Part 20

The Arcade dwellers, under Inga’s deft guidance, flocked in to the studio, surrounding Dangerfield with youth, movement, and bubbling spirits, and if there were times when he sat apart listlessly, he was always grateful to the spirit of comradeship which they flung about him as a protecting mantle. He made frequent visits to the adjoining studio, emerging uproariously after a delighted contemplation of Tootles’ work of art. He even visited Schneibel’s home galleries, and stood in awe before the rainbows descending into the valleys, the showers draping Roman temples, and the mechanical cows which seemed to be skating over slippery green meadows. So salutary were these visits, that, at times, when his own work lagged or a fit of moroseness was impending, he would look up grimly and say:

“The blue devils are around, Inga. Let’s go down to Schneibel’s and cheer up.”

Meanwhile, Millie Brewster had made her début at the Gloria, frantically applauded by the assembled Arcadians. The affair had verged perilously close to a disaster, for the girl, suddenly brought before the footlights with the many-headed monster stirring beyond, had faltered and sung false. Already there were titters and murmurs in the audience when O’Leary saved the day by plumping out savagely:

“Millie, you can do better than that! Now do it!”

In her astonishment, the girl forgot herself. She looked down at O’Leary and beheld his face, that had always looked upon her with kindness, so set in fierce disapproval that straight away, all else forgot, she began to sing like an angel, with the result that the audience, always sensitive to dramatic changes, burst into applause. But the work ended, no further engagements resulted, the truth being that, though she had a certain girlish charm and a pleasant though thin voice, she was completely lost in front of the footlights.

On top of this came the announcement of Myrtle Popper’s engagement to Mr. Pomello, which sent the floor into a fever of excitement. To the surprise of every one, Dangerfield offered his studio for the ceremony and asked the privilege of providing the supper. Schneibel, not to be outdone, assumed the responsibility of Mr. Pomello’s farewell to bachelordom, which was to be conducted on certain original lines of his own. Dangerfield threw himself into the spirit of the celebration with such zest that his good spirits reflected themselves throughout the hall, and everything seemed now to be fair sailing when a new complication arose.

XXX

For the last weeks, Inga had been aware of a change in Dangerfield. His moments of abstraction, of inner brooding, grew less frequent. Instead, she found him with his eyes set profoundly on her, until she became uncomfortably conscious of this increasing curiosity. At times in his work, he would begin singing to himself snatches of old French songs, and occasionally, when he was pleased with what he was doing, he would break out full-voiced into the marching-chant of his student days.

_C’est les quatz’ arts, C’est les quatz’ arts, C’est les quatz’ arts qui passent; C’est les quatz’ arts passés._

By the wall were the first two drawings he had made, and at the end of the afternoon’s sketching, he would take each new canvas and compare it with the two that now represented to him the parting of the ways. If it passed the inspection, he would nod contentedly, trill out a gay refrain, and replace it on the easel for further study. But occasionally, when old habits tricked him back to the easy, graceful, superficial method, he would burst into a roar of anger and bring the offending canvas to Inga, crying:

“_Nom d’un pipe_; here I go again! Inga--quick; execute justice!”

And Inga, laughing, with a flash of green stockings, would send her pointed slipper through the canvas. Sometimes she would protest at the judgment, but he would remain obdurate.

“Not half bad, perhaps--but that’s not what I want. No more mawkishness, no more sentimentality. I know now what I want. Come on; one, two, three!” Then, as the little foot reluctantly tore through the canvas, he would glance down admiringly and say, “And that’s a better fate than it deserves!”

