Chapter 6

The girl kept on turning,

"Stand still."

She did as ordered, but it so happened that her back was squarely turned upon the master.

"No monkey business," he shouted. "Face me! Face me!"

She faced him, still scornful, but white now, and biting her lips.

"The rest of you," he said, "will have the rest of the day off. Get out."

Seventy-six chair-legs squeaked, and Miss Rose's nineteen companions, with murmurs and occasional nervous giggles, hurried off to the coat-room. A few minutes later the bell of the outer door clanged once--they were going; clanged a second time--they were gone.

Meanwhile the legless man had not taken his hard, calculating eyes off the girl who remained. Presently he spoke. "We're alone," he said. "I'm between you and the door." He spread his great arms, as if to emphasize the impassability of the barrier which confronted her. "Are you afraid?"

"Yes."

The legless man laughed. "Well said," he remarked, "and truthfully said. And why are you afraid?"

"Everybody's afraid of you."

He regarded her for some moments in silence. "You needn't be. Have I ever hurt you?"

"No."

"How long have you worked for me?"

"Five months."

"And you are the cleverest worker I have. You admit that?"

"I don't know."

Again he laughed. "Once," he said, "I thought you were the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. But I've seen a prettier."

"I believe you."

"'But you've got a certain spirit. You don't cringe."

"Don't I?"

"No!" he bellowed, "you don't." And when he saw that she didn't cringe, he laughed once more.

"You live with Minnie Bauer?"

"Yes, sir."

"You have no father--no mother?"

"No, sir."

"Burnt alive in a tenement fire, weren't they?"

She answered with a great effort, and seemed upon the verge of tears, "Yes, sir."

"You will leave Minnie, and come here to live."

"Why?"

"Because I make it my business to reward the skilful, the laborious, and the deserving."

She shook her head. "That's not good enough," she said.

"You will keep my house in order," he said; "you will learn to help me with the piano. You will have fine clothes to wear, and the spending of plenty of money."

"Not good enough," she repeated.

"I have read you these five months as if you were a book. You are loyal to your friends. You can keep secrets. I admire you. There are many things that I wish to talk about. But I cannot talk about them except to some one that I can trust. Will you stay?"

She shook her head, but the legless man smiled, as he might have smiled if she had nodded it.

"I am suffering," he said, "the tortures of the damned. I ask you for help and for comfort, and you refuse them."

A look curiously like tenderness swam into the girl's eyes. The beggar moved sideways upon his crutches.

"If you want to go," he said, "the way's open."

"Can I really go if I want to, and not come back?"

"You really can," he said. "Most things that I want I take, but a man can't take help and comfort unless they are freely given."

She moved slowly forward as if to discover the truth of his statement that the way was open. He made not the least gesture of interference. When she was between him and the outer door and rather nearer the latter, she turned about sharply.

"What's troubling you?" she asked.

"The fact," he said, and there was a something really charming in the expression of his mouth and eyes, "that though I can give orders to very many people, and be obeyed as a general is obeyed by his soldiers in war times, I have no friend. Fear attracts this person to me, self-interest attracts that person, but there's no one that's held to me by friendship."

"You're only asking me to be your friend?"

"You will be as safe in my house as in the rooms of the Gerry Society."

"If you want me for a friend why did you call me _muck_ just now?"

"I don't want the others to know that we are friends. I want them to think--what they always think."

"How do I know you trust me?"

"Lock the street door," he said; "you're younger than I. It's easier for you to move about."

She locked the door and returned.

"Are you staying," he asked, "through curiosity or friendship?"

"Look here," she said, "it's neither, Can't you guess what ails me?"

"Tell me."

She took his strong, wicked face between her young hands, and bending over kissed him on the forehead. Then she drew back, flaming.

The legless man was touched. "Why?" he asked.

