Part 10

He stood stroking his chin, undecided. She profited by the moment’s indecision to flit swiftly out of the ghostly arcade toward the avenue. He did not move purposely until he had seen her round the corner, where she gave a hasty backward glance to assure herself that she was not followed. Then, making up his mind suddenly, he went down the arcade and out onto the sidewalk, for spying was not in his nature. She was at the door of a closed touring car; some one was giving her a hand from within, and on the curb two men were standing. She saw O’Leary start angrily toward them, and said something in peremptory command, and before he could come rushing up, the Irish anger in him awaking at the suspicion of foul play, they had jumped in after her and the car had rushed away through the muddy slush.

Remembering the shadow he had seen on the second floor, he hastened back. He made a thorough inspection of the halls without finding any one in these old corridors given over to business offices. Then he went directly to Drinkwater’s room and rapped sharply on the glowing glass. In a moment, the lawyer half opened the door, and seeing O’Leary there, stood scowling at him.

“What were you doing down on the second floor just now?” said O’Leary directly.

“Second floor? You’re crazy!” said Drinkwater, surlily.

“You were down there five minutes ago.”

“I was not, and I don’t know what business it is of yours anyway,” said the lawyer, catching his breath.

“Drinkwater, I believe you’re lying,” said O’Leary, with a twitching of his hands that made the other draw back abruptly. “If you’ve got any dirty scheme in your head--keep out of it, do you understand?”

“Is that all?” said the Portuguese, with a sneer.

O’Leary turned without answer and went down the hall.

“Dangerfield’s been asking after you,” said Flick. “Well, what?”

King O’Leary made a sign to signify that he would give his news later, and went to the next room.

Dangerfield jumped up at his entrance and came forward in a positive frenzy, crying:

“Well, what did you see--who was there?”

Behind him the straight, slender figure of Inga was standing. She shook her head hastily and placed her finger across her lips in warning.

“Why, no one at all,” said O’Leary heartily.

“No one?” said Dangerfield, and he came up close to him and looked into his face like a puzzled child. “You say, no one?”

“I told you that there was no reason to be excited,” said Inga, in a strangely calming voice.

“How do you know there was no one?” he said, dissatisfied. “Did you see who was outside? Did you go to the car,--all the way?”

“Yes, indeed; and the bigger fool I,” said O’Leary, who comprehended that the man was in no condition to hear what he had seen.

“But some one was there--in the car--waiting?” said Dangerfield, insisting. “A square-set man, about my height, cropped mustache--you saw him--you----”

Inga had advanced to his side; now she laid her hand on his arm and said with a smile:

“Why, Mr. Dangerfield, didn’t you hear what he said? There was no one there?”

“No one?” said Dangerfield, frowning and looking back at O’Leary with a perplexed stare.

“No one at all, and no one waiting,” said O’Leary glibly.

“Then why didn’t you want me to go down?” he said abruptly, turning on her.

“You would only have gone on arguing,” she said.

His back was turned a moment, as he ran his hand over his head and walked away. Inga’s eyes went quickly to King O’Leary. He nodded and held up three fingers.

Dangerfield had sat down at the spacious Florentine table and taken up two packs of cards. Inga glanced at him, and going over to the sideboard, lit two candles and placed them on either side of him. He looked up, smiled, and patted her hand, quite unconscious of O’Leary’s presence. Then he seemed to forget them both in the absorption of the solitaire, laying out the cards with minute pains, as though this assembled order rested his fluttering mind. She made a sign to King O’Leary and went to the door. Instantly Dangerfield looked up.

“Where are you going?” he said querulously.

She smiled.

“It’s all right; I’m coming back.”

Outside, O’Leary told her the results of the investigation, saying:

“Hadn’t he ought to know?”

She considered thoughtfully.

“Do you think they were there on purpose?”

“Don’t know--hard to tell,” he said, frowning. “It was her actions that made me suspicious. Well, oughtn’t we to put him wise?”

“I’ll tell him,” she said, nodding; “at least, I’ll mention it so he’ll be on his guard. Do you think--that is, if there is anything wrong--that there will be any danger to-night?”

“Can’t tell,” he said thoughtfully. “Do you want me to stay with him?”

She shook her head.

