However platitudinous it may sound, I am compelled to remark how the time flies. From the calendar's standpoint there are but three weeks to come before the advent of Spring, and I trust the sprite will be better clad than she is in one of Frieda's pictures. In this particular latitude March is not very apt to temper the wind to such a shorn lamb as smiles out of that painting, clad with Cupid-like garments of infinite grace, but questionable warmth. She should have worn a heavy sweater.
Day by day I have watched the growth of Baby Paul, but it is only on Sundays that I have been able to see much of his mother, who comes home rather weary, as a rule, and always has ever so much sewing to do after her return. I have heard her discuss ways and means with Frieda, till I felt my small allowance of brains positively addling. Together they have been planning tiny garments for the babe and larger ones for themselves, while I sat there conscious of my inferiority and looking at them admiringly, but with something of the understanding of an average lap-dog. I find them very indulgent, however.
Dear me! What a time we had of it at Christmas. My midday meal took place at my sister's, in Weehawken, but the dinner was at Frieda's, where I was permitted to contribute the turkey. It could not be made to penetrate the exiguous oven of the little gas-stove, but we bribed the janitress to cook it for us. I had been in grave consultation with my dear old friend in regard to the toys I might purchase for Baby Paul, being anxious that his first experience of the great day should be a happy one, but Frieda frowned upon woolly lambs, teddy bears and Noah's Arks.
"If you will insist, Dave," she told me, "you can go and buy him a rubber elephant or some such thing, but he is altogether too young to play games. I know you have a sneaking desire to teach him checkers. If you will persist in wasting your money on presents, give me a five-dollar bill and I'll go around and buy him things he really needs. I'll put them in a box and send them with your best love."
"What about Frances?" I asked.
"A good pair of stout boots would be wisest," she informed me, "but perhaps you had better make it flowers, after all. More useful things might remind her too much of present hardship and poverty. A few American Beauties will give her, with their blessed fragrance, some temporary illusion of not being among the disinherited ones of the earth. I—I can give her the boots."
And so we had that dinner, just the three of us together, with Baby Paul just as good as gold and resting on Frieda's sofa. There was a box of candy sent by Kid Sullivan to his benefactress, and, although the contents looked positively poisonous, they came from a grateful heart, and she appreciated them hugely. I had brought a little present of flowers in a tiny silver vase, and they graced the table. I wore a terrible necktie Frieda had presented me with. It was a splendid refection.
The little dining-room was a thing of delight. From the walls hung many pictures, mostly unframed. They were sketches and impressions that had met favor from their gifted maker and been deemed worthy of the place. The table was covered with a lovely white cloth, all filmy with lace, and there was no lack of pretty silver things holding bonbons and buds. It all gave me a feeling of womanly refinement, of taste mingled with the freedom of an artistic temperament unrestrained by common metes and bounds.
Frances had one of my roses pinned to her waist, and often bent down to inhale its fragrance. When will some profound writer give us an essay on the Indispensability of the Superfluous?
Again we had a feast on New Year's eve, in my room. Gordon, who was going to a house-party at Lakewood, lent me his chafing-dish. I'll say little about the viands we concocted; at least they were flavored with affection and mutual good wishes, with the heartiest hopes for good things to come. It was not very cold, that night, and on the stroke of twelve I threw my window wide open. We listened to the orgy of sound from steam-whistles and tin horns. There floated to us, through the din, a pealing of faraway chiming bells. When I closed the window again, Frieda took the chafing-dish for a housewifely cleaning. Baby Paul had been sleeping on my bed and Frances was kneeling beside him, looking at the sleeping tot. For a moment she had forgotten us and the trivialities of the entertainment, and was breathing a prayer for her man-child.
Thus passed the New Year's eve, and on the next morning Frances was up early, as usual, and went off to work. I pottered idly about my room till Mrs. Milliken chased me out. On the afternoon of the first Sunday of the year Gordon came in again.
Until last Autumn he had invaded my premises perhaps once in a couple of months, but, now, he is beginning to come as regularly as Frieda herself. He gives me the impression of being rather tired, and I explain this by the fact that he leads too active a life and takes too much out of himself. I am sure few men ever painted harder than he does. When I watch him at his work, it looks very easy, of course, but I know better. His is powerful, creative work, such as no man can accomplish without putting all his energy into his toil. I am often exhausted after a few hours of writing, and I am sure that Gordon also feels the drag and the travail of giving birth to the children of his soul. Then, after a day of this sort of thing, he goes out to the theatres or the Opera and prolongs the night at the club and delves into books, for he is a great reader, especially of what he terms modern thought and philosophy. The first rays of good working light find him again at his canvas, sometimes pleased and sometimes frowning, giving me often the impression of a latter-day Sisyphus.
"I'm getting there," he said to me, one morning, in his studio. "Last year I made thirty-five thousand and this year I'll do better than that. The time is coming soon when I won't have to go around as a sort of drummer for myself. They'll be coming to me and begging me to paint them. I'll do it for six or seven months a year, and, during the remainder of the time, I'll take life easily. My plans are all cut and dried."
"I am glad to hear it, Gordon. You deserve your success. But——"
"Go on," he snapped at me, "I know that everything must be paid for."
"I'm not so sure of that. I was merely about to say that I don't know whether you can be so very sure of being able to take life in such a leisurely way as you hope to."
"Don't you worry, old man," he answered. "I know what's best for me and how to go to work to obtain it."
"I trust you do," I replied. "Well, I'll be going now. See you next Sunday."
"Why next Sunday?" he asked sharply.
"Simply because you've lately acquired the excellent habit of calling on that day."
"I'll not be there," he declared. "I have other fish to fry."
I took my leave, somewhat surprised. But three days later, as we were taking our habitual Sabbatical refection of tea and biscuits, he appeared again, bearing a box of what he calls the only chocolates in New York fit to eat. But he came in a taxi, for he wouldn't be seen carrying anything but his cane and gloves. For a second, as I looked at him, he seemed slightly embarrassed, although I may have erred in so thinking.
Frieda seized upon the chocolates, greedily. She is one of those dear stout people, who assure you that they hardly ever eat anything and whom one always finds endowed with a fine appetite.
"It's too bad about Baby Paul," she said. "He is yet too young to be stuffed with sweets or amused with toys."
"I presume that a nursling is the only really normal human being," remarked Gordon. "He possesses but the most natural desires, has no ambitions unconnected with feeding and sleeping, and expresses his emotions without concealment. Affectation is foreign to him, and his virtues and vices are still in abeyance."
"Paul," declared Frances, indignantly, "is extremely intelligent and has no vices at all."
"I stand corrected, Mrs. Dupont. He is the exception, of course, and I only spoke in general. Frieda, my dear, won't you be so obliging as to open the piano and play something for us? I don't suppose it will awaken the baby, will it?"
"He just loves music," asserted his mother. "When I play, he often opens his eyes and listens quietly, ever so long. I know that it pleases him, ever so much. His—oh! He must have music in his soul! How—how could it be otherwise?"
