The next morning, at the appointed hour, Blizzard climbed the stairs to Barbara's studio, knocked, and was admitted. That he was welcome, if only for his head's sake, was at once evident.
"Something told me thatyouwouldn't fail me," said Barbara.
"You can be quite easy about that," said Blizzard. "I am in the habit of keeping my word."
He climbed to the model's platform and seated himself as upon the previous morning, with a kind of business-like directness.
"Ready when you are," he said.
Barbara withdrew the damp cloths from the clay, looked critically from the bust to the original and back again. "My work," she said, "still looks right to me. But you don't."
Blizzard smiled.
"Yesterday," she said, "you looked as if you were suffering like," she laughed, "like the very devil. To-day you look well fed and contented. Now that won't do. Try to remember what you were thinking about when I first saw you."
At once, as a fresh slide is placed in a magic-lantern, the legless man's expression of well-being vanished, and that dark tortured look of Satan fallen which had so fired Barbara's imagination, once more possessed his features. Barbara's eyes flashed with satisfaction.
"It wasn't hard for you to remember what you were thinking about, was it?" she said.
"It was not," said Blizzard, and his voice was cold as a well-curb. "When I first saw you, I was thinking thoughts that can never be forgotten."
"Lift your chin, please," she said, "just a fraction. So. Turn your head a fraction more toward me. Good. And please don't think of anything pleasant until I tell you. Anybody can make an exact copy of a head. Expressions are the things that only lucky people can catch."
"I believe you are one of them," said Blizzard. "I believe you will catch mine--if you keep on wanting to."
"I must," she said simply.
And then for half an hour there was no sound in the studio but the long-drawn breathing of the legless man. Barbara worked in a kind of grim, exalted silence.
Meanwhile Bubbles was climbing the back stair to his bedroom, where he had left Harry, the secret-service agent, on guard over Barbara. The boy, all out of breath with haste, opened his right fist and disclosed a narrow slip of paper with writing on it.
"The minutehecame out of his burrow and started uptown," said Bubbles, "and was out o' sight, I begun to spin my top up and down Marrow Lane. Rose she's moved upstairs, like she said she would."
Harry's eyes sparkled with interest and approbation. "Good girl!" he said.
"I seen her," Bubbles went on, "at an upper window, and when she seed me, she winked both eyes, like as if the sun was too bright for 'em. I winked the same way, and then she lets the paper drop."
Harry took the paper out of the boy's hand, and read: "Nothing done, much doing."
"She's a grand one," said Bubbles. "If he ever gets wise to her, he'll tear her to pieces."
"I'm not worrying about Rose--yet," said Harry. "She knows what she's up against, and she can pull a gun quicker than I can. We used to play getting the drop on each other by the hour."
"What for?" asked Bubbles, always interested in the smallest details of sporting propositions.
"Poker-chips," said Harry, and Bubbles looked his disgust. There was a minute's silence, then:
"Harry," said Bubbles, "what doyouthink he's up to?"
"By George," said Harry, "I can't make out. What doyouthink?"
Bubbles's sensitive mouth quivered eagerly. "You tell me," he said, "what he's making hats for--he don't sell 'em--and I'll tell you what he's up to."
"Some of the labor leaders in the West are mixed up in it," said Harry; "weknowthat."
"Labor leaders, Harry!" The small boy's face was comic with scorn and facetiousness.
"You know the ones I mean, Bub. Not the men who lead labor--that's only what they call themselves; but the men who betray labor for their own pockets, the men who find dynamite for half-witted fanatics to set off. The men--" He broke short off, and listened. "Better butt in to the studio, Bub, and see what's doing,"
"Did you think you heard something?"
"I know that I haven't heard anything for half an hour."
In a few minutes Bubbles returned. "He's just sitting there with a hell of a face on him," he said, "and she's working like a dynamo."
In a few minutes Bubbles returned. "He's just sitting there with a hell of a face on him,"he said, "and she's working like a dynamo".
And although Barbara actually was working with great speed and gratitude, the entrance of the small boy had seemed to disturb the train of her inspiration. Somewhere in the back of her head appeared to be some brain-cells quite detached from the important matter in hand, and to these was conveyed the fact that a door-knob had been turned, and at once they began to busy themselves upon the suggestion. Something like this: door-knobs--old door-knobs--new glass door-knobs--man to put on new glass door-knobs--wonderfully prepossessing man--name Harry--charming name. Harry--charming smile--wonder if anybody'll ever see him again.
