Part 5

But if he hadn't a studio, where did he expect her to pose? Did he want her to go to him in the country? Yes, that must be it. Flûte! Gaby didn't think it would be good enough--the end of the dead season was in sight at last, and in Paris she would often be booked for two studios a day. Nevertheless she was eager to hear what he had to say for himself. She answered that he could see her at seven o'clock the following evening at the Paradis des Artistes, round the corner. To meet him at a restaurant, she reflected, would at least ensure his asking her to have something to drink; and as the tables would be laid, by seven o'clock, he might even spring to a meal.

The Paradis des Artistes was a small establishment where, for three francs, one found a homely dinner, inclusive of wine, and a cripple who wore a red jacket, to look like a Tzigane, and chanted to a mandoline. The "artistes" were chiefly models, and the lesser lights of a café-concert. As most of the company knew one another, and the proprietress called many of the ladies by their Christian names, and played piquet with them between midnight and 2 a.m., the tone of the restaurant was as informal as a family party. When Gaby arrived, the only person present whom she had never seen there before was a young man, who sat at a table near the door, solitary and seemingly expectant. Their gaze met, but although he looked undecided, he did not salute her. Then, as she was greeted by acquaintances, somebody cried, "Gaby, comment va?" and the young man's head was turned again. If he was her correspondent, it was rather odd that he didn't know her when he saw her. But she gave him another opportunity.... He approached with marked hesitation.

"Mademoiselle Gabrielle Dupuy?"

"Mais oui, monsieur," she said, smiling graciously. "It is monsieur Launay?"

"Oh, mademoiselle, it is most kind of you!" faltered the stranger. His confusion was extraordinary, considering his age, for he could not have been less than eight- or nine-and-twenty. They stood mute for some seconds. As he remained too much embarrassed to suggest her taking a seat at his table, "I hope I have not kept you waiting?" she asked, carelessly moving towards it.

They sat down now, and the waitress, whose tone was informal too, whisked over with, "And for mademoiselle Dupuy?"

"Give me a glass of madère, Louise," she said.

Still the young man seemed unable to find his tongue, and she went on:

"I am afraid this place was rather out of the way for you? But I have got into the habit of dropping in here about this time; and it is cosy and one can talk."

"Yes," he assented. He stole a timid glance at her, and looked quickly away. "Oh yes."

"Who was it who gave you my address at last, monsieur?"

"I do not know," he said awkwardly. "It was a man who heard me inquiring. I had immense trouble to find it out."

"It is not a dead secret, however."

"I suppose not--no--but I have no friends in Paris; I have never been in Paris before. And at the start I did not even know who you were."

"You did not know who I was? Oh, you had seen something I had posed for?"

"Yes, it was like that. I was anxious to find you, but I did not know your name. And I had no one to help me," he stammered; "it was enormously difficult."

"You are a painter, monsieur Launay?"

"No, mademoiselle."

"Ah, a sculptor! That interests me still more."

"I am not a sculptor either, mademoiselle," he admitted. "I am a composer."

"A composer?" she echoed. "But--but a composer does not employ models."

"No, mademoiselle, but I beg you not to think my motive impudent," exclaimed the young man, with the first touch of spontaneity that he had shown yet.

"Mysterious merely," she smiled. Her expression offered him encouragement to elucidate the mystery, but nervousness seemed to overcome him again. He was boring her. She exchanged remarks across the room with a lady who wore one of the figured veils then in vogue, under which the victim of fashion appeared to have lost portions of her face.

"Going to feed, Gaby?"

"Yes, my dear, in a minute," she answered.

She saw her correspondent regard the announcement "DINER 3 Fr." His invitation was constrained, and her acceptance listless.

