Lewis was a.s.sailed by dealers. They offered him prices that seemed to him fabulous. But Leighton listened calmly and said, "Wait." The longer they waited, the higher climbed the rival dealers. At last came an official envelop. "Ah," said Leighton, before Lewis had opened it, "it has come."
It was an offer from the state. It was lower than the least of the dealers" bids. "That"s the prize offer, boy," said Leighton. "Take it."
They went back to London together. Leighton helped Lewis search for a studio. They examined many places, pleasant and unpleasant. Finally Lewis settled on a great, bare, loft-like room within a few minutes"
walk of the flat. "This will do," he said.
"Why?" asked Leighton.
"s.p.a.ce," said Lewis. "Le Brux taught me that. One must have s.p.a.ce to see big."
While they were still busy fitting up the atelier a note came to Lewis from Lady Derl. She told him to come and see her at once, to bring all his clippings on the "Startled Woman," and a photograph that would do the lady more justice than had the newspaper prints.
When Lewis entered Lady Derl"s room of light, it seemed to him that he had not been away from London for a day. The room was unchanged. Lady Derl was unchanged. She did not rise. She held out her hand, and Lewis raised her fingers to his lips.
"How well you do it, Lew!" she said. "Sit down."
He sat down and showed her a photograph of his work. She looked at it long. For an instant her worldliness dropped from her. She glanced shrewdly at Lewis"s face. He met her eyes frankly. Then she tossed the picture aside.
"You are a nice boy," she said lightly. "I think I"ll give a little dinner for you. This time your dad won"t object."
"I hope not," said Lewis, smiling. "I"m bigger than he is now."
Both laughed, and then chatted until Leighton came in to join them at tea. Lady Derl told him of the dinner. He shrugged his shoulders and asked when it was to be.
"Don"t look so bored," said Lady Derl. "I"ll get Old Ivory to come, if you "re coming. You two always create an atmosphere within an atmosphere where you can breathe the kind of air you like."
Leighton smiled.
"It"s a funny thing," he said. "When Ivory and I meet casually, we simply nod as though we"d never shared each other"s tents; but when we are both caught out in society, we fly together and hobn.o.b like long-lost brothers. We"ve made three trips together. Every one of "em was planned at some ultra dinner incrusted with hothouse flowers and hothouse women."
"Thanks," said Lady Derl.
Lewis might have been bored by that first formal dinner if he had known the difference between women grown under gla.s.s and women grown in the open. But he didn"t. With the exception of Ann Leighton, mammy, and Natalie, who were not women at all so much as part and parcel of his own fiber, women were just women. He treated them all alike, and with a gallant nonchalance that astounded his two neighbors, Lady Blanche Trevoy and the Hon. Violet Materlin, accustomed as they were to find youths of his age stupidly callow or at best, in their innocence, mildly exciting. Leighton, seated at H lne"s left, watched Lewis curiously.
"They"ve taken to him," said H lne.
"Yes," said Leighton. "Nothing wins a woman of the world so quickly as the unexpected. The unexpected adds to the ancient lure of curiosity the touch of tartness that gives life to a jaded palate. Satiated women are the most grateful for such a fillip, and once a woman"s grateful, she"s generous. A generous man will give a beggar a copper, but a generous woman will give away all her coppers, and throw in herself for good measure."
"When you have to try to be clever, Glen, you"re a bore," remarked H lne.
"I"m not trying to be clever," said Leighton. "There"s a battle going on over there, and I was merely throwing light on it."
The battle was worth watching. The two young women were as dissimilar as beauty can be. Both had all the charms of well-nurtured and well-cared-for flesh. Splendid necks and shoulders, plenty of their own hair, lovely contour of face, practice in the use of the lot, were theirs in common. But Vi was dark, still, and long of limb. Blanche was blonde, vivacious, and compact without being in the least heavy.
Vi spoke slowly. Even for an English woman she had a low voice. It was a voice of peculiar power. One always waited for it to finish. Vi knew its power. She tormented her opponents by drawling. Blanche also spoke softly, but at will she could make her words scratch like the sharp claws of a kitten.