Two and three days in succession this execution would take place and then there would be sure to be long periods of restless depression, sometimes ending in a wild spree with the consequent grim reaction. But gradually these backslidings grew less frequent, as his feverish love of work increased with his growing confidence. The mornings were spent in rigorous drawing, Madame Probasco, Sassafras, Schneibel, uncle Paul of the pawn shop, every model of strong and unusual picturesqueness being impressed into service, again and again, until the canvas yielded to his satisfaction the quality of penetrating analysis he sought. Tootles’ easel made the third in these mornings of merciless criticism, and, under Dangerfield’s stern guidance, the young fellow began to reflect some of the enthusiasm of the master and to make genuine progress. In the afternoon, Dangerfield returned to the portrait of Mr. Cornelius, always grumbling, always dissatisfied.

With Inga came a more docile mood. In fact, it seemed to amuse him to say:

“Well, young lady, what are your commands for the day?”

He began to talk to her, to discuss seriously as he did with “the baron.” In truth, he was now alertly curious. What did she understand; what had she read, seen, and experienced? He recalled certain criticisms which had come unexpectedly from her lips, and wondered from what source she had acquired such views. Between them, it was agreed that there should be no recalling of the past, but the very embargo whetted his appetite. He remembered darkly the sequences of his midnight wandering through the city with Inga; yet enough remained to suggest sides of her life that seemed incongruous with the present calm routine. He knew, also, from the gossip of the Arcade that there had been another, Champeno, his predecessor in the studio, who had dropped out in disaster; but to what extent he had come into her life, whether profoundly or only as an agreeable acquaintance, he could not divine. He recalled the strange feeling which had come to him in the first days that there was a third in the studio, a figment of the memory which seemed to rise before the girl’s eyes when she came to him in his hours of weakness; and, remembering this, often as he studied her, he wondered, yes, even with a sense of irritation, a restless beginning of jealousy. So marked was his contemplation, that Inga said to him one afternoon:

“Why do you look at me so?”

“I’m thinking, wondering many things about you, Inga,” he said.

She looked into his eyes swiftly a moment and then turned hurriedly away, busying herself with the stowing of her easel, for the light had died out in the overcast sky of April showers, and the afternoon’s work was over.

“Suppose we wander up into Harlem, where the new Jewish quarter might give us some types, and try our luck for dinner,” he said, watching the lightness of her movements, the grace of her pliant back as she stooped, the flitting note of the green stockings.

“It’s showery,” she said doubtfully.

“All the better fun, tramping in the rain.”

“Want me to get ready?”

“Not yet--come here!”

He came back, drying his hands, still in his loose working-costume, a serious light in his eyes.

“Do you know that was a good idea you gave me over in that water-front restaurant that day--about getting down to realities, expressing the world of the masses,” he said gravely. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it.”

“Oh, I do mean it!” she said, her face lighting up with the rare enthusiasm that gave it the touch of animation it needed to make it bewildering to his eyes. “No one seems to paint New York--to look for what he can find here. They’re all painting and sculpturing as others used to do hundreds of years ago.”

“Inventing and not interpreting,” he said, nodding.

“Yes; that’s it--you express it better than I can. But that’s what I mean--an artist ought to interpret all he sees around him, express his time, its manners, its customs, the joy and the misery of the streets. It’s not only that, but when he does that, when he lives with the people, he can’t lose his enthusiasm.”

“And if he does the other thing, gets into society, society only comes to prey upon him, to exhaust him, to waste his energies and corrupt his imagination--that’s what you mean?”

She nodded.

“Just that!”

“Inga, you’re right,” he said abruptly. “That’s the trouble with us all over here. We don’t keep to ourselves; we aren’t savage enough. Our aim, after all, is the same as the business _parvenu_; we want to do the things others do at the top--what we call the top! No; it’s wrong, all wrong. Art was not produced like that in the great days. Artists should live to themselves--yes, be savage about it. The two things can’t mingle--don’t I know it!”

“Mr. Dan,” she said, her face aglow, “don’t you see that you have got rid of all that?”

He was silent, moody. Then he placed his hand on her shoulders with a smile.

“Inga, I believe you’re going to win,” he said slowly. She smiled and, looking at him, nodded confidently.