Gradually other cells in Barbara's brain took up the business, until presently she was entirely occupied with unasked, and unwelcome, and altogether pleasant thoughts of the young secret-service agent. It was almost as if he laid his hand on her shoulder, and said: "You've worked long enough on this dreadful beggar--come with me for a holiday."
Twice, sternly, she endeavored to go on with her work, and could not. Something of the May-weather message, that all is futile except life, had filtered into her blood. Her hands dropped to her sides, and her face, very rosy, became so wonderfully beautiful that Blizzard almost groaned aloud. Something told him that his morning was over, his morning filled with the happiness of propinquity and stolen looks, with the happiness that is half spiritual and half gloating.
"Thank you," said Barbara, "ever so much. I sha'n't do any more to-day. I'm not fit. But we have gotten on. Want to look?"
She turned the revolving-table so that Blizzard could look upon his likeness. And you may be sure that he did not lose the opportunity thus presented. He regarded the clay steadily, for a long time, without speaking. Then he drew one very long breath, and the expression upon his face softened.
"That man," he said, "has had a hard life, Miss Ferris. It is all written in his face. When he was a little boy, he was the victim of a mistake so atrocious, so wicked, that the blood in his body turned to gall, and all his powers of loving turned to hatred. Instead of facing disaster like a man, he turned from it, and fled--down--down--down, and fell down--down--grappling with all that he could reach that was good or beautiful, and dragging it down with him--to destruction--to the pit--to hell on earth. And then he lived a long time, pampering all that was base in him, prospering materially, recognizing no moral law. He was contented with his choice--happy as a well-fed dog is happy in a warm corner. And then the inevitable happened. An idea came to him, a dream of peace and beauty, of well-doing and happiness. But that chance was torture, since, if he was to live it, he must undo the evil that he had done, unthink the thoughts that had been meat and drink to him, and he must get back to where he was before he fell."
He paused, and extending his right forefinger pointed at the bust of himself and exclaimed:
"That man--there--that you've made in my image--line for line--torture for torture, must go on living in the hell which he has prepared with his own perverted mind. He can never get back. It is too late--too late--too late!"
His voice rose to a kind of restrained fury. The room shook with its strong vibrations.
Then he turned to Barbara, smiled, all of a sudden, gayly, almost genuinely, and said in a voice of humble gallantry:
"But I've done you a good turn. If you never proved it before, you're proving these days that you are a heaven-born genius."
A harder-headed girl than Barbara must have been pleased and beguiled. She blushed, and laughed. "I've only one thing to wish for," she said.
"What is that?"
"I wish," she said, "that you were the greatest art critic in the world."
He leaned forward, and in a confidential whisper: "A secret," said he, "between us two. I am."
Then they both laughed, and the beggar, not without reluctance, climbed down from the platform. Swift and easy as were his motions, he appeared to terrible disadvantage, and he knew it. So did Barbara, who a moment before had been on the point of really liking him. She steeled herself against the sudden disgust which she could not help feeling, and smiled at him in a steady, friendly way.
"To-morrow?" she said.
"To-morrow."
"At the same time, please. Good-by, and good luck to you."
"Good luck toyou, Miss Ferris." And he was gone.
Barbara, opening the door into the next room, surprised a sound of voices. They ceased instantly.
"Bubbles," she called.
He came, looking a trifle guilty.
"Who's that with you?"
"Harry," he said simply.
"The man who was here before?"
"Yes, Miss Barbara."
"What's he doing in my rooms?"
"He was just sitting, and chinning," said Bubbles.
Miss Ferris was displeased. "Tell him," she said, "that I can't have my apartment turned into a Young Men's Club."
"Yes, miss."
Bubbles retired, reluctantly, with the message, only to return in a moment.
"He says will you let him speak to you a moment, please."
She hesitated. And then, "Yes," she said. "I suppose he wishes to apologize."
He was even more charming-looking than the memory of him. She made an effort to look a little displeased, and a little unfriendly. She failed, because the May-weather message had gotten into her blood, and because certain forces of which as yet she knew little had established connecting links between herself and the young secret-service agent.
"I am going to scold you," said Barbara. "Bubbles has his work to do."
"But I was helping him with it."
