VII
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS
The tremendous tragedy in Europe, now nearing the end of the secondact, had been slowly shaking the drowsy Western World out of its snugslumber of complacency. Young America was already sitting up in bed,awake, alert, listening. Older America, more difficult to convince,rolled solemn and interrogative eyes toward Washington, where thewooden gods still sat nodding in a row, smiling vacuously at destinyout of carved and painted features. Eyes had they but they saw not,ears but they heard not; neither spake they through their mouths.
Yet, they that made them were no longer like unto them, for many ananxious idolater no longer trusted in them. For their old God's voicewas sounding in their ears.
The voice of a great ex-president, too, had been thundering from thewilderness; lesser prophets, endowed, however, with intellect andvision, had been warning the young West that the second advent ofAttila was at hand; an officer of the army, inspired of God, hadpreached preparedness from the market places and had established forits few disciples an habitation; and a great Admiral had died of abroken heart because his lips had been officially sealed--the wisestlips that ever told of those who go down to the sea in ships.
Plainer and plainer in American ears sounded the mounting surf ofthat blood-red sea thundering against the frontiers of Democracy;clearer and clearer came the discordant clamour of the barbarichordes; louder and more menacing the half-crazed blasphemies of theirchief, who had given the very name of the Scourge of God to one amongthe degenerate litter he had sired.
* * * * *
Garret Barres had been educated like any American of modern New Yorktype. Harvard, then five years abroad, and a return to his native cityrevealed him as an ambitious, receptive, intelligent young man, deeplyinterested in himself and his own affairs, theoretically patriotic, agood citizen by intention, an affectionate son and brother, andalready a pretty good painter of the saner species.
A modest income of his own enabled him to bide his time and declinepot-boilers. A comparatively young father and an even more youthfulmother, both of sporting proclivities, together with a sister of thesame tastes, were his preferred companions when he had time to go hometo the family rooftree in northern New York. His lines, indeed, werecast in pleasant places. Beside still waters in green pastures, hecould always restore his city-tarnished soul when he desired to retirefor a while from the battleground of endeavour.
The city, after all, offered him a world-wide battlefield; for GarretBarres was by choice a painter of thoroughbred women, of cosmopolitanmen--a younger warrior of the brush imbued with the old traditions ofthose great English captains of portraiture, who recorded for us themore brilliant human truths of the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies.
From their stately canvases aglow, the eyes of the lovely dead lookout at us; the eyes of ambition, of pride, of fatuous complacency;the haunted eyes of sorrow; the clear eyes of faith. Out of the pastthey gaze--those who once lived--deathlessly recorded by Van Dyck,Lely, Kneller; by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Hoppner, Lawrence, Raeburn;or consigned to a dignified destiny by Stuart, Sully, Inman, andVanderlyn.
* * * * *
When Barres returned to New York after many years, he found that theaspect of the city had not altered very greatly. The usual dirt,disorder, and municipal confusion still reigned; subways were beingdug, but since the memory of man runneth, the streets of themetropolis have been dug up, and its market places and byways havebeen an abomination.
The only visible excitement, however, was in the war columns of thenewspapers, and, sometimes, around bulletin boards where wranglinggroups were no uncommon sight, citizens and aliens often coming intoverbal collision--sometimes physical--promptly suppressed by boredpolicemen.
There was a "preparedness" parade; thousands of worthy citizensmarched in it, nervously aware, now, that the Great Republic's onlymobile military division was on the Mexican border, where also certainGuard regiments were likely to be directed to reinforce theregulars--pet regiments from the city, among whose corps of officersand enlisted men everybody had some friend or relative.
But these regiments had not yet entrained. There were few soldiers tobe seen on the streets. Khaki began to be noticeable in New York onlywhen the Plattsburg camps opened. After that there was an interim ofthe usual dull, unaccented civilian monotony, mitigated at rareintervals by this dun-coloured ebb and flow from Plattsburg.
Like the first vague premonitions of a nightmare the first ominoussymptoms of depression were slowly possessing hearts already uneasyunder two years' burden of rumours unprintable, horrors incredible tothose aloof and pursuing the peaceful tenor of their ways.
