Part 9

With a shy courage born with her own transfiguration, she went to Barres, where he lay on the sofa, and bent over him.

She had made no sound; perhaps her nearness awoke him, for he opened his eyes.

"Dulcie!" he exclaimed.

"Do I please you?" she whispered.

He sat up abruptly.

"You wonderful child!" he said, frankly astonished. Whereupon he got off the sofa, walked all around her inspecting her.

"What a get-up! What a girl!" he murmured. "You lovely little thing, you astound me! Selinda, you certainly know a thing or two. Take it from me, you do Miss Soane and yourself more credit in your way than I do with paint and canvas."

Dulcie blushed vividly; the white skin of Selinda also reddened with pleasure at her master's enthusiasm.

"Tell Aristocrates to fix my bath and lay out my clothes," he said. "I've guests coming and I've got to hustle!" And to Dulcie: "We're going to have a little party in honour of your graduation. That's what I have to tell you, dear. Does it please you? Do your pretty clothes please you?"

The girl, overwhelmed, could only look at him. Her lips, vivid and slightly parted, quivered as her breath came irregularly. But she found no words--nothing to say except in the passionate gratitude of her grey eyes.

"You dear child," he said gently. Then, after a moment's silence, he eased the tension with his quick smile: "Wonder-child, go and seat yourself very carefully, and be jolly careful you don't rumple your frock, because I want you to astonish one or two people this evening."

Dulcie found her voice:

"I--I'm so astonished at myself that I don't seem real. I seem to be somebody else--long ago!" She stepped close to him, opened her locket for his inspection, holding it out to him as far as the chain permitted. It framed a miniature of a red-haired, grey-eyed girl of sixteen.

"Your mother, Dulcie?"

"Yes. How perfectly it fits into my locket! I carry it always in my purse."

"It might easily be yourself, Dulcie," he said in a low voice. "You are her living image."

"Yes. That is what astonishes me. To-night, for the first time in my life, it occurred to me that I look like this girl picture of my mother."

"You never thought so before?"

"Never." She stood looking down at the laughing face in the locket for a few moments, then, lifting her eyes to his:

"I've been made over, in a day, to look like this.... You did it!"

"Nonsense! Selinda and her curling iron did it."

They laughed a little.

"No," she said, "you have made me. You began to make me all over three months ago--oh, longer ago than that!--you began to remake me the first time you ever spoke to me--the first time you opened your door to me. That was nearly two years ago. And ever since I have been slowly becoming somebody quite new--inside and outside--until to-night, you see, I begin to look like my mother." She smiled at him, drew a deep breath, closed the locket, dropped it on her breast.

"I mustn't keep you," she said. "I wanted to show the picture--so you can understand what you have done for me to make me look like that."

* * * * *

When Barres returned to the studio, freshened and groomed for the evening, he found Dulcie at the piano, playing the little song she had sung that morning, and singing the words under her breath. But she ceased as he came up, and swung around on the piano-stool to confront him with the most radiant smile he had ever seen on a human face.

"What a day this has been!" she said, clasping her hands tightly. "I simply cannot make it seem real."

He laughed:

"It isn't ended yet, either. There's a night to every day, you know. And your graduation party will begin in a few moments."

"I know. I'm fearfully excited. You'll stay near me, won't you?"

"You bet! Did I tell you who are coming? Well, then, you won't feel strange, because I've merely asked two or three men who live in Dragon Court--men you see every day--Mr. Trenor, Mr. Mandel, and Mr. Westmore."

"Oh," she said, relieved.

"Also," he said, "I have asked Miss Souval--that tall, pretty girl who sometimes sits for Mr. Trenor--Damaris Souval. You remember her?"

"Yes."

"Also," he continued, "Mr. Mandel wishes to bring a young married woman who has developed a violent desire for the artistic and informal, but who belongs in the Social Register." He laughed. "It's all right if Corot Mandel wants her. Her name is Mrs. Helmund--Elsena Helmund. Mr. Trenor is painting her."

Dulcie's face was serious but calm.

"And then, to even the table," concluded Barres smilingly, "I invited a girl I knew long ago in Paris. Her name is Thessalie Dunois; and she's very lovely to look upon, Dulcie. I am very sure you will like her."

There was a silence; then the electric bell rang in the corridor, announcing the arrival of the first guest. As Barres rose, Dulcie laid her hand on his arm--a swift, involuntary gesture--as though the girl were depending on his protection.