"He said you were just sitting and--and chinning."
"When we had finished working."
"Have you been here long?"
The young man looked her steadily in the face, and said gravely: "Ever since Blizzard came."
Barbara lifted her chin a little. "I am quite able to take care of myself," she said.
He shook his head sadly.
"Do you make it your business"--she had succeeded in making herself angry--"to keep an eye on all young women whom you fancy unable to take care of themselves?"
"I only wish to God I could," he said earnestly. "But of course it's impossible. So I just do the best I can."
"And why have you chosen me? Surely others are evenmorehelpless than I am." She managed to convey a good deal of scorn. "Why," she continued, "must I be the particular creature singled out for your chivalrous notice?"
"I don't know," he said simply.
All the anger went out of Barbara, and a delicious little thrill passed through her from head to foot, leaving in its wake a clear rosy coloring.
"Bubbles," said the young man, "would die for you; but he is only a little boy. I am very strong."
Barbara refused to rise at the implication that the strong young man was also ready and even eager to die for her. "Tell me more about Blizzard," she said.
"He's one of the half-dozen men in the city that we would like to have an eye on night and day. We want him."
"Oh," she said, "then you are not here entirely on my account? It is also your business to be here?"
He nodded, not altogether pleased with the turn the matter had taken.
"In that case," she said, "I have no wish to stand in your way. But--I don't propose to be a cat's-paw. You may sit in Bubbles's room if you like, but I won't have you on your hands and knees at the studio door listening at the key-hole. That must be understood."
The young man flushed with righteous anger. "You don'tlook" he said, "as if you could say a thing like that to a fellow."
Instantly, and almost humbly, she begged his pardon.
"Then I may come to-morrow?" he asked.
"And the next day," said Barbara. "And, by the way, what is your name?"
"Harry," he said.
"Harry what?"
A look very much like pathos came into his handsome eyes. "I want to be honest with you," he said. "I don't own any other name. I call myself West. But I've no right to it. I don't know who my father was or what he was."
"You don't have to explain," said Barbara. "I think you would have been quite within your rights in saying that your name was West and letting it go at that."
It was not her intention to receive Mr. West's confidences either at this time or any other. And so, of course, ten minutes later, as she drove uptown, she was "dying" to know all that there was to be known about him. He had gone downstairs with her, and put her into her cab. He might have been a prince with a passion for good manners. He seemed to her wonderfully graceful and at ease, in all that he did.
Dr. Ferris smiled tolerantly, and said to the footman who had brought the card: "I shall be very glad to see Mr. Allen." And he kept on smiling after the footman had gone. The interview which he foresaw was of that kind which not only did him honor but amused him. Wilmot Allen would not be the first young man to whom the rich surgeon had had the pleasure of putting embarrassing questions: "What can you tell me of your past life and habits?" "Can you support my daughter in the way to which she has always been accustomed?" etc., etc.
But Wilmot Allen did not at once ask permission to address Barbara. He entered with that good-natured air of easy laziness which was rather attractive in him, and without looking in the least troubled announced that what he had come to say embarrassed him greatly.
"And furthermore," he said, "if Barbara hears of it, she'll be furious. She would take the natural and even correct point of view that it's none of my business, and she would select one of the thousand ruthless and brutal methods which young women have at their disposition for the disciplining of young men. So, please, will you consider my visit professional and, if you like," he grinned mischievously, "charge me the regular fee for consultation?"
Dr. Ferris laughed. "I shall be delighted to play father confessor," he said, "if you'll sit down, and smoke a cigar."
Mr. Allen would. He lighted one of Dr. Ferris's cigars with the care due to a thing of value, settled himself in a deep chair, and appeared by slightly pausing to be gathering scattered thoughts into a focus.
"Yes," he said at last, "there's no doubt about it. I am about to be very impertinent. If you like you shall turn me out of your house, with or without kicks, as seems best to you. Barbara needs a nurse, and it seems to me you ought to know it; because in a way it's a reflection on you."
"Quite so," said Dr. Ferris. "I am not at all pleased with Barbara. What has she done?"
"Do you suppose it would be possible to get her interested in anything besides this sculpture business--before it's too late?"
"Too late?"
"Before she gets a taste of success."
"But will she--ever?"