It no doubt surprised the young man to discover that the veiled lady was his guest as well; he must have wondered how it had happened. Also it may have startled him, when he made to fill Gaby's glass from one of the little decanters that stood before them, to learn that she "did not take it" and to see a bottle labelled "Pouilly Fuissé" display itself before he could say "Why?" for he had not heard it ordered. He heard no order given for the second bottle that he beheld, nor for the tarte aux cérises that graced their repast--a delicacy that was not a feature of the other people's. But though these incidents may have caused him disquietude, since he was far from having an air of wealth, he manifested no objection to them. Gaby allowed that that was _gentil_. A singularly taciturn host, but an amenable one. And, briefly as he spoke, he yielded continuous attention to her prattle to the lady with the veil. It was queer that the more she prattled, the more despondent he grew. She found him piquing her curiosity.

When a bill for twenty-nine francs fifty was presented to him, after the café filtré and Egyptian cigarettes, Gaby put out her hand for it and knocked off four francs without discussion. "I don't let them make their little mistakes with friends of mine," she told him languidly, rising. "I am going home to get my coat--you can come with me." He accepted her invitation with as scant enthusiasm as she had shown for his own; and by way of a hint, forgetful of her earlier statement, she added, "This place is rotten--it's so noisy and one can't talk."

But he proved no more talkative in the street. One might almost have imagined that the task of explaining his petition for the interview was a duty that he sought to escape.

Her lodging was so close that the doorway took him aback. He followed her up the stairs submissively. She was not impatient for the coat. After lighting the lamp, she lit another of the cigarettes, and sat. The young man stood staring from the window.

"Well, chatterbox?" she said.

He swung round with unexpected vehemence. "I know I look a hopeless idiot," he cried.

"But ... what an idea!" Her gesture was all surprised denial.

"I prayed to see you--I said nothing all the evening, I stand like a dummy here. I must tell you why I wrote. But--but it is not so easy as I thought it would be."

"You make me curious."

"Listen," he exclaimed. "I had had two passions in my life--music, and the poetry of Richardière! No other poet has meant half--a tithe--so much to me as he. His work inspired me when I was a boy; if I had had the means, I would have taken the journey to Paris just to wait on the pavement and see his face when he went out. When he died----Of course all France mourned his loss, but none but his dearest friends, I think, could have felt as I did. Well, since I have been a man I have made an opera of his _Arizath_, and I came to Paris last week because there was a prospect of its being produced. Five minutes after I had found a room at an hotel, I was asking my way to the Square d'Iéna to see the statue to him. I knew nothing about it excepting that it had been erected there--and as I approached it my heart sank: I had always pictured a statue of the man, and I saw merely a bust of him--the statue was of a woman, recalling a verse."

She nodded. "I know. Beauvais kept me posing for three hours and a half without budging, and I had a chilblain that itched like mad on the finger inside the book."

"The disappointment was keen. I almost wished I had not come, for it had been a long walk, and I was very tired. And then, after I had stood looking at the bust, noting how handsome he had been, and thinking of his genius, I looked down at the statue of the woman, and I felt that it would have been worth coming simply to see that. It was so wonderful, so real! The naturalness of the attitude, the perfection of the toilette--I had never realised that the sculptor's art could do such things; I think I looked for minutes at the slippers. I admired the sleeves, the sweep of the gown, that seemed as if it must be soft to touch; I was amazed by a thousand trifles before my glance lingered on the face. And after my glance lingered on the face I saw nothing else; I could not even move to look at it in profile--it held me fixed."

"It is Beauvais' masterpiece," said Gaby; "they all say it is the finest thing he has done."

"It is a masterpiece, yes. But I was not thinking of the sculptor and his art any more--I was thinking of the face, without remembering how it had come about. It was as if a beautiful mind were really pondering behind that brow. The character of the mouth and chin impressed me as if the marble had been flesh and blood; the abstracted eyes couldn't have stirred me to more reverence if they had had sight. And while I looked at them, they seemed, by an optical illusion, to meet my own. Not with interest; with an unconsciousness that mortified me--they seemed to gaze through my insignificance into the greatness of Richardière. I blinked, I suppose, for the next instant they had been averted. I wanted them to come back, to realise my presence. I concentrated all my will upon the effort to trick myself once more--and I could have sworn they turned. Now, too, they seemed to notice me; there was a smile in them, an ironical smile--they smiled at the presumption of my linking an immortal poet's work with mine! Insane? But I felt it, I shrank from the derision. Again I raised my head to Richardière, and for the first time I remarked that his expression was a poor acknowledgment of the figure's homage. It was consequential and impertinent. A tinge of cruelty in it, even. He had an air of sensualism, of one who held women very light. I could imagine his having said horrible things to women. He was not worthy of the look in the statue's eyes....