Frieda hurried to the piano and opened it, after giving the stool a couple of turns. She began with some Mendelssohn. Frances was holding her baby in her arms, her wonderful head bent towards the little one, with a curve of her neck so graceful that it fascinated me. Gordon was also looking at her with a queer, eager look upon his features. He knew as well as I that she had heard again some vibrant music of former days, had felt the sound-waves that trembled in her own soul, and that, to her, the child represented something issued from wondrous melodies, a swan's song uplifted to the heavens and bearing with it the plaint of a lost happiness.
"Oh! Frieda, some—something else," she cried. "I—I—Just play some Chopin."
At once Frieda complied. Where on earth does the woman find the ability to play as she does? She tells me that she hardly ever practises, and, in my many visits to her, I have never chanced to find her at the piano, though she possesses a very fair instrument. But I think I understand; what I mistake for technique must chiefly be her wonderful sentiment and the appreciation of beauty that overshadows some faults of execution. Frieda's real dwelling place is in a heaven of her own making, that is all beauty and color and harmony. From there come her painting and her music, which evidently enter her being and flow out at the finger-tips. I have always thought that if her color-tubes had not possessed such an overwhelming attraction for her, she might have become one of the most wonderful musicians of the world.
Gradually, Frances raised her head again, until it finally rested on the back of the armchair, with the eyes half-closed under the spell of Frieda's playing. By this time she had perhaps forgotten the memories evoked by the "Songs Without Words," that had for a moment brought back to her the masterful bow that had made her heart vibrate, for the first time, with the tremulousness of a love being born. Chopin did not affect her in the same way, and she was calm again. Frieda came to the end of the "Valse Brillante" and took up the "Berçeuse." Then the young mother closed her eyes altogether. The melody brought rest to her, and sweetness with a blessed peace of soul.
When I looked at Gordon, he was still staring, and by this time I thought I knew the reason of his visits. Beyond a peradventure Frances was the lodestone that attracted him. Did her wonderful features suggest to him a new and greater picture? Was he ruminating over the plan of some masterpiece and seeking inspiration from her? It seemed probable indeed. When the idea comes to me for a novel, I am apt to moon about, searching the recesses of my mind, digging in the depths of my experience, staring into a vacancy peopled only by faint shadows that begin to gather form and strength and, finally, I hope, some attributes of humanity. At such times I often fail to recognize friends on the street or, even, I may attempt to read books upside down. Is it possible that Gordon suffers from similar limitations and needs to muse and toil and delve before he can bring out the art that is in him?
Only yesterday I saw in the paper that he led a cotillon at the Van Rossums. Moreover, at the Winter Exhibition I had the shock of my life. I hurried there to see again the "Mother and Child," instead of which I found his signature on the portrait of a railroad president. The papers spoke of it as a wonderful painting, and one of them reproduced it. I freely acknowledge that it deserves all the encomiums lavished upon it, for it is a bold and earnest piece of work. But he has never done anything like the picture of Frances.
I met him there and looked at him, questioningly. He understood me at once.
"I'll get half the financial big guns now," he told me coolly, and left me to greet a millionaire's bride.
I am not so foolish as to think he can be in love with Frances, and I doubt very much whether he is in love with any one else, in spite of the gossip that has reached me. No, he must simply be thinking of some great composition with which he expects, in his own good time, to take the world by storm. And yet, what if I should be mistaken? The mere idea makes me feel very cold and uncomfortable, for no reason that I know of.
When he finally took his leave, he thanked Frieda for playing to us, and said good-by to Frances as perfunctorily as he does everything else. We began to clean up the teacups, and Frieda folded the frivolous little tablecloth she has contributed to my outfit and put it away, while Frances and I quarreled.
"I am not going," she said firmly.
"You are utterly mistaken," I insisted, "and you're a bold, mad, rebellious creature. You will go at once and put on your best hat, and your cloak, and dab powder on your nose, if it will make you happy, and come along like a good child."
"But what is the use of my paying board to Mrs. Milliken and then having you spend money for dinners at restaurants?" she objected.
"The use is obvious. It affords us the joy of permitting ourselves, once in a blue moon, to behave like spendthrifts; it allows us to indulge in the company of the young and ambitious, as well as of the old and foolish. Moreover, an occasional change of diet was recommended by Hippocrates. Who are you to rebel against the most ancient and respectable medical authority, pray?"
"It is utterly wrong," she persisted. "I am always accepting your kindnesses, and Frieda's, and there is nothing I can do in return, and—and——"
She seemed to choke a little. Her voice came hoarse and muffled as ever, and I fear that Dr. Porter's ministrations are doing her little, if any, good.
"My dear Frances," said Frieda, "we both understand you, perfectly. It is the most splendid thing for a woman to keep her self-respect and refuse to be a drag upon her friends. But when she can give them genuine pleasure by accepting a trifling thing like this, now and then, she ought to be loath to deprive them. David says that the company downstairs rather stifles his imagination, and he further alleges that dining alone at Camus is a funereal pleasure. Now go and get ready. There is plenty of time, and I'll come in and hook up your waist, if you want me to."
So Frances ran away to her room, with Baby Paul on her arm. She often rebels like this, yet generally succumbs to our wiles. The pair of us, fortunately, is more than she can successfully contend against.
Frieda followed her to her room, and I rummaged among the Sunday papers, finding the French daily. Frances likes to look at it and I have ordered the newsman at the corner to deliver me the Sunday number regularly. But to-day she has been busy with a lot of mending so that it remained unopened. My first glance revealed a column giving a list of unclaimed letters in the hands of the French Consul. There was one for Madame Paul Dupont, it appeared.
I seized the paper and ran with it to the door of her room. My hand was already lifted to knock, when I bethought myself that a delay of a few minutes would be unimportant, and that it was best to run no chances of interfering with Baby Paul's entertainment. I returned to my room and paced up and down the worn Brussels. She had often told me how sorry she was that she had never heard from her late husband's parents. This letter, in all probabilities, was from them. If I told Frances about it immediately, she would worry over it until next day. Why not wait at least until our return from Camus, or even until the morning? If she knew about it, she would probably not have a wink of sleep. I determined to postpone the announcement.
Poor child! She will be harrowed by that letter. It will give her such details as the old people have been able to obtain and bring the tragedy back to her. She will read the lines breathlessly. The months that have gone by have assuaged her pain a little, I think, but, now, it will return in full force, as poignant as ever. I am sorry that I looked at that paper. If I had put it aside as I often do, without even looking at it, I should never have known anything about that letter and it might have been better for her peace of mind. Now, of course, I feel bound to let her know, but, at least, I will let her have a tranquil night!
How keen and shrewd women are! No sooner did they return to my room, all primped up and ready to go, with Baby Paul clad in his best, than Frieda innocently asked what was the matter with me. Frances also asked if I were angry. Had she made me wait too long?
I was compelled to declare that my feelings were in apple-pie order, that happiness reigned in my bosom and that I enjoyed waiting, before they were satisfied. I wish my emotions did not show so plainly on my face. It is for this reason, I suppose, that Gordon once adjured me never to learn the ancient game of draw-poker. He said that fleecing me would be child's play for the merest beginner.