Wilmot Allen nodded eagerly. "She will," he said. "She is doing a head. It's far from finished; but even now, in the rough state, it's quite the most exceptional inspired thing you ever saw. She will exhibit it and become famous overnight. I can't bet much--as you may perhaps suspect--but I'll bet all I've got. And of course, once she gets recognition and everybody begins to kow-tow to her--why, good-by, Barbara."
"Still," said Dr. Ferris, "if she's developing a real talent, I don't know that I ought to stand in her way. And, besides, we've fought that all out, and," he laughed grimly, "I took my licking like a man."
"Of course," said Allen. "When a girl that ought to go in for marriage and that sort of thing takes to being talented--I call it a tragedy. But, passing that, the model for the head she's doing isn't a proper person. That's what I'm driving at. He's one of the wickedest and most unscrupulous persons in the world. Barbara ought not to speak to him, let alone give him the run of her studio and hobnob with him same as with one of her friends. He's a man too busy with villainy to sit as a model for the fun of sitting. The pay doesn't interest him. And if he shows up every morning at nine and stays all morning, it's only because he's got an axe to grind. He talks. He lays down the law. He appeals to Barbara's mind and imagination; and it's all rather horrible--one of those poison snakes that look like an old rubber boot, and a bird all prettiness, bright colors, innocence, and admiration of how the world is made. Look at it in this way. She makes a great hit with the bust. Who's responsible? Well, the creature that supplied the inspiration, largely. She'll feel gratitude. He'll take advantage of anything that comes his way. And frankly, Dr. Ferris, I may be making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but I'm worried to death. Suppose I told you that, say, Duane Carter spent hours every day in Barbara's studio?"
Dr. Ferris jumped to his feet, white with anger. "Do you mean to tell me that my daughter is friendly with that person?"
"Oh, no," said Allen calmly. "I think Barbara's new friend is a very much more dangerous person for her to know. Whatever Duane Carter is he wouldn't dare. This other man--"
"Look here, Wilmot"--Dr. Ferris began to pace the room in considerable agitation--"you're an old friend of Barbara's. Is friendliness at the root of your worry, or is it some other feeling, not so disinterested as friendship?"
Wilmot Allen rose to his full height, and Dr. Ferris paused in his pacings. They faced each other.
"If I was any good," said the young man slowly, "if I had any money, if Barbara would have me, I'd marry her to-morrow. But I'm not any good--never was. I haven't any money, hardly ever have had, and Barbara would no more have me of her own free will than she'd take a hammer and smash the bust she's making. So much for motives. Have I disposed of jealousy?"
Dr. Ferris nodded.
"The man," said Allen, "isn't a man. He's a gutter-dog, a gargoyle, half a man. And his position in the city--in the whole country, I think--is so fortified that with the best will in the world the law cannot touch him. Duane Carter--well, he's been a gay boy with the ladies--a bad man if you like--but at least he is not accused by gossip of murder, arson, abduction, and crimes infinitely worse than these. He may have beguiled women, but at least his worst enemy would never suppose that he had trafficked in them. Barbara's model is all the things that you can imagine. And all of them are written in his horrible face. To see them together, friendly, reparteeing, chummy, would turn your stomach--Barbara so exquisite and high-born, and the man, his eyes full of evil fires, sitting like a great toad on the model's chair. And at that--good God, you might stand it, if he was a whole man! But he isn't. It's horrible! He has no legs--and you want to stamp on him till he's dead."
Dr. Ferris had turned white as a sheet. "To me," he said quietly, "that is the most horrible form of mutilation. I can't tell you why. It is so. And you will believe that in my practice I have encountered all sorts. But who is he?"
"He's a man named Blizzard--he passes for a beggar, grinds an organ, sells shoe-laces and that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, he's very well off, if not rich. Why don't you visit Barbara's studio to-morrow, look things over, and put a stop to it? You can say things to Barbara that I can't, that no young man can say to a girl. Go as far as you like. Whatever you tell her about him will be true even if you can't prove it. You can make her see what thin ice she's skating on. Or if you can't nobody can."
"I'll go to the studio to-morrow," said the surgeon. "I am very much disturbed by what you have told me: the more so because as a physician I have learned how many impossible things are true. Have you told me all you wish to? Or is there more? Do you think," he spoke very steadily, "that Barbaracaresfor this beast? Such things happen in the world, I know."
