"Monday morning, any time after ten," murmured Wrinkles, in astonishmentand sorrow.
While Grief marched to and fro threatening the furniture, Pennoyer andWrinkles allowed their under jaws to fall, and remained as men smittenbetween the eyes by the god of calamity.
"Singular thing!" muttered Pennoyer at last. "You get so frightfullyhungry as soon as you learn that there are no more meals coming."
"Oh, well----" said Wrinkles. He took up his guitar.
Oh, some folks say dat a niggah won' steal, 'Way down yondeh in d' cohn'-fiel'; But Ah caught two in my cohn'-fiel', Way down yondeh in d' cohn'-fiel'.
"Oh, let up!" said Grief, as if unwilling to be moved from his despair.
"Oh, let up!" said Pennoyer, as if he disliked the voice and the ballad.
In his studio, Hawker sat braced nervously forward on a little stoolbefore his tall Dutch easel. Three sketches lay on the floor near him,and he glared at them constantly while painting at the large canvas onthe easel.
He seemed engaged in some kind of a duel. His hair dishevelled, his eyesgleaming, he was in a deadly scuffle. In the sketches was the landscapeof heavy blue, as if seen through powder-smoke, and all the skies burnedred. There was in these notes a sinister quality of hopelessness,eloquent of a defeat, as if the scene represented the last hour on afield of disastrous battle. Hawker seemed attacking with this picturesomething fair and beautiful of his own life, a possession of his mind,and he did it fiercely, mercilessly, formidably. His arm moved with theenergy of a strange wrath. He might have been thrusting with a sword.
There was a knock at the door. "Come in." Pennoyer entered sheepishly."Well?" cried Hawker, with an echo of savagery in his voice. He turnedfrom the canvas precisely as one might emerge from a fight. "Oh!" hesaid, perceiving Pennoyer. The glow in his eyes slowly changed. "What isit, Penny?"
"Billie," said Pennoyer, "Grief was to get his check to-day, but theyput him off until Monday, and so, you know--er--well----"
"Oh!" said Hawker again.
When Pennoyer had gone Hawker sat motionless before his work. He staredat the canvas in a meditation so profound that it was probablyunconscious of itself.
The light from above his head slanted more and more toward the east.
Once he arose and lighted a pipe. He returned to the easel and stoodstaring with his hands in his pockets. He moved like one in a sleep.Suddenly the gleam shot into his eyes again. He dropped to the stool andgrabbed a brush. At the end of a certain long, tumultuous period heclinched his pipe more firmly in his teeth and puffed strongly. Thethought might have occurred to him that it was not alight, for he lookedat it with a vague, questioning glance. There came another knock at thedoor. "Go to the devil!" he shouted, without turning his head.
Hollanden crossed the corridor then to the den.
"Hi, there, Hollie! Hello, boy! Just the fellow we want to see. Comein--sit down--hit a pipe. Say, who was the girl Billie Hawker went madover this summer?"
"Blazes!" said Hollanden, recovering slowly from this onslaught."Who--what--how did you Indians find it out?"
"Oh, we tumbled!" they cried in delight, "we tumbled."
"There!" said Hollanden, reproaching himself. "And I thought you weresuch a lot of blockheads."
"Oh, we tumbled!" they cried again in their ecstasy. "But who is she?That's the point."
"Well, she was a girl."
"Yes, go on."
"A New York girl."
"Yes."
"A perfectly stunning New York girl."
"Yes. Go ahead."
"A perfectly stunning New York girl of a very wealthy and ratherold-fashioned family."
"Well, I'll be shot! You don't mean it! She is practically seated on topof the Matterhorn. Poor old Billie!"
"Not at all," said Hollanden composedly.
It was a common habit of Purple Sanderson to call attention at night tothe resemblance of the den to some little ward in a hospital. Upon thisnight, when Sanderson and Grief were buried in slumber, Pennoyer movedrestlessly. "Wrink!" he called softly into the darkness in the directionof the divan which was secretly a coal-box.
"What?" said Wrinkles in a surly voice. His mind had evidently beencaught at the threshold of sleep.