A growing restlessness, unbelief, the incapacity tounderstand--selfishness, rapacity, self-righteousness, complacency,cowardice, even stupidity itself were being jolted and shocked intosomething resembling a glimmer of comprehension as the hunnish U-boats,made ravenous by the taste of blood, steered into western shipping laneslike a vast shoal of sharks.
And always thicker and thicker came the damning tales of rapeand murder, of cowardly savagery, brutal vileness, degeneratebestiality--clearer, nearer, distinctly audible, the sigh of aravaged and expiring civilisation trampled to obliteration by theslavering, ferocious swine of the north.
* * * * *
Fires among shipping, fires amid great stores of cotton and graindestined for France or England, explosions of munitions of war orderedby nations of the Entente, the clumsy propaganda or impudent sneers ofGerman and pro-German newspapers; reports of German meddling inMexico, in South America, in Japan; more sinister news concerning theinsolent activities of certain embassies--all these were beginning tohave their logical effect among a fat and prosperous people whichsimply could not bear to be aroused from pleasant dreams ofbrotherhood to face the raw and hellish truth.
* * * * *
"For fifty years," remarked Barres to his neighbour, Esme Trenor,also a painter of somewhat eccentric portraits, "our nationalcharacteristic has been a capacity for absorbing bunk and a fixeddetermination to kid ourselves. There really is a war, Trenor, oldtop, and we're going to get into it before very long."
Trenor, a tall, tired, exquisitely groomed young man, who once hadpainted a superficially attractive portrait of a popular debutante,and had been overwhelmed with fashionable orders ever since, was theadored of women. He dropped one attenuated knee over the other andlighted an attenuated cigarette.
"Fancy anybody bothering enough about anything to fight over it!" hesaid languidly.
"We're going to _war_, Trenor," repeated Barres, jamming his brushesinto a bowl of black soap. "That's my positive conviction."
"Yours is so disturbingly positive a nature," remonstrated the other."Why ever raise a row? Nothing positive is of any real importance--noteven opinions."
Barres, vigorously cleaning his brushes in turpentine and black soap,glanced around at Trenor, and in his quick smile there glimmered ahint of good-natured malice. For Esme Trenor was notoriously anythingexcept positive in his painting, always enveloping a lack of technicalknowledge with a veil of camouflage. Behind this pretty veil hid manydefects, perhaps even deformities--protected by vague, indefiniteshadows and the effrontery of an adroit exploiter of the restlesssex.
But Esme Trenor was both clever and alert. He had not even missed thatslight and momentary glimmer of good-humoured malice in the pleasantglance of Barres. But, like his more intelligent prototype, Whistler,it was impossible to know whether or not discovery ever made anyparticular difference to him. He tucked a lilac-bordered handkerchiefa little deeper into his cuff, glanced at his jewelled wrist-watch,shook the long ash from his cigarette.
"To be positive in anything," he drawled, "is an effort; effortentails exertion; exertion is merely a degree of violence; violenceengenders toxins; toxins dull the intellect. Quod erat, dear friend.You see?"
"Oh, yes, I see," nodd
ed Barres, always frankly amused at Trenor andhis ways.
"Well, then, if you see----" Trenor waved a long, bony, over-manicuredhand, expelled a ring or two of smoke, meditatively; then, in hischaracteristically languid voice: "To be positive closes the door tofurther observation and pulls down the window shades. Nothing remainsexcept to go to bed. Is there anything more uninteresting than to goto bed? Is there anything more depressing than to know all aboutsomething?"
"You do converse like an ass sometimes," remarked Barres.
"Yes--sometimes. Not now, Barres. I don't desire to know all aboutanybody or anything. Fancy my knowing all about art, for example!"
"Yes, fancy!" repeated Barres, laughing.
"Or about anything specific--a woman, for example!" He shruggedwearily.
"If you meet a woman and like her, don't you want to know all there isto know about her?" inquired Barres.
"I should say not!" returned the other with languid contempt. "I don'twish to know anything at all about her."