"God forbid," said Allen, "but I think he has a sort of fascination for her, and that she doesn't realize it. You'll let your visit appear casual and accidental, won't you? You won't let Barbara suspect that I had anything to do with it?"
Dr. Ferris promised, and the two parted with mutual good-will; but neither the next morning, nor the morning after that, was Dr. Ferris at liberty to pay a visit to Barbara in her studio. Nominally retired from active practice, and devoting whatever of life should remain to surgical experimentation and theory, the sudden and acute jeopardy of an old friend caused him to put all other considerations aside for the time being, and once more to don the white harness of his profession. For two days Dr. Ferris hardly left his friend's side; on the morning of the third day, quite worn out, his jumping nerves soothed by a small dose of morphine, he called a taxicab, gave Barbara's number in McBurney Place, leaned back against the leather cushions, relaxed his muscles, and fell asleep.
The taxicab and the legless man reached the curb in front of Barbara's studio at the same moment. The driver of the cab lifted one finger to his hat. The legless man nodded, and peering into the cab recognized the handsome features of the sleeping doctor. He smiled, and said to the driver:
"Take him back to his house."
The driver said: "If I do he'll enter a complaint."
"No," said the legless man; "you will tell him when he wakes that he gave you the order himself. He won't know whether he did or not. So-long."
The driver once more lifted one finger to his hat and obediently drove off.
It was very silent in McBurney Place; the double row of ancient stables made over into studio-buildings appeared deserted. The legless man could not but flatter himself that his actions had been unobserved. He chuckled, and with even more than his usual deft alacrity climbed the stairs to Barbara's studio.
Meanwhile, however, a young man and a small boy, looking through the curtains of the latter's bedroom window, had been witnesses of all that passed.
"That was Miss Barbara's father in the taxi," said Harry West.
"Looks like he'd been out all night," said Bubbles.
"He may have been drugged."
"Doubt it. The taxi turned north at the corner. If the ole 'un had had the doctor drugged o' purpose he'd 'a' sent him south where he could use him. I guess he's sent him home."
"He doesn't want his morning with Miss Barbara interrupted."
Harry West sighed and said: "I don't smoke, Bub. Give me a cigarette."
Bubbles accommodated his friend with eagerness.
"And now," said West, "the road's clear to Marrow Lane; better slip down and see if Rose has any word for us. I'll keep a good ear on Blizzard."
Bubbles changed from his buttons to his street-jacket, and departed by the back stairs. Harry West took a small automatic pistol from his breast pocket and played with it, but in the expression of the young man's face was nothing bellicose or threatening; only a kind of gentle, patient misery.
He passed fifteen minutes in taking quick aims with the little automatic pistol at the roses on the wall-paper. Short of actual target-practice, he knew by experience that this was the best way to keep the hand and eye in touch with each other. He let his thoughts run as they would. And presently he heard the sound of Bubbles's feet upon the back stairs.
"All serene here," said West.
"All serene there," said Bubbles, and he produced a slip of paper upon which Rose had written:
"Don't come so often. You've been noticed. He'll tell me things before long--or wring my neck."
"She worked her hands some," said Bubbles, and he made letters of the deaf and dumb alphabet upon his fingers. "She said O'Hagan's in the city. They had him to eat with them last night. He's growed a beard, and trained off twenty pounds, so's not to be knowed."
The air of revery had left Harry West. "O'Hagan in the East!" he exclaimed, rather with exhilaration than excitement. "Things are coming to a head."
"Yep," said Bubbles, "and we don't know what things is--"
"Bubbles! Oh, Bubbles!"
The boy disappeared in the direction of the studio.
"Mr. Blizzard has gone," said Barbara. "Ask Mr. West if he will speak to me a moment."
Mr. West would; and he, the athlete, the man of trained poise, actually overturned a chair in his willingness.
"Mr. West," she said, "you know all sorts of things about people, don't you? And if you don't know them, you can find them out, can't you?"
"Sometimes, Miss Barbara."
"I want to know about the man who comes here to pose--not vague things, but facts; who his people were, what turned him against the world."
"You're troubled, Miss Barbara?"
"I am terribly troubled. He has told me a terrible story. But how do I know if it's true or not? If it's true, he ought not to be hounded and hunted, Mr. West; he ought to be pitied."
"Then I'm sure it's not true," West smiled quietly. "What did he tell you?"
"No matter. But will you find out what you can about him?"