"Do you think Florinda cares much for Billie Hawker?"
Wrinkles fretted through some oaths. "How in thunder do I know?" Thedivan creaked as he turned his face to the wall.
"Well----" muttered Pennoyer.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The harmony of summer sunlight on leaf and blade of green was not knownto the two windows, which looked forth at an obviously endless buildingof brownstone about which there was the poetry of a prison. Inside,great folds of lace swept down in orderly cascades, as water trained tofall mathematically. The colossal chandelier, gleaming like a Siameseheaddress, caught the subtle flashes from unknown places.
Hawker heard a step and the soft swishing of a woman's dress. He turnedtoward the door swiftly, with a certain dramatic impulsiveness. But whenshe entered the room he said, "How delighted I am to see you again!"
She had said, "Why, Mr. Hawker, it was so charming in you to come!"
It did not appear that Hawker's tongue could wag to his purpose. Thegirl seemed in her mind to be frantically shuffling her pack of socialreceipts and finding none of them made to meet this situation. Finally,Hawker said that he thought Hearts at War was a very good play.
"Did you?" she said in surprise. "I thought it much like the others."
"Well, so did I," he cried hastily--"the same figures moving around inthe mud of modern confusion. I really didn't intend to say that I likedit. Fact is, meeting you rather moved me out of my mental track."
"Mental track?" she said. "I didn't know clever people had mentaltracks. I thought it was a privilege of the theologians."
"Who told you I was clever?" he demanded.
"Why," she said, opening her eyes wider, "nobody."
Hawker smiled and looked upon her with gratitude. "Of course, nobody.There couldn't be such an idiot. I am sure you should be astonished tolearn that I believed such an imbecile existed. But----"
"Oh!" she said.
"But I think you might have spoken less bluntly."
"Well," she said, after wavering for a time, "you are clever, aren'tyou?"
"Certainly," he answered reassuringly.
"Well, then?" she retorted, with triumph in her tone. And thisinterrogation was apparently to her the final victorious argument.
At his discomfiture Hawker grinned.
"You haven't asked news of Stanley," he said. "Why don't you ask news ofStanley?"
"Oh! and how was he?"
"The last I saw of him he stood down at the end of the pasture--thepasture, you know--wagging his tail in blissful anticipation of aninvitation to come with me, and when it finally dawned upon him that hewas not to receive it, he turned and went back toward the house 'like aman suddenly stricken with age,' as the story-tellers eloquently say.Poor old dog!"
"And you left him?" she said reproachfully. Then she asked, "Do youremember how he amused you playing with the ants at the falls?"
"No."
"Why, he did. He pawed at the moss, and you sat there laughing. Iremember it distinctly."
"You remember distinctly? Why, I thought--well, your back was turned,you know. Your gaze was fixed upon something before you, and you wereutterly lost to the rest of the world. You could not have known ifStanley pawed the moss and I laughed. So, you see, you are mistaken. Asa matter of fact, I utterly deny that Stanley pawed the moss or that Ilaughed, or that any ants appeared at the falls at all."
"I have always said that you should have been a Chinese soldier offortune," she observed musingly. "Your daring and ingenuity would beprized by the Chinese."
"There are innumerable tobacco jars in China," he said, measuring theadvantages. "Moreover, there is no perspective. You don't have to walktwo miles to see a friend. No. He is always there near you, so that youcan't move
a chair without hitting your distant friend. You----"
"Did Hollie remain as attentive as ever to the Worcester girls?"
"Yes, of course, as attentive as ever. He dragged me into all manner oftennis games----"
"Why, I thought you loved to play tennis?"
"Oh, well," said Hawker, "I did until you left."
"My sister has gone to the park with the children. I know she will bevexed when she finds that you have called."
Ultimately Hawker said, "Do you remember our ride behind my father'soxen?"
"No," she answered; "I had forgotten it completely. Did we ride behindyour father's oxen?"
After a moment he said: "That remark would be prized by the Chinese. Wedid. And you most graciously professed to enjoy it, which earned my deepgratitude and admiration. For no one knows better than I," he addedmeekly, "that it is no great comfort or pleasure to ride behind myfather's oxen."