"Well, we differ about that, old top."
"Religiously. A woman can be only an incidental amusement in one'scareer. You don't go to a musical comedy twice, do you? And any womanwill reveal herself sufficiently in one evening."
"Nice, kindly domestic instincts you have, Trenor."
"I'm merely fastidious," returned the other, dropping his cigaretteout of the open window. He rose, yawned, took his hat, stick andgloves.
"Bye," he said languidly. "I'm painting Elsena Helmund this morning."
Barres said, with good-humoured envy:
"I've neither commission nor sitter. If I had, you bet I'd not standthere yawning at my luck."
"It is you who have the luck, not I," drawled Trenor. "I give aportion of my spiritual and material self with every brush stroke,while you remain at liberty to flourish and grow fat in idleness. Iperish as I create; my life exhausts itself to feed my art. What youcall my good luck is my martyrdom. You see, dear friend, how fortunateyou are?"
"I see," grinned Barres. "But will your spiritual nature stand such acruel drain? Aren't you afraid your morality may totter?"
"Morality," mused Esme, going; "that is one of those early Gothicterms now obsolete, I believe----"
He sauntered out with his hat and gloves and stick, still murmuring:
"Morality? Gothic--very Gothic--"
Barres, still amused, sorted his wet brushes, dried them carefully oneby one on a handful of cotton waste, and laid them in a neat rowacross the soapstone top of his palette-table.
"Hang it!" he muttered cheerfully. "I could paint like a streak thismorning if I had the chance--"
He threw himself back in his chair and sat there smoking for a while,his narrowing eyes fixed on a great window which opened above thecourt. Soft spring breezes stirred the curtains; sparrows were noisyout there; a strip of cobalt sky smiled at him over the oppositechimneys; an April cloud floated across it.
He rose, walked over to the window and glanced down into the court.Several more hyacinths were now in blossom. The Prophet dozedmajestically, curled up on an Italian garden seat. Beside him sprawledthe snow white Houri, stretched out full length in the sun, herwonderful blue eyes following the irrational gambols of thetortoise-shell cat, Strindberg, who had gone loco, as usual, and wastearing up and down trees, prancing sideways with flattened ears andcrooked tail, in terror at things invisible, or digging furiouslytoward China amid the hyacinths.
Dulcie Soane came out into the court presently and expostulated withStrindberg, who suffered herself to be removed from the hyacinth bed,only to make a hysterical charge on her mistress's ankles.
"Stop it, you crazy thing!" insisted Dulcie, administering a gentleslap which sent the cat bucketing and corvetting across the lawn,where the eccentric course of a dead leaf, blown by the April wind,instantly occupied its entire intellectual vacuum.
Barres, leaning on the window-sill, said, without raising his voice:
"Hello, Dulcie! How are you, after our party?"
The child looked up, smiled shyly her response through the pale gloryof the April sunshine.
"What are you doing to-day?" he inquired, with casual but friendlyinterest.
"Nothing."
"Isn't there any school?"
"It's Saturday."
"That's so. Well, if you're doing nothing you're just as busy as Iam," he remarked, smiling down at her where she stood below hiswindow.
"Why don't you paint pictures?" ventured the girl diffidently.
"Because I haven't any orders. Isn't that sad?"
"Yes.... But you could paint a picture just to please yourself,couldn't you?"
"I haven't anybody to paint from," he explained with amiableindifference, lazily watching the effect of alternate shadow andsunlight on her upturned face.
"Couldn't you find--somebody?" Her heart had suddenly begun to beatvery fast.
Barres laughed:
"Would you like to have your portrait painted?"
She could scarcely find voice to reply:
"Will you--let me?"
The slim young figure down there in the April sunshine had nowarrested his professional attention. With detached interest heinspected her for a few moments; then:
"You'd make an interesting study, Dulcie. What do you say?"
"Do--do you mean that you _want_ me?"
"Why--yes! Would you like to pose for me? It's pin-money, anyway.Would you like to try it?"
"Y-yes."
"Are you quite sure? It's hard work."