The winning appeal touched him and amused him, too.

"Don't worry, dear," he said. "You'll have the prettiest frock in the studio--if you need that knowledge to reassure you----"

The corridor door opened and closed. Somebody went into his bedroom with Selinda--that being the only available cloak-room for women.

XI

HER NIGHT

"Thessalie Dunois! This is charming of you!" said Barres, crossing the studio swiftly and taking her hand in both of his.

"I'm so glad to see you, Garry--" she looked past him across the studio at Dulcie, and her voice died out for a moment. "Who is that girl?" she enquired under her breath.

"I'll present you----"

"Wait. _Who_ is she?"

"Dulcie Soane----"

"_Soane?_"

"Yes. I'll tell you about her later----"

"In a moment, Garry." Thessalie looked across the room at the girl for a second or two longer, then turned a troubled, preoccupied gaze on Barres. "Have you a letter from me? I posted it last night."

"Not yet."

The doorbell rang. He could hear more guests entering the corridor beyond. A faint smile--the forced smile of courage--altered Thessalie's features now, until it became a fixed and pretty mask.

"Contrive to give me a moment alone with you this evening," she whispered. "My need is great, Garry."

"Whenever you say! Now?"

"No. I want to talk to that young girl first."

They walked over to where Dulcie stood by the piano, silent and self-possessed.

"Thessa," he said, "this is Miss Soane, who graduated from high school to-day, and in whose honour I am giving this little party." And to Dulcie he said: "Miss Dunois and I were friends when I lived in France. Please tell her about your picture, which you and I are doing." He turned as he finished speaking, and went forward to welcome Esme Trenor and Damaris Souval, who happened to arrive together.

"Oh, the cunning little girl over there!" exclaimed the tall and lovely Damaris, greeting Barres with cordial, outstretched hands. "Where did you find such an engaging little thing?"

"You don't recognise her?" he asked, amused.

"I? No. Should I?"

"She's Dulcie Soane, the girl at the desk down-stairs!" said Barres, delighted. "This is her party. She has just graduated from high school, and she----"

"Belongs to Barres," interrupted Esme Trenor in his drawling voice. "Unusual, isn't she, Damaris?--logical anatomy, ornamental, vague development; nice lines, not obvious--like yours, Damaris," he added impudently. Then waving his lank hand with its over-polished nails: "I like the indefinite accented with one ripping value. Look at that hair!--lac and burnt orange rubbed in, smeared, then wiped off with the thumb! You follow the intention, Barres?"

"You talk too much, Esme," interrupted Damaris tartly. "Who is that lovely being talking to the little Soane girl, Garry?"

"A friend of my Paris days--Thessalie Dunois----" Again he checked himself to turn and greet Corot Mandel, subtle creator and director of exotic spectacles--another tall and rather heavily built man, with a mop of black and shiny hair, a monocle, and sanguine features slightly oriental.

With Corot Mandel had come Elsena Helmund--an attractive woman of thoroughbred origin and formal environment, and apparently fed up with both. For she frankly preferred "grades" to "registered stock," and she prowled through every art and theatrical purlieu from the Mews to Westchester, in eternal and unquiet search for an antidote to the sex-ennui which she erroneously believed to be an intellectual necessity for self-expression.

"Who is that winning child with red hair?" she enquired, nodding informal recognition to the other guests, whom she already knew. "Don't tell me," she added, elevating a quizzing glass and staring at Dulcie, "that this engaging infant has a history already! It isn't possible, with that April smile in her child eyes!"

"You bet she hasn't a history, Elsena," said Barres, frowning; "and I'll see that she doesn't begin one as long as she's in my neighbourhood."

Corot Mandel, who had been heavily inspecting Dulcie through his monocle, now stood twirling it by its frayed and greasy cord:

"I could do something for her--unless she's particularly yours, Barres?" he suggested. "I've seldom seen a better type in New York."

"You idiot. Don't you recognise her? She's Dulcie Soane! You could have picked her yourself if you'd had any flaire."

"Oh, hell," murmured Mandel, disgusted. "And I thought I possessed flaire. Your private property, I suppose?" he added sourly.

"Absolutely. Keep off!"

"Watch me," murmured Corot Mandel, with a wry face, as they moved forward to join the others and be presented to the little guest of the evening.