"And how did you ever get the model to take that startled pose?" Blanche was asking Lewis.
"That"s where the luck came in," said Lewis, smiling; "and the luck is what keeps the work from being great."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," said Lewis, "Le Brux says that luck often leads to success, never to greatness."
"And how did luck come in?" drawled Vi.
Lewis smiled again.
"I"ll tell you," he said. "The model is an old pal of mine. One day we were bathing in the Marne,--at least I was bathing, and she was just going to,--when a farmer appeared on the scene and yelled at her. She was startled and turning to make a run for it when I shouted, "Hold that pose, Cellette! She"s a mighty well-trained model. For a second she held the pose. That was enough. She remembered it ever after.
"Does it take a lot of training to be a model?" asked Blanche. "How would I do?" She turned her bare shoulders frankly to him.
Lewis glanced at her. "Yours is not a beauty that can be held in stone,"
he said. "You are too respectable for a bacchante, too vivacious for anything else." He turned to Vi. "You would do better," he said as though she too had asked.
Vi said nothing, but her large, dark eyes suddenly looked away and beyond the room. A flush rose slowly into her smooth, dusky cheek.
Blanche bit her under lip.
"Vi has won out," said H lne to Leighton.
CHAPTER XXVI
Natalie and her mother were sitting on the west veranda of Consolation Cottage at the evening hour. Just within the open door of the dining-room mammy swayed to and fro in a vast rocking-chair that looked too big for her.
The years had not dealt kindly with the three. Years in the tropics never do deal kindly with women. Mammy had grown old and thin. Her clothes, frayed, but clean, hung loosely upon her. Her hair was turning gray. She wore steel-rimmed gla.s.ses. Mrs. Leighton"s face, while it had not returned to the apathy of the years of sorrow at Nadir, was still deeply lined and of the color and texture of old parchment. The blue of her eyes had paled and paled until light seemed to have almost gone from them. To Natalie had come age with youth. She gave the impression of a freshly cut flower suddenly wilted by the sun.
In Mrs. Leighton"s lap lay two letters. One had brought the news that Natalie had inherited from a Northern Leighton aunt an old property on a New England hillside. The other contained the third offer from a development company that had long coveted the grounds about Consolation Cottage.
"It"s a great deal of money, dear," said Mrs. Leighton to Natalie. "What shall we do?"
For a moment Natalie did not reply, and when she spoke, it was not in answer. She said:
"Mother, where is Lew? I want him." Her low voice quivered with desire.
Mrs. Leighton put her fingers into Natalie"s soft hair and drew the girl"s head against her breast. A lump rose in her throat. She longed to murmur comfort, but she had long since lost the habit of words. What was life worth if she could not buy with it happiness for this her only remaining love?
"Darling," she whispered at last, "whatever you wish, whatever you say, we"ll do. Do you think--would you like to go back to--to Nadir--and look for Lewis?"
Natalie divined the sacrifice in those halting words. Her thin arms went up around Ann Leighton"s neck. She pressed her face hard against her mother"s shoulder. She wanted to cry, but could not. Without raising her face, she shook her head and said:
"No, no. I don"t want ever to go back to Nadir. Lew is not there. That night--that night after we buried father I went out on the hills and called for Lew. He did not answer. Suddenly I just knew he wasn"t there.
I knew that he was far, far away."
Ann Leighton did not try to reason against instinct. She softly rocked Natalie to and fro, her pale eyes fixed on the setting sun. Gradually the sunset awoke in her mind a stabbing memory. Here on this bench she had sat, Natalie, a baby, in her lap, and in the shelter of her arms little Lewis and--and Shenton, her boy. By yonder rail she had stood with her unconscious boy in her arms, and day had suddenly ceased as though beyond the edge of the world somebody had put out the light forever. Her pale eyes grew luminous. The unaccustomed tears welled up in them and trickled down the cheeks that had known so long a drought.