"I don't know. It just came to me," she said. "God knows I didn't want it to. I guess that's all"

Rose found it hard to control her jumping nerves. A curious thing had happened to her. Having at last wormed her way into the master's confidence, and brought a long piece of play-acting to a successful conclusion, a certain candor and frankness which were natural to her made the thought of divulging what she had already found out, and whatever he might confide to her in the future, exceedingly repugnant. And she acknowledged with a shiver of revolt that the creature's fascination for her was not altogether a matter of make-believe. She was going to find it very hard to keep a proper perspective and point of view; to continue to regard him as just another "case" and all in the day's work.

"In my house," he said, "you shall do as you please. You're a dear girl, Rose,"

"I feel at home in your house," she said, "and happy."

A cloud gathered in Blizzard's face. "Happiness!" he exclaimed. "There is no such thing--neither for you, nor for me. The world is a torture-chamber, and remember, Rose, we are to be allies; we are to have no secrets from each other."

She shrugged her shoulders. "That was what you said," she complained. "But have you really shown me any confidence?"

He smiled as upon a wayward child. "You shall know everything that there is to know--when the time comes."

She pouted.

"And what, by the way," he went on, "have _you_ told _me_?"

"I have told you," she answered with dignity, "my one secret."

"The way you feel about me?"

She nodded and blushed. It was going to be a hard lie to keep telling.

"And you've no other secret? Nothing else that you ought to tell me?"

There was more meaning in his voice than in his words, so that for a moment Rose was startled. Was it possible that the man suspected her, and was playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse?

"What else could I possibly have to tell you of any importance?"

"I was joking," said the beggar.

Rose sat at the window of her room looking upward into a night of stars. She could not sleep. Twice she had heard the legless man pass her door upon his crutches. Each time he had hesitated, and once, or so she thought, he had laid his hand upon the door-knob. She wondered how much of her wakefulness was due to fright; and how much to the excitement of being well launched upon a case of tremendous importance, for the secret service knew that Blizzard was engaged upon a colossal plot of some sort, and just what that was Rose had volunteered, at the risk of her life, and of her honor, to find out.

XII

The next morning, at the appointed hour, Blizzard climbed the stairs to Barbara's studio, knocked, and was admitted. That he was welcome, if only for his head's sake, was at once evident.

"Something told me that _you_ wouldn't fail me," said Barbara.

"You can be quite easy about that," said Blizzard. "I am in the habit of keeping my word."

He climbed to the model's platform and seated himself as upon the previous morning, with a kind of business-like directness.

"Ready when you are," he said.

Barbara withdrew the damp cloths from the clay, looked critically from the bust to the original and back again. "My work," she said, "still looks right to me. But you don't."

Blizzard smiled.

"Yesterday," she said, "you looked as if you were suffering like," she laughed, "like the very devil. To-day you look well fed and contented. Now that won't do. Try to remember what you were thinking about when I first saw you."

At once, as a fresh slide is placed in a magic-lantern, the legless man's expression of well-being vanished, and that dark tortured look of Satan fallen which had so fired Barbara's imagination, once more possessed his features. Barbara's eyes flashed with satisfaction.

"It wasn't hard for you to remember what you were thinking about, was it?" she said.

"It was not," said Blizzard, and his voice was cold as a well-curb. "When I first saw you, I was thinking thoughts that can never be forgotten."

"Lift your chin, please," she said, "just a fraction. So. Turn your head a fraction more toward me. Good. And please don't think of anything pleasant until I tell you. Anybody can make an exact copy of a head. Expressions are the things that only lucky people can catch."

"I believe you are one of them," said Blizzard. "I believe you will catch mine--if you keep on wanting to."

"I must," she said simply.

And then for half an hour there was no sound in the studio but the long-drawn breathing of the legless man. Barbara worked in a kind of grim, exalted silence.

Meanwhile Bubbles was climbing the back stair to his bedroom, where he had left Harry, the secret-service agent, on guard over Barbara. The boy, all out of breath with haste, opened his right fist and disclosed a narrow slip of paper with writing on it.

"The minute _he_ came out of his burrow and started uptown," said Bubbles, "and was out o' sight, I begun to spin my top up and down Marrow Lane. Rose she's moved upstairs, like she said she would."

Harry's eyes sparkled with interest and approbation. "Good girl!" he said.