“If anything happens, I’ll come for you. It’s all right; I know how to handle him.”

“Say?”

“What?”

He looked down at her a moment, while, a little puzzled, she stood facing him, wondering.

“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?” he said abruptly.

She understood at once, but she waited some time before answering, as though the question were still undecided in her own mind.

“He needs me,” she said, at length, looking up into his eager eyes. Then she went back to the studio for the long night’s vigil.

XIV

One unlooked-for result of the evening’s happenings was that O’Leary’s antagonism to Dangerfield seemed completely to disappear. Indeed, he seemed now to share Inga’s devotion--probably for no other reason than that Dangerfield, in a moment of perplexity, had called him to his assistance.

The effect on Dangerfield was marked. He sobered up all at once, as though concentrated on some fixed purpose. Yet the restless note remained--if anything, it was aggravated. There was always about him, even in the midst of conversation, the effect of listening for some distant warning sound. Another thing they noticed was that he did not leave the arcade or indeed the sixth floor, having his meals sent in by Sassafras. When O’Leary went down to see him the second night, he had to name himself in a loud voice before the door was opened cautiously, while once inside, he found quite a system of bars and bolts had been installed; and by this he divined that Inga had found a means to warn him.

The change in Dangerfield brought a more pliable mood, of which the girl availed herself to amuse his mind with the final arrangement of the studio. Curiously enough, though it was characteristic of his disconnected actions, he made but one reference, and that an indirect one, to the abrupt interruption of the woman, whoever she might have been in his other life. It was the second afternoon, and they were engaged in hanging pictures and placing the bric-à-brac. For long periods he was keen and interested, deeply enjoying her enthusiasm; then, all at once, there came a spell of moody aloofness in which he forgot her, roving about the room with a nervous, jerky snapping of his fingers, talking to himself. Once he stopped with his ear trained to some outer noise and went abruptly to the door for a suspicious survey. That ended, he closed it carefully and drew each bolt, trying the strength of the door.

“A couple of bars,” he said, as though dissatisfied; “that’s what it needs.”

He came back, and, seemingly struck with her presence, went up to her and laid one of his big hands on her shoulder.

“You think this all very queer, don’t you?”

“It is no business of mine,” she said.

“How do I know you’re not in their game--you, too?” he said abruptly, and a startled leap of suspicion came into his yellow-green eyes that made them almost uncanny. “By George, that would be clever!”

“Don’t get excited, Mr. Dangerfield,” she said; and whether consciously or unconsciously, her voice took on that dreamy, quiet tone--like the bubbling of waters along hidden brooks--that seemed to exercise a peculiar quieting effect upon him.

“No, no; that’s crazy,” he said. Then he frowned suddenly. “Well, it will all come out soon--the truth--as much as people ever get of the truth.”

“Where do you want to hang this?”

He stopped and came back, studying a long time the canvas she held up, a study of sunlight through the foliage that flung spattered shadows across a group of urchins.

“Like that?” he said suddenly.

“I like it the best.”

“You do?”

She smiled and nodded.

“I thought that a great picture when I painted it--where was it? Yes, at Étretat,” he said moodily. “Wonder how good it really is? So you like it best, do you?”

“It’s so sure and daring; and there’s something that draws you into it.”

“Why, that’s good criticism,” he said, pleased. “Yes, that’s youth--when you don’t know how difficult the thing is. That’s why sometimes you succeed in doing it--Well, we’ll give it the place of honor. Wish the sun shone like that nowadays.”

“You haven’t taken off the signature,” she said, pointing to the lower corner. “Do you want to?”

“That’s queer! Thought I’d cleaned them all up,” he said, without appearing to notice the knowledge her remark implied.

He took a palette-knife and carefully shaved away the telltale strokes.

When they had hung the picture, he seemed to come out of his mental eclipse as though reinvigorated, and turned to her quite normally.

“Why, you must be tired!” he said, with a sudden contrition. “What a brute I am! Kept you up all night, too.”

She shook her head and smiled.

“I like this--I like changing something bare and empty into something beautiful and fine.”

“Now, just what do you mean by that?” he said, with an odd smile; but, seeing by her expression that she had meant nothing more than the words implied, he laughed to himself and added thoughtfully, with some personal show of interest, as he looked into her quiet eyes:

“Queer--that you should happen to be just over there!”

