Chapter 7

Dr. Ferris jumped to his feet, white with anger. "Do you mean to tell me that my daughter is friendly with that person?"

"Oh, no," said Allen calmly. "I think Barbara's new friend is a very much more dangerous person for her to know. Whatever Duane Carter is he wouldn't dare. This other man--"

"Look here, Wilmot"--Dr. Ferris began to pace the room in considerable agitation--"you're an old friend of Barbara's. Is friendliness at the root of your worry, or is it some other feeling, not so disinterested as friendship?"

Wilmot Allen rose to his full height, and Dr. Ferris paused in his pacings. They faced each other.

"If I was any good," said the young man slowly, "if I had any money, if Barbara would have me, I'd marry her to-morrow. But I'm not any good--never was. I haven't any money, hardly ever have had, and Barbara would no more have me of her own free will than she'd take a hammer and smash the bust she's making. So much for motives. Have I disposed of jealousy?"

Dr. Ferris nodded.

"The man," said Allen, "isn't a man. He's a gutter-dog, a gargoyle, half a man. And his position in the city--in the whole country, I think--is so fortified that with the best will in the world the law cannot touch him. Duane Carter--well, he's been a gay boy with the ladies--a bad man if you like--but at least he is not accused by gossip of murder, arson, abduction, and crimes infinitely worse than these. He may have beguiled women, but at least his worst enemy would never suppose that he had trafficked in them. Barbara's model is all the things that you can imagine. And all of them are written in his horrible face. To see them together, friendly, reparteeing, chummy, would turn your stomach--Barbara so exquisite and high-born, and the man, his eyes full of evil fires, sitting like a great toad on the model's chair. And at that--good God, you might stand it, if he was a whole man! But he isn't. It's horrible! He has no legs--and you want to stamp on him till he's dead."

Dr. Ferris had turned white as a sheet. "To me," he said quietly, "that is the most horrible form of mutilation. I can't tell you why. It is so. And you will believe that in my practice I have encountered all sorts. But who is he?"

"He's a man named Blizzard--he passes for a beggar, grinds an organ, sells shoe-laces and that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, he's very well off, if not rich. Why don't you visit Barbara's studio to-morrow, look things over, and put a stop to it? You can say things to Barbara that I can't, that no young man can say to a girl. Go as far as you like. Whatever you tell her about him will be true even if you can't prove it. You can make her see what thin ice she's skating on. Or if you can't nobody can."

"I'll go to the studio to-morrow," said the surgeon. "I am very much disturbed by what you have told me: the more so because as a physician I have learned how many impossible things are true. Have you told me all you wish to? Or is there more? Do you think," he spoke very steadily, "that Barbara _cares_ for this beast? Such things happen in the world, I know."

"God forbid," said Allen, "but I think he has a sort of fascination for her, and that she doesn't realize it. You'll let your visit appear casual and accidental, won't you? You won't let Barbara suspect that I had anything to do with it?"

Dr. Ferris promised, and the two parted with mutual good-will; but neither the next morning, nor the morning after that, was Dr. Ferris at liberty to pay a visit to Barbara in her studio. Nominally retired from active practice, and devoting whatever of life should remain to surgical experimentation and theory, the sudden and acute jeopardy of an old friend caused him to put all other considerations aside for the time being, and once more to don the white harness of his profession. For two days Dr. Ferris hardly left his friend's side; on the morning of the third day, quite worn out, his jumping nerves soothed by a small dose of morphine, he called a taxicab, gave Barbara's number in McBurney Place, leaned back against the leather cushions, relaxed his muscles, and fell asleep.

The taxicab and the legless man reached the curb in front of Barbara's studio at the same moment. The driver of the cab lifted one finger to his hat. The legless man nodded, and peering into the cab recognized the handsome features of the sleeping doctor. He smiled, and said to the driver:

"Take him back to his house."

The driver said: "If I do he'll enter a complaint."

"No," said the legless man; "you will tell him when he wakes that he gave you the order himself. He won't know whether he did or not. So-long."

The driver once more lifted one finger to his hat and obediently drove off.

