XIV
PROBLEMS
The weather was turning hot in New York, and by the middle of the weekthe city sweltered.
Barres, dropping his brushes and laying aside a dozen pictures in allstages of incompletion; and being, otherwise, deeply bitten by thedangerously enchanting art of Manship--dangerous as inspiration butenchanting to gaze upon--was very busy making out of wax a diminutivefigure of the running Arethusa.
And Dulcie, poor child, what with being poised on the ball of onelittle foot and with the other leg slung up in a padded loop, almostperished. Perspiration spangled her body like dew powdering a rose;sweat glistened on the features and shoulder-bared arms of theimpassioned sculptor, even blinding him at times; but he worked on ina sort of furious exaltation, reeking of ill-smelling wax. And Dulcie,perfectly willing to die at her post, thought she was going to, andfinally fainted away with an alarming thud.
Which brought Barres to his senses, even before she had recoveredhers; and he proclaimed a vacation for his overworked Muse and hismodel, too.
"Do you feel better, Sweetness?" he enquired, as she opened her eyeswhen Selinda exchanged a wet compress for an ice-bag.
Dulcie, flat on the lounge, swathed in a crash bathrobe, replied onlyby a slight but reassuring flutter of one hand.
Esme Trenor sauntered in for a gossip, wearing his celebratedlilac-velvet jacket and Louis XV slippers.
"Oh, the devil," he drawled, looking from Dulcie to the Arethusa;"she's worth more than your amateurish statuette, Garry."
"You bet she is. And here's where her vacation begins."
Esme turned to Dulcie, lifting his eyebrows:
"You go away with him?"
The idea had never before entered Barres's head. But he said:
"Certainly; we both need the country for a few weeks."
"You'll go to one of those damned artists' colonies, I suppose,"remarked Esme; "otherwise, washed and unwashed would expel shrillcries."
"Probably not in my own home," returned Barres, coolly. "I shall writemy family about it to-day."
Corot Mandel dropped in, also, that morning--he and Esme were everprowling uneasily around Dulcie in these days--and he studied theArethusa through a foggy monocle, and he loitered about Dulcie'scouch.
"You know," he said to Barres, "there's nothing like dancing torecuperate from all this metropolitan pandemonium. If you like, I canlet Dulcie in on that thing I'm putting on at Northbrook."
"That's up to her," said Barres. "It's her vacation, and she can dowhat she likes with it----"
Esme interposed with characteristic impudence:
"Barres imitates Manship with impunity; I'd like to have a plagiaristictry at Sorolla and Zuloaga, if Dulcie says the word. Very agreeable jobfor a girl in hot weather," he added, looking at Dulcie, "--an easyswimming pose in some nice cool little Adirondack lake----"
"Seriously," interrupted Mandel, twirling his monocle impatiently byits greasy string, "I mean it, Barres." He turned and looked at thelithely speeding Arethusa. "If that is Dulcie, I can give her a goodpart in----"
"You hear, Dulcie?" enquired Barres. "These two kind gentlemen havewhat they consider attractive jobs for you. All I can offer you isliberty to tumble around the hayfields at Foreland Farms, with mysketching easel in the middle distance. Now, choose your job,Sweetness."
"The hayfields and----"
Dulcie's voice faded to a whisper; Barres, seated beside her, leanednearer, bending his head to listen.
"And _you_," she murmured again, "--if you want me."
"I always want you," he whispered laughingly, in return.
Esme regarded the scene with weariness and chagrin.
"Come on," he said languidly to Mandel, "we'll buy her some flowersfor the evil she does us. She'll need 'em; she'll be finished beforethis amateur sculptor finishes his blooming Arethusa."
Mandel lingered:
"I'm going up to Northbrook in a day or two, Barres. If youchange--change Dulcie's mind for her, just call me up at the AdolfGerhardt's."
"Dulcie will call you up if she changes my mind."
Dulcie laughed.
When they had gone, Barres said:
"You know I haven't thought about the summer. What was your idea aboutit?"
"My--idea?"
"Yes. You'd want a couple of weeks in the country somewhere, wouldn'tyou?"
"I don't know. I never went away," she replied vaguely.
It occurred to him, now, that for all his pleasant toleration ofSoane's little daughter during the two years and more of his residencein Dragon Court, he had never really interested himself in herwell-being, never thought to enquire about anything which might reallyconcern her. He had taken it for granted that most people have somechange from the stifling, grinding, endless routine of theirlives--some respite, some quiet interval for recovery and rest.
And so, returning from his own vacations, it never occurred to himthat the shy girl whom he permitted within his precincts, whenconvenient, never knew any other break in the grey monotony--neverleft the dusty, soiled, and superheated city from one year's summer toanother.
Now, for the first time, he realised it.
"We'll go up there," he said. "My family is accustomed to models Ibring there for my summer work. You'll be very comfortable, and you'llfeel quite at home. We live very simply at Foreland Farms. Everybodywill be kind and nobody will bother you, and you can do exactly as youplease, because we all do that at Foreland Farms. Will you come whenI'm ready to go up?"
She gave him a sweet, confused glance from her grey eyes.
"Do you think your family would mind?"