"I went there the next day, after vowing that I would not go. The eyes discerned me sooner this time, and I contrived to fancy that their gaze was gentler. I was happy in the fancy that their gaze was gentler. When the eyes wandered from me I was humbled, and when they looked in mine I held my breath. I persuaded myself--no, I did not 'persuade myself,' the thought was born--that there was comprehension in the gaze, that my worship, though undesired, was understood. In the afternoon I had a business appointment that I had been thinking about for weeks, but instead of being excited by its nearness, I regretted that it obliged me to leave the Square d'Iéna. When I kept the appointment, the bad news that there had been a delay in the arrangements hardly troubled me--I was impatient only to be outside. Originally my plan had been to see the Louvre as soon as the business was over--now my one desire was to return to the statue. It was a delight to hasten to it; people must have thought me bound for a rendezvous, as I strode smiling through the streets. Not once did I regard the arrogance of Richardière on the pedestal, but it was only in moments that the musing figure ceased to remind me that her god was there. Though I never looked at it, an intense repugnance to the face of Richardière was in my blood--a jealousy, if you will! It possessed me while I was away--while I was reiterating that I had made my last visit to the square, knowing nevertheless that on the morrow I should yield again. The jealousy persisted when I turned the pages of my opera now, and the magic of the master's poetry was gone. I could not forget his domination of the figure--I wanted to think of the beautiful statue freed, aloof from him!"

He had left the window, and was moving restlessly about the room. Intent, her face propped by her hands, the model for the statue sat and watched him. The cigarette between her lips was out.

"The fact that there must have been a model for it was borne upon me quite suddenly. It had the thrill of a revelation, and nearly dazed me. This woman lived! Somewhere in the world she was walking, speaking! It was as if a miracle had happened, as if the statue had come to life. I repeated breathlessly that it was true, but it appeared fabulous. I had attributed emotions to the marble figure with ease--to grasp the simple truth of the woman's existence was inconceivably difficult. I trembled with the marvel of it; Pygmalion was not more stupefied than I. When my heart left off pounding so hard, I began to question how long it would take me to discover who she was. I did not even know the way to set about it. But I knew that if she was in France I meant to find her.... I need not talk about the rest."

After a silence Gaby stirred and spoke:

"It was a triumph to pose for the statue--your story makes me very proud."

"I could not avoid telling it to you," answered the young man drearily.

"But how you say it--as if you had done wrong! Shall I tell you what would have been wrong? Not to let me know. That would have been pathetic. Mon Dieu! it would be atrocious for a woman to have done all that and never to hear. And to think that at the beginning I fancied you were----You were so quiet while we dined."

"I was listening to you," he sighed.

"That's true. You were entitled to it by then--you had done much to get the chance!"

"Yes, I had done much to get the chance."

"It was beautiful of you. I mean it. Because you have spoken earnestly, from your heart, and I could see--I could see very well that what you were saying was true, that you were not exaggerating to please me. Oh, I am moved, believe me, I am really moved!" She put out her hand to him impulsively, and he took it, as in duty bound. But he did not raise it to his lips. Her body stiffened a little as the hand drooped slowly to her lap. A shade of apprehension aged her face. Again there was silence.

"Well?" she murmured.

"Well?"

"Enfin, when you sought the chance, when you wrote to me at last, you foresaw--what?"

"Infinitely less than you have granted, mademoiselle," he returned, with an obvious effort. "A briefer meeting, a more formal one. I thank you most gratefully for your patience, your kindness, the honour you have done me."

She gave a harsh laugh. "And now you 'regret that you must say good night'?"

"It is a fact that I have to see my man again this evening," he acknowledged hurriedly, glancing at his watch. "I had forgotten the time."

"Yes," said the woman, "you had forgotten the time--you had forgotten that the statue was modelled eleven years ago.... So you did not find her, after all! You began your search too late."

"It is not that!" he cried, distressed.

"Ah!" She had sprung to her feet, and stood panting. "Why lie to me? I am sorry for you, in a way--you haven't been a brute consciously."

"A brute?"

"What do you imagine you have been? A fool, you think, to yourself: I have changed, and you should have known I must have changed; it would have spared you the bother of seeking me, the disillusion when we met--there are no wrinkles creeping on the statue. Oh, it has been a fraud for you, I realise the sell! But you are not the only sufferer by your folly. A man can't talk to a woman as you have talked to me and leave her cold. He can't say, 'I felt all this for you before I saw you--now, good-bye,' and leave her proud; he can't adore her in the marble and disdain her in the flesh without her being ashamed. You have degraded me, jeered at me--you have taunted me with every blemish on my skin!"

"It isn't that!" he cried again. "I was a fool, I own it--a brute, if you choose to call me one--but it isn't that."

"What then? Is it my frock that alters me? I am poor, I can't afford such gowns as Beauvais put on me for the statue. Is it the way my hair is dressed? I can dress it like the statue again. The brow? You liked the brow. Well, look! time hasn't been so rough on me there--the brow is young. And you need not be jealous of my thoughts of Richardière, for I have never read a single word he wrote. What is there lacking in me? Tell me what you miss."

"I can't tell you," he groaned. But he had started.

"You _have_ told me," she said, shrinking. "I know now. My face is ignorant--the statue has more _mind_ than I!"

He no longer said, "It isn't that." He drooped before her, dumb, contrite.

After a long pause she quavered, dabbing at her eyes:

"Well, I'm not an idiot--I should improve."

"Is it an imbecile like me who could teach you?"

"I should be content."

"Never in a single hour! I fell in love with an ideal and went to look for it--failure was ordained. It is I who lack sense, not you."

A ghost of a smile twitched her lips. "It was all the fault of that Beauvais; he stuck an expression on me, with the clothes. I did look like that in his studio, though the chilblain was itching. But even if I made myself look like it now, it wouldn't take you in, would it? Don't look so frightened of me, I shan't go on at you again. Poor boy, you have had a deuce of an evening!... Well, I suppose you are right, failure was ordained--and it is wise to cut one's failures short. You may go. And don't flatter yourself that you have hurt me so much as I said--my vanity was stung for a minute, that's all; to-morrow I shall have forgotten all about you.... You can find your way downstairs?"

He hesitated--and took an irresolute step towards her, with half-opened arms.

"Good night," she said, not moving. "Good-bye."

* * * * *

On the tenth day, instead of the young man, a woman went to the statue, and stood before it just as stupidly and as long as he had done. The most comical bit was that, when she turned away at last, it was seen that the statue had been making the woman cry. After that, neither of the funny pair came back to the Square d'Iéna; but as Vera Simpson chooses the same bench still, she sometimes recalls their queerness and, before her mind wanders, tries again to guess their game. This was the game that an English nursemaid tries to guess.

V

THE CELEBRITY AT HOME

Before boarding-houses in London were all called Hotels and while snobbery had advanced no further than to call them Establishments, there was one in a London square where two of the "visitors"--which is boarding-house English for "boarders"--were a girl and a young man. Irene Barton was a humble journalist, who wrote stories when she would have been wiser to go to bed, and yearned to be an admired author. Jack Humphreys was an athletic clerk, who was renouncing clerkships for Canada and foresaw himself prospering in a world of wheat. The young man and the girl used to confide their plans to each other--when they weren't saying how detestable all the other boarders were--and before the time came for him to sail they had complicated matters by falling in love.