We went down and directed our steps towards Madame Félicie Smith's shop. One can get in, even on Sundays, since the good woman lives there. She is always delighted to mind Paul for a couple of hours, and this arrangement is far superior to the old one, which entailed a long westerly jaunt to the home of the washerlady, besides the climbing of many stairs.
The folding baby carriage was left at home, for the walk is but a short one and Frances loves to carry her little one. My offer to assume the charge was at once rejected, Frieda complaining that even she was considered somewhat unreliable as a beast of burden. Frances laughed, cheerfully, but held on to her treasure. She is no longer nervous and fretful when leaving Baby Paul for a couple of hours, knowing that, if he happens to awaken, there will be soothing words of affection for him. We had to ring a tinkling bell for admittance and Félicie, buxom and of high color, welcomed us all. Certainly she would care for the angel; most evidently she would look after the precious lamb; with not the slightest doubt she would love and cherish the little cabbage. While I remained in the penumbra of the half darkened shop, it took the three of them to see the baby properly installed on the bed in the back room. Frances and Frieda heard the solemn promise made to them, to the effect that there would be no adventitious aid to happiness such as a lump of sugar tied in a rag, and presently we sallied forth.
Lest my readers be already weary of Camus, I can only say that I am one of those individuals who stick to old friends, either through an inborn sense of faithfulness or, more probably, because of a tendency to slothfulness, which makes me consider it exceedingly troublesome to wander afield and search for pastures new. We had our dinner in quiet enjoyment and felt, as we came out again, that the world was a very fair sort of a dwelling-place. We had enjoyed the food and I fancy that, under the table, my foot had beaten time to the melody eked out by the orchestra. The fiddler, I am glad to say, is looking somewhat stouter. The good meals provided by the widow may be responsible for this. At any rate, I rejoice to think so, since it would go to show that a dinner at Camus is not only a pleasant, but also a hygienic, pursuit.
For an instant our enjoyment of the music was interrupted by the clang and clatter of passing fire engines. We looked about us, perfunctorily, and decided that the conflagration was neither under our chairs nor above our rafters and continued to sip our coffee with the contempt due to a New Yorker's familiarity with steam-pumps and water towers. A couple of minutes later we left and, reaching Sixth Avenue, found it somewhat crowded. A block further we came to a panting engine and hurried on. Cars were blocked by a line of hose stretched across the street. Frances caught my arm, nervously, and a look of terror came over her. Then we ran, Frieda puffing behind. The fire was in the middle of the block and streams of water crashed through windows. Ladders were going up and the firemen, conscious that it was but a moderate blaze, from their standpoint, worked calmly and effectively.
"You stay there!" I shouted to my two companions and elbowed my way through the crowd, which was being pushed back by policemen. One of them seized me and threatened to use his locust on my cranium if I advanced any farther. I drew back and dashed through another opening till I reached Félicie's door, entering the place and nearly falling over a large osier basket in which were piled up a lot of tangled garments.
"Take de handle!" commanded the good woman.
"The baby! Little Paul!" I shouted.
"Under the silk dress. Take de handle," she repeated.
We issued from the place, meeting with a policeman who suspected us of unworthy motives. We had to exhibit the infant and establish our identity before he would let us proceed with the huge basket. It was about time! Firemen bearing a length of pipe dashed by us and entered the cleaning establishment. The fire, it appeared, was in the restaurant next door and threatened to invade Félicie's premises.
My two friends were wringing their hands as they dashed towards us, and upon their heads their hats were awry.
"Paul is all right!" I assured them. "But they took us for robbers."
Frances picked her infant out of the basket, hysterically. She had tried to follow me and had wrestled with a sinewy policeman, who had defeated her. We reached Mrs. Milliken's, where Paul was deposited on his mother's bed, soundly sleeping, and the basket, which it had taxed the good woman's strength and mine to carry upstairs, was placed on the floor. After this, Frieda threw her fat arms around my neck and called me a hero. Frances would have followed suit but, being forestalled, had to content herself with embracing the cleaning lady who, puffing, soon disengaged herself and fanned herself with a newspaper.
"The brigands," she declared, "will soak everything with water, but I have saved most of my customers' things."
She finally went off to spend the night at Eulalie's sister's, leaving the plunder in our care. On the next morning, when Frances went off to work, she found that the fire had invaded a part of the shop, that the plate-glass window was broken and chaos reigned. Félicie was there and deplored the fact that, until insurance matters were adjusted and repairs made, all business would have to be suspended.
The poor girl came home to throw herself on her knees beside little Paul. Then, she bethought herself of me and knocked at my door, hurriedly. I opened it. My face, unfortunately, was covered with lather.
"I—I'm out of work. It—it will be several weeks before Félicie can open the shop again. Oh! What shall I do?"
"My dear child," I said, "you will, for the time being, return to little Paul and let me finish scraping my face. You will also please remember that you have some good friends. As soon as I am shaved, we will hold a session and form ourselves into a Committee of Ways and Means. In the meanwhile remember about the little sparrow falling to the ground."
"I—I'm afraid a cat often gets him," she said sadly, and went back to her room.
It behooved me to waste no time and, as soon as I was ready, I briefly conferred with Frances, telling her that Gordon would probably be very glad to employ her for a short time that would tide over the interval before Félicie would be ready to resume business at the old stand. She looked at me, rather uncertainly, as if the suggestion were not altogether a pleasing one. At any rate a tiny wrinkle or two showed for an instant between her brows.
"Don't you think it is a good idea?" I asked her.
"I—I suppose it is," she answered slowly, and then, impulsively, put her hand on my arm.
"Of course it is, you dear good friend," she declared. "I am ready to go there as soon as he may want me. He—he has been so friendly, of late, bringing us candies and flowers, and chatting with us, that—that it will seem a little bit harder, but, of course, it will be just the same as before, and he will think of nothing but his painting."
"I will go and see him at once," I told her, "I may find that he is busy with a portrait and has no time for other work, but I might as well go and ascertain."
I was being shot up the elevator towards Gordon's studio when I suddenly remembered that letter at the consul's. I must confess that it had altogether escaped my memory. I consoled myself with the idea that my interview with Gordon would be brief, and that I should immediately return and tell Frances about it. Perhaps she would allow me to go downtown with her to obtain it. She must not go alone, of course, since she would open the thing there and then. I could imagine her in that office, among indifferent people, weeping and without a friend to take her arm and lead her out, with not a word of consolation and encouragement. Yes, I would go with her!
"Hey, Mister! Didn't you say the tenth floor?"
Thus did the elevator boy interrupt my cogitations; but for him I might have kept on going up and down a dozen times, so busily was I engaged in picturing to myself the emotions of Frances when she should receive that letter. I got out of the cage, hurriedly, and rang Gordon's bell, the Jap opening with a polite grin of recognition.
"Can I go into the studio?" I asked. "Is Mr. McGrath engaged?"
"No, sir, but I tell him."
The man went in, after taking my hat and coat, and Gordon rushed out to meet me.