“Fate, isn’t it?” she said; and, for once, their rôles were reversed--the man studying her as she went into a revery, her lips a little drawn, looking far down the long-storied lanes of the tapestry.

“That’s what it all is,” he said, watching her with more curiosity than he had shown--“whether you turn to the left or the right at a certain moment. ‘Life is a jest, and all things show it.’ Why, Inga, if a gust of wind hadn’t blown my hat off at the right--” he corrected himself--“no, the wrong moment, would I be here? A gust of wind--and that’s the cause, the real cause of it all. How ridiculous!”

Then all at once, after they had completed their task and the studio stood about them clothed in dark greens and mellow golden rugs, with rich notes of carved furniture and glowing copper in subduing shadows, and great Spanish jars in streaked gray and green in massive restfulness, he became quite furious, as though suddenly realizing what her patience had accomplished.

“You made me do it, and I didn’t want to! You made me!” he said, crossing his arms and looking so moodily ferocious that she began to smile. He continued to scowl at her without answering her mood. “Lots of good it will do,” he said curtly, with a dark look.

“It kills time,” she said quietly.

“Well, yes; anything for that. Thank God for anything that will do that,” he admitted. “But as for anything else--” and he began to laugh in a low tone to himself at something that had struck his imagination. “All right, then, suppose we have tea here.”

“That would be nice.”

“Ask the others in,” he said restlessly.

She looked up, genuinely surprised, wondering if she had understood him.

“The men next door?”

“The girls, too--all of them. Fix the tea--wait--I’ll ask them in myself.”

Accustomed as she was to his change of moods, this inconsistency amazed her. However, she said nothing, and busied herself at the tea-table. At the door he stopped and came back.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he said tentatively.

“I? Mind what?”

“The others coming in--perhaps you’d rather not. I thought when I spoke, you looked as though--”

“No; on the contrary, I think that’s what you ought to do. It will amuse you.”

“Yes, yes; that’s what I want.”

He nodded, and went to the next studio, where he knocked.

“Who the devil is that?” cried the angry voice of King O’Leary.

“It’s I, Dangerfield.”

Instantly the room was filled with laughter, and the door was presently opened by Tootles, hair rumpled, paint-brush in his teeth, palette in hand, sunk in enormous overalls streaked and speckled with every conceivable combination of colors.

“Come in or shut the door,” cried O’Leary, from across the screen. “This costume was never meant for January in New York.”

“What is it?” said Dangerfield in surprise.

“I am engaged on a monumental masterpiece,” said Tootles proudly. “Step in, brother artist, and give me your expert advice.”

XV

Against the heroic proportions of the back drop, which represented a peculiarly violent sunset over the cañons of Colorado, was a group in such incongruous attire that Dangerfield, accustomed as he was to the eccentricities of the studio, halted in astonishment. King O’Leary, crowned with a battered helmet and draped in a white sheet to represent a toga, was in an attitude of deferential amazement before Flick, who occupied the center of the tableau in Tootles’ dress suit, which shrunk below the elbows and positively refused to descend to the ankles. To the left, Sassafras, stripped to the waist, with the doctored pelt of the Harlem bear flung over one shoulder, and a wig of pendent black horsehair, was on one knee, rolling his eyes upward in ecstatic tribute. Behind appeared Mr. Cornelius in the most Elizabethan of frilled coats and the most Victorian of trousers, while Pansy, in powdered wig and black-silk knee-breeches, was the most charming of beaux.

“Do you seize the idea?” said Tootles proudly, his head on one side in paternal affection for the group which had sprung Minerva-wise from his brain.

Dangerfield resorted hastily to his pocket-handkerchief and surreptitiously flicked away a tear of agony, which all his self-control could not keep down.

“It’s only a preliminary sketch,” said Tootles hastily, “for my monumental decoration, ‘The Ages Contemplating the Apotheosis of the Well-dressed Man.’”

“There’s millions in it,” said Flick, who forgot himself to the extent of raising one arm, with the result that a ripping sound was heard.

“Holy cats! Drop that arm!” exclaimed Tootles, who rushed to the rescue of the pride of the wardrobe.