"Mind?" He smiled. "We never interfere with one another's affairs.It's not like many families, I fancy. We take it for granted thatnobody in the family could do anything not entirely right. So we takethat for granted and it's a jolly sensible arrangement."
She turned her face on the pillow presently; the ice-bag slid off;she sat up in her bathrobe, stretched her arms, smiled faintly:
"Shall I try again?" she asked.
"Oh, Lord!" he said, "_would_ you? Upon my word, I believe you would!No more posing to-day! I'm not a murderer. Lie there until you'reready to dress, and then ring for Selinda."
"Don't you want me?"
"Yes, but I want you alive, not dead! Anyway, I've got to talk toWestmore this morning, so you may be as lazy as you like--loungeabout, read----" He went over to her, patted her cheek in the smiling,absent-minded way he had with her: "Tell me, ducky, how are youfeeling, anyway?"
It confused her dreadfully to blush when he touched her, but shealways did; and she turned her face away now, saying that she wasquite all right again.
Preoccupied with his own thoughts, he nodded:
"That's fine," he said. "Now, trot along to Selinda, and when you'refixed up you can have the run of the place to yourself."
"Could I have my slippers?" She was very shy even about her bare feetwhen she was not actually posing.
He found her slippers for her, laid them beside the lounge, andstrolled away. Westmore rang a moment later, but when he blew in likea noisy breeze Dulcie had disappeared.
"My little model toppled over," said Barres, taking his visitor'soutstretched hand and wincing under the grip. "I shall cut out workwhile this weather lasts."
Westmore turned toward the Arethusa, laughed at the visible influenceof Manship.
"All the same, Garry," he said, "there's a lot in your running nymph.It's nice; it's knowing."
"That is pleasant to hear from a sculptor."
"Sculptor? Sometimes I feel like a sculpin--prickly heat, you know."He laughed heartily at his own witticism, slapped Barres on theshoulder, lighted a pipe, and flung himself on the couch recentlyvacated by Dulcie.
"This damned war," he said, "takes the native gaiety out of aman--takes the laughter out of life. Over two years of it now, Garry;and it's as though the sun is slowly growing dimmer every day."
"I know," nodded Barres.
&nbs
p; "Sure you feel it. Everybody does. By God, I have periods of sicknesswhen the illustrated London periodicals arrive, and I see those deadmen pictured there--such fine, clean fellows--our own kind--half ofthem just kids!--well, it hurts me to look at them, and, for the sheerpain of it, I'm always inclined to shirk and turn that page quickly.But I say to myself, 'Jim, they're dead fighting Christ's own battle,and the least you can do is to read their names and ages, and lookupon their faces.'... And I do it."
"So do I," nodded Barres, sombrely gazing at the carpet.
After a silence, Westmore said:
"Well, the Boche has taken his medicine and canned Tirpitz--the wildswine that he is. So I don't suppose we'll get mixed up in it."
"The Hun is a great liar," remarked Barres. "There's no telling."
"Are you going to Plattsburg again this year?" enquired Westmore.
"I don't know. Are you?"
"In the autumn, perhaps.... Garry, it's discouraging. Do you realisewhat a gigantic task we have ahead of us if the Hun ever succeeds inkicking us into this war? And what a gigantic mess we've made of twoyears' inactivity?"
Barres, pondering, scowled at his own thoughts.
"And now," continued the other, "the Guard is off to the border, andhere we are, stripped clean, with the city lousy with Germans andevery species of Hun deviltry hatching out fires and explosions anddisloyal propaganda from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakesto the Gulf!
"A fine mess!--no troops, nothing to arm them with, no modernartillery, no preparations; the Boche growing more insolent, moremurderous, but slyer; a row on with Mexico, another brewing withJapan, all Europe and Great Britain regarding us with contempt--I askyou, can you beat it, Garry? Are there any lower depths for us?--anysub-cellars of iniquity into which we can tumble, like the basket ofjelly-fish we seem to be!"
"It's a nightmare," said Barres. "Since Liege and the _Lusitania_,it's been a bad dream getting worse. We'll have to wake, you know. Ifwe don't, we're of no more substance than the dream itself:--we _are_the dream, and we'll end like one."
"I'm going to wait a bit longer," said Westmore restlessly, "and ifthere's nothing doing, it's me for the other side."
"For me, too, Jim."
"Is it a bargain?"
"Certainly.... I'd rather go under my own flag, of course.... We'llsee how this Boche backdown turns out. I don't think it will last. Ibelieve the Huns have been stirring up the Mexicans. It wouldn'tsurprise me if they were at the bottom of the Japanese menace. Butwhat angers me is to think that we have received with innocenthospitality these hundreds of thousands of Huns in America, and thatnow, all over the land, this vast, acclimated nest of snakes riseshissing at us, menacing us with their filthy fangs!"
"Thank God our police is still half Irish," growled Westmore, puffingat his pipe. "These dirty swine might try to rush the city if warcomes while the Guard is away."
"They're doing enough damage as it is," said Barres, "with theirtraitorous press, their pacifists, their agents everywhere incitinglabour to strike, teaching disorganisation, combining commercially,directing blackmail, bomb outrages, incendiaries, and infesting theRepublic with a plague of spies----"
The studio bell rang sharply. Barres, who stood near the door, openedit.
"Thessa!" he exclaimed, astonished and delighted.