"Hello, Dave!" he greeted me. "When you rang the bell, I thought it was Lorimer—the Lorimer. He told me last night at the Van Rossums that he would drop in and see me."
"You are certainly making good headway among the millionaires," I told him.
"They're the fellows I'm gunning for," he answered quietly.
"Look here, Gordon," I began at once. "Frances Dupont is out of a job. Fire in the shanty next door, and her employer has been flooded out. You were saying something about wishing to—"
"Yes, I know I was," he replied, staring vaguely at the floor. "I—I'll have to think about it."
"I suppose you have some other pressing work on hand."
He made no answer, going up to the humidor on the mantel and selecting a cigar, which he lighted very deliberately.
"Have one?" he asked me.
"No, thanks," I declined. "I'll help myself to a cigarette. One of those perfectos so early in the morning would set my head whirling."
He looked at me, twirling his fine moustache, without appearing to see me, and began pacing up and down the wonderful silk rug on the floor, his cigar in his mouth and his hands deep in his trousers pockets.
"I'll tell you, Dave," he began, but was interrupted by another ring at the bell. A moment later Mr. Lorimer was admitted, a big man with a leonine head, strong and rather coarse features and eyes like Toledo blades, who spoke slowly, weighing his words.
"Good morning, Mr. McGrath," he said. "I shall be obliged, if you will show me some of your work."
"I want to introduce my friend, David Cole," said Gordon; "he's a writer of charming novels."
"Always glad to meet any one who can do things, Mr. Cole," said the big man, putting out his hand. "What have you written?"
Gordon at once came to my rescue, mentioning two or three titles of my books.
"'The First Million'! You wrote that, did you? Read it on my way to Europe, three years ago. You're a clever man, Mr. Cole, but it was a mistake on your part to make a millionaire sympathetic and refined. Didn't make much out of the book, did you?"
"It only sold about four thousand," I acknowledged.
"Thought so. That fellow Lorgan was neither fish, flesh, fowl or good red herring. In a novel, a very rich man should be made bearable by foolishly giving away huge sums of money, or else unbearable in order to show the contrast offered by the poor, but honest, hero. That's what the public wants, I should judge. As a simple human being a magnate is impossible in modern fiction."
"My friend Gordon works from the model and sticks to it," I ventured. "I have been silly enough to depend altogether on my imagination, Mr. Lorimer, but I'm getting cured of that failing. In future I will cling to the people I have an opportunity of studying."
"You'll turn out something pretty good, one of these days," he said. "And now for the paintings, Mr. McGrath. I have only a few minutes to spare."
He looked at a few portraits and a still-life or two, resting his square jaw in the palm of his hand.
"I've been a bit of a doubting Thomas," he suddenly said. "Had an idea that a chap who goes in so much for society couldn't do very serious work, but this is first rate. Good, honest stuff, I call it, but I doubt if you will keep it up. Let's have a look at something else."
He paid not the slightest attention to Gordon, who looked as mad as a hornet. The Japanese servant lifted up a picture that was turned with the face against the wall.
"Not that one," directed Gordon, but Lorimer had caught a glimpse of the canvas as the Japanese turned.
"Oh, yes! Put that on the easel," he said. "That seems to be in a rather different style. Now, my dear sir, if you keep on all your life working like that, I'll take back what I said. A man capable of doing that can take Sargent's place, some day, but he'll have to stick to his last to keep it up. How much do you want for it?"
"It—it isn't for sale," said Gordon, hesitating.
Lorimer stood before the picture, with his hands clasped behind his back, for several minutes. Then he turned again to Gordon.
"Already sold, is it?"
"No, Mr. Lorimer, it is not. But it's about the best thing I ever did, and yet I think I can improve on it. I shall keep it for comparison, as I intend to try another from the same model, in a somewhat different manner. After it is finished, I shall be glad to have you look at it again, and perhaps——"
"I'm afraid that what I said rather sticks in your crop, Mr. McGrath, but don't be offended. When I began life my knowledge of men was about the only asset I had. It didn't come by study and I take no credit for it. I was born with it, as a colt may be born with speed in him. Some Frenchman has said that the moneymaking instinct is like the talent of certain pigs for smelling truffles. In Perigord they pay a high price for a shoat with that kind of a nose. I have learned something about painting because I love it, and I know how to make money. But if I stopped for a year, I'd get so rusty I'd be afraid to buy a hundred shares. Same way with you. If you stop painting and putting in the best that's in you, then you'll go back. That's the reason I wanted this picture, but I'm willing to wait and see the other. Let me know when it's finished. Glad to have met you, Mr. Cole. Thank you for showing me the pictures, Mr. McGrath. Must run downtown now. Hope to see you again soon."
He walked off, sturdily, Gordon accompanying him to the door while I sat down in front of the picture.
Ay, Lorimer was a mighty good judge; of that there could be no doubt. He had at once appreciated the powerful rendering, the subtle treatment, the beauty that radiated from the canvas, grippingly.
But I could only see Frances, the woman beautiful, who, unlike most others, has a soul to illumine her comeliness. I filled my eyes with her perfection of form, tall, straight and slender, with all the grace that is hers and which Gordon's picture has taught me to see more clearly. I felt as if a whiff of scented breeze came to me, wafted through the glinting masses of her hair. The eyes bent upon the slumbering child, I felt, might at any moment be lifted to her friend Dave, the scribbler, who, for the first time in his life, was beginning to learn that a woman's loveliness may be beyond the power of a poet's imagining or even the wondrous gift of a painter. The scales had indeed fallen from my eyes! At first I had thought that Gordon had idealized her, mingling his fancy with the truth and succeeding in gilding the lily. But now, I knew that all his art had but limned some of the tints of her sunshot hair and traced a few points of her beauty.
I did not wonder that he was eager to try again. Wonderful though his painting was, the man's ambition was surging in him to excel his own work and attain still greater heights. Could he possibly succeed?
"Well, what do you think of millionaires now that you have met one in the flesh?" asked Gordon, returning.
"This one is pretty human, it seems to me, and pretty shrewd."
"You're not such a fool as you look, Dave," said my friend quietly, but with the twinkle in his eyes that mitigates his words. "One moment I could have clubbed him over the head, if I'd had at hand anything heavier than a mahlstick, but I daresay he knew what he was talking about. I'll have to work harder."
"You already toil as hard as a man can, and are doing some great stuff," I replied. "The trouble is that you keep altogether too busy. It might be worth your while to remember that a man who accomplishes so much is at least entitled to eight hours' sleep a day."
"You're a fine one to preach, you old night owl."
"In the first place, I am only David Cole. Besides, I put in a full allowance of time in bed. Mrs. Milliken daren't come in before eleven. Then, I don't smoke strong perfectos, especially in the morning, and I have a drink of claret perhaps once a week."
"Yes, I'll paint you with a halo around your old bald head, some day," he retorted.
"And now, what shall I say to Frances?" I asked, deeming it urgent to revert to my errand.
"I don't want her! Busy with other things!"
I looked at him, in surprise and disappointment, and walked off towards the hall where hung my hat and coat.