It was very silent in McBurney Place; the double row of ancient stables made over into studio-buildings appeared deserted. The legless man could not but flatter himself that his actions had been unobserved. He chuckled, and with even more than his usual deft alacrity climbed the stairs to Barbara's studio.

Meanwhile, however, a young man and a small boy, looking through the curtains of the latter's bedroom window, had been witnesses of all that passed.

"That was Miss Barbara's father in the taxi," said Harry West.

"Looks like he'd been out all night," said Bubbles.

"He may have been drugged."

"Doubt it. The taxi turned north at the corner. If the ole 'un had had the doctor drugged o' purpose he'd 'a' sent him south where he could use him. I guess he's sent him home."

"He doesn't want his morning with Miss Barbara interrupted."

Harry West sighed and said: "I don't smoke, Bub. Give me a cigarette."

Bubbles accommodated his friend with eagerness.

"And now," said West, "the road's clear to Marrow Lane; better slip down and see if Rose has any word for us. I'll keep a good ear on Blizzard."

Bubbles changed from his buttons to his street-jacket, and departed by the back stairs. Harry West took a small automatic pistol from his breast pocket and played with it, but in the expression of the young man's face was nothing bellicose or threatening; only a kind of gentle, patient misery.

He passed fifteen minutes in taking quick aims with the little automatic pistol at the roses on the wall-paper. Short of actual target-practice, he knew by experience that this was the best way to keep the hand and eye in touch with each other. He let his thoughts run as they would. And presently he heard the sound of Bubbles's feet upon the back stairs.

"All serene here," said West.

"All serene there," said Bubbles, and he produced a slip of paper upon which Rose had written:

"Don't come so often. You've been noticed. He'll tell me things before long--or wring my neck."

"She worked her hands some," said Bubbles, and he made letters of the deaf and dumb alphabet upon his fingers. "She said O'Hagan's in the city. They had him to eat with them last night. He's growed a beard, and trained off twenty pounds, so's not to be knowed."

The air of revery had left Harry West. "O'Hagan in the East!" he exclaimed, rather with exhilaration than excitement. "Things are coming to a head."

"Yep," said Bubbles, "and we don't know what things is--"

"Bubbles! Oh, Bubbles!"

The boy disappeared in the direction of the studio.

"Mr. Blizzard has gone," said Barbara. "Ask Mr. West if he will speak to me a moment."

Mr. West would; and he, the athlete, the man of trained poise, actually overturned a chair in his willingness.

"Mr. West," she said, "you know all sorts of things about people, don't you? And if you don't know them, you can find them out, can't you?"

"Sometimes, Miss Barbara."

"I want to know about the man who comes here to pose--not vague things, but facts; who his people were, what turned him against the world."

"You're troubled, Miss Barbara?"

"I am terribly troubled. He has told me a terrible story. But how do I know if it's true or not? If it's true, he ought not to be hounded and hunted, Mr. West; he ought to be pitied."

"Then I'm sure it's not true," West smiled quietly. "What did he tell you?"

"No matter. But will you find out what you can about him?"

"Why, yes, of course. But believe me, it's not his beginnings that are of importance. It's his subsequent achievements and his schemes for the future."

"Another thing," she said, "I'm sure he means no harm where I'm concerned. He has never known that I have a protector within call, and yet his whole attitude toward me has been gentle, humorous, and even chivalrous. I think," and the color came into her cheeks, "that he feels a fatherly sort of affection for me. So thank you for all the trouble you've taken."

"I, too, have reason to think that he means no harm," said West, "and if that is true, I am wasting my time."

There was a look of bitterness in his eyes that was not lost upon Barbara. And she was troubled.

"Of course," she said, "if you _like_ to waste your time--"

He looked her straight in the eyes. "I do," he said, "I love to. No man's life would ever be complete if he didn't waste the best part of it--throw it away on something or other--on an ambition--on an ideal--on a woman."

Barbara returned his glance. "Just what, Mr. West," she said, "is the idea?"

And here, Mr. Harry West might have found the sudden courage to speak out what was in his heart, had he not remembered that to all intents and purposes he had no father, and consequently in the eyes of the great world to which Barbara belonged could not be considered to have any existence.