“Lucky you got hold of me when you did,” he said, in a burst of confidence. “Something else was getting a pretty tight grip on me--might have been too late soon.” How completely the longing still awoke in him at times, he did not tell her. His mind went back to the thoughts she had just expressed, and he said, “You know, your ideas surprise me.”

“How so?”

“Wonder where you got them. After all, though, that’s human nature, woman nature,” he said, with a reflective smile, “to take knowledge from one man to help another.”

“What do you mean?” she said, drawing back.

“You’ve heard others say those things, I suppose,” he said. “What’s his name, the young fellow who was here before? Champeno, that’s it. I suppose when you straighten me out, you’ll go on to the next with what I’ve taught you.”

The question, which came with the swiftness of a sword-thrust, and the quick concentration of his glance visibly upset her, so much so that he hastened to say:

“Why, there’s nothing wrong in my saying that, is there?”

She frowned and finally said: “But I don’t see what reason you have for thinking such things.”

“I’m frankly curious about you, Inga,” he said abruptly.

She turned away, plainly disconcerted. “I don’t like to talk about myself.”

“You don’t remember some of the things you said to me that night.”

“What?” she asked steadily.

“The time we passed the child leading the drunkard, and you said it brought back memories.”

“I didn’t think you remembered,” she said slowly.

“And at Costello’s--Costello’s greeting you.”

“What is there in that?” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Why, nothing, of course, except--well, I don’t like to think of your being out with other men--I suppose that’s it.” She opened her eyes in such astonishment that he added point blank: “No; I don’t like the thought--just jealousy, that’s all.”

She drew back and her face flushed red, but before he could go further, Tootles came down the hall.

* * * * *

The next afternoon Mr. Cornelius was unable to come for a sitting and Dangerfield was in high dudgeon, for Madame Probasco and O’Leary were away and Sassafras fixed to the elevator.

“You wanted to sketch the oyster-man behind his bar,” said Inga, referring to a picturesque bit of human nature which had caught his fancy the night before. “Why not take this afternoon?”

“I wanted to paint,” he said, like a spoiled child.

“Am I ugly enough to suit you?” she said, with a bit of malice.

He laughed at her rejoinder and the prospect of a busy morning, and in a moment had her posed and fell to work. Presently he looked up scowling.

“Something’s wrong--don’t look natural; let’s try something easier.”

Twice he changed the pose, and, finally, in a fit of temper, broke the brush and threw it on the floor.

“Darned if I know what’s wrong! It’s not you--that’s all.” He stood with folded arms, studying her angrily. “You don’t look _you_!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Sounds idiotic, but it’s true. I believe it’s the hair--something wrong there. It’s stiff--constrained, and you’re not conventional. Yes, by Jove, that’s it! Take it down and try it some other way.”

She hesitated, her fingers to her lips, and reluctantly unwound the braids that she wore about her forehead in a Swedish coil. Then, with deft fingers, she shook them loose while the man came suddenly close to her, his eyes studying her face in surprise. The long black hair, released, fell about her shoulders and softened the marble coldness of her features, fell in black rippling waves like the mysterious depths of the sea on a summer’s night. She seemed like a released soul, something soaring and on the wing, far-distant as the wild fjords of her native Scandinavia.

“Is this better?” she asked, smiling with a new archness as though within her too a spirit had been released.

He was too startled by her sudden loveliness, to answer. All at once he came to her and held her head between his hands, gazing into the dark face where the blue-gray eyes shone forth with an easy light.

“Inga,” he said tempestuously, looking at her so intensely that, for the first time, she dropped her glance, “What are you? Where do you come from? What is behind those eyes of yours? Do you really care for me, or is it just an instinct in you to help? Sometimes I think that’s all, that if I were not in such need of you, you would disappear in the night like the elfin thing you are.”

“You are wrong,” she said, shaking her head.

He laughed and turned away.

“Put up your hair. I’ll paint you like that--but some other day.”