She smiled retrospectively. "Do you remember how the people on the porchhurried to the railing?"
CHAPTER XXVII.
Near the door the stout proprietress sat intrenched behind the cash-boxin a Parisian manner. She looked with practical amiability at herguests, who dined noisily and with great fire, discussing momentousproblems furiously, making wide, maniacal gestures through the cigarettesmoke. Meanwhile the little handful of waiters ran to and fro wildly.Imperious and importunate cries rang at them from all directions."Gustave! Adolphe!" Their faces expressed a settled despair. Theyanswered calls, commands, oaths in a semi-distraction, fleeting amongthe tables as if pursued by some dodging animal. Their breaths came ingasps. If they had been convict labourers they could not have surveyedtheir positions with countenances of more unspeakable injury. Withal,they carried incredible masses of dishes and threaded their ways withskill. They served people with such speed and violence that it oftenresembled a personal assault. They struck two blows at a table and leftthere a knife and fork. Then came the viands in a volley. The clatter ofthis business was loud and bewilderingly rapid, like the gallop of athousand horses.
In a remote corner a band of mandolins and guitars played the long,sweeping, mad melody of a Spanish waltz. It seemed to go tingling to thehearts of many of the diners. Their eyes glittered with enthusiasm, withabandon, with deviltry. They swung their heads from side to side inrhythmic movement. High in air curled the smoke from the innumerablecigarettes. The long, black claret bottles were in clusters upon thetables. At an end of the hall two men with maudlin grins sang the waltzuproariously, but always a trifle belated.
An unsteady person, leaning back in his chair to murmur swiftcompliments to a woman at another table, suddenly sprawled out upon thefloor. He scrambled to his feet, and, turning to the escort of thewoman, heatedly blamed him for the accident. They exchanged a series oftense, bitter insults, which spatted back and forth between them likepellets. People arose from their chairs and stretched their necks. Themusicians stood in a body, their faces turned with expressions of keenexcitement toward this quarrel, but their fingers still twinkling overtheir instruments, sending into the middle of this turmoil thepassionate, mad, Spanish music. The proprietor of the place came inagitation and plunged headlong into the argument, where he thereafterappeared as a frantic creature harried to the point of insanity, forthey buried him at once in long, vociferous threats, explanations,charges, every form of declamation known to their voices. The music, thenoise of the galloping horses, the voices of the brawlers, gave thewhole thing the quality of war.
There were two men in the _cafe_ who seemed to be tranquil. Hollandencarefully stacked one lump of sugar upon another in the middle of hissaucer and poured cognac over them. He touched a match to the cognac andthe blue and yellow flames eddied in the saucer. "I wonder what thosetwo fools are bellowing at?" he said, turning about irritably.
"Hanged if I know!" muttered Hawker in reply. "This place makes meweary, anyhow. Hear the blooming din!"
"What's the matter?" said Hollanden. "You used to say this was the onenatural, the one truly Bohemian, resort in the city. You swore by it."
"Well, I don't like it so much any more."
"Ho!" cried Hollanden, "you're getting correct--that's it exactly. Youwill become one of these intensely---- Look, Billie, the little one isgoing to punch him!"
"No, he isn't. They never do," said Hawker morosely. "Why did you bringme here to-night, Hollie?"
"I? I bring you? Good heavens, I came as a concession to you! What areyou talking about?--Hi! the little one is going to punch him, sure!"
He gave the scene his undivided attention for a moment; then he turnedagain: "You will become correct. I know you will. I have been watching.You are about to achieve a respectability that will make a stone saintblush for himself. What's the matter with you? You act as if you thoughtfalling in love with a girl was a most extraordinary circumstance.--Iwish they would put those people out.--Of course I know that you----There! The little one has swiped at him at last!"
