“It’s a bottle of milk,” remarked the niece, examining Mr. Talliaferro with interest.
Her aunt shrieked. Her breast heaved with repression, glinting her pins and beads. “A bottle of milk? Have you turned artist, too?”
For the first and last time in his life Mr. Talliaferro wished a lady dead. But he was a gentleman: he only seethed inwardly. He laughed with abortive heartiness.
“An artist? You flatter me, dear lady. I’m afraid my soul does not aspire so high. I am content to be merely a—”
“Milkman,” suggested the young female devil.
“—Maecenas alone. If I might so style myself.”
Mrs. Maurier sighed with disappointment and surprise. “Ah, Mr. Talliaferro, I am dreadfully disappointed. I had hoped for a moment that some of your artist friends had at last prevailed on you to give something to the world of Art. No, no; don’t say you cannot: I am sure you are capable of it, what with your—your delicacy of soul, your—” She waved her hand again vaguely toward the sky above Rampart street. “Ah, to be a man, with no ties save those of the soul! To create, to create.” She returned easily to Royal street. “But, really, a bottle of milk, Mr. Talliaferro?”
“Merely for my friend Gordon. I looked in on him this afternoon and found him quite busy. So I ran out to fetch him milk for his supper. These artists!” Mr. Talliaferro shrugged. “You know how they live.”
“Yes, indeed. Genius. A hard taskmaster, Isn’t it? Perhaps you are wise in not giving your life to it. It is a long lonely road. But how is Mr. Gordon? I am so continually occupied with things—unavoidable duties, which my conscience will not permit me to evade (I am very conscientious, you know)—that I simply haven’t the time to see as much of the Quarter as I should like. I had promised Mr. Gordon faithfully to call, and to have him to dinner soon. I am sure he thinks I have forgotten him. Please make my peace with him, won’t you? Assure him that I have not forgotten him.”
“I am sure he realizes how many calls you have on your time,” Mr. Talliaferro assured her gallantly. “Don’t let that distress you at all.”
“Yes, I really don’t know how I get anything done: I am always surprised when I find I have a spare moment for my own pleasure.” She turned her expression of happy astonishment on him again. The niece spun slowly and slimly on one high heel: the sweet young curve of her shanks straight and brittle as the legs of a bird and ending in the twin inky splashes of her slippers, entranced him. Her hat was a small brilliant bell about her face, and she wore her clothing with a casual rakishness, as though she had opened her wardrobe and said, Let’s go downtown., Her aunt was saying:
“But what about our yachting party? You gave Mr. Gordon my invitation?”
Mr. Talliaferro was troubled. “We-ll—You see, he is quite busy now. He—He has a commission that will admit of no delay,” he concluded with inspiration.
“Ah, Mr. Talliaferro! You haven’t told him he is invited. Shame on you! Then I must tell him myself, since you have failed me.”
“No, really—”
She interrupted him. “Forgive me, dear Mr. Talliaferro. I didn’t mean to be unjust. I am glad you didn’t invite him. It will be better for me to do it, so I can overcome any scruples he might have, He is quite shy, you know. Oh, quite, I assure you. Artistic temperament, you understand: so spiritual. . . .”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Talliaferro, covertly watching the niece who had ceased her spinning and got her seemingly boneless body into an undimensional angular flatness pure as an Egyptian carving.
“So I shall attend to it myself. I shall call him tonight: we sail at noon tomorrow, you know. That will allow him sufficient time, don’t you think? He’s one of these artists who never have much, lucky people.” Mrs. Maurier looked at her watch. “Heavens above! seven-thirty. We must fly. Come, darling. Can’t we drop you somewhere, Mr. Talliaferro?”
“Thank you, no. I must take Gordon’s milk to him, and then I am engaged for the evening.”