"I seen her," Bubbles went on, "at an upper window, and when she seed me, she winked both eyes, like as if the sun was too bright for 'em. I winked the same way, and then she lets the paper drop."

Harry took the paper out of the boy's hand, and read: "Nothing done, much doing."

"She's a grand one," said Bubbles. "If he ever gets wise to her, he'll tear her to pieces."

"I'm not worrying about Rose--yet," said Harry. "She knows what she's up against, and she can pull a gun quicker than I can. We used to play getting the drop on each other by the hour."

"What for?" asked Bubbles, always interested in the smallest details of sporting propositions.

"Poker-chips," said Harry, and Bubbles looked his disgust. There was a minute's silence, then:

"Harry," said Bubbles, "what do _you_ think he's up to?"

"By George," said Harry, "I can't make out. What do _you_ think?"

Bubbles's sensitive mouth quivered eagerly. "You tell me," he said, "what he's making hats for--he don't sell 'em--and I'll tell you what he's up to."

"Some of the labor leaders in the West are mixed up in it," said Harry; "we _know_ that."

"Labor leaders, Harry!" The small boy's face was comic with scorn and facetiousness.

"You know the ones I mean, Bub. Not the men who lead labor--that's only what they call themselves; but the men who betray labor for their own pockets, the men who find dynamite for half-witted fanatics to set off. The men--" He broke short off, and listened. "Better butt in to the studio, Bub, and see what's doing,"

"Did you think you heard something?"

"I know that I haven't heard anything for half an hour."

In a few minutes Bubbles returned. "He's just sitting there with a hell of a face on him," he said, "and she's working like a dynamo."

And although Barbara actually was working with great speed and gratitude, the entrance of the small boy had seemed to disturb the train of her inspiration. Somewhere in the back of her head appeared to be some brain-cells quite detached from the important matter in hand, and to these was conveyed the fact that a door-knob had been turned, and at once they began to busy themselves upon the suggestion. Something like this: door-knobs--old door-knobs--new glass door-knobs--man to put on new glass door-knobs--wonderfully prepossessing man--name Harry--charming name. Harry--charming smile--wonder if anybody'll ever see him again.

Gradually other cells in Barbara's brain took up the business, until presently she was entirely occupied with unasked, and unwelcome, and altogether pleasant thoughts of the young secret-service agent. It was almost as if he laid his hand on her shoulder, and said: "You've worked long enough on this dreadful beggar--come with me for a holiday."

Twice, sternly, she endeavored to go on with her work, and could not. Something of the May-weather message, that all is futile except life, had filtered into her blood. Her hands dropped to her sides, and her face, very rosy, became so wonderfully beautiful that Blizzard almost groaned aloud. Something told him that his morning was over, his morning filled with the happiness of propinquity and stolen looks, with the happiness that is half spiritual and half gloating.

"Thank you," said Barbara, "ever so much. I sha'n't do any more to-day. I'm not fit. But we have gotten on. Want to look?"

She turned the revolving-table so that Blizzard could look upon his likeness. And you may be sure that he did not lose the opportunity thus presented. He regarded the clay steadily, for a long time, without speaking. Then he drew one very long breath, and the expression upon his face softened.

"That man," he said, "has had a hard life, Miss Ferris. It is all written in his face. When he was a little boy, he was the victim of a mistake so atrocious, so wicked, that the blood in his body turned to gall, and all his powers of loving turned to hatred. Instead of facing disaster like a man, he turned from it, and fled--down--down--down, and fell down--down--grappling with all that he could reach that was good or beautiful, and dragging it down with him--to destruction--to the pit--to hell on earth. And then he lived a long time, pampering all that was base in him, prospering materially, recognizing no moral law. He was contented with his choice--happy as a well-fed dog is happy in a warm corner. And then the inevitable happened. An idea came to him, a dream of peace and beauty, of well-doing and happiness. But that chance was torture, since, if he was to live it, he must undo the evil that he had done, unthink the thoughts that had been meat and drink to him, and he must get back to where he was before he fell."