Westmore came in at the same moment--a short, blond, vigorous young man, who knew everybody except Thessalie, and proceeded to smash the ice in characteristic fashion:

"Dulcie! You beautiful child! How are you, duckey?"--catching her by both hands,--"a little salute for Nunky? Yes?"--kissing her heartily on both cheeks. "I've a gift for you in my overcoat pocket. We'll sneak out and get it after dinner!" He gave her hands a hearty squeeze, turned to the others: "I ought to have been Miss Soane's godfather. So I appointed myself as such. Where are the cocktails, Garry?"

Road-to-ruin cocktails were served--frosted orange juice for Dulcie. Everybody drank her health. Then Aristocrates gracefully condescended to announce dinner. And Barres took out Dulcie, her arm resting light as a snowflake on his sleeve.

There were flowers everywhere in the dining-room; table, buffet, curtains, lustres were gay with early blossoms, exhaling the haunting scent of spring.

"Do you like it, Dulcie?" he whispered.

She merely turned and looked at him, quite unable to speak, and he laughed at her brilliant eyes and flushed cheeks, and, dropping his right hand, squeezed hers.

"It's your party, Sweetness--all yours! You must have a good time every minute!" And he turned, still smiling, to Thessalie Dunois on his left:

"It's quite wonderful, Thessa, to have you here--to be actually seated beside you at my own table. I shall not let you slip away from me again, you enchanting ghost!--and leave me with a dislocated heart."

"Garry, that sounds almost sentimental. We're not, you know."

"How do I know? You never gave me a chance to be sentimental."

She laughed mirthlessly:

"Never gave you a chance? And our brief but headlong career together, monsieur? What was it but a continuous cataract of chances?"

"But we were laughing our silly heads off every minute! I had no opportunity."

That seemed to amuse her and awaken the ever-latent humour in her.

"Opportunity," she observed demurely, "should be created and taken, not shyly awaited with eyes rolled upward and a sucked thumb."

They both laughed outright. Her colour rose; the old humorous challenge was in her eyes again; the subtle mask was already slipping from her features, revealing them in all their charming recklessness.

"You know my creed," she said; "to go forward--laugh--and accept what Destiny sends you--still laughing!" Her smile altered again, became, for a moment, strange and vague. "God knows that is what I am doing to-night," she murmured, lifting her slim glass, in which the gush of sunny bubbles caught the candlelight. "To Destiny--whatever it may be! Drink with me, Garry!"

Around them the chatter and vivacity increased, as Damaris ended a duel of wit with Westmore and prepared for battle with Corot Mandel. Everybody seemed to be irresponsibly loquacious except Dulcie, who sat between Barres and Esme Trenor, a silent, smiling, reserved little listener. For Barres was still conversationally involved with Thessalie, and Esme Trenor, languid and detached, being entirely ignored by Damaris, whom he had taken out, awaited his own proper modicum of worship from his silent little neighbour on his left--which tribute he took for granted was his sacred due, and which, hitherto, he had invariably received from woman.

But nobody seemed to be inclined to worship; Damaris scarcely deigned to notice him, his impudence, perhaps, still rankling. Thessalie, laughingly engaged with Barres, remained oblivious to the fashionable portrait painter. As for Elsena Helmund, that youthful matron was busily pretending to comprehend Corot Mandel's covert orientalisms, and secretly wondering whether they were, perhaps, as improper as Westmore kept whispering to her they were, urging her to pick up her skirts and run.

Esme Trenor permitted a few weary but slightly disturbed glances to rest on Dulcie from time to time, but made no effort to entertain her.

And she, on her part, evinced no symptoms of worshipping him. And all the while he was thinking to himself:

"Can this be the janitor's daughter? Is she the same rather soiled, impersonal child whom I scarcely ever noticed--the thin, immature, negligible little drudge with a head full of bobbed red hair?"

His lack of vision, of finer discernment, deeply annoyed him. Her lack of inclination to worship him, now that she had the God-sent opportunity, irritated him.

"The silly little bounder," he thought, "how can she sit beside me without timidly venturing to entertain me?"

He stole another profoundly annoyed glance at Dulcie. The child was certainly beautiful--a slim, lovely, sensitive thing of qualities so delicate that the painter of pretty women became even more surprised and chagrined that it had taken Barres to discover this desirable girl in the silent, shabby child of Larry Soane.