"Oh," he said, "I was just talking through my hat."

Barbara, who, you may say, had been unconsciously putting out tentacles of affection toward Harry West, at once withdrew them, and said coolly: "So I supposed."

"May I look at the bust?"

"Certainly."

She removed the damp cloths from her work, and Harry found himself looking into the legless man's face. The features at once attracted and repelled him, and these sensations mingled with them feelings of wonder. Some subconscious knowledge told the young man authoritatively that he was looking on a master work. Barbara noticed this, and her heart warmed, and her pride was gratified.

"I'm going to hurt your feelings," she said.

"Mine? Don't. Please don't."

"If you," she said, "devoted the next twenty years of your life to wickedness and vengeful thoughts you would get to look like my friend, Mr. Blizzard."

Now that same thought had occurred, and not for the first time, to Harry West, but he did not care to admit it. So he laughed gently, and said:

"In that case I shall devote the next twenty years of my life to philanthropy and--loving thoughts."

He turned toward her, all smiling. And she avoided his eyes without appearing to do so.

XIV

The next morning Blizzard was fifteen minutes late to his appointment with Barbara. He had sat up all night with O'Hagan, talking energetically, and for once in his life he felt tired. To this feeling was added the fear--almost ridiculous under the circumstances--that Barbara would scold him for being late. Unscrupulous brute that he was, his infatuation for her was humanizing him. And in the whole world he dreaded nothing so much, at this time, as a look of displeasure in a girl's face.

He had left off the threadbare clothes in which he usually went begging, and had attired himself in clean linen and immaculate gray broadcloth. His face was exquisitely shaved; his nails trimmed and clean. And there hung about him a faint odor of violets. In short, the male of the species had begun to change his plumage, as is customary in the spring of the year.

His mouth full of apology, he hurried up the stairs to the studio, only to find that Barbara herself had not yet arrived. Upon the seat of the chair in which he always posed, the legless man perceived an envelope addressed to himself. This contained a short note:

DEAR MR. BLIZZARD:

I can't be at the studio till eleven. Please find somewhere about you the kindness to wait, or at least to come again at that time. You will greatly oblige,

Yours sincerely,

BARBARA FERRIS.

Blizzard read his note three times; it was very friendly. The "Yours sincerely" touched his imagination. Especially the "Yours."

"Yours," he said, "mine," and with a sudden idiocy of passion he crushed the note to his lips. And then, as if with remorse at having been rough with a helpless thing, he smoothed out the crumpled sheet, and placed it, together with its envelope, in that pocket which was nearest to his heart. Then he seated himself on the edge of the model's platform, laid his crutches aside, closed his eyes, and for perhaps five minutes slept, motionless as a statue, except that now and then his ears twitched. At the end of five minutes, he waked, greatly refreshed, and ready, if the need should arise, to sit up the whole of the following night.

There was a sound of a man's steps mounting the stairs. And then a brisk knocking on the studio door.

"Come in," said Blizzard.

Dr. Ferris entered, hesitated, and then closed the door behind him.

"You'll pardon me," said Blizzard coolly, "if I don't get up?"

"Yes--yes," said Dr. Ferris, and in his handsome eyes was a look of pain and pity.

"It isn't easy for me to get up," Blizzard continued in the same cool, emotionless voice, "you can see for yourself. I can't spring to my feet--like other men. Do you know who I am?"

"Yes," said Dr. Ferris, "I'm afraid I do. But they told me the name of the man who has been posing for Miss Ferris was Blizzard. Your name--"

"My name," said Blizzard, "is forgotten."

Dr. Ferris bowed gravely. "Quite so, Mr. Blizzard," he said.

"Miss Barbara," said Blizzard, watching closely the effect upon the older man of the familiarity, "will not be here till eleven. And as you and I cannot possibly have anything pleasant to say to each other, and as you, although the older man, are far better off than I am for means of locomotion, and as even _thinking_ of you has something the effect upon my stomach that mustard and warm water would have--"

"If you have any mercy in your heart," said Dr. Ferris, his mouth distorted with emotion, "don't talk to me that way. What made a hell of your life has made a hell of mine."

