CHAPTER XIV

These mornings in the studio were full of subtleties. Miss Darrow discovered that Burnett could talk upon many subjects. He had traveled much in Europe, and could even draw a bold outline for her of the East, which she had never seen. He talked little of art, and then only when the subject was introduced by his model. In the rests, which were long, he led Miss Darrow, often without her being aware of it, down pleasant lanes of thought, all of which seemed to end abruptly in the garish sunshine of personality. She did not find it unpleasant; only it seemed rather surprising the way all formality between them had been banished.

One morning there was a diversion. A clatter on the knocker and Burnett, frowning, went to the door. Miss Darrow heard a feminine voice and an exclamation. Burnett went rather hurriedly and stood outside, his hand upon the door knob. There was a murmur of conversation and a feminine laugh. She tried not to hear what was said. The hand fidgeted on the knob, but the murmur of voices continued. Miss Darrow got down from the throne and moved to the window, adjusting a stray curl as she passed.

She looked away from the mirror, then stopped suddenly and looked again. When Burnett entered she was sitting in the window-seat, looking out over the roof-tops. He was profuse in apology. She resumed the pose and the artist painted silently. "They say there's a pleasure in painting that only a painter knows," she began.

"Of course."

"Then why do we rest so often? I'm not easily deceived. The fine frenzy is lacking, Mr. Burnett--isn't it so?"

For reply he held out his paint-smudged hands.

"No--no," she went on. "You're painting timidly with the tips of your fingers--not in the least like the 'Agatha.' I'm sure you're doing me early-Victorian."

Burnett stopped painting, looked at his canvas and laughed. "Oh, it's hardly that," he said.

"Won't you prove it?"

"How?"

"By letting me look." She rose from her chair, got down from the throne and took a rapid step or two towards the easel. But Burnett's broad shoulders barred the way.

"Please," she urged.

"I can't, really."

"Why not?" She stood her ground firmly, looking up into his face, but Burnett did not move or reply.

She settled into the pose again and Burnett went mechanically to his place before the canvas. Once it seemed as if he were about to speak--but he thought better of it. He looked down at the mass of color mingled on the palette. His brush moved slowly on the canvas. At last it stopped and dropped to his side.

"I can't go on."

She dropped out of the pose. "Are you ill?"

"Oh, no," he laughed. With the setting aside of the brushes and palette, Burnett seemed to put away the shadow that had been hanging over his thoughts all the morning. He stood beside her and was looking frankly into her eyes. She saw something in his that had not been there before, for she looked away, past the chimneys and apartment houses, past the clouds, and into the void that was beyond the blue. She had forgotten his presence, and one of her hands which he held in both of his.

"Perhaps you understand," he said quietly. "Perhaps you know."

The fingers moved slightly, but on the brows a tiny frown was gathering. He relinquished her hand with a sigh and stood looking rather helplessly in the direction of the mute and pitiless easel. They were so deep in thought that neither of them heard the turning of a skeleton key in the latch and the opening of the door. The Japanese screen for a moment concealed them from the view of a gentleman who emerged into the room. Ross Burnett looked up helplessly. It was Mortimer Crabb, horror-stricken at this violation of his sanctum.

"Ross!" he said, "what on earth----"

Miss Darrow started from her chair, the crimson rushing to her cheeks, and stood drawing the lace across her shoulders.

Burnett was cool. "Miss Darrow," he asked, "you know Mr. Crabb? He's studying painting, and--er--sometimes uses this place. Perhaps----"

The words hung on his lips as he realized that Miss Darrow with an inclination of the head toward the visitor, had vanished into the dressing-room.

As the door closed words less polite came forth.

But Crabb broke in: "Oh, I say, Ross, you don't mean you've had the nerve----"

Ross Burnett's brows drew together and his large frame seemed to grow compact.

"Hush, Mort," he whispered. "You don't understand. You've made an awful mess of things. Won't you go?"

"But, my dear chap----"

"I'll explain later. But go--please!"

With a glance toward the easel Mortimer Crabb went out.

Ross Burnett closed the door, shot its bolt and put his back against it. As the clatter of Crabb's boots on the wooden stairs died away on the lower floor, he gave a sigh, folded his arms and waited.

When Miss Darrow emerged from the dressing-room ready for the street, she found him there.

"My things are in the portmanteau," she said, icily. "My maid will call for them. If you will permit me----"

But Burnett did not move.

"Miss Darrow----" he began.

"Will you let me pass?"

"I can't, Miss Darrow--until you hear. I wouldn't have had it happen for anything in the world."

"I cannot listen. Won't you open the door?"

He bowed his head as though better to receive her reproaches, but he did not move.