Presently he lurched part way toward her in his chair, and looked at her with bored but patronising encouragement.

"Talk to me," he said languidly.

Dulcie turned and looked at him out of uninterested grey eyes.

"What?" she said.

"Talk to me," he repeated pettishly.

"Talk to yourself," retorted Dulcie, and turned again to listen to the gay nonsense which Damaris and Westmore were exchanging amid peals of general laughter.

But Esme Trenor was thunderstruck. A deep and painful colour stained his pallid features. Never before had mortal woman so flouted him. It was unthinkable. It really wouldn't do. There must be some explanation for this young girl's monstrous attitude toward offered opportunity.

"I say," he insisted, still very red, "are you bashful, by any chance?"

Dulcie slowly turned toward him again:

"Sometimes I am bashful; not now."

"Oh. Then wouldn't you like to talk to me?"

"I don't think so."

"Fancy! And why not, Dulcie?"

"Because I haven't anything to say to you."

"Dear child, that is the incentive to all conversation--lack of anything to say. You should practise the art of saying nothing politely."

"_You_ should have practised it enough to say good morning to me during these last five years," said Dulcie gravely.

"Oh, I say! You're rather severe, you know! You were just a little thing running about underfoot!--I'm sorry you feel angry----"

"I do not. But how can I have anything to talk to you about, Mr. Trenor, when you have never even noticed me all these years, although often I have handed you your keys and your letters."

"It was quite stupid of me. I'm sorry. But a man, you see, doesn't notice children----"

"Some men do."

"You mean Mr. Barres! That _is_ unkind. Why rub it in, Dulcie? I'm rather an interesting fellow, after all."

"Are you?" she asked absently.

Her honest indifference to him was perfectly apparent to Esme Trenor. This would never do. She must be subdued, made sane, disciplined!

"Do you know," he drawled, leaning lankly nearer, dropping both arms on the cloth, and fixing his heavy-lidded eyes intensely on her,"--do you know--do you guess, perhaps, why I never spoke to you in all these years?"

"You did not trouble yourself to speak to me, I imagine."

"You are wrong. I was _afraid_!" And he stared at her pallidly.

"Afraid?" she repeated, puzzled.

He leaned nearer, confidential, sad:

"Shall I tell you a precious secret, Dulcie? I am a coward. I am a slave of fear. I am afraid of beauty! Isn't that a very strange thing to say? Can you understand the subtlety of that indefinable psychology? Fear is an emotion. Fear of the beautiful is still a subtler emotion. Fear, itself, is beautiful beyond words. Beauty is Fear. Fear is Beauty. Do you follow me, Dulcie?"

"No," said the girl, bewildered.

Esme sighed:

"Some day you will follow me. It is my destiny to be followed, pursued, haunted by loveliness impotently seeking to express itself to me, while I, fearing it, dare only to express my fear with brush and pencil!... _When_ shall I paint you?" he added with sad benevolence.

"What?"

"When shall I try to interpret upon canvas my subtle fear of you?" And, as the girl remained mute: "When," he explained languidly, "shall I appoint an hour for you to sit to me?"

"I am Mr. Barres's model," she said, flushing.

"I shall have to arrange it with him, then," he nodded, wearily.

"I don't think you can."

"Fancy! Why not?"

"Because I do not wish to sit to anybody except Mr. Barres," she said candidly, "and what you paint does not interest me at all."

"Are you familiar with my work?" he asked incredulously.

She shook her head, shrugged, and turned to Barres, who had at last relinquished Thessalie to Westmore.

"Well, Sweetness," he said gaily, "do you get on with Esme Trenor?"

"He talked," she said in a voice perfectly audible to Esme.

Barres glanced toward Esme, secretly convulsed, but that young apostle of Fear had swung one thin leg over the other and was now presenting one shoulder and the back of his head to them both, apparently in delightful conversation with Elsena Helmund, who was fed up on him and his fears.

"You must always talk to your neighbours at dinner," insisted Barres, still immensely amused. "Esme is a very popular man with fashionable women, Dulcie,--a painter in much demand and much adored.... Why do you smile?"

Dulcie smiled again, deliciously.

"Anyway," continued Barres, "you must now give the signal for us to rise by standing up. I'm so proud of you, Dulcie, darling!" he added impulsively; "--and everybody is mad about you!"