"Very well," I said, "I shall try and find something else for her to do. Good-by, Gordon."
"Good-by, Dave. Come in again soon, won't you?"
I made some noncommittal reply and rushed over to the elevator, ringing several times. When I reached the street I hurried to the cars, thinking thatla donnamay bemobile, but that as a weathercock Gordon was the limit. I got out at the Fourteenth Street station and soon reached home, at the very same time as a big scarlet runabout which I had noticed in the street, in front of the studio building. It halted with a grinding of brakes.
"I say, Dave! Tell her to come to-morrow morning. I am off to lunch at Ardsley. By-by."
It was Gordon, bearing in his pocket a summons for overspeeding, which he proudly exhibited.
"I got the car this week," he informed me. "It's a bird to go. So long!"
He was off again, skidding around the next corner in such fashion as to make me sympathize with his life insurance company, and I started up the stairs to see Frances. I must say that I was rather nervous. The task of telling her about that letter seemed, now that it was so nearly impending, a rather tough one to carry out. As usual in such cases, my footsteps became slow on the last of the stairs.
I knocked at the door, which was opened by Frieda.
"Come in, Dave," she said. "I thought I'd drop in to see that Baby Paul was none the worse for his experience. I might as well have saved my breath, as far as I can see. Frances needs a little bracing up; I think she's rather discouraged this morning."
"One moment," I excused myself. "I forgot a paper I wanted to show her."
My room appeared to have been ransacked, but I saw that Mrs. Milliken, in spite of my stern commands, had indulged her passionate longing for putting things in order. A quarter of an hour's arduous searching, however, revealed the journal I sought. The door had been left open, and I walked right in.
"Good morning," I said. "I have seen Gordon this morning and he will be pleased to employ you again, Frances, and—and I have a paper here. It is yesterday's, and I found something that may perhaps interest you, and—and——"
But she had risen quickly and took the paper from me, her voice trembling a little.
"Where—what is it?" she asked eagerly.
It took me a minute to find that column again. When I pointed out the notice, she took the sheet from me, staring at it as if doubting her eyes.
"Yes—it is for Madame Paul Dupont. I—I must go there at once! Oh! Frieda dear, will you mind little Paul for me while I am gone? I will go and return just as quick as I can and won't keep you very long."
"I will do anything you want me to, Frances, but you are not very familiar with downtown streets. I had better accompany you there. We can take little Paul with us."
"I had intended to offer my services as a guide," I put in.
Frances had sunk in her chair and was still looking at the paper, as if, between the lines, she might have been able to find more than the mere mention of her name.
"You must let me go, Dave," whispered Frieda to me. "She—she might faint, poor thing, or feel very badly, and—and a woman is better at such times. I will try to make her wait until we get back, before she opens the thing, and you can be here when we return."
Man, that is born of woman, is commonly her humble slave. I could do nothing but bow to my stout friend's will and retired to my room to leave their preparations unhampered by my presence. When I propose a dinner or the moving pictures, they always hurry as fast as they can and are usually ready in fifteen or twenty minutes. On this occasion, about ninety seconds seemed to suffice.
"Good-by, Dave," they called out to me, waving their hands and disappearing down the stairs.
I had any number of important things to do. A fine disorder, said Boileau, is an effect of art. It behooved me to disturb the beautifully orderly and thoroughly deplorable piling up of my books indulged in by Mrs. Milliken. Also, there were separate loose sheets of virginal paper to be separated from those bearing my written vagaries, for she had played havoc with them. Moreover, I had been told that my hair ought to be cut. Then, I ought to have sat down and continued a short story I had made a fine beginning of, about a poverty-stricken young lady finding an emerald necklace. The plot was most exciting and the ending possessed what the editors call a good punch. I had a plethora of things to do, wherefore I lighted my pipe and pondered upon what to begin with, seated the while in front of my window and observing the houses opposite.
It took me but a moment to decide that quietude would be wisdom. How could I accomplish anything requiring judgment and calmness of mind, while I was so obsessed with problems of many kinds! What would be the effect of that letter on Frances? Would it make her feel so badly, that she would be unable to go to Gordon's on the next day? Why had my friend first manifested eagerness to make another picture of Frances, then refused to employ her, and, finally, risked breaking his neck in his haste to have me make an appointment with her?
I have always been a poor hand at riddles and actually resent being asked why a chicken crosses the road. Such foolish queries constitute a form of amusement quite unable to appeal to me. I dislike problems and complicated things that have to be solved. Once, I tried to write a detective story, but was wise enough to tear up the thing as soon as it was finished. In the first place, it looked like an effort to encourage crime, which I abhor, and my detective was so transparent and ingenuous that an infant would have penetrated his wiles. He was positively sheeplike in his mansuetude, whereas I had intended to make him a stern avenger of virtue.
An hour went by, and then another, during which I rushed to the balustrade on the landing every time I heard the front door opening. Disappointment came so often that I determined to move no more, until I could hear their voices. Since the stairs make Frieda quite breathless, she insists on talking all the time while she climbs them, and her puffing carries up at least two flights.
Finally, I heard them. For a wonder Frieda was silent, but there was no mistaking her ponderous step. Frances came behind, carrying Baby Paul. They came to my room, hurrying across the landing. The young mother looked at me, one corner of her lips twitching nervously.
"David!" she cried. "Oh, David! There—there are two women called Madame Paul Dupont and—and the other one got my letter! She came to the Consulate early this morning."
"But how do you know that it was your letter, then?" I asked.
"Well! Of course, I don't really know, but—but it should have been for me, of course. They gave me the other woman's address. She lives in Little Ferry in New Jersey, and I'm going there at once."
Frances and I started away on the trip, immediately, for there was not a moment to lose. That letter must at once be retrieved. The dreadful woman had evidently seized upon one never meant for her, and must be bearded in her den. From her the missive must be rescued, by force of arms if necessary; it must be snatched from the burning, seized and brought back, even at the cost of bloodshed.
This, it may be, is but the vague impression I gathered from the profuse and simultaneous conversation of my two dear friends. When I humbly suggested again that the Jersey person might perhaps have a perfect equity in the document, they looked at me with the pitying condescension accorded the feebleminded and the very young by the gentler sex. Also, I proposed to hie me to Little Ferry alone, interview the termagant in question and make her disgorge, in case she was illegally detaining words meant for another.
This was once more met by a look from Frieda to Frances, and vice-versa, which was then turned upon me and made me feel like an insignificant and, I hope, a harmless microbe.
"My dear Dave," said Frieda, tolerantly, "you are not Madame Paul Dupont. Why should that abominable woman give up the letter to you?"
"When she sees me and Baby," declared Frances, "she will not have the heart to refuse."