After a time he resumed his oration. "Of course, I know that you are notreformed in the matter of this uproar and this remarkable consumption ofbad wine. It is not that. It is a fact that there are indications thatsome other citizen was fortunate enough to possess your napkin beforeyou; and, moreover, you are sure that you would hate to be caught byyour correct friends with any such _consomme_ in front of you as we hadto-night. You have got an eye suddenly for all kinds of gilt. You are inthe way of becoming a most unbearable person.--Oh, look! the little oneand the proprietor are having it now.--You are in the way of becoming amost unbearable person. Presently many of your friends will not be fineenough.--In heaven's name, why don't they throw him out? Are you goingto howl and gesticulate there all night?"
"Well," said Hawker, "a man would be a fool if he did like this dinner."
"Certainly. But what an immaterial part in the glory of this joint isthe dinner! Who cares about dinner? No one comes here to eat; that'swhat you always claimed.--Well, there, at last they are throwing himout. I hope he lands on his head.--Really, you know, Billie, it is sucha fine thing being in love that one is sure to be detestable to the restof the world, and that is the reason they created a proverb to the othereffect. You want to look out."
"You talk like a blasted old granny!" said Hawker. "Haven't changed atall. This place is all right, only----"
"You are gone," interrupted Hollanden in a sad voice. "It is veryplain--you are gone."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The proprietor of the place, having pushed to the street the little man,who may have been the most vehement, came again and resumed thediscussion with the remainder of the men of war. Many of these hadvolunteered, and they were very enduring.
"Yes, you are gone," said Hollanden, with the sobriety of graves in hisvoice. "You are gone.--Hi!" he cried, "there is Lucian Pontiac.--Hi,Pontiac! Sit down here."
A man with a tangle of hair, and with that about his mouth which showedthat he had spent many years in manufacturing a proper modesty withwhich to bear his greatness, came toward them, smiling.
"Hello, Pontiac!" said Hollanden. "Here's another great painter. Do youknow Mr. Hawker?--Mr. William Hawker--Mr. Pontiac."
"Mr. Hawker--delighted," said Pontiac. "Although I have not known youpersonally, I can assure you that I have long been a great admirer ofyour abilities."
The proprietor of the place and the men of war had at length agreed tocome to an amicable understanding. They drank liquors, while eachfirmly, but now silently, upheld his dignity.
"Charming place," said Pontiac. "So thoroughly Parisian in spirit. Andfrom time to time, Mr. Hawker, I use one of your models. Must say shehas the best arm and wrist in the universe. Stunning figure--stunning!"
"You mean Florinda?" said Hawker.
"Yes, that's the name. Very fine girl. Lunches with me from time to timeand chatters so volubly. That's how I learned you posed heroccasionally. If the models didn't gossip we would never know whatpainters were addicted to profanity. Now that old Thorndike--he told meyou swore
like a drill-sergeant if the model winked a finger at thecritical time. Very fine girl, Florinda. And honest, too--honest as thedevil. Very curious thing. Of course honesty among the girl models isvery common, very common--quite universal thing, you know--but then italways strikes me as being very curious, very curious. I've been muchattracted by your girl Florinda."
"My girl?" said Hawker.
"Well, she always speaks of you in a proprietary way, you know. And thenshe considers that she owes you some kind of obedience and allegianceand devotion. I remember last week I said to her: 'You can go now. Comeagain Friday.' But she said: 'I don't think I can come on Friday. BillieHawker is home now, and he may want me then.' Said I: 'The devil takeBillie Hawker! He hasn't engaged you for Friday, has he? Well, then, Iengage you now.' But she shook her head. No, she couldn't come onFriday. Billie Hawker was home, and he might want her any day. 'Well,then,' said I, 'you have my permission to do as you please, since youare resolved upon it anyway. Go to your Billie Hawker.' Did you need heron Friday?"
"No," said Hawker.
"Well, then, the minx, I shall scold her. Stunning figure--stunning! Itwas only last week that old Charley Master said to me mournfully:'There are no more good models. Great Scott! not a one.' 'You're 'wayoff, my boy,' I said; 'there is one good model,' and then I named yourgirl. I mean the girl who claims to be yours."
"Poor little beggar!" said Hollanden.
"Who?" said Pontiac.
"Florinda," answered Hollanden. "I suppose----"
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