The look of cold hatred in Blizzard's face changed at once to curiosity. "Really?" he said; "you mean that?"

"It is the truth."

Blizzard considered, and then shook his head. "No," he said, "it couldn't be the same. It may have stretched you on the hot grid now and then, but between times of remorse you've had long, long stretches of success and happiness. I haven't. I have burned in hell fires from that day to this."

"I told you on that day," said the surgeon, "that if there was ever anything under heaven that I could do for you, I would do it. You've never called upon me for anything--money--or service."

"I've not forgotten," said Blizzard, "and some day I may hold you to your word. Right here and now I will ask something of you--an absolutely truthful answer to a question. Do you hate me?"

Dr. Ferris turned the question over in his conscience, and presently said: "I am sorry. Yes."

"Thank you," said Blizzard, who was not in the least disturbed. "I've often wondered, and even, putting a hypothetical case, thrashed the matter out with my friends. You _would_ hate me. It's thoroughly human. With me, for instance--I feel non-committal about a man. I decide to injure him. I do so. _And then_ I hate him. Now, if you have any message for Miss Barbara--or perhaps you came to see the bust. I will call Bubbles. He and Miss Barbara are the only persons allowed to touch the cloths. I think she'd let me uncover the thing, but, as you and I know so well, I am not tall enough."

"My business with my daughter," said Dr. Ferris, "concerned you."

Blizzard chuckled. "Her friends," said he, "have been at you to interfere. They have persuaded you that her model should be _persona non grata_ in the best studios. They have, in short, begged you to take me by the scruff of the neck and kick me out into the gutter where I belong. Well, kick me. You know as well as I do, that I can't kick back."

"You hurt me very much," said Dr. Ferris simply, "if that is any pleasure to you."

"It is," said Blizzard.

"What your intuition has told you," continued Barbara's father, "is the truth. I had made up my mind to interfere."

"Well, why should you?"

"I have heard terrible things about you, Mr. Blizzard."

"That I have done things which the world regards as terrible is true," returned the legless man imperturbably. "What of it? Haven't you?"

Dr. Ferris turned away and slowly paced the length of the studio and back. "I owe you," he then said, "anything you choose to ask. But that is not the whole of my obligation to this world as I see it."

"You will oblige me," said Blizzard, "by spitting out the moral homily into which you are trying to get your teeth. It is very simple. I do not wish to be sent away. I ask you not to send me. If your statement that you owe me anything I choose to ask amounts to two pins' worth, I think that I shall continue to pose for your daughter as long as she needs me."

"Oh, I'm quite helpless," said Dr. Ferris; "I realize that."

"Spoken like a man," said Blizzard. "And to show that my nature isn't entirely cruel, I'll tell you for your comfort that in Miss Barbara's presence the bad man is a very decent sort. We are almost friends, Doctor, she and I. She talks to me as if I were her equal. As for me, in this studio I have learned the habit of innocent thought. Only yesterday I took pleasure in the idea that in the world there are birds, and flowers, and green fields."

The beggar's eyes glittered with a sardonic look. He watched the surgeon as a tiger might watch a stag. There was quite a long silence. Dr. Ferris broke it.

"For God's sake," he said with great energy, "tell me one truth. Is it part of your scheme of life to revenge yourself on me through my daughter?"

Blizzard raised a soothing hand. "Dr. Ferris," he said, "what would cause you suffering would cause her suffering. So, you see, I am tied hand and--Pardon me! I shouldn't now think of hurting you through her unless it might be for her own happiness."

"I don't understand."

"Then you don't understand the hearts of women. Then you know nothing of the heights to which even fallen men can raise their eyes."

"What are you telling me?"

"Very little--very much. Perhaps I love your daughter."

Horror and loathing swept into the surgeon's eyes, but he controlled himself. "Mr. Blizzard," said he presently, "I find it hard to take you seriously. _Are_ you joking? Whether you are or not, the thing is a joke. If you really care for my daughter, I am very, very sorry for you. I can't say more. If nothing worse threatens her than the possibility of her heart being touched by you, there is no need for me to be anxious about her. As for telling her the truth about you and me, why not?"

"_You_ tell her."

"I will. To-night"

"Won't you be playing into my hands?"

