absolute shame not to do it! Unfair to your friends, unfair to yourself--to everybody!"
"Of all the ridiculous----" gasped Helen, breaking again into laughter of the kind that hides that undercurrent of seriousness which often gives to badinage its cutting edge.
"Come on! It"s a cinch!" pleaded Bricktop. "Just bandages over your nose for two weeks, then bandages off and everybody saying what a good-looking woman Helen is. Come on!"
People would say that she was good-looking, all for the ridiculous business of making some cuts in her nose! Imagine her going about while her nose was bandaged! Preposterous! But in America, where n.o.body knew her? Some little scars that n.o.body would notice!
"Can you get me leave? Can I go away somewhere?" she asked.
"Yes. You are attached to my shop, now."
"And then to America!" she exclaimed.
"What! To America! You!"
"I"m going to become a citizeness."
"Good!" cried Bricktop. Back of his enthusiasm was more than welcome to his native land. It meant that she could not be heart-broken because there was another in her place--or, didn"t it mean that?
"When will you do the starting?" she asked. "The sooner the better!"
"Now!" answered Bricktop. "And I"ll send you away in my car--needn"t go to bed!"
"I"ll run and pack my things--and I"ll say good-bye to Cousin Phil, for I shan"t see him again!"
She was proud of the matter-of-course manner of the remark. This perfectly fantastic business of having her nose remodelled had put her in the mood which should make light of everything.
It took her only a half-hour to pack. Her wardrobe was simple and her speed in keeping with that of people who have simple wardrobes was heightened by a delirious excitement. She was going, going! She did not want to wait another day, another hour. In America all would be right--fortune and new friends; another Helen Ribot. The determination and courage which had faced Phil"s wound and helped to bring him back to life had not allowed her to think of him, except that she must say good-bye to him. She was galvanised by her own will, compelling a philosophy which should let nothing interfere with its light-hearted measure as she entered the ward.
There he was, sitting in his chair as she had seen him for many weeks.
An end of all writing of messages; of the hand-clasps of good-morning and good-night; of a texture of existence woven into his--but "Stop!"
said will. The thing was over! Hurry down the curtain! Avoid melodramatic anti-climaxes! How glad she was that he had thought of her as visiting him rarely and as more interested in her drawings than in him! And she was more interested in them than in any man that ever was or would be! There was no joy, no career for her except to make white paper live with her touch. Now she knew herself. That letter had closed all doors behind her and opened doors into another existence. She had wrought herself into a state of mind which enabled her to take his hand in the accustomed way, with no more thrill than if it were any one else"s. She was proud of the firmness as she wrote: