Part 9

“That’s a go. I take you up!” and we shook hands solemnly on it; but the very next time he came to see me, I smelled the whiskey on him, and he said he hadn’t started the “two weeks’ water-wagon stunt” yet.

I was glad to see Jimmy’s happy face that evening, and, tucking my hand in his arm, we walked along the avenue.

“Gee!” said Jimmy, as we passed the hotels all lighted up and looking so inviting and fine, “I wish I had the cash to blow you to a wine supper, Marion, but, I seem to spend every d----cent before I get it.”

“Never mind, Jimmy,” I said. “I’ve my meal ticket for that boarding-house.”

“Oh, that hash-slinging joint!” groaned Jimmy. “Say, Marion, I know a dandy place on Boylston Street, corner of Tremont, where there is mighty good grub and beer, and they don’t soak a fellow fancy prices. Let’s go there now, what do you say?”

“All right, but I thought you said you were broke?”

“Oh, that’s all right,” he replied airily. “Come along, and don’t ask questions.”

Somehow when I was with Jimmy, I never felt serious and I seemed to catch his happy-go-lucky spirit and say to myself: “Oh, well, I don’t care!”

Gaily we started for Jimmy’s restaurant. We had reached Elliott Street, when Jimmy said:

“Hold on a minute. You wait in this doorway for me a moment, Marion. I have to see a man on a matter of business.”

I stepped into the doorway, but I watched Jimmy. He swung into a shop over which there were hung three golden balls. Oh! I knew that place for I had already visited it. It sheltered my engagement ring--the ring Reggie had given to me! In a few minutes out came Jimmy minus his spring overcoat. It is true the day had been warm, but the nights were still chilly, and I felt badly to see him without his coat.

“Jimmy, what have you done? Where’s your coat?”

“Oh, that’s all right,” he laughed. “I just left it with my uncle over night. My mother won’t give me a red cent when I ask her--thinks I ought to eat at home or beat it for the country, now college’s closed--but she gives it to me all right--with tears, Marion--when she sees me next day without my coat. So come along.”

My feelings were mingled. If I did not go with him, I knew he would spend it all on drink. Besides, he had pawned his coat for me, and I felt it would be ungrateful to refuse to go with him now.

Jimmy ordered us a splendid supper, oysters, a big steak, beer; but it would have tasted better if I had not known about that overcoat, and I almost cried when we got out to the street, and he had to turn the collar of his coat up.

XXX

The following night Jimmy turned up sure enough, not only with his overcoat, but, as he said, “the price of another bang-out.”

He said his mother had wept when she saw him “shivering,” and “you better believe no one ever shivered better than I did,” said Jimmy.

So I went to supper again with Jimmy. When we were sitting at the table, and he started to order beer for me, I said:

“Now, look here, Jimmy, I’ll eat supper with you, but I won’t drink with you, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Be a sport, Marion.”

“I don’t pretend to be a sport,” I replied, “and anyway in Montreal that means to shoot or skate or snowshoe or toboggan. Here when you say ‘sport’ you mean to drink a lot of liquor. I think it’s horrid.”

Jimmy regarded me reproachfully.

“I bet those farmers in Montreal drink their share all right,” he said. “Of course, that bum Canadian village isn’t really on the map at all” (he was teasing me), “but I’ll bet the booze is right there. Say, don’t you really have cars running there? I bet you had some fine Jay-farmer beaus all right--oh! How about the one whose letters you’re always so glad to get? You nearly fell down the stairs the other day in your hurry to get that one from Miss Darling.”

I couldn’t help laughing to think of Reggie being called a farmer. Jimmy took offense at my laughing.

“Say, what’re you laughing about anyhow? If you don’t want my company, say so, and I’ll take myself off.”

“Don’t be silly, Jimmy. You know very well I like your company, or I wouldn’t be sitting with you now.”

“Then why can’t you drink a glass of beer with a fellow? I bet you would if I were that Montreal chap.”

“I’ll drink the beer on one condition,” I said. “If you’ll promise not to drink any whiskey to-night.”

Jimmy leaned over the table.

“I’ll promise you anything on earth, Marion. I’m half-crazy about you anyhow.”

The waiter was passing, and looking at us, he said:

“No kissing allowed.”

Jimmy was on his feet.

“What the devil do you mean? Did you mean to insult this lady?”

His voice was raised and he had seized that waiter by the collar. I felt ashamed and afraid. I jumped up and tried to pull Jimmy from the waiter, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Please, Jimmy, for my sake, stop!” I pleaded. The waiter was smiling a forced sort of smile, and he said:

“No insult was intended, sir.”

“All right then, apologize to this lady.”

The waiter did so.

“And now,” said Jimmy in a very lordly way, “come along, Marion, we don’t have to stay in this place. Come along.”

When we got out to the street I turned upon him and said:

“You can take me home, Jimmy Odell. I won’t go into another restaurant with you. I’m not going to be disgraced again.”

“Oh, all right-oh!” said he sulkily. “I guess I can get all the whiskey I want alone without any one preaching to me,” and he turned around as if to leave me. I ran after him and caught him by the arm.

“Jimmy, don’t drink any more.”

He tried to shake off my hand, and he said recklessly:

“What difference does it make? You don’t care anything about me. You wouldn’t really care if I drank myself to death.”

“I would care, Jimmy. I care an awful lot about you.”

Jimmy stopped short in the street.

“Do you mean that? You do care for me?” I nodded. “Very well, then,” said he, “it’s up to you to stop me. If you’ll marry me, I’ll quit the booze. That’s on the level, Marion.”

“Now, Jimmy, you know what I told you before, and yet you couldn’t keep away from that old flask of whiskey. You love it better than me. And I’m not going to marry you till I _do_ see some real signs in you of reforming. Besides, anyway, you’ve got two years still to finish at Harvard, and I guess your people would be crazy if you got married before you graduated.”

“Say, who is marrying, they or me?” demanded Jimmy. “Ah, come along, like a good fellow. Here’s just the joint we want,” and he drew me into a chop house on Washington Street.

No sooner was he seated at the table than he ordered two steins of beer for us, but he kept his word about the whiskey. I had difficulty in drinking from the stein, as the lid knocked my hat crooked, and this amused Jimmy vastly. He began to chuckle loudly all of a sudden, and he leaned over the table and said:

“Tell you what I’ll do, Marion. My sister’s giving some sort of party to-morrow night. How’d you like to go along?”

“Why, how can I? She hasn’t invited me.”

“Well, I guess I can bring _my_ friends to our house if I want,” declared Jimmy, as though some one had questioned his right. “Will you or won’t you go? Yes or no?”

“We-el--”

“No ‘well’ about it. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

XXXI

I didn’t have any work at all to do the next day, so I stayed in and fixed up a pretty dress to wear to the party at Jimmy’s house. He called early for me, bringing along another student named Evans, who played the guitar. We stopped for Benevenuto, an Italian, who played the mandolin with Evans, and whom I had met several times.

At the last moment, I hesitated about going and I said:

“Maybe your mother and sister won’t want me. If they knew I was a model, I’m sure they wouldn’t.”

“Great Scott!” burst from Jimmy, “that just proves how beautiful you are, Marion. If I were a girl, I’d be proud to say the artists wanted me for all those fine paintings. I’ve not seen a magazine cover to compare with your face, Marion, and, say--my folks ought to be proud to know you, eh, Evans?”

Evans grinned, and Benevenuto nodded violently. It was nice to have Jimmy think so well of my “profession,” and I didn’t tell him that all models were not necessarily beautiful. Some of them are very ugly but “paintable.”

As we were going along in the car, Jimmy said to Evans:

“Say, Bill, you want to get next to my sister’s friend, Miss Underwood. She’s a fine girl, and has heaps of dough. My sister wants her for a sister-in-law, but little Jimmy has his own ideas.” Turning to me, he added with a tender smile: “She can’t begin to hold a candle to you, Marion.”

Jimmy’s people lived in a very fine house, and I felt much impressed and somewhat anxious as we passed in. His sister looked like Jimmy and had his features, but where the tall, swinging figure and handsome features made a fine-looking man, the same type in a woman did not make a beauty. She looked hard and bony. Her manner to me was of the most frigid, and I saw her give Jimmy an angry glance, as he airily presented me. She kept him on one excuse or another right by her side and that of a very tall girl all evening. Benevenuto and Evans were soon playing for the company, and I, who had not been introduced to many of the people, found a quiet corner of the room, where I could sit unobserved and watch every one.

I had been there some time, and Benny and Evans had given way to a girl who was singing in a high voice “The Rosary,” when I heard Benevenuto’s voice speaking softly in my ear:

“Miss Marion, will you me permit to call upon you?”

He was small and dark, and his hands were soft and brown. He had shining black eyes and hair that curled. He could play beautifully, the reason why the students at the boarding-house chummed with him; and then Evans was a great favorite with them all, and the two were indispensable to each other. They got engagements to play together in concerts and musicales. Evans was working his way through college in this way. Many people looked upon Benevenuto as a musical prodigy. He could play almost any musical instrument. His father was a barber, his brother a cook; but all of his humble relatives were contributing to the musical education of this talented member of their family.

I had never given Benny much thought or attention, except when he played in the room below me, where Evans roomed. I would open my door and listen to the strains of music, and sometimes Evans would call up to me to come down. One day I had been listening to them play, and when they got through joked with Benny about something. He came over and sat down beside me on the couch, and he said:

“I like-a you, Miss Marion. You look like my countrywomen.”

Miss Darling had said to me that night:

“Be careful how you flirt with an Italian. They are pretty dangerous fire to play with.”

So when that night of the party, Benevenuto asked me if he might call, I thought of that, and I said:

“Oh, I’ll see you when you are playing in Mr. Evans’ room some night.”

“No,” he persisted. “I like-a make special call on you. Please to permit.”

To humor him, I said:

“Oh, all right, and bring your mandolin.”

He smiled at me ecstatically and said fervently:

“Me--I am coming right away to-morrow night.”

It was time to go. Most of the guests were going into the bedroom for their wraps. Nobody noticed me. So I slipped into the room where Jimmy had taken me upon my arrival there. It was his mother’s, he had said, but she was away at their country place. I noticed on the bed a black straw hat with a steel buckle holding the severe bit of plumage, and I thought to myself that it was probably his mother’s hat, for no one else had put their wraps in this room. I was putting on my own hat at the mirror when I heard some one say:

“Sh-h!”

I turned around, and there was Jimmy in the doorway. He was whispering with his hand to his mouth.

“Marion, say good-night to my sister quickly, and then sneak away. I’ll be waiting on the porch.”

So I found my way back to where his sister and a number of guests were, and I wished them good-night and thanked Miss Odell for the lovely time I had not had.

“Good-night,” she returned coldly, “your friend, Mr. Benevenuto, will see you home.” Then she turned to the girl at her side: “Jimmy will be delighted to take you home, dear. He is still in the supper-room.”

I felt like saying:

“He is waiting for me!”

As we walked home, Jimmy said:

“I couldn’t get away from sis. Gad! that friend of hers may be handsome, but I hate handsome horses. I like a little pony like you, Marion.”

“Don’t you think I’m handsome then?” I asked mischievously.

“Not by a long shot. You are the most kissable--little--”

“Jimmy, behave yourself. Look at that policeman watching us, and don’t forget that waiter.”

“Oh, hang policemen and waiters,” growled Jimmy. “What the devil do _they_ know about kisses?”

“When you want to kiss me, Jimmy Odell,” I said, “you’ll have to come without that whiskey odor on your breath.”

“Oh, all right-oh!” said Jimmy. “I guess there are others won’t mind it.”

“No, I guess not,” I sniffed. “Horses haven’t much smelling sense.”

XXXII

There was a rap on my door. I opened it, and there was Benevenuto. He had on a black suit. It looked like the suits the poor French Canadians dress their dead in. He had plastered his hair so sleekly that it shone like a piece of black satin, and oh! he did smell of barber’s soap and perfume. His big black eyes were shining and he was smiling all over his face.

“Where is your mandolin?” I asked.

“I have called to see _you_,” he answered. “Me, I am not musician to-night.” Then as he saw my evident disappointment, he said, “but if I am not welcome for myself, I can go.”

I felt really sorry for him, as his smiling face had become so suddenly mournful and stormy-looking. So I said:

“Oh, I’m really glad to see you,” and I tried to smile as if I were. He came up to me with a kind of rush and said excitedly:

“Marion, I love-a you! I love-a you! I love-a you! Give me the smile again. That smile is like music to me. I love-a you!”

I was amazed and also alarmed.

“Mr. Benevenuto,” I said, backing away from him, “please go away.”

I thought of what Miss Darling had said, that Italian men were not to be played with. I had merely smiled at Benny, with what a volcanic result! He was coming nearer and nearer to me, and he kept talking all the time, in his soft, pleading way:

“Marion, I have love-a you from the first day I have look at you. You look-a like my countrywomen, Marion. We will getta married. Soon I will make plenty money. We will have maybe little house and little bebby.”

I could stand it no longer. He was only a boy after all, and somehow he made me think of the little beggar boy I had pinched when I gave him the bread and sugar. I pushed him away from me, and I said:

“Don’t talk such foolishness. I am old enough to be your mother.” I think I was about three years older than he.

“No matter, Marion,” he said, “no matter. I do not care if you are so old. I love-a you just same.”

I was sidling round along the wall, and now I had reached the door. I ran down the stairs, and I did not stop till I reached the safety of Miss Darling’s room.

“What on earth is the matter?” she cried, as I burst in.

Between laughter and tears I repeated the interview. She couldn’t help laughing at me, especially when I told about the part of “the little bebby.” Then she said:

“Well, we’ll get him out now, but you must never, never flirt with an Italian. You’re apt to be killed if you do.”

Later in the evening Jimmy came. He was very quiet and queer for Jimmy, and he sat down on my window sill, and held his head in his hands. When I told him about Benevenuto, he looked up and said:

“The damn’ little rat. I’ll throw him out of the window.”

After a moment he said:

“Come over here, Marion, I want to tell you something.”

I sat down on the opposite side of the window seat.

“Say, Marion, there’s a hell of a row going on up at my house about you. Sis kicked up an awful fuss, and they’re all on to my coming to see you. Sis declared I insulted her friend, because I took you home instead, and mother is mad, too. They make me sick. Mother asked me where your folks lived, and what you were living alone like this for, and they insinuated

some nasty things. Lord! women have rotten minds. I told them that you were a hard little worker, and then they wanted to know what you did, and I told them you were a model, and that I was proud of it. But, gosh! you ought to have heard those women! When I told them that, they almost burst themselves mouthing about it. I turned on ’em and told them not one of them could be a model. They didn’t have the looks. But the long and short of it is that mother has telegraphed for dad, and she says she won’t give me another cent unless I promise to give you up. As I needed a ten-spot I said I would, but you better believe I’m not going to do it.”

I stood up and put my hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. Somehow I felt older than Jimmy, though we were about of an age. He seemed such a boy, so wayward and reckless, and there was so much that was lovable about him, despite his “toughness.”

“Jimmy dear,” I said, “I guess your mother’s right. You’d better give me up. It’ll only make trouble for you if you keep on coming to see me.”

“Tell you what I’ll do,” said Jimmy. “I’ll quit college, and get a job of some sort. Then I’ll be independent, and I’ll come to see you all I damn’ please, and I’m going to marry you whether they want me to or not.”

I thought of Jimmy’s happy-go-lucky nature and his love of drink, and I determined the poor fellow should not lose the help of his family if I could avoid it. We took a little walk around the block, I urging Jimmy all the time to please do what his people wished, and I even told him that while I was fond of him I did not love him. He said savagely that he guessed I had left my heart in Montreal, and then he pulled his cap down over his eyes, and didn’t say anything for a long time. We just tramped around, and then Jimmy said suddenly:

“Say, Marion, why doesn’t he come on here and marry you if he loves you? Is it lack of money prevents him?”

I said:

“_I_ don’t want to marry _him_. That’s the reason why.” How I wished that was the truth!

“Well, say, girlie, let’s you and I get married on the Q. T. Then I’ll go West, as they’re talking of shunting me out there, and as soon as I’ve made good you can join me. How’s that for a scheme?”

“It sounds pretty nice, Jimmy, but I’d rather do the marrying _after_ you’ve made good.”

“Oh, it’ll be dead easy,” declared Jimmy. “I’ve an uncle out there with a ranch as big as a whole county. It’ll just be like dropping into a soft snap, don’t you see?”

I sighed.

“‘Making good’ isn’t merely dropping into soft snaps, Jimmy,” I said sadly.

Jimmy suddenly whistled under his breath, and I saw him looking at a couple of women who were coming toward us. He raised his hat as they passed us, but although the younger woman returned his bow, the older one stared at him indignantly, and then she gave me a very severe and condemning glance. All of a sudden I knew who that woman was. I recognized her by her hat. She was Jimmy’s mother!

The following day, I had a letter from her. She said I was ruining her son’s future, and if I did not give him up he would soon be without a home. She said that he was in serious trouble with his father, and that the latter intended to send him out West, and that she hoped I would do nothing to prevent her son from going. Finally she said that if her son were to marry a model the family would never forgive him and that such a disgrace would break all of their hearts, besides ruining him.

I did not answer her letter. I sat for a very long time thinking about my life. What was there wrong about being a model, then, that society should have cast the bar sinister upon it? Surely, there was no disgrace in one who had beauty having that beauty transferred to canvas. I had long ago ceased to despise the profession myself. The more I posed, the more I felt even a sort of pride in my work, though I still thought one was “beyond the pale” when one posed completely nude.

Miss Darling knocked at my door, and brought in a telegram. I thought at first it was from Reggie--that he was at last coming, as he had been threatening in all of his letters to do, and my hands were trembling when I broke the flap. But it was from poor Jimmy--Jimmy en route to Colorado, entreating me to write to him and assuring me that he never would forget his “own little Marion,” and that he would “make good” and I’d be proud of him yet. I sat down to write an impulsive answer to the boy, and then my eye fell upon his mother’s letter. No! I would not ruin her son’s life. Jimmy should have his opportunity, but I said to myself with a sob:

“And if Jimmy ever does make good, they’ll have _me_ to thank for it, even if I am an artist’s model!”

XXXIII

June had come and I was filling the last of my engagements. There was not a single other day on my calendar for the week, and it was Wednesday. I had had only two engagements the week before.

I was posing for three women. The work was easy, as they were amateurs, and liked to meet together and use the same model, and paint and have a social time. I was posing in a gypsy costume, and they talked to me occasionally in a patronizing way, as if I were a little poodle. One of them asked me if I wouldn’t like to paint. I knew I could paint better than she could, but I pretended to simper and said:

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

One of the women, with kind-looking eyes, smiled at me and asked me if I managed to make a living, and then the one who had asked me if I would like to paint said:

“Oh, by the way, we won’t need you again, as we are all off for the country.”

She added that they might be able to use me the next season, and I wondered dully to myself whether I would need them when the new season came. A feeling of despair was stealing over me--despair and recklessness.

The woman with the kind eyes who asked me if I made a living, I have since recognized as the wife of the President. I wish I had known her better.

Though I had so little work to do, nevertheless I was feeling languid and tired in these days, and when I reached my room that afternoon, I threw myself bodily down upon my bed. I felt that I did not want to get up even to go out for my dinner. I was lying there with my face buried in the pillow, when Miss Darling called up the stairs:

“There’s a gentleman to see you, Miss Marion.”

I jumped up and ran out into the hall. A short, dark man was mounting the stairs. I thought at first he was a picture-dealer I had once seen at Mr. Sands’ studio.

“Miss Ascough?” he asked.

I bowed and led him to my room.

He said he had obtained my name from Mr. Sands and that he wanted to engage me as a model for some decorative work he was doing. He had seen me several times about the studio buildings, and had decided I was the type for this particular work. As he said the work would

last all summer, I was delighted, and I thanked him fervently. Then he said:

“Suppose we have a little supper together somewhere.”

I was awfully sorry, but I had promised to help Miss St. Denis fix a waist she was making. So I told this man I could not disappoint my friend. He said: “As you please then,” and was going, when I asked him for his address. He stopped and thought a moment, and then he wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to me. He told me to come to work at ten the following morning, and, bowing, went. The address was in Brookline, and as it was some distance out I planned to start early to be sure to be there on time.