The upshot of it was that we departed, leaving Frieda behind. For the first time in his life little Paul was shot through a tunnel, emerged in Jersey, none the worse for his experience, and was taken aboard a train. Soon afterwards we were observing the great meadows and the Hackensack River, a vacillating, sluggish stream, running either up or down, at the behest of a tide that always possesses plenty of leisure, through banks winding in a great valley of cat-tails and reeds among which, in the summertime, legions of grackles and redwings appear to find a plenteous living. But at this time the stream was more than usually turbid, filled with aimlessly floating cakes of ice, and the green of fairer weather had given place to a drab hue of discouraged weeds awaiting better days. While waiting at the station, I had found that the Telephone Directory contained at least a dozen Duponts, that the City Directory held a small regiment of them, and considered that New Jersey had a right to its share of citizens of that name.
The train stopped, and we got out in a place that was mostly constituted by a bridge, small houses lining a muddy pike and a vista of many houses partly concealed among trees. After consultation with a local butcher, followed by the invasion of a grocer's shop, we were directed to a neat frame cottage within a garden. I opened the gate and walked in, first, deeming it my duty to face the dangers and protect the convoy in my rear.
There was no need to ring a bell. The front door opened and a white-haired woman appeared, her locks partly hidden under a white cap that was the counterpart of many I had seen in the Latin Quarter, among janitresses or ladies vending vegetables from barrows. Her form was concealed in a wide, shapeless garment, of the kind adopted by French women whom age has caused to abandon the pomps and vanities. I believe they call it acaraco. The cotton skirt was unadorned and the slippers ample for tender feet. Also, the smile on her face was welcoming in its sweetness. Near her a fat blind dog wheezed some sort of greeting.
"Madame Paul Dupont?" I asked.
"Pour vous servir," she answered politely.
So this was the Gorgon in question, the purloiner of correspondence, to be placated if possible and defeatedvi et armisin case of rebellion!
Frances hastily pushed me to one side, though with all gentleness. She spoke French very fluently. I easily understood her to say that she was also Madame Paul Dupont, that her husband had been to the war, that she had heard of his being killed, that—that——
She was interrupted. The white-bonneted old woman took her to her bosom, planting a resounding kiss on her cheek, and clamored in admiration of the baby.
"Come in the house," she said. "I am delighted to see you. I shall have to ask Paul if he ever had any cousins or nephews who came to this country. But no; he would have told me. I am sorry that Paul is not here to see you. He is the pastry-cook at the Netherlands; you should taste his puff-paste and hisBaba au Rhum. He did not go to the war because he is fifty-nine and has a bad leg. But I have a son over there. He has killed many Boches. I have thirty-seven postal cards from him."
"But, Madame," I put in, "we came on account of a letter written in care of the Consulate, and we were informed——"
"That was a letter from my niece Pétronille, whose husband keeps acaféin Madagascar. She wanted to let me know of the birth of her fourth daughter. Have you ever seen a letter from there? It is a country very far away, somewhere in China or Africa. I will show you."
She sought her spectacles, looked over a large and orderly pile of papers, and brought us the document.
"Please read it," she said, "it is very interesting."
Frances glanced over it, looking badly disappointed, and passed it to me. It contained vast information as to Pétronille's growing family and the price of chickens and Vermouth in Antanarivo, also certain details as to native fashions, apparently based on the principle of least worn, soonest mended.
Before we left, we were compelled to accept a thimbleful ofcassis, most delectable, and to promise to return very soon. Her husband would make us avol-au-vent, for which he had no equal. He would be sorry to have been absent. She wished her son had been married to such a nice woman as Frances and had possessed a son like Baby Paul. Alas! She might never see the boy again, and then there would be nothing left of him, no little child to be cherished by the old people. It was such a pity!
She insisted on seeing us all the way back to the station and on carrying Paul, whom she parted with after many embraces. Peace be on her good old soul, and may the son come back safely and give her the little one her heart longs for!
"She is a darling," said Frances sorrowfully, "and, oh! I'm so terribly disappointed."
The poor child had so hoped for news, for some details as to the manner in which her own Paul had been sacrificed to his motherland, and this visit made her very sad. For many days afterwards her thoughts, which had perhaps begun to accept the inevitable with resignation, turned again to the loved one buried somewhere in France.
Neither Frieda, who came in after suppertime, nor I, was able to give her much consolation. Again, I wished I had never seen that announcement and deplored my well-intended folly in calling her attention to it. She seemed very weary, as if the short trip had been a most fatiguing one, and retired very soon, alleging the need to rise early to do some mending of Baby's clothes, and acknowledging the fact that she felt headachy and miserable.
Frieda looked at me indulgently, but I suspect that she blamed me strongly for the whole occurrence. Doubtless, I ought not to have looked at that paper, I should not have spoken of it, and my permitting Frances to go to Jersey had been a sinful act of mine.
But, after all, Frieda is the best old girl in the world, I believe and declare. She patted my shoulder as if I had promised her never to be wicked again, and permitted me to see her home, as some snow had fallen and she was dreadfully afraid of slipping. I prevailed on her to accept pair of old rubbers of mine and, once in the street, she grasped my arm with a determination that left a blue mark next day.
"So she is going again to the studio," she said, after I had piloted her to her flat, which she invited me to invade. "Do you really think that Gordon has the slightest idea that he can improve on that first picture?"
"I suppose that he just hopes to," I replied. "Whenever I begin a new story, I haven't the slightest idea whether it will be good or not. Sometimes, I don't even know after it is finished. Take the 'Land o' Love,' for instance; I really thought it a good piece of work, but Jamieson looks positively gloomy about it."
"He must be a very silly man," said Frieda, unswerving in her loyalty to me, but swiftly changing the subject. "Baby Paul is becoming very heavy. He'll be seven months old, come next Friday, and Frances looks dreadfully tired. It is hard for her to take him every day to that studio and back."
"I could get up early in the morning and help her," I suggested recklessly.
"And then you could wait outside for two or three hours and help her back," she laughed. "No, Dave, it isn't so bad as all that. But I'm afraid she's badly discouraged. That little Dr. Porter is still fiddling away at her throat, training it, he calls it, but she's not a bit better. In fact, she thinks it's getting worse. And she says she can never pay him for all he's done and she might as well stop going. On Sunday morning he says he's going to do something to it, that may hurt a little, and she's afraid. She asked me to go with her."
"I'll go with you, if she will let me and Porter doesn't chase me out," I proposed. "I have great confidence in that boy."
"So have I, but he hasn't assured her that it will bring her voice back."
I told her that this showed the man was not a cocksure humbug, and expressed fervent hopes as to the result, after which Frieda made a disreputable bundle of my rubbers and I left with them, in a hard flurry of snow. My room, after I reached it, seemed unusually cold. The landlady's ancient relative sometimes juggles rather unsuccessfully with the furnace, and she bemoaned before me, yesterday, the dreadful price of coal. Hence, I went to work and warmed myself by writing the outline of a tale with a plot unfolding itself during a hot wave of August. So kindly is my imagination that, by midnight, I was wiping my brow and sitting in my shirt-sleeves, till a sudden chill sent me to bed. This, I am glad to say, had no serious consequence. I remember wondering about the new picture Gordon would begin and, before I fell asleep, some trick of my mind presented the thing to me. It was a queer composite of the Murillo in the Louvre, of Raphael's Madonna of the Chair and of Frances herself. From the canvas she was looking at me, with lids endowed with motion and smiling eyes. There came to me, then, a dim recollection of some strange Oriental belief, to the effect that on the Day of Judgment sculptured and painted figures will crowd around their makers, begging in vain for the souls that have been denied them. But I felt that Gordon's "Mother and Child" will never thus clutch despairingly at their painter's garment. The very soul of them is in that picture, already endowed with a life that must endure till the canvas fritters itself away into dust.