"Quite--sure----" she stammered. The little flushed face was liftedvery earnestly to his now, almost beseechingly. "I am quite sure," sherepeated breathlessly.
"So you'd really like to pose for me?" he insisted in smiling surpriseat the girl's visible excitement. Then he added abruptly: "I've half amind to give you a job as my private model!"
Through the rosy confusion of her face her grey eyes were fixed on himwith a wistful intensity, almost painful. For into her empty heart andstarved mind had suddenly flashed a dazzling revelation. Opportunitywas knocking at her door. Her chance had come! Perhaps it had beeninherited from her mother--God knows!--this deep, deep hunger forthings beautiful--this passionate longing for light and knowledge.
Mere contact with such a man as Barres had already made endurable asolitary servitude which had been subtly destroying her child'sspirit, and slowly dulling the hunger in her famished mind. And now toaid him--to feel that he was using her--was to arise from her rags ofignorance and emerge upright into the light which filled thatwonder-house wherein he dwelt, and on the dark threshold of which herlonely little soul had crouched so long in silence.
* * * * *
She looked up almost blindly at the man who, in careless friendliness,had already opened his door to her, had permitted her to read hiswonder-books, had allowed her to sit unreproved and silent from sheerhappiness, and gaze unsatiated upon the wondrous things within themagic mansion where he dwelt.
And now to serve this man; to aid him, to creep into the light inwhich he stood and strive to learn and see!--the thought already hadproduced a delicate intoxication in the child, and she gazed up atBarres from the sunny garden with her naked soul in her eyes. Whichconfused, perplexed, and embarrassed him.
"Come on up," he said briefly. "I'll tell your father over the'phone."
* * * * *
She entered without a sound, closed the door which he had left openfor her, advanced across the thick-meshed rug. She still wore her bluegingham apron; her bobbed hair, full of ruddy lights, intensified thewhiteness of her throat. In her arms she cradled the Prophet, whostared solemnly at Barres out of depthless green eyes.
"Upon my word," thought Barres to himself, "I believe I have found amodel and an uncommon one!"
Dulcie, watching his expression, smiled slightly and stroked theProphet.
"I'll paint you that way! Don't stir," said the young fellowpleasantly. "Just stand wh
ere you are, Dulcie. You're quite all rightas you are----" He lifted a half-length canvas, placed it on his heavyeasel and clamped it.
"I feel exactly like painting," he continued, busy with his brushesand colours. "I'm full of it to-day. It's in me. It's got to comeout.... And you certainly are an interesting subject--with your biggrey eyes and bobbed red hair--oh, quite interesting constructively,too--as well as from the colour point."
He finished setting his palette, gathered up a handful of brushes:
"I won't bother to draw you except with a brush----"
He looked across at her, remained looking, the pleasantly detachedexpression of his features gradually changing to curiosity, to theseverity of increasing interest, to concentrated and silentabsorption.
"Dulcie," he presently concluded, "you are so unusually interestingand paintable that you make me think very seriously.... And I'm hangedif I'm going to waste you by slapping a technically adequate sketch ofyou onto this nice new canvas ... which might give me pleasure whileI'm doing it ... and might even tickle my vanity for a week ... andthen be laid away to gather dust ... and be covered over next year andused for another sketch.... No.... _No_!... You're worth more thanthat!"
He began to pace the place to and fro, thinking very hard, glancingaround at her from moment to moment, where she stood, obedientlyimmovable on the blue meshed rug, clasping the Prophet to her breast.
"Do you want to become my private model?" he demanded abruptly. "Imean seriously. Do you?"
"Yes."
"I mean a real model, from whom I can ask anything?"
"Oh, yes, please," pleaded the girl, trembling a little.
"Do you understand what it means?"
"Yes."
"Sometimes you'll be required to wear few clothes. Sometimes none. Didyou know that?"
"Yes. Mr. Westmore asked me once."
"You didn't care to?"
"Not for him."
"You don't mind doing it for me?"
"I'll do anything you ask me," she said, trying to smile and shiveringwith excitement.