During this diversion, Dangerfield was able to recover himself sufficiently to present a grave mask.

“What does Sassafras represent?” he asked, stroking his chin.

“Sassafras is primitive man,” said Tootles, assuming the attitude of a lecturer. “O’Leary represents Rome--Cæsar or some other classic chap, you know. The baron is the Spirit of the Middle Ages, and Pansy is the celebrated Beau Brummel. It’s symbolic, of course.”

“And Wilder is the Apotheosis of the Well-dressed Man?” said Dangerfield gravely, contemplating the thin limbs, which seemed to have sprouted from the legs and arms of Wimpfheimer & Goldfinch’s glorified dress suit.

“No, no,” said Tootles hastily; “Flick is only a clothes-horse for the time being.”

Flick objected strongly to this characterization, and while his feelings were being soothed, Dangerfield turned the easel and inspected the canvas.

“I’m afraid I’m in a terrible mix,” said Tootles, scratching his head and looking in despair at the canvas, which had certain marked resemblances to the first days of Creation, when the earth and the waters were still mingled.

“How are you going at it?” said Dangerfield, peering into the confusion of colors.

“Diving in, head foremost, I guess,” said Tootles, rather discouraged.

“Have you made any sketches, charcoal sketches?”

“Oh, yes; dozens.”

He returned with heaped-up arms.

Dangerfield sorted them rapidly, humming to himself. Bits of drawing caught his attention, a free, felicitous line here and there evoking an approving grunt.

“Not so bad--this is more like it--too worked over--this means something--good! But you must get your composition first, my boy.”

“I know that,” said Tootles ruefully; “but then, I’m new to decoration, you see.”

“Harder than you thought, eh?”

Tootles nodded darkly.

“Here, give me a canvas,” said Dangerfield, selecting a charcoal; and then, unable to hold in any longer, he burst into a shout and began to rock back and forth, convulsed with laughter. This cleared the atmosphere and brought them all down from the rarified heights to a working basis.

When Inga, anxious at his continued absence, came in a moment later, she found Dangerfield chuckling to himself, oblivious to everything but the joy of the moment, rearranging the group, as excited as though he were launched on a masterpiece.

“The first point is the Well-dressed Man,” he began, with splendid gravity. “We must place him in a way to dominate everything else--a pedestal, or better still, a throne--no, no; he mustn’t be sitting.”

“The cut of the trousers is most important,” said Flick, who had already formed ambitious plans for the marketing.

“Right--you must stand on an elevation, a flight of steps, perhaps. A box on the model-stand will do for the moment. Now we center it in a triangle, Sassafras at the left, reclining, one leg out, back to us--hold that, good line--other side, what?--the Sphinx--Adam and the Sphinx--not a bad idea!”

“Do you want me full-face or side view?” said Flick, while Sassafras took his pose and King O’Leary was draped in a semi-recumbent position to fill the lower right half.

“Thought of taking him three-quarters, with hat and gloves resting on his cane in front--see, like this!” said Tootles meekly.

“Full-front is better for commercial purposes,” said Flick.

“How so?”

“When they use it for magazine and newspaper ads., they can print ‘$47.50’ over the shirt-front. That would be very effective.”

“Vandal!” said Tootles indignantly. “This is intended for mural decoration only--like something dignified and inspiring--over a bar.”

“Still, if the dress suit is to be held up as the ultimate expression of grace,” said Dangerfield, looking over at Inga, “it ought to be full-front.”

“Absolutely,” said King O’Leary, convinced.

“But I want to get the high hat in, somehow,” said Tootles doubtfully. “Beside, it gives us two chances to sell it. I can be practical also.”

“Wait.” Dangerfield ran over the canvas and began hurriedly to draw in the three figures as determined upon. Then he burst into renewed peals of laughter, waving them back as they pressed forward curiously to watch his progress.

“There!” He gave them a signal, and stood off grinning, his head on one side, contemplatively, as they crowded about the composition.

Above the idealized figure of the Well-dressed Man, flanked in servile admiration by the Sphinx and Primitive Man, an Angel of Victory, floating down, after the uncomfortable manner of angels of Victory, was triumphantly blowing on a trumpet sustained by one hand, while with the other she prepared to crown the Modern Man, not with a wreath but with an immaculate silk hat, which was held just over his brow. The face of the Well-dressed Man likewise expressed the serene flush that heroes must show at such monumental moments.