When she had braided and coiled her hair about her forehead and come to his side, he took her hand and raised it to his lips, in more genuine emotion than he had shown.

“Inga, you’re much too good for me with my cranky ways, my bad temper and worse. If I’m rough--I’m always sorry for it.”

“I know that, Mr. Dan,” she said softly.

“Child, you must be starving here,” he said gently. “You weren’t meant for this; you were meant for the woods and rocks, the rocks that run into the sea--something tempestuous and free.”

“I should like the sea,” she said eagerly, and her eyes lit up as though touched with phosphorus.

He took a long breath and glanced out of the open window, drinking in the mild air laden with the stirring perfumes of the spring.

“We must get away,” he said joyfully, “from men and machines! You’ve given me back life and ambition, child. Now I want to get away to my own thoughts, back to the things that are eternal, the things that heal.” They stood by the window. He raised her hand again to his lips. “I’ve waited long enough to be fair to you--now I’m going to carry you off!” he said, with a suddenness that took away her breath.

The next moment his arms had snatched her up and she was looking up into his steady domineering eyes. And, seeing his look, she understood.

“To carry me off?” she said faintly.

“Yes, Mrs. Dangerfield.”

“You want me to marry you!” she said, staring at him.

He laughed out of the fulness of the joy in his heart.

“So quick it’ll take your breath--and then to get away!”

“Wait--no, no--wait!” she said breathlessly, as she felt him drawing her up to him.

Something in the tone caused him to look at her suddenly and then to release her. She stood, the picture of distress, her lips parted, her eyes filling with tears, looking at him, one hand at her throat as though to press back the sorrow that was there.

“Oh, I was so afraid you’d say that,” she said at last. “Why did you, Mr. Dan--why did you--why couldn’t it go on just as it has!”

“Why?” he cried, in amazement, but before he could break into a torrent of passion, she had turned and fled from the room.

“What in the world did I say that was wrong?” he thought, and he began to search in bewilderment. At the end of a long, puzzled self-examination, a light flashed over him. “What an idiot I am! Of course! She’s made up her mind I asked her only out of gratitude! Poor little child!”

He hastened to her room to repair his fancied blunder, but though he knocked long and loud, no answer came. The next day, a slip of paper lay on the floor under the crack of his door, where she had thrust it.

DEAR MR. DAN:

I’ve gone away for the day. When I come back I’ll explain and you _must_ understand--and it isn’t because I don’t care.

INGA.

XXXI

The day was interminable and wasted. He spent the morning fidgeting at his easel and lecturing Tootles with such severity that all the smiles fled from that young reprobate’s countenance and he sat gloomily on his stool, his head sinking into his collar, turtle-fashion, for one glance of displeasure from Dangerfield could plunge him into the caverns of despair. In the present case, the unexampled duplicity of Pansy, whom he had seen with his own eyes on the arm of the unthinkable Drinkwater, combined to send his thoughts wandering among such appropriate subjects as suicide and graveyards.

“What the deuce has he been up to?” he said to himself, watching Dangerfield, who was switching up and down in front of his easel like a circus leopard. “Drinking his head off last night, I suppose.”

“Hold the pose,” said Dangerfield spitefully.

“I ain’t doin’ nothin’,” said Sassafras, startled.

“You shifted that left leg! Throw it forward! More, so! Now hold it.”

“Hold it; hold it,” muttered Sassafras to himself.

“Mighty easy to say ‘Hold it; hold it!’ Like to see some one else stand on one leg a whole mawnin’ and ‘hold it, hold it!’”

Sassafras glanced over indignantly, but Tootles shook his head in mute warning.

“What the devil’s got into the charcoal!” said Dangerfield presently. He flung aside the piece he was using and selected another, but a few minutes later he broke out into an exclamation, and taking the canvas, brought it down savagely across his knee and flung it across the floor, after which he broke into a short, nervous laugh.

“There--I feel better--can’t work this morning--not in the mood--you go ahead--I’m through!”