When I awoke, I found, with shamed dismay, that it was nearly ten o'clock. On leaving my room I saw that the door opposite was wide open, with Mrs. Milliken wrestling with a mattress. Frances was gone, bearing her little Paul, through the still falling snow, to that studio where Gordon would again spread some of her beauty and soul on the magic cloth.
A few hours after, she returned in a taxicab.
"He insisted that I must take it," she explained. "He came downstairs with me and told the man to charge it to him, at the club. The light was very poor and he could do no painting. Spent the time just drawing and rubbing the charcoal out again. I think he must be working very hard, for he looks nervous and worried. No, I'm not hungry. He made me take lunch at the studio, while he went out to the club. He—he seems very impatient when I hesitate or don't wish to—to accept his kindnesses, and becomes very gruff. He hardly said a word from the time when he returned, till he bade me go home in the taxi. And—and now I must do some sewing."
I left her, having an appointment with my literary agent, who has asked me for a story for a new magazine. I reached his office and was asked to wait for a few minutes, as he was busy with an author whose words are worth much gold.
On the oaken table in the waiting-room, among other publications, there was a weekly of society and fashion. I took it up for a desultory glance at the pages. The first paragraph my eyes fell upon stated that the most distinguished of our younger painters, it was whispered, was about to announce his engagement to a fair Diana whose triumphs over hurdles, on the links and on the tennis courts were no less spoken of than her wealth and beauty.
I supposed that Gordon had seen those lines, for he takes that paper. According to Frances, he is worried and nervous. How can this be? She must surely be mistaken. He has captured and safely holds the bubble of reputation, his work commands a reward that seems fabulous to such as I, and now he is to marry beauty and wealth. Can there be any hitch in his plans?
After I had finished my business with my agent, I strolled out with a commission to write a five thousand word story. My way then led me up Fifth Avenue, to the place where I get the tea Frieda and Frances so greatly appreciate. At the Forty-Second Street crossing my arm was seized from behind.
"Hold on, old boy. Those motors are splashing dreadfully," said Gordon, rescuing me from a spattering of liquid mud. "Come with me to the club."
I followed him with the sheeplike acquiescence that is part of my nature, feeling rather glad of the opportunity to talk with him and perhaps congratulate him. As usual, he was most spick and span. His fur coat had a collar of Alaska seal and the black pearl in his necktie was probably worth a couple of square feet of his painting, though the general effect was quiet and unobtrusive.
We sat down in the most deserted corner he could find and looked at one another in silence, for a few moments. It is to be presumed that my patience outlasted his.
"You're the dullest old curmudgeon ever permitted to come into polite society," he declared, looking aggrieved.
"I was serenely waiting for your announcement," I replied.
"Oh! So you've seen that thing also!" he retorted, with evident annoyance.
"Well, my dear fellow, I wanted to know whether to congratulate you or whether the information was somewhat premature. Come, Gordon, I used to think that we were a replica of Damon and Pythias! Won't it do you a bit of good to talk it over? Do you never feel the need of confiding in a friend, nowadays?"
For a moment he looked down at his boots, after which he deliberately placed both elbows on the little table that separated us and stared at me.
"The announcement is all right. Bought a solitaire for her last week. I suppose that she is wearing it. There is to be a reception soon, and you'll get a card to it."
I pushed my hand over to him and he took it, rather lukewarmly.
"Oh! That's all right! I know you wish me happiness. Well, I'm getting it, am I not? I'm just as merry as a grig. Here, boy!"
The lad in buttons took his order for whiskies and soda, after which Gordon glared at the portrait of the club's distinguished first president.
"Rotten piece of work, I call it. Chap who did it used a lot of beastly bitumen too, and it's cracking all over. Awful rubbishy stuff."
"I suppose so," I assented, on faith.
"Ben Franklin was a shrewd old fellow," he continued, with one of his habitual lightning changes. "Tells us that a man without a woman is like half a pair of scissors. I'm to be the complete thing, now. Stunning girl, Miss Van Rossum, isn't she? She talks of having a studio built at Southampton, for effect, I presume. How the deuce could a fellow expect to paint with a parcel of chattering women around him?"
"Oh! I daresay you might get used to it," I told him, soothingly.
"I won't! She is going to read books about painting. Told me she wanted to be able to talk intelligently about it, and I advised against it. People don't talk intelligently about painting, they only pretend to. They must insist on airing their views about futurists, or the influence of Botticelli or such truck. They make me yawn, and I try to turn the conversation, but it's a tough job. Why the deuce are you looking at me like that?"
He snapped the question out so quickly that I was somewhat taken aback, and he began again, without waiting for an answer.
"Oh! It's no use trying to make a practical man of the world out of a sentimental writer of impossible love stories. You're staring at me because I don't answer to your preconceived ideas of a fellow contemplating the joys of matrimony. Why the deuce should I?"
"I don't know, old fellow," I confessed. "I acknowledge that I have always regarded wedded life in the abstract, but I must say that my——"
"I know. Your ideal is a freckled youth with a left shoulder upholding the head of a pug-nosed girl, who weeps tears of joy in his bosom, the while he gazes up at the heavens in thankfulness. I'm all right, Dave! I've accomplished all that I was aiming at, and there are no problems left to solve. Where's that devilish boy with those drinks?"
I could not help looking at him again, for I was becoming more and more convinced that he was far from representing the happy man I had been eager to congratulate. Our beverages came, and he tossed his down, hurriedly, as if it furnished a welcome diversion to his thoughts. Five minutes later, I was walking alone to the shop where I buy my tea.
"I wonder what's wrong?" I asked myself, pushing the door open.
On Saturday, I received the card Gordon had mentioned. It was a tastefully engraved thing, merely announcing that the Van Rossums would be at home on the Seventeenth of March, from four until seven. In a corner, in smaller letters, was written "To meet Mr. Gordon McGrath, N. A."
I don't know whether I have mentioned the fact that Gordon is really an extremely handsome fellow, in a strong and masculine way, with a pleasant voice and manners that can be quite exquisite, at least when he isn't talking to an old pal. I am not at all surprised that Miss Sophia, or any other woman, for that matter, should have been attracted by his looks, while his great talent and growing reputation must have added to his ability to find favor in her eyes. His is not a descent from an old family, I believe, for the dead and gone McGraths dealt in pottery, in a small way, and left him about a thousand dollars a year, upon which he managed to go abroad and study art, to return, at last, and take New York by storm, at least from the standpoint of portrait painting. The young lady, I am sure, is a woman of ready affection, of easy enthusiasms and hopeful disposition. I honestly believe that she deserves much happiness and that she is capable of giving a sturdy love to a decent fellow, who will not interfere too much with her passion for various sports. An uncomfortable feeling comes to me that she is worthy of something better than Gordon will give her. I may be an old donkey, but, for the life of me, I can see no indication of true love in his feelings. The thought is rather revolting that he is marrying her as a mere incident in a line of conduct mapped out long ago, and it makes me feel less friendly to him. If my deductions are correct, there can be no excuse for a behavior which bears the earmarks of cynicism and cold calculation carried too far. May I be forgiven, if I err. Indeed, I earnestly hope that I am mistaken and that he is a man who conceals sentiments really creditable to him under an exterior less attractive.