"All right. It's a bargain. You're my model, Dulcie. When do yougraduate from school?"
"In June."
"Two months! Well--all right. Until then it will be a half day throughthe week, and all day Saturdays and Sundays, if I require you. You'llhave a weekly salary----" He smiled and mentioned the figure, and thegirl blushed vividly. She had, it appeared, expected nothing.
"Why, Dulcie!" he exclaimed, immensely amused. "You didn't intend tocome here and give me all your time for nothing, did you?"
"Yes."
"But why on earth should you do such a thing for me?"
She found no words to explain why.
"Nonsense," he continued; "you're a business woman now. Your fatherwill have to find somebody to cook for him and take the desk when he'sout at Grogan's. Don't worry; I'll fix it with him.... By the way,Dulcie, supposing you sit down."
She found a chair and took the Prophet onto her lap.
"Now, this will be very convenient for me," he went on, inspecting herwith increasing satisfaction. "If I ever have any orders--anysitters--you can have a vacation, of course. Otherwise, I'll alwayshave an interesting model at hand--I've got chests full of wonderfulcostumes--genuine ones----" He fell silent, his eyes studying her.Already he was planning half a dozen pictures, for he was justbeginning to perceive how adaptable the girl might be. And there wasabout her that indefinable something which, when a painter discoversit, interests him and arouses his intense artistic curiosity.
"You know," he said musingly, "you are something more than pretty,Dulcie.... I could put you in eighteenth century clothes and you'dlook logical. Yes, and in seventeenth century clothes, too.... I coulddo some amusing things with you in oriental garments.... A youngHerodiade ... Calypso ... Theodora.... She was a child, too, you know.There's a portrait with bobbed hair--a young girl by Van Dyck.... Youknow you are quite stimulating to me, Dulcie. You excite a painter'simagination. It's rather odd," he added naively, "that I neverdiscovered you before; and I've known you over two years."
He had seated himself on the sofa while discoursing. Now he got up,touched a bell twice. The Finnish maid, Selinda, with her highcheek-bones, frosty blue eyes and colourless hair, appeared in cap andapron.
"Selinda," he said, "take Miss Dulcie into my room. In a long, leatherTurkish box on the third shelf of my clothes closet is a silk and goldcostume and a lot of jade jewelry. Please put her into it."
So Dulcie Soane went away with her cat in her arms, beside the neatand frosty-eyed Selinda; and Barres opened a portfolio of engravings,where were gathered the lovely aristocrats of Van Dyck and Rubens andGainsborough and his contemporaries--a charmingly mixed company,separated by centuries and frontiers, yet all characterised by acommon _something_--some inexplicable similarity which Barresrecognised without defining.
"It's rather amusing," he murmured, "but that kid, Dulcie, seems toremind me of these people--somehow or other.... One scarcely looks forqualities in the child of an Irish janitor.... I wonder who her motherwas...."
* * * * *
When he looked up again Dulcie was standing there on the thick rug. Onher naked feet were jade bracelets, jade-set rings on her little toes;a cascade of jade and gold falling over her breasts to the straight,narrow breadth of peacock hue which fell to her ankles. And on herchildish head, clasping the ruddy bobbed hair, glittered thejade-incrusted diadem of a fairy princess of Cathay.
"YOU LITTLE MIRACLE!"]
The Prophet, gathered close to her breast, stared back at Barres witheyes that dimmed the splendid jade about him.
"That settles it," he said, the tint of excitement rising in hischeeks. "I _have_ discovered a model and a wonder! And right here iswhere I paint my winter Academy--right here and right now!... And Icall it 'The Prophets.' Climb up on that model stand and squat therecross-legged, and stare at me--straight at me--the way your catstares!... There you are. That's right! Don't move. Stay put or I'llcome over and bow-string you!--you little miracle!"
"Do--you mean me?" faltered Dulcie.
"You bet, Sweetness! Do you know how beautiful you are? Well, nevermind----" He had begun already to draw with a wet brush, and now herelapsed into absorbed silence.
The Prophet watched him steadily. The studio became intensely still.