"Oh!" she cried, "how could you!" Her chin was raised, and she glanced scornfully at him from under her narrowed lids.

"Please," he pleaded, quietly. "If you'll only listen----"

She turned and walked towards the window. "Isn't it punishment enough for it all to end like this," he went on, "without making it seem as though I were worse than I am? Really, I'm not as bad as I'm painted."

It was an unfortunate phrase. An awkward silence followed it, in which he was conscious that Miss Darrow had turned suddenly from the window and was facing the Thing upon the easel, which was now revealed to them both in all its uncompromising ugliness. From the center of a myriad of streaks of paint something emerged. Something in dull tones, staring like a Gorgon from its muddy illusiveness. To Burnett it had been only a canvas daubed with infelicitous paint. Now from across the room it seemed to have put on a smug and scurrilous personality and odiously leered at him from its unlovely background.

"Don't," cried Burnett. "Don't look at the thing like that."

But the girl did not move. She stood before the easel, her head a little on one side, her eyes upon the canvas.

"It's really not Victorian, is it?" she asked calmly.

"You _must_ listen!" cried Burnett, leaving his post at the door. "I insist. You know why I did this mad thing. I've told you. I'd do it again----"

"I've no doubt you will," she put in scornfully. "It doesn't seem to have been so difficult."

"It was. The hardest thing I've ever done in my life. You gave me the chance. I took it. I won't regret it. It was selfish--brutal--anything you like. But I don't regret--nine wonderful mornings, twenty-seven precious hours--more, I hope, than you've given any man in your life." He made one rapid stride and took her in his arms. "I love you, Millicent, dear. I've loved you from the first moment--there in the picture gallery. Yes, I'd do it again. Every moment I've blessed the luck that made it possible. Don't turn away from me. You don't hate me. I know it. You couldn't help feeling a response to a love like mine." He held her close to him, raising her head at last until her lips were level with his own. But he did not touch them. She still struggled faintly, but she would not open her eyes and look at him.

"No, no, you mustn't," was all that she found strength to say.

"You can't deny it. You do--care for me. Look up at me and tell me so."

She would not look at him and at last struggled away and stood, her cheeks flaming.

"You are masterful!" she stammered. "A girl is not to be won in this fashion."

"I love you," he said. "And you----"

"I despise you," she gasped. She turned to the mirror, and rearranged her disordered hair.

"Don't say that. Won't you forgive me?"

She sank on the model stand and buried her face in her hands. "It was cruel of you--cruel."

The sight of her distress unnerved him and gave him for the first time a new view of the enormity of his offense. It was her pride that was wounded. It was the thought of what Mortimer Crabb might think of her that had wrought the damage. He bent over her, his fingers nearly touching her, yet restrained by a delicacy and a new tenderness begotten by the thought that it was he alone who had caused her unhappiness.

"Forgive me," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

And she only repeated. "What can he think of me? What can he think?"

Burnett straightened, a new thought coming to him. It seemed like an inspiration--a stroke of genius.

"Of course," he said, calmly, "you're hopelessly compromised. He must think what he pleases. There's only one thing to do."

She arose and breathlessly asked, "What _can_ I do? How can I----"

"Marry me--at once."

"Oh!"

She spoke the word slowly--wonderingly--as if the idea had never occurred to her before. He had left the way to the door unguarded, but instead she walked toward the window, and looked out over the roof-tops. To Burnett the silence was burdened with meaning, and he broke it timorously.

"Won't you--won't you, Millicent, dear?"

Her voice trembled a little when she replied: "There is one thing more important than that--than anything else in the world to me."

At her side his eyes questioned mutely.

"And that?" he asked at last.

"My reputation," she whispered.

He stood a second studying her face, for his happiness grew upon him slowly. But behind the crooked smile which was half-hidden from him, he caught the dawn of a new light that he understood. He took her in his arms then, and wondered how it was that he had not kissed her when her lips had been so close before. But the new wonder that came to them both made them willing to forget that there had ever been anything else before.

Later, Ross, unable to credit his good fortune and marveling at the intricacies of the feminine mind, asked her a question. Her reply caused him more amazement:

"Poor, foolish, Slovenly Peter! I saw it by accident in the mirror a week ago."

So it was Mortimer Crabb after all who made the opportunity; for Miss Darrow smilingly admitted that had it not been for his abrupt entrance at that precise psychological moment, she should now have been in Aiken and Ross on the way to the Antipodes. But Patricia was doubly happy; for had she not circumvented her own husband in opening the studio he had forsworn, the veritable chamber of Bluebeard which had been bolted against her? Had she not browsed away among the gods of his youth to her heart's content and made that sacred apartment the vestibule of Paradise for at least two discontented mortals whose hearts were now beating as one?