He paused, and extending his right forefinger pointed at the bust of himself and exclaimed:

"That man--there--that you've made in my image--line for line--torture for torture, must go on living in the hell which he has prepared with his own perverted mind. He can never get back. It is too late--too late--too late!"

His voice rose to a kind of restrained fury. The room shook with its strong vibrations.

Then he turned to Barbara, smiled, all of a sudden, gayly, almost genuinely, and said in a voice of humble gallantry:

"But I've done you a good turn. If you never proved it before, you're proving these days that you are a heaven-born genius."

A harder-headed girl than Barbara must have been pleased and beguiled. She blushed, and laughed. "I've only one thing to wish for," she said.

"What is that?"

"I wish," she said, "that you were the greatest art critic in the world."

He leaned forward, and in a confidential whisper: "A secret," said he, "between us two. I am."

Then they both laughed, and the beggar, not without reluctance, climbed down from the platform. Swift and easy as were his motions, he appeared to terrible disadvantage, and he knew it. So did Barbara, who a moment before had been on the point of really liking him. She steeled herself against the sudden disgust which she could not help feeling, and smiled at him in a steady, friendly way.

"To-morrow?" she said.

"To-morrow."

"At the same time, please. Good-by, and good luck to you."

"Good luck to _you_, Miss Ferris." And he was gone.

Barbara, opening the door into the next room, surprised a sound of voices. They ceased instantly.

"Bubbles," she called.

He came, looking a trifle guilty.

"Who's that with you?"

"Harry," he said simply.

"The man who was here before?"

"Yes, Miss Barbara."

"What's he doing in my rooms?"

"He was just sitting, and chinning," said Bubbles.

Miss Ferris was displeased. "Tell him," she said, "that I can't have my apartment turned into a Young Men's Club."

"Yes, miss."

Bubbles retired, reluctantly, with the message, only to return in a moment.

"He says will you let him speak to you a moment, please."

She hesitated. And then, "Yes," she said. "I suppose he wishes to apologize."

He was even more charming-looking than the memory of him. She made an effort to look a little displeased, and a little unfriendly. She failed, because the May-weather message had gotten into her blood, and because certain forces of which as yet she knew little had established connecting links between herself and the young secret-service agent.

"I am going to scold you," said Barbara. "Bubbles has his work to do."

"But I was helping him with it."

"He said you were just sitting and--and chinning."

"When we had finished working."

"Have you been here long?"

The young man looked her steadily in the face, and said gravely: "Ever since Blizzard came."

Barbara lifted her chin a little. "I am quite able to take care of myself," she said.

He shook his head sadly.

"Do you make it your business"--she had succeeded in making herself angry--"to keep an eye on all young women whom you fancy unable to take care of themselves?"

"I only wish to God I could," he said earnestly. "But of course it's impossible. So I just do the best I can."

"And why have you chosen me? Surely others are even _more_ helpless than I am." She managed to convey a good deal of scorn. "Why," she continued, "must I be the particular creature singled out for your chivalrous notice?"

"I don't know," he said simply.

All the anger went out of Barbara, and a delicious little thrill passed through her from head to foot, leaving in its wake a clear rosy coloring.

"Bubbles," said the young man, "would die for you; but he is only a little boy. I am very strong."

Barbara refused to rise at the implication that the strong young man was also ready and even eager to die for her. "Tell me more about Blizzard," she said.

"He's one of the half-dozen men in the city that we would like to have an eye on night and day. We want him."

"Oh," she said, "then you are not here entirely on my account? It is also your business to be here?"

He nodded, not altogether pleased with the turn the matter had taken.

"In that case," she said, "I have no wish to stand in your way. But--I don't propose to be a cat's-paw. You may sit in Bubbles's room if you like, but I won't have you on your hands and knees at the studio door listening at the key-hole. That must be understood."

The young man flushed with righteous anger. "You don't _look_" he said, "as if you could say a thing like that to a fellow."

Instantly, and almost humbly, she begged his pardon.

"Then I may come to-morrow?" he asked.

"And the next day," said Barbara. "And, by the way, what is your name?"

"Harry," he said.

"Harry what?"