“Ah, Mr. Talliaferro! It’s a woman, I know.” She rolled her eyes roguishly. “What a terrible man you are.” She lowered her voice and tapped him on the sleeve. “Do be careful what you say before this child. My instincts are all bohemian, but she . . . unsophisticated . . .” Her voice bathed him warmly and Mr. Talliaferro bridled: had he had a mustache he would have stroked it. Mrs. Maurier jangled and glittered again: her expression became one of pure delight. “But, of course! We will drive you to Mr. Gordon’s and then I can run in and invite him for the party. The very thing! How fortunate to have thought of it. Come, darling.”
Without stooping the niece angled her leg upward and outward from the knee, scratching her ankle. Mr. Talliaferro recalled the milk bottle and assented gratefully, falling in on the curbside with meticulous thoughtfulness. A short distance up the street Mrs. Maurier’s car squatted expensively. The Negro driver descended and opened the door and Mr. Talliaferro sank into gracious upholstery, nursing his milk bottle, smelling flowers cut and delicately vased, promising himself a car next year.
3
They rolled smoothly, passing between spaced lights and around narrow corners, while Mrs. Maurier talked steadily of hers and Mr. Talliaferro’s and Gordon’s souls. The niece sat quietly. Mr. Talliaferro was conscious of the clean young odor of her, like that of young trees; and when they passed beneath lights he could see her slim shape and the impersonal revelation of her legs and her bare sexless knees. Mr. Talliaferro luxuriated, clutching his bottle of milk, wishing the ride need not end. But the car drew up to the curb again, and he must get out, no matter with what reluctance.
“I’ll run up and bring him down to you,” he suggested with premonitory tact.
“No, no: let’s all go up,” Mrs. Maurier objected. “I want Patricia to see how genius looks at home.”
“Gee, Aunty, I’ve seen these dives before,” the niece said. “They’re everywhere. I’ll wait for you.” She jackknifed her body effortlessly, scratching her ankles with her brown hands.
“It’s so interesting to see how they live, darling. You’ll simply love it.” Mr. Talliaferro demurred again, but Mrs. Maurier overrode him with sheer words. So against his better judgment he struck matches for them. leading the way up the dark tortuous stairs while their three shadows aped them, rising and falling monstrously upon the ancient wall. Long before they reached the final stage Mrs. Maurier was puffing and panting, and Mr. Talliaferro found a puerile vengeful glee in hearing her labored breath. But he was a gentleman; he put this from him, rebuking himself. He knocked on a door, was bidden, opened it:
“Back, are you?” Gordon sat in his single chair, munching a thick sandwich, clutching a book. The unshaded light glared savagely upon his undershirt.
“You have callers,” Mr. Talliaferro offered his belated warning, but the other looking up had already seen beyond his shoulder Mrs. Maurier’s interested face. He rose and cursed Mr. Talliaferro, who had begun immediately his unhappy explanation.
“Mrs. Maurier insisted on dropping in—”
Mrs. Maurier vanquished him anew. “Mister Gordon!” She sailed into the room, bearing her expression of happy astonishment like a round platter stood on edge. “How do you do? Can you ever, ever forgive us for intruding like this?” she went on in her gushing italics. “We just met Mr. Talliaferro on the street with your milk, and we decided to brave the lion in his den. How do you do?” She forced her effusive hand upon him, staring about in happy curiosity. “So this is where genius labors. How charming: so—so original. And that”—she indicated a corner screened off by a draggled length of green rep—“is your bedroom, isn’t it? How delightful! Ah, Mr. Gordon, how I envy you this freedom. And a view—you have a view also, haven’t you?” She held his hand and stared entranced at a high useless window framing two tired looking stars of the fourth magnitude.
“I would have if I were eight feet tall,” he corrected. She
looked at him quickly, happily. Mr. Talliaferro laughed nervously.
“That would be delightful,” she agreed readily. “I was so anxious to have my niece see a real studio, Mr. Gordon, where a real artist works. Darling”—she glanced over her shoulder fatly, still holding his hand—“darling, let me present you to a real sculptor, one from whom we expect great things. . . . Darling,” she repeated in a louder tone.