"Why, yes, of course. But believe me, it's not his beginnings that are of importance. It's his subsequent achievements and his schemes for the future."
"Another thing," she said, "I'm sure he means no harm where I'm concerned. He has never known that I have a protector within call, and yet his whole attitude toward me has been gentle, humorous, and even chivalrous. I think," and the color came into her cheeks, "that he feels a fatherly sort of affection for me. So thank you for all the trouble you've taken."
"I, too, have reason to think that he means no harm," said West, "and if that is true, I am wasting my time."
There was a look of bitterness in his eyes that was not lost upon Barbara. And she was troubled.
"Of course," she said, "if youliketo waste your time--"
He looked her straight in the eyes. "I do," he said, "I love to. No man's life would ever be complete if he didn't waste the best part of it--throw it away on something or other--on an ambition--on an ideal--on a woman."
Barbara returned his glance. "Just what, Mr. West," she said, "is the idea?"
And here, Mr. Harry West might have found the sudden courage to speak out what was in his heart, had he not remembered that to all intents and purposes he had no father, and consequently in the eyes of the great world to which Barbara belonged could not be considered to have any existence.
"Oh," he said, "I was just talking through my hat."
Barbara, who, you may say, had been unconsciously putting out tentacles of affection toward Harry West, at once withdrew them, and said coolly: "So I supposed."
"May I look at the bust?"
"Certainly."
She removed the damp cloths from her work, and Harry found himself looking into the legless man's face. The features at once attracted and repelled him, and these sensations mingled with them feelings of wonder. Some subconscious knowledge told the young man authoritatively that he was looking on a master work. Barbara noticed this, and her heart warmed, and her pride was gratified.
"I'm going to hurt your feelings," she said.
"Mine? Don't. Please don't."
"If you," she said, "devoted the next twenty years of your life to wickedness and vengeful thoughts you would get to look like my friend, Mr. Blizzard."
Now that same thought had occurred, and not for the first time, to Harry West, but he did not care to admit it. So he laughed gently, and said:
"In that case I shall devote the next twenty years of my life to philanthropy and--loving thoughts."
He turned toward her, all smiling. And she avoided his eyes without appearing to do so.
The next morning Blizzard was fifteen minutes late to his appointment with Barbara. He had sat up all night with O'Hagan, talking energetically, and for once in his life he felt tired. To this feeling was added the fear--almost ridiculous under the circumstances--that Barbara would scold him for being late. Unscrupulous brute that he was, his infatuation for her was humanizing him. And in the whole world he dreaded nothing so much, at this time, as a look of displeasure in a girl's face.
He had left off the threadbare clothes in which he usually went begging, and had attired himself in clean linen and immaculate gray broadcloth. His face was exquisitely shaved; his nails trimmed and clean. And there hung about him a faint odor of violets. In short, the male of the species had begun to change his plumage, as is customary in the spring of the year.
His mouth full of apology, he hurried up the stairs to the studio, only to find that Barbara herself had not yet arrived. Upon the seat of the chair in which he always posed, the legless man perceived an envelope addressed to himself. This contained a short note:
DEAR MR. BLIZZARD:I can't be at the studio till eleven. Please find somewhere about you the kindness to wait, or at least to come again at that time. You will greatly oblige,Yours sincerely,BARBARA FERRIS.
Blizzard read his note three times; it was very friendly. The "Yours sincerely" touched his imagination. Especially the "Yours."
"Yours," he said, "mine," and with a sudden idiocy of passion he crushed the note to his lips. And then, as if with remorse at having been rough with a helpless thing, he smoothed out the crumpled sheet, and placed it, together with its envelope, in that pocket which was nearest to his heart. Then he seated himself on the edge of the model's platform, laid his crutches aside, closed his eyes, and for perhaps five minutes slept, motionless as a statue, except that now and then his ears twitched. At the end of five minutes, he waked, greatly refreshed, and ready, if the need should arise, to sit up the whole of the following night.
There was a sound of a man's steps mounting the stairs. And then a brisk knocking on the studio door.
"Come in," said Blizzard.
Dr. Ferris entered, hesitated, and then closed the door behind him.
"You'll pardon me," said Blizzard coolly, "if I don't get up?"
"Yes--yes," said Dr. Ferris, and in his handsome eyes was a look of pain and pity.