“Cracky!” said O’Leary, gazing in awe.

“Wimpfheimer will weep for joy,” said Flick, delighted.

Tootles gazed at Dangerfield as the pickets of the Grand Army used to come to startled salute at the sudden apparition of the Little Corporal.

“You must sign it, too,” he said, in a burst of fairness.

“It’ll be a riot,” said Flick, seeing visions of a golden shower. “We’ll work it up until we have the whole clothes-aristocracy fighting each other for it.”

“That’s a beginning,” said Dangerfield, who enjoyed the satire more than he dared show. “Beau Brummel can be about left center, examining him through a lorgnon, or better, indicating him to a belle in a powdered wig.”

“You do think there ought to be woman-interest?” said Tootles.

“Sure! Appeal to the women--get the women’s periodicals,” said Flick.

“I think so,” said Dangerfield, setting his lips. “Gives us a better chance at color. But start on this; that will come later.”

When he had returned to the studio, he took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes, which were wet with repressed emotion. Inga, delighted to see him in this mood, stood smiling.

“It’s the most wonderful take-off,” he said, at last, when he could get breath. “You don’t understand. I have made it a caricature of a superhuman ass I know--Tomlinson--who thinks he can decorate. It’ll be the death of him when it comes out.”

“You had a lot of fun directing them,” she said, glad to find even this expedient to interest him.

The boisterous mood left him.

“Lucky devils,” he said, with the smile still lingering about the corners of his mouth. “Wonder if they know their luck?” An expression of great kindness came to soften his face, as he stood there reflecting, which held her eyes and brought a smile of tenderness to them too. For him, the darkling walls, the strident, contending city no longer existed, the hard barriers of the present rolling away before the rise of remembered scenes--glorious attics and tables set with the appetite of youth.

“Reminds me of the time when we painted socks on Quinny’s legs so that he could go out and call on a countess. What rackets we used to cut up then! And weren’t we sure of the future! Well, that was something--to believe, even for a few years. The young are all geniuses. Why, Inga, I used to walk to the top of Montmartre just to look down over Paris and say to myself, ‘Some day, all that, glittering below there, will know who I am!’” He shook his head, and added in a lower voice: “I used to think, in those days, I was going to be a great man.”

“You are.” She came to the side of the armchair into which he had sunk, and stood with her hand upon his arm.

“What?” he said, startled from his revery by the sound of her voice.

“You have the big thing in you!” she said insistently. “I knew it from the first moment.”

He shook his head again.

“No; there are some who think I had--but I know better, I know--I know!” he said, with a rising emphasis. “That’s the terrible time in the life of an artist, when he realizes he can go so far--and no farther. That’s when he pays for all the triumphs others envy.”

“I won’t have it so,” she said, with such a note of fury in her voice that it stopped him, and he looked at her eagerly, as though longing to be convinced. She was on the arm of his chair, leaning toward him, serious and wilful. Their glances met, and then gradually the seriousness of her look melted into a smile--a flash of white teeth and the slender oval face suffused with a light that seemed to envelop and warm him. He forgot what he had been saying, watching her, the craving for beauty in his soul fed by the tenderness and the youth of her eyes. He laid his hand over hers and stared into her face with that wondering, baffled look of his. Then his mind slipped away to the novelty of the orderly, harmonious room.

“You have made a spot for dreams here,” he said, at length.

“I have only just begun,” she said confidently.

“Don’t!” he said, in a low voice, understanding her. “It’s not fair to you; it cannot be done.”

She smiled again, a smile that seemed to draw him up into her arms like a tired child, and laid her hand gently over his forehead.

“We shall see.”

“Good heavens! Haven’t you anything better to do in life,” he said, all at once, “than to believe in derelicts?”

She did not answer for a moment, looking beyond him with a lost glance which he had noticed once or twice before. Then she answered slowly.

“But that--that makes me happy--to give.”

“Inga, do I remind you of any one?” he said, with a suddenness that startled her.

“Why do you say that?” she said, drawing away and frowning.