"You made me--" she laughed mischievously, "--out of a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!"

"You made yourself out of nothing, child! And everybody thinks you delightful."

"Do _you_?"

"You dear girl!--of course I do. Does it make such a difference to you, Dulcie--my affection for you?"

"Is it--_affection_?"

"It certainly is. Didn't you know it?"

"I didn't--know--what it was."

"Of course it is affection. Who could be with you as I have been and not grow tremendously fond of you?"

"Nobody ever did except you. Mr. Westmore was always nice. But--but you are so kind--I can't express--I--c-can't----" Her emotion checked her.

"Don't try, dear!" he said hastily. "We're going in to have a jolly dance now. You and I begin it together. Don't you let any other fellow take you away!"

She looked up, laughed blissfully, gazing at him with brilliant eyes a little dimmed.

"They'll all be at your heels," he said, beginning to comprehend the beauty he had let loose on the world, "--every man-jack of them, mark my prophecy! But ours is the first dance, Dulcie. Promise?"

"I do. And I promise you the next--please----"

"Well, I'm host," he said doubtfully, and a trifle taken aback. "We'll have some other dances together, anyway. But I couldn't monopolise you, Sweetness."

The girl looked at him silently, then her grey, intelligent eyes rested directly on Thessalie Dunois.

"Will you dance with her?" she asked gravely.

"Yes, of course. And with the others, too. Tell me, Dulcie, did you find Miss Dunois agreeable?"

"I--don't--know."

"Why, you ought to like her. She's very attractive."

"She is quite beautiful," said the girl, watching Thessalie across his shoulder.

"Yes, she really is. What did you and she talk about?"

"Father," replied Dulcie, determined to have no further commerce with Thessalie Dunois which involved a secrecy excluding Barres. "She asked me if he were not my father. Then she asked me a great many stupid questions about him. And about Miss Kurtz, who takes the desk when father is out. Also, she asked me about the mail and whether the postman delivered letters at the desk or in the box outside, and about the tenants' mail boxes, and who distributed the letters through them. She seemed interested," added the girl indifferently, "but I thought it a silly subject for conversation."

Barres, much perplexed, sat gazing at Dulcie in silence for a moment, then recollecting his duty, he smiled and whispered:

"Stand up, now, Dulcie. You are running this show."

The girl flushed and rose, and the others stood up. Barres took her to the studio door, then returned to the table with the group of men.

"Well," he exclaimed happily, "what do you fellows think of Soane's little girl now? Isn't she the sweetest thing you ever heard of?"

"A peach!" said Westmore, in his quick, hearty voice. "What's the idea, Garry? Is it to be her career, this posing business? And where is it going to land her? In the Winter Garden?"

"Where is it going to land _you_?" added Esme impudently.

"Why, I don't know, myself," replied Barres, with a troubled smile. "The little thing always appealed to me--her loneliness and neglect, and--and something about the child--I can't define it----"

"Possibilities?" suggested Mandel viciously. "Take it from me, you're some picker, Garry."

"Perhaps. Anyway, I've given her the run of my place for the last two years and more. And she has been growing up all the while, and I didn't notice it. And suddenly, this spring, I discovered her for the first time.... And--well, look at her to-night!"

"She's your private model, isn't she?" persisted Mandel.

"Entirely," replied Barres drily.

"Selfish dog!" remarked Westmore, with his lively, wholesome laugh. "I once asked her to sit for me--more out of good nature than anything else. And a jolly fine little model she ought to make you, Garry. She's beginning to acquire a figure."

"She's quite wonderful that way, too," nodded Barres.

"Undraped?" inquired Esme.

"A miracle," nodded Barres absently. "Paint is becoming inadequate. I shall model her this summer. I tell you I have never seen anything to compare to her. Never!"

"What else will you do with her?" drawled Esme. "You'll go stale on her some day, of course. Am I next?"

"_No_!... I don't know what she'll do. It begins to look like a responsibility, doesn't it? She's such a fine little girl," explained Barres warmly. "I've grown quite fond of her--interested in her. Do you know she has an excellent mind? And nice, fastidious instincts? She _thinks_ straight. That souse of a father of hers ought to be jailed for the way he neglects her."

"Are you thinking of adopting her?" asked Trenor, with the faintest of sneers, which escaped Barres.