"It isn't easy for me to get up," Blizzard continued in the same cool, emotionless voice, "you can see for yourself. I can't spring to my feet--like other men. Do you know who I am?"
"Yes," said Dr. Ferris, "I'm afraid I do. But they told me the name of the man who has been posing for Miss Ferris was Blizzard. Your name--"
"My name," said Blizzard, "is forgotten."
Dr. Ferris bowed gravely. "Quite so, Mr. Blizzard," he said.
"Miss Barbara," said Blizzard, watching closely the effect upon the older man of the familiarity, "will not be here till eleven. And as you and I cannot possibly have anything pleasant to say to each other, and as you, although the older man, are far better off than I am for means of locomotion, and as eventhinkingof you has something the effect upon my stomach that mustard and warm water would have--"
"If you have any mercy in your heart," said Dr. Ferris, his mouth distorted with emotion, "don't talk to me that way. What made a hell of your life has made a hell of mine."
The look of cold hatred in Blizzard's face changed at once to curiosity. "Really?" he said; "you mean that?"
"It is the truth."
Blizzard considered, and then shook his head. "No," he said, "it couldn't be the same. It may have stretched you on the hot grid now and then, but between times of remorse you've had long, long stretches of success and happiness. I haven't. I have burned in hell fires from that day to this."
"I told you on that day," said the surgeon, "that if there was ever anything under heaven that I could do for you, I would do it. You've never called upon me for anything--money--or service."
"I've not forgotten," said Blizzard, "and some day I may hold you to your word. Right here and now I will ask something of you--an absolutely truthful answer to a question. Do you hate me?"
Dr. Ferris turned the question over in his conscience, and presently said: "I am sorry. Yes."
"Thank you," said Blizzard, who was not in the least disturbed. "I've often wondered, and even, putting a hypothetical case, thrashed the matter out with my friends. Youwouldhate me. It's thoroughly human. With me, for instance--I feel non-committal about a man. I decide to injure him. I do so.And thenI hate him. Now, if you have any message for Miss Barbara--or perhaps you came to see the bust. I will call Bubbles. He and Miss Barbara are the only persons allowed to touch the cloths. I think she'd let me uncover the thing, but, as you and I know so well, I am not tall enough."
"My business with my daughter," said Dr. Ferris, "concerned you."
Blizzard chuckled. "Her friends," said he, "have been at you to interfere. They have persuaded you that her model should bepersona non gratain the best studios. They have, in short, begged you to take me by the scruff of the neck and kick me out into the gutter where I belong. Well, kick me. You know as well as I do, that I can't kick back."
"You hurt me very much," said Dr. Ferris simply, "if that is any pleasure to you."
"It is," said Blizzard.
"What your intuition has told you," continued Barbara's father, "is the truth. I had made up my mind to interfere."
"Well, why should you?"
"I have heard terrible things about you, Mr. Blizzard."
"That I have done things which the world regards as terrible is true," returned the legless man imperturbably. "What of it? Haven't you?"
Dr. Ferris turned away and slowly paced the length of the studio and back. "I owe you," he then said, "anything you choose to ask. But that is not the whole of my obligation to this world as I see it."
"You will oblige me," said Blizzard, "by spitting out the moral homily into which you are trying to get your teeth. It is very simple. I do not wish to be sent away. I ask you not to send me. If your statement that you owe me anything I choose to ask amounts to two pins' worth, I think that I shall continue to pose for your daughter as long as she needs me."
"Oh, I'm quite helpless," said Dr. Ferris; "I realize that."
"Spoken like a man," said Blizzard. "And to show that my nature isn't entirely cruel, I'll tell you for your comfort that in Miss Barbara's presence the bad man is a very decent sort. We are almost friends, Doctor, she and I. She talks to me as if I were her equal. As for me, in this studio I have learned the habit of innocent thought. Only yesterday I took pleasure in the idea that in the world there are birds, and flowers, and green fields."
The beggar's eyes glittered with a sardonic look. He watched the surgeon as a tiger might watch a stag. There was quite a long silence. Dr. Ferris broke it.
"For God's sake," he said with great energy, "tell me one truth. Is it part of your scheme of life to revenge yourself on me through my daughter?"
Blizzard raised a soothing hand. "Dr. Ferris," he said, "what would cause you suffering would cause her suffering. So, you see, I am tied hand and--Pardon me! I shouldn't now think of hurting you through her unless it might be for her own happiness."