Frieda and Frances were in my room, that afternoon, when the card arrived. I passed it to Frieda, who handed it over to her friend. The reception referred to led the former to some discussion of prevailing fashions. The painter of Orion dresses in a manner all her own, while the slender purse of Frances compels a garb of nearly monastic simplicity. But they appear to have a great knowledge of stylish clothing and an interest in it, which must be rather an instinct than the result of deep study.
I have not mentioned Gordon's engagement to them, probably for the reason that the subject is somewhat distasteful to me. Since my friend has not spoken of it to his model, there is no particular reason why I should do so. Let him attend to his own announcing.
In the evening, I took both of them to the movies. This was the result of a conspiracy between Frieda and myself, as we had agreed that it would be best to try and amuse Frances, if possible, and make her forget the morrow's ordeal. Yet, on our way home, the poor child could not help mentioning it.
"He says that my throat is beautifully trained and he can touch all sorts of things in it, now, with his instruments. I no longer mind it in the least. He tells me that he doesn't think it will hurt me, but, of course, I care nothing about a little pain. He's an awfully good fellow. What I'm afraid of is that it will do no good and that I shall never be able to use my voice again. I'm awfully hoarse now."
It was quite true that her voice was more husky, and the element of sadness in it made it sound worse. She spoke very low as she bade us good night, for I was going to take Frieda home.
In the morning I rose at an unearthly hour, spurred by the knowledge that I was going to the doctor's with Frances at eleven o'clock. I was bathed, shaved and clad in my Sunday suit by nine, after which I went out and brought back an armful of Sunday papers, which I tossed on my table and never looked at.
Soon afterwards, Eulalie came in, rather bashfully, to ask me if I could lend Madame Dupont theCourier. Also, she confided to me the fact that she was to mind Baby Paul during our absence.
"The doctor is going to cut the poor lamb's throat and it is terrible, Monsieur, but she is not afraid. I am going away for a half an hour now, because it will do no harm to burn a candle before the Blessed Virgin for the success of the operation. Yes, I think I will put two candles. Now if Monsieur believed——"
I swiftly pulled a bill from my trousers pocket.
"Here, Eulalie, is a dollar," I told her. "You will be so good as to dispose of it as if I were a brother to a cardinal. Faith, I believe, comes before hope and charity. Would that mine were as strong as your own, especially as concerns a certain friend of mine. Hurry away and return with seven-leagued boots."
"Monsieur is a very good man; any one can see that.Ça vous portera bonheur."
Her assurance that my offering would bring me happiness comforted me, I think. Few of us can resist the temptation to think that luck is a manna whose falling may occasionally be guided by our actions, and that ill-chance may be averted by touching wood or, as is the way of Italians, extending the fore and little finger as a safeguard against the evil eye.
For a time, I sought to read, but the pages of the Sunday papers seemed to be blurred. I paced the room, nervously, thinking of Gordon and of Frances. The latter had described her recent visits to the studio as funereal functions, during which Gordon painted fast and doggedly, while biting at the stem of an empty pipe, and occasionally swore at the canvas. Sometimes, he tired her nearly to death, working for hours without interruption, while, on other occasions, he insisted on her resting every few minutes and called himself a brute for taking advantage of her patience.
"But then, you know, Mr. McGrath is a very peculiar man," she said, as if this condoned all his faults.
Presently, Eulalie returned, knocking violently at my door, and assured me that every cent of my dollar was now burning brightly, where it would do most good, and informed me that the two ladies were waiting for me.
"It is time to go, Dave," said Frieda, who seemed to be making hard weather of her efforts at composure. "Frances is all ready and Baby Paul is sleeping. Eulalie will take the best care of him. Come along!"
And so we trooped off to Dr. Porter's office. He was waiting for us, clad in an immaculate white jacket. Frances entrusted her hat to Frieda and sat down quietly on a chair in a dark corner. Porter drew down some blinds, whereby we were plunged in semi-darkness, and turned on a powerful light which strongly illumined a small circle of his patient's face. I was sitting down on a sofa, rather close to Frieda. A few moments later we were leaning on one another for support. One of her good fat hands was trembling a little, in mine, which may possibly have been similarly affected.
"We'll take lots of time," I heard Porter say. "Yes, this is novocaine. Open wide now—breathe through your mouth—slowly. That's very good—now rest a little. Once again, I want to get a thorough anæsthesia—another little rest—we are in no hurry. Don't be afraid. You have the finest throat to work on I ever saw, a superb control over it. That comes from all the training I have given you—now the last touch of novocaine—that's all right—you'll feel nothing—I'm very sure."
Frieda was digging her nails into my hand, excruciatingly, and we both breathed hard as we saw Porter take up other long and shiny tools that gleamed in the obscurity. He was doing something with them, quietly, with a constant flow of encouraging language. I wondered how the man's voice could remain so calm. Frieda's left heel rested for a moment on my right big toe, crushingly, but she knew not what she was doing, and I bore the torture without a cry, till I could push her away. I had not realized that a man could suffer so much. And Porter was still working away, looking ghostly in the penumbra. Then, suddenly, he let out an ejaculation imitated from the Comanches, rose from his chair, ran to the window and admitted a flood of light that nearly blinded us. Frieda, shamefaced, lifted her head from my shoulder and rose with incredible swiftness.
"Is—is it all over?" she asked, tremulously.
"Surest thing you know," replied our young friend. "The finest little growth upon the right chord you ever saw. I had made up my mind not to go at it halfcocked, and that's why I've taken so much time to get her so that a fellow could do anything he wanted to her larynx. But it pays, I can tell you!"
"And—and will I be able to sing again?" asked Frances, hoarsely.
"You will have to use your voice just as little as possible for a few days," he answered. "Not a word more than you can help. I hope—I believe that you will be able to sing again, after the chord heals up, but you must not try for a long time. And then it will take a lot of practice, of course, because your throat has forgotten nearly all it ever knew about singing. It will have to come back slowly and gradually. Be sure and come in to-morrow and let me have a look at it."
Frances thanked him, huskily, and Frieda and I wrung his hand. After this we left, in the bright sunshine of a day of cloudless skies, and returned to Mrs. Milliken's, where I left the two women at the door, returning a half an hour later with a small bunch of pink roses. When I reached my landing, her door was open; Frieda was at work with a crochet needle on a diminutive blue sock, while Frances was lying down on the sofa. She never looked up as I came in, for her lovely head was bent down towards the sleeping mite.