Bangs brought her over. He was a tight, smiling youth, as sound as oak, as clear as good water.
"Here's Miss Blue, Eugene. She's from up in Wisconsin, and comes down to Chicago occasionally. I told her you ought to know her. You might meet up there sometime."
"Say, but that's good luck, isn't it?" smiled Eugene. "I'msure I'm glad to know you. What part of Wisconsin do you come from?"
"Blackwood," she laughed, her greenish-blue eyes dancing.
"Her hair is yellow, her eyes are blue, and she comes from Blackwood," commented Bangs. "How's that?" His big mouth, with its even teeth, was wide with a smile.
"You left out the blue name and the white dress. She ought to wear white all the time."
"Oh, it does harmonize with my name, doesn't it?" she cried. "At home I do wear white mostly. You see I'm just a country girl, and I make most of my things."
"Did you make that?" asked Eugene.
"Of course I did."
Bangs moved away a little, looking at her as if critically. "Well, that's really pretty," he pronounced.
"Mr. Bangs is such a flatterer," she smiled at Eugene. "He doesn't mean any thing he says. He just tells me one thing after another."
"He's right," said Eugene. "I agree as to the dress, and it fits the hair wonderfully."
"You see, he's lost, too," laughed Bangs. "That's the way they all do. Well, I'm going to leave you two. I've got to get back. I left your sister in the hands of a rival of mine."
Eugene turned to this girl and laughed his reserved laugh. "I was just thinking what was going to become of me. I've been away for two years, and I've lost track of some of these people."
"I'm worse yet. I've only been here two weeks and I scarcely know anybody. Mrs. King takes me around everywhere, but it's all so new I can't get hold of it. I think Alexandria is lovely."
"It is nice. I suppose you've been out on the lakes?"
"Oh, yes. We've fished and rowed and camped. I have had a lovely time but I have to go back tomorrow."
"Do you?" said Eugene. "Why I do too. I'm going to take the four-fifteen."
"So am I!" she laughed. "Perhaps we can go together."
"Why, certainly. That's fine. I thought I'd have to go back alone. I only came down for over Sunday. I've been working up in Chicago."
They fell to telling each other their histories. She was from Blackwood, only eighty-five miles from Chicago, and had lived there all her life. There were several brothers and sisters. Her father was evidently a farmer and politician and what not, and Eugene gleaned from stray remarks that they must be wellthought of, though poor. One brother-in-law was spoken of as a banker; another as the owner of a grain elevator; she herself was a school teacher at Blackwood—had been for several years.
Eugene did not realize it, but she was fully five years older than himself, with the tact and the superior advantage which so much difference in years brings. She was tired of school-teaching, tired of caring for the babies of married sisters, tired of being left to work and stay at home when the ideal marrying age was rapidly passing. She was interested in able people, and silly village boys did not appeal to her. There was one who was begging her to marry him at this moment, but he was a slow soul up in Blackwood, not actually worthy of her nor able to support her well. She was hopefully, sadly, vaguely, madly longing for something better, and as yet nothing had ever turned up. This meeting with Eugene was not anything which promised a way out to her. She was not seeking so urgently—nor did she give introductions that sort of a twist in her consciousness. But this young man had an appeal for her beyond anyone she had met recently. They were in sympathetic accord, apparently. She liked his clear, big eyes, his dark hair, his rather waxen complexion. He seemed something better than she had known, and she hoped that he would be nice to her.
The rest of that evening Eugene spent not exactly with, but near Miss Blue—Miss Angela Blue, as he found her name to be. He was interested in her not so much from the point of view of looks, though she was charming enough, but because of some peculiarity of temperament which lingered with him as a grateful taste might dwell on the palate. He thought her young; and was charmed by what he considered her innocence and unsophistication. As a matter of fact she was not so much young and unsophisticated as an unconscious simulator of simplicity. In the conventional sense she was a thoroughly good girl, loyal, financially honest, truthful in all commonplace things, and thoroughly virtuous, moreover, in that she considered marriage and children the fate and duty of all women. Having had so much trouble with other peoples' children she was not anxious to have any, or at least many, of her own. Of course, she did not believe that she would escape with what seemed to be any such good fortune. She fancied that she would be like her sisters, the wife of a good business or professional man; the mother of three or four or five healthy children; the keeper of an ideal middle class home; the handmaiden of her husband's needs. There was a deep current of passion in her which she had come to feel would never be satisfied. No man would ever understand, no man at least whom she was likely to meet; but she knew she had a great capacity to love. If someone would only come along and arouse that—be worthy of it—what a whirlwind of affection she would return to him! How she would love, how sacrifice! But it seemed now that her dreams were destined never to be fulfilled, because so much time had slipped by and she had not been courted by the right one. So here she was now at twenty-five, dreaming and longing—the object of her ideals thus accidentally brought before her, and no immediate consciousness that that was the case.
It does not take sexual affinity long to manifest itself, once its subjects are brought near to each other. Eugene was older in certain forms of knowledge, broader in a sense, potentially greater than she would ever comprehend; but nevertheless, swayed helplessly by emotion and desire. Her own emotions, though perhaps stronger than his, were differently aroused. The stars, the night, a lovely scene, any exquisite attribute of naturecould fascinate him to the point of melancholy. With her, nature in its largest aspects passed practically unnoticed. She responded to music feelingly, as did Eugene. In literature, only realism appealed to him; for her, sentiment, strained though not necessarily unreal, had the greatest charm. Art in its purely æsthetic forms meant nothing at all to her. To Eugene it was the last word in the matter of emotional perception. History, philosophy, logic, psychology, were sealed books to her. To Eugene they were already open doors, or, better yet, flowery paths of joy, down which he was wandering. Yet in spite of these things they were being attracted toward each other.
And there were other differences. With Eugene convention meant nothing at all, and his sense of evil and good was something which the ordinary person would not have comprehended. He was prone to like all sorts and conditions of human beings—the intellectual, the ignorant, the clean, the dirty, the gay, the sorrowful, white, yellow, black. As for Angela, she had a distinct preference for those who conducted themselves according to given standards of propriety. She was brought up to think of those people as best who worked the hardest, denied themselves the most, and conformed to the ordinary notions of right and wrong. There was no questioning of current standards in her mind. As it was written socially and ethically upon the tables of the law, so was it. There might be charming characters outside the pale, but they were not admitted to association or sympathy. To Eugene a human being was a human being. The ruck of misfits or ne'er-do-wells he could laugh joyously with or at. It was all wonderful, beautiful, amusing. Even its grimness and tragedy were worth while, although they hurt him terribly at times. Why, under these circumstances, he should have been so thoroughly attracted to Angela remains a mystery. Perhaps they complemented each other at this time as a satellite complements a larger luminary—for Eugene's egoism required praise, sympathy, feminine coddling; and Angela caught fire from the warmth and geniality of his temperament.
On the train next day Eugene had nearly three hours of what he deemed most delightful talk with her. They had not journeyed far before he had told her how he had traveled this way, on this train, at this hour, two years before; how he had walked about the streets of the big city, looking for a place to sleep, how he had got work and stayed away until he felt that he had found himself. Now he was going to study art and then to New York or Paris, and do magazine illustrating and possibly paint pictures. He was truly your flamboyant youth of talent when he got totalking—when he had a truly sympathetic ear. He loved to boast to someone who really admired him, and he felt that he had admiration here. Angela looked at him with swimming eyes. He was really different from anything she had ever known, young, artistic, imaginative, ambitious. He was going out into a world which she had longed for but never hoped to see—that of art. Here he was telling her of his prospective art studies, and talking of Paris. What a wonderful thing!
As the train neared Chicago she explained that she would have to make an almost immediate connection with one which left over the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul, for Blackwood. She was a little lonely, to tell the truth, a little sick at heart, for the summer vacation was over and she was going back to teach school. Alexandria, for the two weeks she had been there visiting Mrs. King (formerly a Blackwood girl and school-day chum of hers), was lovely. Her girlhood friend had tried to make things most pleasant and now it was all over. Even Eugene was over, for he said nothing much of seeing her again, or had not so far. She was wishing she might see more of this world he painted in such glowing colors, when he said:
"Mr. Bangs said that you come down to Chicago every now and then?"
"I do," she replied. "I sometimes come down to go to the theatres and shop." She did not say that there was an element of practical household commercialism in it, for she was considered one of the best buyers in the family and that she was sent to buy by various members of the family in quantities. From a practical household point of view she was a thoroughbred and was valued by her sisters and friends as someone who loved to do things. She might have come to be merely a family pack horse, solely because she loved to work. It was instinct to do everything she did thoroughly, but she worked almost exclusively in minor household matters.
"How soon do you expect to come down again?" he asked.
"Oh, I can't tell. I sometimes come down when Opera is on in the winter. I may be here around Thanksgiving."
"Not before that?"
"I don't think so," she replied archly.
"That's too bad. I thought maybe I'd see you a few times this fall. When you do come I wish you could let me know. I'd like to take you to the theatre."
Eugene spent precious little money on any entertainment, but he thought he could venture this. She would not be down often. Then, too, he had the notion that he might get a riseone of these days—that would make a difference. When she came again he would be in art school, opening up another field for himself. Life looked hopeful.
"That's so nice of you," she replied. "And when I come I'll let you know. I'm just a country girl," she added, with a toss of her head, "and I don't get to the city often."
Eugene liked what he considered the guileless naïveté of her confessions—the frankness with which she owned up to simplicity and poverty. Most girls didn't. She almost made a virtue out of these thing—at least they were charming as a confession in her.
"I'll hold you to that," he assured her.
"Oh, you needn't. I'll be glad to let you know."
They were nearing the station. He forgot, for the moment that she was not as remote and delicate in her beauty as Stella, that she was apparently not as passionate temperamentally as Margaret. He saw her wonderfully dull hair and her thin lips and peculiar blue eyes, and admired her honesty and simplicity. He picked up her grip and helped her to find her train. When they came to part he pressed her hand warmly, for she had been very nice to him, so attentive and sympathetic and interested.
"Now remember!" he said gaily, after he had put her in her seat in the local.
"I won't forget."
"You wouldn't mind if I wrote you now and then?"
"Not at all. I'd like it."
"Then I will," he said, and went out.
He stood outside and looked at her through the train window as it pulled out. He was glad to have met her. This was the right sort of girl, clean, honest, simple, attractive. That was the way the best women were—good and pure—not wild pieces of fire like Margaret; nor unconscious, indifferent beauties like Stella, he was going to add, but couldn't. There was a voice within him that said that artistically Stella was perfect and even now it hurt him a little to remember. But Stella was gone forever, there was no doubt about that.
During the days that followed he thought of the girl often. He wondered what sort of a town Blackwood was; what sort of people she moved with, what sort of a house she lived in. They must be nice, simple people like his own in Alexandria. These types of city bred people whom he saw—girls particularly—and those born to wealth, had no appeal for him as yet. They were too distant, too far removed from anything he could aspire to. A good woman such as Miss Blue obviously was,must be a treasure anywhere in the world. He kept thinking he would write to her—he had no other girl acquaintance now; and just before he entered art school he did this, penning a little note saying that he remembered so pleasantly their ride; and when was she coming? Her answer, after a week, was that she expected to be in the city about the middle or the end of October and that she would be glad to have him call. She gave him the number of an aunt who lived out on the North Side in Ohio Street, and said she would notify him further. She was hard at work teaching school now, and didn't even have time to think of the lovely summer she had had.
"Poor little girl," he thought. She deserved a better fate. "When she comes I'll surely look her up," he thought, and there was a lot that went with the idea. Such wonderful hair!
The succeeding days in the art school after his first admission revealed many new things to Eugene. He understood now, or thought he did, why artists were different from the rank and file of mankind. This Art Institute atmosphere was something so refreshing after his days rambling among poor neighborhoods collecting, that he could hardly believe that he, Eugene Witla, belonged there. These were exceptional young people; some of them, anyhow. If they weren't cut out to be good artists they still had imagination—the dream of the artist. They came, as Eugene gradually learned, from all parts of the West and South, from Chicago and St. Louis—from Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa—from Texas and California and Minnesota. One boy was in from Saskatchewan of the Canadian north west, another from the then territory of New Mexico. Because his name was Gill they called him the Gila monster—the difference in the pronunciation of the "G's" not troubling them at all. A boy who came down from Minnesota was a farmer's son, and talked about going back to plow and sow and reap during the next spring and summer. Another boy was the son of a Kansas City millionaire.
The mechanics of drawing interested Eugene from the first. He learned the first night that there was some defect in his understanding of light and shade as it related to the human form. He could not get any roundness or texture in his drawings.
"The darkest shadow is always closest to the high light," observed his instructor laconically on Wednesday evening, looking over his shoulder. "You're making everything a dull, even tone." So that was it.
"You're drawing this figure as a bricklayer who isn't an architect might start to build a house. You're laying bricks without having a plan. Where's your plan?" The voice was that of Mr. Boyle looking over his shoulder.
Eugene looked up. He had begun to draw the head only.
"A plan! A plan!" said his instructor, making a peculiar motion with his hands which described the outline of the pose in a single motion. "Get your general lines first. Then you can put in the details afterward."
Eugene saw at once.
Another time his instructor was watching him draw the female breast. He was doing it woodenly—without much beauty of contour.
"They're round! They're round! I tell you!" exclaimed Boyle. "If you ever see any square ones let me know."
This caught Eugene's sense of humor. It made him laugh, even though he flushed painfully, for he knew he had a lot to learn.
The cruelest thing he heard this man say was to a boy who was rather thick and fat but conscientious. "You can't draw," he said roughly. "Take my advice and go home. You'll make more money driving a wagon."
The class winced, but this man was ugly in his intolerance of futility. The idea of anybody wasting his time was obnoxious to him. He took art as a business man takes business, and he had no time for the misfit, the fool, or the failure. He wanted his class to know that art meant effort.
Aside from this brutal insistence on the significance of art, there was another side to the life which was not so hard and in a way more alluring. Between the twenty-five minute poses which the model took, there were some four or five minute rests during the course of the evening in which the students talked, relighted their pipes and did much as they pleased. Sometimes students from other classes came in for a few moments.
The thing that astonished Eugene though, was the freedom of the model with the students and the freedom of the students with her. After the first few weeks he observed some of those who had been there the year before going up to the platform where the girl sat, and talking with her. She had a little pink gauze veil which she drew around her shoulders or waist that instead of reducing the suggestiveness of her attitudes heightened them.
"Say, ain't that enough to make everything go black in front of your eyes," said one boy sitting next to Eugene.
"Well, I guess," he laughed. "There's some edge to that."
The boys would sit and laugh and jest with this girl, and she would laugh and coquette in return. He saw her strolling about looking at some of the students' drawings of her over their shoulders, standing face to face with others—and so calmly. The strong desire which it invariably aroused in Eugene he quelled and concealed, for these things were not to be shown on the surface. Once, while he was looking at some photographs that a student had brought, she came and looked over his shoulder,this little flower of the streets, her body graced by the thin scarf, her lips and cheeks red with color. She came so close that she leaned against his shoulder and arm with her soft flesh. It pulled him tense, like a great current; but he made no sign, pretending that it was the veriest commonplace. Several times, because the piano was there, and because students would sing and play in the interludes, she came and sat on the piano stool herself, strumming out an accompaniment to which some one or three or four would sing. Somehow this, of all things, seemed most sensuous to him—most oriental. It set him wild. He felt his teeth click without volition on his part. When she resumed her pose, his passion subsided, for then the cold, æsthetic value of her beauty became uppermost. It was only the incidental things that upset him.
In spite of these disturbances, Eugene was gradually showing improvement as a draughtsman and an artist. He liked to draw the figure. He was not as quick at that as he was at the more varied outlines of landscapes and buildings, but he could give lovely sensuous touches to the human form—particularly to the female form—which were beginning to be impressive. He'd got past the place where Boyle had ever to say "They're round." He gave a sweep to his lines that attracted the instructor's attention.
"You're getting the thing as a whole, I see," he said quietly, one day. Eugene thrilled with satisfaction. Another Wednesday he said:—"A little colder, my boy, a little colder. There's sex in that. It isn't in the figure. You ought to make a good mural decorator some day, if you have the inclination," Boyle went on; "you've got the sense of beauty." The roots of Eugene's hair tingled. So art was coming to him. This man saw his capacity. He really had art in him.
One evening a paper sign pasted up on the bulletin board bore the significant legend: "Artists! Attention! We eat! We eat! Nov. 16th. at Sofroni's. All those who want to get in give their names to the monitor."
Eugene had heard nothing of this, but he judged that it originated in one of the other classes. He spoke to the monitor and learned that only seventy-five cents was required of him. Students could bring girls if they wished. Most of them would. He decided that he would go. But where to get a girl? Sofroni's was an Italian restaurant in lower Clark Street, which had originally started out as an eating place for Italian laborers, because it was near an Italian boarding house section. It was located in an old house that was not exactly homely. A yardin the back had been set with plain wooden tables, and benches had been placed for use in the summer time and, later, this had been covered with a mouldy tent-cloth to protect the diners from rain. Still later this became glass and was used in winter. The place was clean and the food good. Some struggling craftsman in journalism and art had found it and by degrees Signor Sofroni had come to realize that he was dealing with a better element. He began to exchange greetings with these people to set aside a little corner for them. Finally he entertained a small group of them at dinner—charging them hardly more than cost price—and so he was launched. One student told another. Sofroni now had his yard covered in so that he could entertain a hundred at dinner, even in winter. He could serve several kinds of wines and liquors with a dinner for seventy-five cents a piece. So he was popular.
The dinner was the culmination of several other class treats. It was the custom of a class, whenever a stranger, or even a new member appeared, to yell "Treat! Treat!" at which the victim or new member was supposed to produce two dollars as a contribution to a beer fund. If the money was not produced—the stranger was apt to be thrown out or some ridiculous trick played upon him—if it was forthcoming, work for the evening ceased. A collection was immediately taken up. Kegs of beer were sent for, with sandwiches and cheese. Drinking, singing, piano playing, jesting followed. Once, to Eugene's utter astonishment, one of the students—a big, good natured, carousing boy from Omaha—lifted the nude model to his shoulders, set her astride his neck and proceeded around the room, jigging as he went—the girl meantime pulling his black hair, the other students following and shouting uproariously. Some of the girls in an adjoining room, studying in an evening life class, stopped their work to peep through a half dozen small holes which had been punched in the intervening partition. The sight of Showalter carrying the girl so astonished the eavesdroppers that the news of it was soon all over the building. Knowledge of the escapade reached the Secretary and the next day the student was dropped. But the Bacchic dance had been enacted—its impression was left.
There were other treats like this in which Eugene was urged to drink, and he did—a very little. He had no taste for beer. He also tried to smoke, but he did not care for it. He could become nervously intoxicated at times, by the mere sight of such revelry, and then he grew witty, easy in his motions, quick to say bright things. On one of these occasions one of the modelssaid to him: "Why, you're nicer than I thought. I imagined you were very solemn."
"Oh, no," he said, "only at times. You don't know me."
He seized her about the waist, but she pushed him away. He wished now that he danced, for he saw that he might have whirled her about the room then and there. He decided to learn at once.
The question of a girl for the dinner, troubled him. He knew of no one except Margaret, and he did not know that she danced. There was Miss Blue, of Blackwood—whom he had seen when she made her promised visit to the city—but the thought of her in connection with anything like this was to him incongruous. He wondered what she would think if she saw such scenes as he had witnessed.
It chanced that one day when he was in the members' room, he met Miss Kenny, the girl whom he had seen posing the night he had entered the school. Eugene remembered her fascination, for she was the first nude model he had ever seen and she was pretty. She was also the one who had come and stood by him when she was posing. He had not seen her since then. She had liked Eugene, but he had seemed a little distant and, at first, a little commonplace. Lately he had taken to a loose, flowing tie and a soft round hat which became him. He turned his hair back loosely and emulated the independent swing of Mr. Temple Boyle. That man was a sort of god to him—strong and successful. To be like that!
The girl noted a change for what she deemed the better. He was so nice now, she thought, so white-skinned and clear-eyed and keen.
She pretended to be looking at the drawing of a nude when she saw him.
"How are you?" he asked, smiling, venturing to speak to her because he was lonely and because he knew no other girl.
She turned gaily, and returned the question, facing him with smiling lips and genial eyes.
"I haven't seen you for some time," he said. "Are you back here now?"
"For this week," she said. "I'm doing studio work. I don't care for classes when I can get the other."
"I thought you liked them!" he replied, recalling her gaiety of mood.
"Oh, I don't dislike it. Only, studio work is better."
"We've missed you," he said. "The others haven't been nearly as nice."
"Aren't you complimentary," she laughed, her black eyes looking into his with a twinkle.
"No, it's so," he returned, and then asked hopefully, "Are you going to the dinner on the 16th?"
"Maybe," she said. "I haven't made up my mind. It all depends."
"On what?"
"On how I feel and who asks me."
"I shouldn't think there'd be any trouble about that," he observed. "If I had a girl I'd go," he went on, making a terrific effort to reach the point where he could ask her. She saw his intention.
"Well?" she laughed.
"Would you go with me?" he ventured, thus so shamelessly assisted.
"Sure!" she said, for she liked him.
"That's fine!" he exclaimed. "Where do you live? I'll want to know that." He searched for a pencil.
She gave him her number on West Fifty-seventh Street.
Because of his collecting he knew the neighborhood. It was a street of shabby frame houses far out on the South Side. He remembered great mazes of trade near it, and unpaved streets and open stretches of wet prairie land. Somehow it seemed fitting to him that this little flower of the muck and coal yard area should be a model.
"I'll be sure and get you," he laughed. "You won't forget, will you, Miss—"
"Just Ruby," she interrupted. "Ruby Kenny."
"It's a pretty name, isn't it?" he said. "It's euphonious. You wouldn't let me come out some Sunday and see just where it is?"
"Yes, you may," she replied, pleased by his comment on her name. "I'm home most every Sunday. Come out next Sunday afternoon, if you want to."
"I will," said Eugene.
He walked out to the street with her in a very buoyant mood.
Ruby Kenny was the adopted child of an old Irish laborer and his wife who had taken her from a quarrelling couple when they had practically deserted her at the age of four years. She was bright, good natured, not at all informed as to the social organization of the world, just a simple little girl with a passion for adventure and no saving insight which would indicate beforehand whither adventure might lead. She began life as a cash girl in a department store and was spoiled of her virtue at fifteen. She was rather fortunate in that her smartness attracted the rather superior, capable, self-protecting type of man; and these were fortunate too, in that she was not utterly promiscuous, appetite with her waiting on strong liking, and in one or two cases real affection, and culminating only after a period of dalliance which made her as much a victim of her moods as were her lovers. Her foster parents provided no guidance of any intelligent character. They liked her, and since she was brighter than they were, submitted to her rule, her explanations of conduct, her taste. She waved aside with a laughing rejoinder any slight objections they might make, and always protested that she did not care what the neighbors thought.
The visits which Eugene paid, and the companionship which ensued, were of a piece with every other relationship of this character which he ever entered into. He worshiped beauty as beauty, and he never wholly missed finding a certain quality of mind and heart for which he longed. He sought in women, besides beauty, good nature and sympathy; he shunned criticism and coldness, and was never apt to select for a sweetheart anyone who could outshine him either in emotion or rapidity or distinction of ideas.
He liked, at this time, simple things, simple homes, simple surroundings, the commonplace atmosphere of simple life, for the more elegant and imposing overawed him. The great mansions which he saw, the great trade structures, the great, significant personalities, seemed artificial and cold. He liked little people—people who were not known, but who were sweet and kindly in their moods. If he could find female beauty with anything like that as a background he was happy and settled down near it, if he could, in comfort. His drawing near to Ruby was governed by this mood.
The Sunday Eugene called, it rained and the neighborhood in which she lived was exceedingly dreary. Looking around here and there one could see in the open spaces between the houses pools of water standing in the brown, dead grass. He had crossed a great maze of black cindered car tracks, where engines and cars were in great masses, and speculated on the drawings such scenes would make—big black engines throwing up clouds of smoke and steam in a grey, wet air; great mazes of parti-colored cars dank in the rain but lovely. At night the switch lights in these great masses of yards bloomed like flowers. He loved the sheer yellows, reds, greens, blues, that burned like eyes. Here was the stuff that touched him magnificently, and somehow he was glad that this raw flowering girl lived near something like this.
When he reached the door and rang the bell he was greeted by an old shaky Irish-American who seemed to him rather low in the scale of intelligence—the kind of a man who would make a good crossing guard, perhaps. He had on common, characterful clothes, the kind that from long wear have taken the natural outlines of the body. In his fingers was a short pipe which he had been smoking.
"Is Miss Kenny in?" Eugene inquired.
"Yus," said the man. "Come in. I'll git her." He poked back through a typical workingman's parlor to a rear room. Someone had seen to it that almost everything in the room was red—the big silk-shaded lamp, the family album, the carpet and the red flowered wall paper.
While he was waiting he opened the album and looked at what he supposed were her relatives—commonplace people, all—clerks, salesmen, store-keepers. Presently Ruby came, and then his eye lighted, for there was about her a smartness of youth—she was not more than nineteen—which captivated his fancy. She had on a black cashmere dress with touches of red velvet at the neck and elsewhere, and she wore a loose red tie, much as a boy might. She looked gay and cheerful and held out her hand.
"Did you have much trouble in getting here?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I know this country pretty well. I collect all through here week days. I work for the Peoples' Furniture Company, you know."
"Oh, then it's all right," she said, enjoying his frankness. "I thought you'd have a hard time finding it. It's a pretty bad day, isn't it?"
Eugene admitted that it was, but commented on the car trackshe had seen. "If I could paint at all I'd like to paint those things. They're so big and wonderful."
He went to the window and gazed out at the neighborhood.
Ruby watched him with interest. His movements were pleasing to her. She felt at home in his company—as though she were going to like him very much. It was so easy to talk to him. There were the classes, her studio work, his own career, this neighborhood, to give her a feeling of congeniality with him.
"Are there many big studios in Chicago?" he asked when they finally got around to that phase of her work. He was curious to know what the art life of the city was.
"No, not so very many—not, at least, of the good ones. There are a lot of fellows who think they can paint."
"Who are the big ones?" he asked.
"Well, I only know by what I hear artists say. Mr. Rose is pretty good. Byam Jones is pretty fine ongenresubjects, so they say. Walter Low is a good portrait painter, and so is Manson Steele. And let's see—there's Arthur Biggs—he does landscapes only; I've never been in his studio; and Finley Wood, he's another portrait man; and Wilson Brooks, he does figures—Oh! I don't know, there are quite a number."
Eugene listened entranced. This patter of art matters was more in the way of definite information about personalities than he had heard during all the time he had been in the city. The girl knew these things. She was in the movement. He wondered what her relationship to these various people was?
He got up after a time and looked out of the window again. She came also. "It's not very nice around here," she explained, "but papa and mamma like to live here. It's near papa's work."
"Was that your father I met at the door?"
"They're not my real parents," she explained. "I'm an adopted child. They're just like real parents to me, though, I certainly owe them a lot."
"You can't have been posing in art very long," said Eugene thoughtfully, thinking of her age.
"No; I only began about a year ago."
She told how she had been a clerk in The Fair and how she and another girl had got the idea from seeing articles in the Sunday papers. There was once a picture in the Tribune of a model posing in the nude before the local life class. This had taken her eye and she had consulted with the other girl as to whether they had not better try posing, too. Her friend, like herself, was still posing. She was coming to the dinner.
Eugene listened entranced. It reminded him of how he wascaught by the picture of Goose Island in the Chicago River, of the little tumble-down huts and upturned hulls of boats used for homes. He told her of that and of how he came, and it touched her fancy. She thought he was sentimental but nice—and then he was big, too, and she was so much smaller.
"You play?" he asked, "don't you?"
"Oh, just a little. But we haven't got a piano. I learned what I know by practising at the different studios."
"Do you dance?" asked Eugene.
"Yes, indeed," she replied.
"I wish I did," he commented ruefully.
"Why don't you? It's easy. You could learn in no time. I could teach you in a lesson."
"I wish you would," he said persuasively.
"It isn't hard," she went on, moving away from him. "I can show you the steps. They always begin with the waltz."
She lifted her skirts and exposed her little feet. She explained what to do and how to do it. He tried it alone, but failed; so she got him to put his arm around her and placed her hand in his. "Now, follow me," she said.
It was so delightful to find her in his arms! And she was apparently in no hurry to conclude the lesson, for she worked with him quite patiently, explaining the steps, stopping and correcting him, laughing at her mistakes and his. "You're getting it, though," she said, after they had turned around a few times.
They had looked into each other's eyes a number of times and she gave him frank smiles in return for his. He thought of the time when she stood by him in the studio, looking over his shoulder. Surely, surely this gap of formalities might be bridged over at once if he tried if he had the courage. He pulled her a little closer and when they stopped he did not let go.
"You're mighty sweet to me," he said with an effort.
"No, I'm just good natured," she laughed, not endeavoring to break away.
He became emotionally tense, as always.
She rather liked what seemed the superiority of his mood. It was different, stronger than was customary in the men she knew.
"Do you like me?" he asked, looking at her.
She studied his face and hair and eyes.
"I don't know," she returned calmly.
"Are you sure you don't?"
There was another pause in which she looked almost mockingly at him and then, sobering, away at the hall door.
"Yes, I think I do," she said.
He picked her up in his arms. "You're as cute as a doll," he said and carried her to the red settee. She spent the rest of the rainy afternoon resting in his arms and enjoying his kisses. He was a new and peculiar kind of boy.
A little while before, Angela Blue at Eugene's earnest solicitation had paid her first Fall visit to Chicago. She had made a special effort to come, lured by a certain poignancy of expression which he could give to any thought, particularly when it concerned his desires. In addition to the art of drawing he had the gift of writing—very slow in its development from a structural and interpretative point of view, but powerful already on its descriptive side. He could describe anything, people, houses, horses, dogs, landscapes, much as he could draw them and give a sense of tenderness and pathos in the bargain which was moving. He could describe city scenes and the personal atmosphere which surrounded him in the most alluring fashion. He had little time to write, but he took it in this instance to tell this girl what he was doing and how he was doing it. She was captivated by the quality of the world in which he was moving, and the distinction of his own personality, which he indicated rather indirectly than otherwise. By contrast her own little world began to look very shabby indeed.
She came shortly after his art school opened, and at her invitation he went out to the residence of her aunt on the North Side, a nice, pleasant brick house in a quiet side street, which had all the airs of middle class peace and comfort. He was impressed with what seemed to him a sweet, conservative atmosphere—a fitting domicile for a girl so dainty and refined as Angela. He paid his respects early Saturday morning because her neighborhood happened to be in the direction of his work.
She played for him—better than anyone he had ever known. It seemed to him a great accomplishment. Her temperament attracted her to music of a high emotional order and to songs and instrumental compositions of indefinable sweetness. In the half hour he stayed she played several things, and he noted with a new pleasure her small shapely body in a dress of a very simple, close fitting design; her hair hung in two great braids far below her waist. She reminded him the least bit of Marguerite in "Faust."
He went again in the evening, shining and eager, and arrayed in his best. He was full of the sense of his art prospects, and happy to see her again, for he was satisfied that he was going to fall in love with her. She had a strong, sympathetic attitudewhich allured him. She wanted to be nice to this youth—wanted him to like her—and so the atmosphere was right.
That evening he took her to the Chicago Opera House, where there was playing an extravaganza. This fantasy, so beautiful in its stage-craft, so gorgeous in its show of costumes and pretty girls, so idle in its humor and sweet in its love songs, captivated both Eugene and Angela. Neither had been to a theatre for a long time; both were en rapport with some such fantastic interpretation of existence. After the short acquaintance at Alexandria it was a nice coming together. It gave point to their reunion.
After the performance he guided her through the surging crowds to a North Division Street car—they had laid cables since his arrival—and together they went over the beauties and humor of the thing they had seen. He asked permission to call again next day, and at the end of an afternoon in her company, proposed that they go to hear a famous preacher who was speaking in Central Music Hall evenings.
Angela was pleased at Eugene's resourcefulness. She wanted to be with him; this was a good excuse. They went early and enjoyed it. Eugene liked the sermon as an expression of youth and beauty and power to command. He would have liked to be an orator like that, and he told Angela so. And he confided more and more of himself to her. She was impressed by his vivid interest in life, his selective power, and felt that he was destined to be a notable personality.
There were other meetings. She came again in early November and before Christmas and Eugene was fast becoming lost in the meshes of her hair. Although he met Ruby in November and took up a tentative relation on a less spiritual basis—as he would have said at the time—he nevertheless held this acquaintanceship with Angela in the background as a superior and more significant thing. She was purer than Ruby; there was in her certainly a deeper vein of feeling, as expressed in her thoughts and music. Moreover she represented a country home, something like his own, a nice simple country town, nice people. Why should he part with her, or ever let her know anything of this other world that he touched? He did not think he ought to. He was afraid that he would lose her, and he knew that she would make any man an ideal wife. She came again in December and he almost proposed to her—he must not be free with her or draw too near too rapidly. She made him feel the sacredness of love and marriage. And he did propose in January.
The artist is a blend of subtleties in emotion which can not beclassified. No one woman could have satisfied all sides of Eugene's character at that time. Beauty was the point with him. Any girl who was young, emotional or sympathetic to the right degree and beautiful would have attracted and held him for a while. He loved beauty—not a plan of life. He was interested in an artistic career, not in the founding of a family. Girlhood—the beauty of youth—was artistic, hence he craved it.
Angela's mental and emotional composition was stable. She had learned to believe from childhood that marriage was a fixed thing. She believed in one life and one love. When you found that, every other relationship which did not minister to it was ended. If children came, very good; if not, very good; marriage was permanent anyhow. And if you did not marry happily it was nevertheless your duty to endure and suffer for whatever good might remain. You might suffer badly in such a union, but it was dangerous and disgraceful to break it. If you could not stand it any more, your life was a failure.
Of course, Eugene did not know what he was trifling with. He had no conception of the nature of the relationship he was building up. He went on blindly dreaming of this girl as an ideal, and anticipating eventual marriage with her. When that would be, he had no idea, for though his salary had been raised at Christmas he was getting only eighteen dollars a week; but he deemed it would come within a reasonable time.
Meanwhile, his visits to Ruby had brought the inevitable result. The very nature of the situation seemed to compel it. She was young, brimming over with a love of adventure, admiring youth and strength in men. Eugene, with his pale face, which had just a touch of melancholy about it, his sex magnetism, his love of beauty, appealed to her. Uncurbed passion was perhaps uppermost to begin with; very shortly it was confounded with affection, for this girl could love. She was sweet, good natured, ignorant of life from many points of view. Eugene represented the most dramatic imagination she had yet seen. She described to him the character of her foster parents, told how simple they were and how she could do about as she pleased. They did not know that she posed in the nude. She confided to him her particular friendship for certain artists, denying any present intimacies. She admitted them in the past, but asserted that they were bygones. Eugene really did not believe this. He suspected her of meeting other approaches in the spirit in which she had met his own. It aroused his jealousy, and he wished at once that she were not a model. He said as much and she laughed. Sheknew he would act like that, it was the first proof of real, definite interest in her on his part.
From that time on there were lovely days and evenings spent in her company. Before the dinner she invited him over to breakfast one Sunday. Her foster parents were to be away and she was to have the house to herself. She wanted to cook Eugene a breakfast—principally to show him she could cook—and then it was novel. She waited till he arrived at nine to begin operations and then, arrayed in a neat little lavender, close fitting house dress, and a ruffled white apron, went about her work, setting the table, making biscuit, preparing a kidney ragout with strong wine, and making coffee.
Eugene was delighted. He followed her about, delaying her work by taking her in his arms and kissing her. She got flour on her nose and he brushed it off with his lips.
It was on this occasion that she showed him a very pleasing little dance she could do—a clog dance, which had a running, side-ways motion, with frequent and rapid clicking of the heels. She gathered her skirts a little way above her ankles and twinkled her feet through a maze of motions. Eugene was beside himself with admiration. He told himself he had never met such a girl—to be so clever at posing, playing and dancing, and so young. He thought she would make a delightful creature to live with, and he wished now he had money enough to make it possible. At this high-flown moment and at some others he thought he might almost marry her.
On the night of the dinner he took her to Sofroni's, and was surprised to find her arrayed in a red dress with a row of large black leather buttons cutting diagonally across the front. She had on red stockings and shoes and wore a red carnation in her hair. The bodice was cut low in the neck and the sleeves were short. Eugene thought she looked stunning and told her so. She laughed. They went in a cab, for she had warned him beforehand that they would have to. It cost him two dollars each way but he excused his extravagance on the ground of necessity. It was little things like this that were beginning to make him think strongly of the problem of getting on.
The students who had got up this dinner were from all the art classes, day and night. There were over two hundred of them, all of them young, and there was a mixed collection of girl art students, artist's models and girl friends of various grades of thought and condition, who were brought as companions. The big dining-room was tempestuous with the rattling of dishes, the shouting of jests, the singing of songs and the exchange ofgreetings. Eugene knew a few of these people outside his own classes, enough to give him the chance to be sociable and not appear lonely or out of it.
From the outset it was apparent that she, Ruby, was generally known and liked. Her costume—a little bold—made her conspicuous. From various directions there were cries of "Hey! Rube!" which was a familiar interpretation of her first name, Ruby.
Eugene was surprised at this—it shocked him a little. All sorts of boys he did not know came and talked to her, exchanging familiar gossip. She was called away from him a dozen times in as many minutes. He saw her laughing and chatting at the other end of the hall, surrounded by half a dozen students. It made him jealous.
As the evening progressed the attitude of each toward the other and all toward anyone became more and more familiar. When the courses were over, a space was cleared at one end and a screen of green cloth rigged up in one corner as a dressing room forstunts. Eugene saw one of the students called with much applause to do an Irish monologue, wearing green whiskers, which he adjusted in the presence of the crowd. There was another youth who pretended to have with him an immense roll of verse—an epic, no less—wound in so tight a manner that it looked as though it might take all night to read it. The crowd groaned. With amazing savoir faire he put up one hand for silence, dropped the roll, holding, of course, to the outer end and began reading. It was not bad verse, but the amusing part was that it was really short, not more than twenty lines. The rest of the paper had been covered with scribbling to deceive the crowd. It secured a round of applause. There was one second-year man who sang a song—"Down in the Lehigh Valley"—and another who gave imitations of Temple Boyle and other instructors at their work of criticising and painting for the benefit of the class. These were greatly enjoyed. Finally one of the models, after much calling by the crowd of "Desmond! Desmond!"—her last name—went behind the green cloth screen and in a few moments reappeared in the short skirt of a Spanish dancer, with black and silver spangles, and castanets. Some friendly student had brought a mandolin and "La Paloma" was danced.
Eugene had little of Ruby's company during all these doings. She was too much sought after. As the other girl was concluding her dance he heard the cry of "Hey, Rube! Why don't you do your turn?" Someone else, eager to see her dance, called"Come on, Ruby!" The rest of the room, almost unthinkingly took it up. Some boys surrounding her had started to push her toward the dancing space. Before Eugene knew it she was up in someone's arms being passed from group to group for a joke. The crowd cheered. Eugene, however, having come so close to her, was irritated by this familiarity. She did not appear to belong to him, but to the whole art-student body. And she was laughing. When she was put down in the clear space she lifted her skirts as she had done for him and danced. A crowd of students got very close. He had to draw near to see her at all. And there she was, unconscious of him, doing her gay clog dance. When she stopped, three or four of the more daring youths urged her, seizing her by the hands and arms, to do something else. Someone cleared a table and someone else picked her up and put her on it. She did still other dances. Someone cried, "Hey, Kenny, do you need the red dress?" So this was his temporary sweetheart.
When she was finally ready to go home at four o'clock in the morning, or when the others were agreed to let her go, she hardly remembered that she had Eugene with her. She saw him waiting as two students were asking for the privilege of taking her home.
"No," she exclaimed, seeing him, "I have my escort. I'm going now. Good-bye," and came toward him. He felt rather frozen and out of it.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
He nodded gloomily, reproachfully.
From drawing from the nude, which Eugene came to do very successfully that winter, his interest switched to his work in the illustration class where costume figures were used. Here, for the first time, he tried his hand at wash drawings, the current medium for magazine work, and was praised after a time for his execution. Not always, however; for the instructors, feeling that harsh criticism would make for steadier effort, pooh-poohed some of his best work. But he had faith in what he was destined to do, and after sinking to depths of despair he would rise to great heights of self-confidence.
His labor for the Peoples' Furniture Company was becoming a rather dreary grind when Vincent Beers, the instructor in the illustration class, looking over his shoulder one Wednesday afternoon said:—"You ought to be able to make a little money by your work pretty soon, Witla."
"Do you think so?" questioned Eugene.
"It's pretty good. There ought to be a place on one of the newspapers here for a man like you—an afternoon newspaper possibly. Did you ever try to get on?"
"I did when I first came to the city, but they didn't want anyone. I'm rather glad they didn't now. I guess they wouldn't have kept me very long."
"You draw in pen and ink pretty well, don't you?"
"I thought I liked that best of all at first."
"Well, then, they ought to be able to use you. I wouldn't stay very long at it though. You ought to go to New York to get in the magazine illustration field—there's nothing out here. But a little newspaper work now wouldn't hurt you."
Eugene decided to try the afternoon papers, for he knew that if he got work on one of these he could still continue his night classes. He could give the long evening session to the illustration class and take an occasional night off to work on the life studies. That would make an admirable arrangement. For several days he took an hour after his work to make inquiry, taking with him some examples of his pen and inks. Several of the men he saw liked what he had to show, but he found no immediate opening. There was only one paper, one of the poorest, that offered him any encouragement. The editor-in-chief said he might be in need of a man shortly. If Eugene wouldcome in again in three or four weeks he could tell him. They did not pay very much—twenty-five dollars to beginners.
Eugene thought of this as a great opportunity, and when he went back in three weeks and actually secured the place, he felt that he was now fairly on the road to prosperity. He was given a desk in a small back room on a fourth floor where there was accidentally west and north light. He was in a department which held two other men, both several years older than himself, one of whom posed as "dean" of the staff.
The work here was peculiar in that it included not only pen and ink but the chalk plate process which was a method of drawing with a steel point upon a zinc plate covered with a deposit of chalk, which left a design which was easily reproduced. Eugene had never done this, he had to be shown by the "dean," but he soon picked it up. He found it hard on his lungs, for he had constantly to keep blowing the chalk away as he scratched the surface of the plate, and sometimes the dust went up into his nostrils. He hoped sincerely there would not be much of this work, but there was rather an undue proportion at first owing to the fact that it was shouldered on to him by the other two—he being the beginner. He suspected as much after a little time, but by that time he was beginning to make friends with his companions and things were not so bad.
These two, although they did not figure vastly in his life, introduced him to conditions and personalities in the Chicago newspaper world which broadened him and presented points of view which were helpful. The elder of the two, the "dean," was dressy and art-y; his name was Horace Howe. The other, Jeremiah Mathews, Jerry for short, was short and fat, with a round, cheerful, smiling countenance and a wealth of coarse black hair. He loved chewing tobacco, was a little mussy about his clothes, but studious, generous and good natured. Eugene found that he had several passions, one for good food, another for oriental curios and a third for archæology. He was alive to all that was going on in the world, and was utterly without any prejudices, social, moral or religious. He liked his work, and whistled or talked as he did it. Eugene took a secret like for him from the beginning.
It was while working on this paper that Eugene first learned that he really could write. It came about accidentally for he had abandoned the idea that he could ever do anything in newspaper work, which was the field he had originally contemplated. Here there was great need for cheap Sunday specials of a local character, and in reading some of these, which were given tohim for illustration, he came to the conclusion that he could do much better himself.
"Say," he asked Mathews, "who writes the articles in here?" He was looking over the Sunday issue.
"Oh, the reporters on the staff—anyone that wants to. I think they buy some from outsiders. They only pay four dollars a column."
Eugene wondered if they would pay him, but pay or no pay he wanted to do them. Maybe they would let him sign his name. He saw that some were signed. He suggested he believed he could do that sort of thing but Howe, as a writer himself, frowned on this. He wrote and drew. Howe's opposition piqued Eugene who decided to try when the opportunity offered. He wanted to write about the Chicago River, which he thought he could illustrate effectively. Goose Island, because of the description he had read of it several years before, the simple beauties of the city parks where he liked to stroll and watch the lovers on Sundays. There were many things, but these stood as susceptible of delicious, feeling illustration and he wanted to try his hand. He suggested to the Sunday Editor, Mitchell Goldfarb, with whom he had become friendly, that he thought something nice in an illustrative way could be done on the Chicago River.
"Go ahead, try your hand," exclaimed that worthy, who was a vigorous, robust, young American of about thirty-one, with a gaspy laugh that sounded as if someone had thrown cold water down his back. "We need all that stuff. Can you write?"
"I sometimes think I might if I practiced a little."
"Why not," went on the other, who saw visions of a little free copy. "Try your hand. You might make a good thing of it. If your writing is anything like your drawing it will be all right. We don't pay people on the staff, but you can sign your name to it."
This was enough for Eugene. He tried his hand at once. His art work had already begun to impress his companions. It was rough, daring, incisive, with a touch of soul to it. Howe was already secretly envious, Mathews full of admiration. Encouraged thus by Goldfarb Eugene took a Sunday afternoon and followed up the branches of the Chicago River, noting its wonders and peculiarities, and finally made his drawings. Afterward he went to the Chicago library and looked up its history—accidentally coming across the reports of some government engineers who dwelt on the oddities of its traffic. He did not write an article so much as a panegyric on its beauty and littleness, findingthe former where few would have believed it to exist. Goldfarb was oddly surprised when he read it. He had not thought Eugene could do it.
The charm of Eugene's writing was that while his mind was full of color and poetry he had logic and a desire for facts which gave what he wrote stability. He liked to know the history of things and to comment on the current phases of life. He wrote of the parks, Goose Island, the Bridewell, whatever took his fancy.
His real passion was for art, however. It was a slightly easier medium for him—quicker. He thrilled to think, sometimes, that he could tell a thing in words and then actually draw it. It seemed a beautiful privilege and he loved the thought of making the commonplace dramatic. It was all dramatic to him—the wagons in the streets, the tall buildings, the street lamps—anything, everything.
His drawing was not neglected meantime, but seemed to get stronger.
"I don't know what there is about your stuff, Witla, that gets me," Mathews said to him one day, "but you do something to it. Now why did you put those birds flying above that smokestack?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied Eugene. "It's just the way I feel about it. I've seen pigeons flying like that."
"It's all to the good," replied Mathews. "And then you handle your masses right. I don't see anybody doing this sort of thing over here."
He meant in America, for these two art workers considered themselves connoisseurs of pen and ink and illustration generally. They were subscribers toJugend,Simplicissimus,Pick-Me-Upand the radical European art journals. They were aware of Steinlen and Cheret and Mucha and the whole rising young school of French poster workers. Eugene was surprised to hear of these men and these papers. He began to gain confidence in himself—to think of himself as somebody.
It was while he was gaining this knowledge—finding out who was who and what and why that he followed up his relationship with Angela Blue to its logical conclusion—he became engaged to her. In spite of his connection with Ruby Kenny, which continued unbroken after the dinner, he nevertheless felt that he must have Angela; partly because she offered more resistance than any girl since Stella, and partly because she appeared to be so innocent, simple and good hearted. And she was altogether lovely. She had a beautiful figure, which nocrudity of country dressmaking could conceal. She had her wonderful wealth of hair and her large, luring, water-clear blue eyes. She had colorful lips and cheeks, a natural grace in walking, could dance and play the piano. Eugene looked at her and came to the conclusion after a time that she was as beautiful as any girl he had ever seen—that she had more soul, more emotion, more sweetness. He tried to hold her hand, to kiss her, to take her in his arms, but she eluded him in a careful, wary and yet half yielding way. She wanted him to propose to her, not because she was anxious to trap him, but because her conventional conscience told her these things were not right outside a definite engagement and she wanted to be engaged first. She was already in love with him. When he pleaded, she was anxious to throw herself in his arms in a mad embrace, but she restrained herself, waiting. At last he flung his arms about her as she was sitting at the piano one evening and holding her tight pressed his lips to her cheek.
She struggled to her feet. "You musn't," she said. "It isn't right. I can't let you do that."
"But I love you," he exclaimed, pursuing her. "I want to marry you. Will you have me, Angela? Will you be mine?"
She looked at him yearningly, for she realized that she had made him do things her way—this wild, unpractical, artistic soul. She wanted to yield then and there but something told her to wait.
"I won't tell you now," she said, "I want to talk to papa and mamma. I haven't told them anything as yet. I want to ask them about you, and then I'll tell you when I come again."
"Oh, Angela," he pleaded.
"Now, please wait, Mr. Witla," she pleaded. She had never yet called him Eugene. "I'll come again in two or three weeks. I want to think it over. It's better."
He curbed his desire and waited, but it made all the more vigorous and binding the illusion that she was the one woman in the world for him. She aroused more than any woman yet a sense of the necessity of concealing the eagerness of his senses—of pretending something higher. He even tried to deceive himself into the belief that this was a spiritual relationship, but underneath all was a burning sense of her beauty, her physical charm, her passion. She was sleeping as yet, bound in convention and a semi-religious interpretation of life. If she were aroused! He closed his eyes and dreamed.