The niece, untroubled by the stairs, had drifted in after them and she now stood before the single marble. “Come and speak to Mr. Gordon, darling.” Beneath her aunt’s saccharine modulation was a faint trace of something not so sweet after all. The niece turned her head and nodded slightly without looking at him. Gordon released his hand.
“Mr. Talliaferro tells me you have a commission.” Mrs. Maurier’s voice was again a happy astonished honey. “May we see it? I know artists don’t like to exhibit an incomplete work, but just among friends, you see. . . . You both know how sensitive to beauty I am, though I have been denied the creative impulse myself.”
“Yes,” agreed Gordon, watching the niece.
“I have long intended visiting your studio, as I promised, you remember. So I shall take this opportunity of looking about—Do you mind?”
“Help yourself. Talliaferro can show you things. Pardon me.” He lurched characteristically between them and Mrs. Maurier chanted:
“Yes, indeed. Mr. Talliaferro, like myself, is sensitive to the beautiful in Art. Ah, Mr. Talliaferro, why were you and I given a love for the beautiful, yet denied the ability to create it from stone and wood and clay. . . .”
Her body in its brief simple dress was motionless when he came over to her. After a time he said:
“Like it?”
Her jaw in profile was heavy: there was something masculine about it. But in full face it was not heavy, only quiet. Her mouth was full and colorless, unpainted, and her eyes were opaque as smoke. She met his gaze, remarking the icy blueness of his eyes (like a surgeon’s, she thought) and looked at the marble again.
“I don’t know,” she answered slowly. Then: “It’s like me.”
“How like you?” he asked gravely.
She didn’t answer. Then she said, “Can I touch it?”
“If you like,” he replied, examining the line of her jaw, her firm brief nose. She made no move and he added, “Aren’t you going to touch it?”
“I’ve changed my mind,” she told him calmly. Gordon glanced over his shoulder to where Mrs. Maurier pored volubly over something. Mr. Talliaferro yea’d her with restrained passion.
“Why is it like you?” he repeated.
She said irrelevantly, “Why hasn’t she anything here?” Her brown hand flashed slimly across the high unemphasis of the marble’s breast, and withdrew.
“You haven’t much there yourself.” She met his steady gaze steadily. “Why should it have anything there?” he asked.
“You’re right,” she agreed with the judicial complaisance of an equal. “I see now. Of course she shouldn’t. I didn’t quite—quite get it for a moment.”
Gordon examined with growing interest her flat breast and belly, her boy’s body which the poise of it and the thinness of her arms belied. Sexless, yet somehow vaguely troubling. Perhaps just young, like a calf or a colt. “How old are you?” he asked abruptly.
“Eighteen, if it’s any of your business,” she replied without rancor, staring at the marble. Suddenly she looked up at him again. “I wish I could have it,” she said with sudden sincerity and longing, quite like a four-year-old.
“Thanks,” he said. “That was quite sincere, too, wasn’t it? Of course you can’t have it, though. You see that, don’t you?”
She was silent. He knew she could see no reason why she shouldn’t have it.
“I guess so,” she agreed at last. “I just thought I’d see, though.”
“Not to overlook any bets?”
“Oh, well, by tomorrow I probably won’t want it, anyway. . . . And if I still do, I can get something just as good.”
“You mean,” he amended, “that if you still want it tomorrow, you can get it. Don’t you?”
Her hand, as if it were a separate organism, reached out slowly, stroking the marble. “Why are you so black?” she asked.
“Black?”
“Not your hair and beard. I like your red hair and beard. But you. You are black. I mean—” Her voice fell and he suggested Soul? “I don’t know what that is,” she stated quietly.
“Neither do I. You might ask your aunt, though. She seems familiar with souls.”
She glanced over her shoulder, showing him her other un-equal profile. “Ask her yourself. Here she comes.”