"No," said the surgeon curtly, "she has too much common-sense."

"But you won't tell her what I've said?" The beggar was suddenly anxious.

"No," and Dr. Ferris smiled, "I may safely leave that to you."

"Damnation," cried Blizzard, "you are laughing at me."

Dr. Ferris's face became serious at once. "God forbid that!" he said. "If you have spoken sincerely I feel only sorrow for you and pity--more sorrow and pity for you even than I ever felt before."

"S-s-s-s-t," exclaimed the beggar, and his ears twitched. "She's coming."

"I shall wait," said Dr. Ferris, "and take her uptown, when she has finished working."

"Well," said Blizzard, with a kind of humorous resignation, "I'd kick you out if I could; but I can't." And he added: "You haven't got an extra pair of legs about you, have you?"

"Why!" said Barbara when she saw her father. "Art _is_ looking up. _You_ in a studio!"

Secretly his presence pleased her immensely. She had always hoped that some day he would take enough interest in her work to come to see it uninvited. And she now felt that this had happened. And she thanked Blizzard with sincerity for having waited.

"Mr. Blizzard and I," she told her father, "are doing a bust. And whatever anybody else thinks, we think it's an affair of great importance. Mr. Blizzard even gives me his time and his judgment for nothing."

"Well," Dr. Ferris smiled, "I am willing to give you the latter, on the same terms. May I see what you've done?"

Barbara removed the cloths from the bust, and so life-like and tragic was the face which suddenly confronted him that Dr. Ferris, instead of stepping forward to examine it closely, stepped backward as if he had been struck. And then:

"My dear," he said gravely, "the thing's alive."

He looked from the bust to his daughter, and felt as if he was meeting some very gifted and important person for the first time. Barbara laughed for sheer pleasure.

"What do you think of it?"

"I will buy it as it stands," said her father, "on your own terms."

"If you think it's good now," said Blizzard quietly, "wait till it's finished."

"If I had done it," said Dr. Ferris, "I wouldn't dare touch it."

"Yes, you would," said Barbara, "if you knew that you could make it better. It's still a beginning."

"When do you expect to finish?"

"I'm going to keep on working until I know that I've done the best I can. We may be months on it."

Blizzard smiled secretly, and Dr. Ferris managed to conceal his annoyance.

"I wish, my dear," he said, "that I had taken you more seriously in the beginning. But it is not too late to get some advantage by studying in Paris and Rome."

"I don't believe it's ever too late for that," said Barbara, "and of course I've always been crazy for the chance, but knowing how you felt--"

"Say the word," said her father, "and you shall go to-morrow."

Blizzard's face was like stone; he felt that his high hopes were on a more precarious footing than ever. If she had the whim, Barbara would go abroad, far beyond the reach of even his long arms.

"You could finish your bust any time," said Dr. Ferris persuasively.

But Barbara shook her head with complete decision. "A bird in the hand," she said, "is worth two in the bush. And--I hope I'm wrong--but I have the conviction that this head is going to be the best thing I shall ever do. I can look at it quite impersonally, because half the time it seems to model itself. _I_ think it's going to be good. If it is good, it will be one of those lucky series of accidents that sometimes happen to undeserving but lucky people."

Dr. Ferris sighed inwardly, but the expression of his face did not change. "Do you mind if I stay?" he asked. "I think it's time I knew what you look like when you are at work, don't you?"

"_High_ time!" exclaimed Barbara. "I'll just get into my apron." She went into the next room and closed the door.

"Your innocents abroad," said the legless man, "wasn't a success." His face was a jeer.

XV

"Barbara," said her father when they had finished dinner, "I made a threat this morning, and I'm going to keep it. If you have no especial objection, will you come into the library?"

Her face was radiant; he had been praising her work for the tenth time. "It sounds," she said, "as if I was going to be whipped. That wasn't what you threatened to do, was it?"

"No," said he. "_I'm_ to be punished. I'm going to tell you about a mistake of judgment I once made. But not as a warning, or a moral lesson--merely, my dear, that you and I may learn to know each other better. First, though, I want to talk to you about your model."

"He's rather fascinating, don't you think?"