"I don't understand."
"Then you don't understand the hearts of women. Then you know nothing of the heights to which even fallen men can raise their eyes."
"What are you telling me?"
"Very little--very much. Perhaps I love your daughter."
Horror and loathing swept into the surgeon's eyes, but he controlled himself. "Mr. Blizzard," said he presently, "I find it hard to take you seriously.Areyou joking? Whether you are or not, the thing is a joke. If you really care for my daughter, I am very, very sorry for you. I can't say more. If nothing worse threatens her than the possibility of her heart being touched by you, there is no need for me to be anxious about her. As for telling her the truth about you and me, why not?"
"Youtell her."
"I will. To-night"
"Won't you be playing into my hands?"
"No," said the surgeon curtly, "she has too much common-sense."
"But you won't tell her what I've said?" The beggar was suddenly anxious.
"No," and Dr. Ferris smiled, "I may safely leave that to you."
"Damnation," cried Blizzard, "you are laughing at me."
Dr. Ferris's face became serious at once. "God forbid that!" he said. "If you have spoken sincerely I feel only sorrow for you and pity--more sorrow and pity for you even than I ever felt before."
"S-s-s-s-t," exclaimed the beggar, and his ears twitched. "She's coming."
"I shall wait," said Dr. Ferris, "and take her uptown, when she has finished working."
"Well," said Blizzard, with a kind of humorous resignation, "I'd kick you out if I could; but I can't." And he added: "You haven't got an extra pair of legs about you, have you?"
"Why!" said Barbara when she saw her father. "Artislooking up.Youin a studio!"
Secretly his presence pleased her immensely. She had always hoped that some day he would take enough interest in her work to come to see it uninvited. And she now felt that this had happened. And she thanked Blizzard with sincerity for having waited.
"Mr. Blizzard and I," she told her father, "are doing a bust. And whatever anybody else thinks, we think it's an affair of great importance. Mr. Blizzard even gives me his time and his judgment for nothing."
"Well," Dr. Ferris smiled, "I am willing to give you the latter, on the same terms. May I see what you've done?"
Barbara removed the cloths from the bust, and so life-like and tragic was the face which suddenly confronted him that Dr. Ferris, instead of stepping forward to examine it closely, stepped backward as if he had been struck. And then:
"My dear," he said gravely, "the thing's alive."
He looked from the bust to his daughter, and felt as if he was meeting some very gifted and important person for the first time. Barbara laughed for sheer pleasure.
"What do you think of it?"
"I will buy it as it stands," said her father, "on your own terms."
"If you think it's good now," said Blizzard quietly, "wait till it's finished."
"If I had done it," said Dr. Ferris, "I wouldn't dare touch it."
"Yes, you would," said Barbara, "if you knew that you could make it better. It's still a beginning."
"When do you expect to finish?"
"I'm going to keep on working until I know that I've done the best I can. We may be months on it."
Blizzard smiled secretly, and Dr. Ferris managed to conceal his annoyance.
"I wish, my dear," he said, "that I had taken you more seriously in the beginning. But it is not too late to get some advantage by studying in Paris and Rome."
"I don't believe it's ever too late for that," said Barbara, "and of course I've always been crazy for the chance, but knowing how you felt--"
"Say the word," said her father, "and you shall go to-morrow."
Blizzard's face was like stone; he felt that his high hopes were on a more precarious footing than ever. If she had the whim, Barbara would go abroad, far beyond the reach of even his long arms.
"You could finish your bust any time," said Dr. Ferris persuasively.
But Barbara shook her head with complete decision. "A bird in the hand," she said, "is worth two in the bush. And--I hope I'm wrong--but I have the conviction that this head is going to be the best thing I shall ever do. I can look at it quite impersonally, because half the time it seems to model itself.Ithink it's going to be good. If it is good, it will be one of those lucky series of accidents that sometimes happen to undeserving but lucky people."
Dr. Ferris sighed inwardly, but the expression of his face did not change. "Do you mind if I stay?" he asked. "I think it's time I knew what you look like when you are at work, don't you?"
"Hightime!" exclaimed Barbara. "I'll just get into my apron." She went into the next room and closed the door.
"Your innocents abroad," said the legless man, "wasn't a success." His face was a jeer.