He hesitated, picked up his hat, and went out. His mind had run away from him. Try as he might, he had not been able to fix it on the work before him. He felt upset, disorganized, restless, and immeasurably irritated that he should have lost control of his impulse at the very moment when he had been confident of a new birth of inspiration.

He wandered restlessly through ways which he had gone with Inga, ending up for luncheon at the little restaurant with the oyster-bar, where he had sketched with such avidity. Only, nothing interested him. The curious types of pedler and hybrid politician, the melancholy of the old régime, and the audacity of the new generation, which he had seen and studied with avid eye and awakened imagination, to-day bored him immeasurably. He saw neither color, character nor life. They were dirty, cheap, and commonplace. The waiter, a young student from the University of Moscow, a year over, with whom Inga and he had had long interested conversations, came up eagerly, only to be greeted with glum monosyllables.

To some men, Inga’s evasion would have aroused eager senses of pursuit and possession. Not so, Dangerfield. All his instincts rebelled at this sudden disquieting and disorganizing intrusion across the slow ascent toward reclamation which had lain so clearly before him. Whatever her reason for her abrupt flight, he resented the loss of the morning’s work, the interruption of the happy impulse which had reordered the universe for him. He was angry not simply at the incident and the memories of past discouragement it awoke, but for what lay ahead--the fear of the future, the wonder whether he had not reached that period in his relations with Inga when his equanimity and the precious poise of an artist were to be constantly upset by the necessity of following vagrant moods. For he realized now how necessary the girl had become to him, to his restless mind that took fright at a moment’s solitude, to his awakening ambition, ready at a moment to sink back in discouragement, and to something deeper than mind or temperament--to the spark in him that still clung to his youth through the glorious youth in her.

“Why were women sent into the world, anyway?” he thought savagely, spearing a loaf of bread as though he were demolishing the whole sex. “Why have men been given a hidden spring of sentiment that makes a woman’s sympathy a necessity? And why must woman always come into man’s life to divert him from his object?”

What most irritated him was that he had thought Inga of different mold, and now she had suddenly been revealed to him as profoundly disquieting as her frailest sister. This feeling of resentment increased as the lack of her presence in his day made itself felt. He resented that she should have fastened him to herself. He resented that she should have shown a feminine capriciousness, and, most of all, he resented the fact that he should feel such resentment.

He was in this gloomy, destructive state of antagonism, amounting almost to revulsion against Inga, when he looked up and saw her entering the restaurant. She perceived him instantly, stopped, and made as though to withdraw. The movement roused a fury in him. His face grew stern and his glance remained coldly fixed.

“If she thinks I am going after, she’s mistaken,” he thought bitterly.

Perceiving that he had seen her, she checked her movement of flight and presently came over to his table, nodded, and sat down. He saw the furrowed pain on her face and the torment in her eyes, and divined the day of suffering through which she had passed. A sudden lightening of the spirit flashed through him, scattering the bitter clouds of dejection. He felt an uncontrollable gaiety, a leaping of the pulses, a need of laughter, of singing out loud, of music, and of sunlight. All his doubts vanished in a pervading sense of peace and serenity. For he knew that she loved him.

Yet they did not speak a word of what lay nearest to their hearts. Gregory, the young student, served them, and tarried to discuss political developments in Russia. Dangerfield, in fine feather, disputed eloquently, opposing his Tolstoyan theories of non-resistance. The transition from moroseness to ecstatic gaiety was so swift that he felt an impulse to work.

“What a pity I haven’t a sketching pad!” he said ruefully.

Gregory hastened to supply him paper and pencil. He laughed and began a series of rapid sketches of the oyster-openers; Mother Trekanova at the counter; a silhouette of a young Jewish girl in tinsel finery with an old rabbi watching in critical disapprobation. Inga, her hands clasped in front of her, continued to stare at the table-cloth, scarcely raising her glance.