Mrs. Maurier surged her scented upholstered bulk between them. “Wonderful, wonderful,” she was exclaiming in sincere astonishment. “And this—” Her voice died away and she gazed at the marble dazed. Mr. Talliaferro echoed her immaculately, taking to himself the showman’s credit.
“Do you see what he has caught?” he bugled melodiously. “Do you see? The spirit of youth, of something fine and hard and clean in the world; something we all desire until our mouths are stopped with dust,” Desire with Mr. Talliaferro had long since become an unfulfilled habit requiring no longer any particular object at all.
“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Maurier. “How beautiful. What—what does it signify, Mr. Gordon?”
“Nothing, Aunt Pat,” the niece snapped. “It doesn’t have to.”
“But, really—”
“What do you want it to signify? Suppose it signified a—a dog, or an ice cream soda, what difference would it make? Isn’t it all right like it is?”
“Yes, indeed, Mrs. Maurier,” Mr. Talliaferro agreed with soothing haste, “it is not necessary that it have objective significance. We must accept it for what it is: pure form untrammeled by any relation to a familiar or utilitarian object.”
“Oh, yes: untrammeled,” Here was a word Mrs. Maurier knew. “The untrammeled spirit, freedom like the eagle’s.”
“Shut up, Aunty,” the niece told her. “Don’t be a fool.”
“But it has what Talliaferro calls objective significance,” Gordon interrupted brutally. “This is my feminine ideal: a virgin with no legs to leave me, no arms to hold me, no head to talk to me.”
“Mister Gordon!” Mrs. Maurier stared at him over her compressed breast. Then she thought of something that did possess objective significance. “I had almost forgotten our reason for calling so late. Not,” she added quickly, “that we needed any other reason to—to—Mr. Talliaferro, how was it those old people used to put it, about pausing on Life’s busy highroad to kneel for a moment at the Master’s feet?” Mrs. Maurier’s voice faded and her face assumed an expression of mild concern. “Or is it the Bible of which I am thinking? Well, no matter: we dropped in to invite you for a yachting party, a few days on the lake—”
“Yes. Talliaferro told me about it. Sorry, but I shall be unable to come.”
Mrs. Maurier’s eyes became quite round. She turned to Mr. Talliaferro. “Mister Talliaferro! You told me you hadn’t mentioned it to him!”
Mr. Talliaferro writhed acutely. “Do forgive me, if I left you under that impression. It was quite unintentional. I only desired that you speak to him yourself and make him reconsider. The party will not be complete without him, will it?”
“Not at all. Really, Mr. Gordon, won’t you reconsider? Surely you won’t disappoint us,” She stooped creaking and slapped at her ankle. “Pardon me.”
“No. Sorry. I have work to do.”
Mrs. Maurier transferred her expression of astonishment and dejection to Mr. Talliaferro. “It can’t be that he doesn’t want to come. There must be some other reason. Do say something to him, Mr. Talliaferro. We simply must have him. Mr. Fairchild is going, and Eva and Dorothy: we s
imply must have a sculptor. Do convince him, Mr. Talliaferro.”
“I’m sure his decision is not final: I am sure he will not deprive us of his company. A few days on the water will do him no end of good; freshen him up like a tonic. Eh, Gordon?”
Gordon’s hawk’s face brooded above them, remote and insufferable with arrogance. The niece had turned away, drifting slowly about the room, grave and quiet and curious, straight as a poplar. Mrs. Maurier implored him with her eyes doglike, temporarily silent. Suddenly she had an inspiration.
“Come, people, let’s all go to my house for dinner. Then we can discuss it at our ease.”
Mr. Talliaferro demurred. “I am engaged this evening, you know,” he reminded her.
“Oh, Mr. Talliaferro.” She put her hand on his sleeve. “Don’t you fail me, too. I always depend on you when people fail me. Can’t you defer your engagement?”