A look very much like pathos came into his handsome eyes. "I want to be honest with you," he said. "I don't own any other name. I call myself West. But I've no right to it. I don't know who my father was or what he was."

"You don't have to explain," said Barbara. "I think you would have been quite within your rights in saying that your name was West and letting it go at that."

It was not her intention to receive Mr. West's confidences either at this time or any other. And so, of course, ten minutes later, as she drove uptown, she was "dying" to know all that there was to be known about him. He had gone downstairs with her, and put her into her cab. He might have been a prince with a passion for good manners. He seemed to her wonderfully graceful and at ease, in all that he did.

XIII

Dr. Ferris smiled tolerantly, and said to the footman who had brought the card: "I shall be very glad to see Mr. Allen." And he kept on smiling after the footman had gone. The interview which he foresaw was of that kind which not only did him honor but amused him. Wilmot Allen would not be the first young man to whom the rich surgeon had had the pleasure of putting embarrassing questions: "What can you tell me of your past life and habits?" "Can you support my daughter in the way to which she has always been accustomed?" etc., etc.

But Wilmot Allen did not at once ask permission to address Barbara. He entered with that good-natured air of easy laziness which was rather attractive in him, and without looking in the least troubled announced that what he had come to say embarrassed him greatly.

"And furthermore," he said, "if Barbara hears of it, she'll be furious. She would take the natural and even correct point of view that it's none of my business, and she would select one of the thousand ruthless and brutal methods which young women have at their disposition for the disciplining of young men. So, please, will you consider my visit professional and, if you like," he grinned mischievously, "charge me the regular fee for consultation?"

Dr. Ferris laughed. "I shall be delighted to play father confessor," he said, "if you'll sit down, and smoke a cigar."

Mr. Allen would. He lighted one of Dr. Ferris's cigars with the care due to a thing of value, settled himself in a deep chair, and appeared by slightly pausing to be gathering scattered thoughts into a focus.

"Yes," he said at last, "there's no doubt about it. I am about to be very impertinent. If you like you shall turn me out of your house, with or without kicks, as seems best to you. Barbara needs a nurse, and it seems to me you ought to know it; because in a way it's a reflection on you."

"Quite so," said Dr. Ferris. "I am not at all pleased with Barbara. What has she done?"

"Do you suppose it would be possible to get her interested in anything besides this sculpture business--before it's too late?"

"Too late?"

"Before she gets a taste of success."

"But will she--ever?"

Wilmot Allen nodded eagerly. "She will," he said. "She is doing a head. It's far from finished; but even now, in the rough state, it's quite the most exceptional inspired thing you ever saw. She will exhibit it and become famous overnight. I can't bet much--as you may perhaps suspect--but I'll bet all I've got. And of course, once she gets recognition and everybody begins to kow-tow to her--why, good-by, Barbara."

"Still," said Dr. Ferris, "if she's developing a real talent, I don't know that I ought to stand in her way. And, besides, we've fought that all out, and," he laughed grimly, "I took my licking like a man."

"Of course," said Allen. "When a girl that ought to go in for marriage and that sort of thing takes to being talented--I call it a tragedy. But, passing that, the model for the head she's doing isn't a proper person. That's what I'm driving at. He's one of the wickedest and most unscrupulous persons in the world. Barbara ought not to speak to him, let alone give him the run of her studio and hobnob with him same as with one of her friends. He's a man too busy with villainy to sit as a model for the fun of sitting. The pay doesn't interest him. And if he shows up every morning at nine and stays all morning, it's only because he's got an axe to grind. He talks. He lays down the law. He appeals to Barbara's mind and imagination; and it's all rather horrible--one of those poison snakes that look like an old rubber boot, and a bird all prettiness, bright colors, innocence, and admiration of how the world is made. Look at it in this way. She makes a great hit with the bust. Who's responsible? Well, the creature that supplied the inspiration, largely. She'll feel gratitude. He'll take advantage of anything that comes his way. And frankly, Dr. Ferris, I may be making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but I'm worried to death. Suppose I told you that, say, Duane Carter spent hours every day in Barbara's studio?"