When he had begged her to wait for him and she had explained that matrimony did not enter into her scheme of things, Miss Barton was miserable. But she did not let him guess that she was miserable, and she didn't change her mind. She had dreamed of being a celebrated novelist from the days when she wrote stories, in penny exercise books, at the nursery table, and his appeal amounted to asking her to sacrifice her aspirations and remain a nobody. She had scoffed too often at women who "ruined their careers for sickly sentiment" to be guilty of the same blunder. Still, she had had no suspicion that sentiment could lure so hard, and she viewed the women more leniently now.

She reflected that the experience of sickly sentiment at first hand should be of benefit to her fiction, but the thought failed to encourage her so much as she would have expected of it. "They learn in suffering what they teach in song," she reminded herself--and an old-fashioned instinct, which she rebuked, whispered, "But isn't it better to be happy than to teach?"

Because Jack Humphreys persisted they discussed the subject more than once. Sauntering round the garden of the square in the twilight, she expounded her philosophy to him.

"I am not," she insisted, "the least bit the kind of girl you ought to care for. It'll be five years at the very least before you can marry, and in five years' time I shall have written books, and--well, I hope I shall have done something worth while. Do you suppose I could be satisfied to give it all up? I know myself, I couldn't do it. Or, if I did do it, I should be wretched--and make you wretched too."

"But why should you give it all up?" he said miserably. "Don't you think I should be interested in it? Haven't I been interested here--have you found me so wooden? I don't know much about it, but Oh, my dear, I'm so fond of you! Whatever interested _you_ would be bound to interest _me_. You could write novels as my wife--I'd never put any difficulties in your way, heaven knows I wouldn't!"

She shook her head.

"You think all that now, but you'd know better then. You won't want a wife to write novels--you'll want one to bake the bread and feed the chickens and make herself useful. You'll want the domesticated article--and I'm an artist. I should be an encumbrance, not a wife. Besides, I should hate it all. Oh, I know I'm hurting you, but it's true! I should bore myself to death. To write, I need to live among men and women, to live in London, Paris, among other writers. I want to see pictures, and hear music--real music, not Verdi and that kind of treacle--and be in the movement. Perhaps by the time you wanted me to come to you I _should_ be in the movement--five years is a long while, and I'm going to work hard. And you fancy I could turn my back on it all! Oh, Mr. Humphreys, don't let us talk about it any more!"

Trying to steady his voice, the young man asked:

"May I write to you sometimes, as a friend?"

"I think you had better not," she said, though her heart had jumped at the suggestion.

"I haven't any people who'd care much about hearing from me," he pleaded; "I shall be pretty humped over there at the start. I'd promise faithfully not to--er--I'd write to you just as I might write to any other chum, if I had one."

"Very well," she assented. "Write to me like that and I'll answer."

* * * * *

He did not write quite like that, but he suppressed two-thirds of what he wanted to say, and signed himself "Yours sincerely." Nobody could have found any definite endearment to object to in the pages. Though she checked the impulse to reply by the next mail, she replied at considerable length. She told him the latest details of the boarding-house---that Mrs. Usher was looking seriously ill because she couldn't find out why Mrs. Dunphy received so many telegrams; and that because Mrs. Kenyon's husband wasn't able to come to England yet, Mrs. Wykes was suggesting that she hadn't a husband at all. She told him that she had "had enough of these awful people" and that he was to direct his next letter elsewhere. And always his next letter was awaited more eagerly than was consistent of a young woman who was quite sure that she preferred celebrity to love.

So, although they did not write to each other more than twice or thrice a year, they were still corresponding after both had made some progress. The homestead was the man's own property at last, and the woman had had a novel published. She sent a copy of it to him, with two or three of the best reviews. It had been reviewed very highly, and if the ex-clerk had sometimes questioned whether she mightn't be exaggerating her prospects, his doubt was banished when he read the compliments that the critics paid her.