CHAPTER XII
A MATTER OF TASTE
"What are you writin' so hard for, Mr. Gael?" Joan voiced the questionwistfully on the height of a long breath. She drew it from a silencewhich seemed to her to have filled this strange, gay house for aneternity. For the first time full awareness of the present cut a riftin the troubled cloudiness of her introspection. She had been sittingin her chair, listless and wan, now staring at the flames, nowfollowing Wen Ho's activities with absent eyes. A storm was swirlingoutside. Near the window, Prosper, a figure of keen absorption, bentover his writing-table, his long, fine hand driving the pencil acrosssheet after sheet. He looked like a machine, so regular and rapid washis work. A sudden sense of isolation came upon Joan. What part hadshe in the life of this companion, this keeper of her own life? Shefelt a great need of drawing nearer to him, of finding the humanity inhim. At first she fought the impulse, reserve, pride, shyness lockingher down, till at last her nerves gave her such torment that herfingers knitted into each other and on the outbreathing of a desperatesigh she spoke.
"What are you writin' so hard for, Mr. Gael?"
At once Prosper's hand laid down its pencil and he turned about in hischair and gave her a gleaming look and smile. Joan was fairlystartled. It was as if she had touched some mysterious spring andturned on a dazzling, unexpected light. As a matter of fact, Prosper'sheart had leapt at her wistful and beseeching voice.
He had been biding his time. He had absorbed himself in writing,content to leave in suspense the training of his enchanted leopardess.Half-absent glimpses of her desolate beauty as she moved about hiswinter-bound house, contemplation of her unself-consciousness as shecompanioned his meals, the pleasure he felt in her rapt listening tohis music in the still, frost-held evenings by the fire--these he hadmade enough. They quieted his restlessness, soothed the ache of hisheart, filled him with a warm and patient desire, different from anyfeeling he had yet experienced. He was amused by her lack of interestin him. He was not accustomed to such through-gazing from beautifuleyes, such incurious absence of questioning. She evidently accepted himas a superior being, a Providence; he was not a man at all, not of thesame clay as Pierre and herself. Prosper had waited understandinglyenough for her first move. When the personal question came, it made asort of crash in the expectant silence of his heart.
Before answering, except by that smile, he lit himself a cigarette;then, strolling to the fire, he sat on the rug below her, drawing hisknees up into his hands.
"I'd like to tell you about my writing, Joan. After all, it's thegreat interest of my life, and I've been fairly seething with it; onlyI didn't want to bother you, worry your poor, distracted head."
"I never thought," said Joan slowly, "I never thought you'd be carin'to tell me things. I know so awful little."
"It wasn't your modesty, Joan. It was simply because you haven't givenme a thought since I dragged you in here on my sled. I've beennothing"--under the careless, half-bitter manner, he was weighing hiswords and their probable effect--"nothing, for all these weeks, but--aprovider."
"A provider?" Joan groped for the meaning of the word. It came, andshe flushed deeply. "You mean I've just taken things, taken your kinddoin's toward me an' not been givin' you a thought." Her eyes filledand shone mortification down upon him so that he put his hand quicklyover hers, tightened together on her knee.
"Poor girl! I'm not reproaching you."
"But, Mr. Gael, I wanted to work for you. You wouldn't let me." Shebrushed away her tears. "What can I do? Where can I go?"
"You can stay here and make me happy as you have been doing ever sinceyou came. I was very unhappy before. And you can give me just as muchor as little attention as you please. I don't ask you for a bit more.Suppose you stop grieving, Joan, and try to be just a little happieryourself. Take an interest in life. Why, you poor, young, ignorantchild, I could open whole worlds of excitement, pleasure, to you, ifyou'd let me. There's more in life than you've dreamed of experiencing.There's music, for one thing, and there are books and beauty of athousand kinds, and big, wonderful thoughts, and there's companionshipand talk. What larks we could have, you and I, if you would care--Imean, if you would wake up and let me show you how. You do want tolearn a woman's work, don't you, Joan?"
She shook her head slowly, smiling wistfully, the tears gone from hereyes, which were puzzled, but diverted from pain. "I didn't savvy whatyou meant when you talked about what a woman's work rightly was. An'I'm so awful ignorant, you know so awful much. It scares me, plumbscares me, to think how much you know, more than Mr. Holliwell! Suchbooks an' books an' books! An' writin' too. You see I'd be no help norcompany fer you. I'd like to listen to you. I'd listen all day long,but I'd not be understandin'. No more than I understand about thatthere woman's work idea."
He laughed at her, keeping reassuring eyes on hers. "I can explainanything. I can make you understand anything. I'll grant you, my ideaof a woman's work is difficult for you to get hold of. That's a bigquestion, after all, one of the biggest. But--just to begin with andwe'll drop it later for easier things--I believe, the world believes,that a woman ought to be beautiful. You can understand that?"
Joan shook her head. "It's a awful hard sayin', Mr. Gael. It's awfulhard to say you had ought to be somethin' a person can't manage forthemselves. I mean--" poor Joan, the inarticulate, floundered, but heleft her, rather cruelly, to flounder out. "I mean, that's an awfulhard sayin' fer a homely woman, Mr. Gael."
He laughed. "Oh," said he with a gesture, "there is no such thing as ahomely woman. A homely woman simply does not count." He got up, lookedfor a book, found it, opened it, and brought it to her. "Look at thatpicture, Joan. What do you think of it?"
It was of a woman, a long-drawn, emaciated creature, extraordinarilyartificial in her grace and in the pose and expression of her ugly,charming form and features. She had been aided by hair-dresser andcostumer and by her own wit, aided into something that made of her anarresting and compelling picture. "What do you think of her, Joan?"smiled Prosper Gael.
Joan screwed up her eyes distastefully. "Ain't she queer, Mr. Gael?Poor thing, she's homely!"
He clapped to the book. "A matter of educated taste," he said. "Youdon't know beauty when you see it. If you walked into a drawing-room bythe side of that marvelous being, do you think you'd win a look, my deargirl? Why, your great brows and your great, wild eyes and your face andform of an Olympian and your free grace of a forest beast--why, theywouldn't be noticed. Because, Joan, that queer, poor thing knew woman'swork from A to Z. She's beautiful, Joan, beautiful as God most certainlynever intended her to be. Why, it's a triumph--it's something to blow atrumpet over. It's art!"
He returned the volume and came back to stand by the mantel,half-turned from her, looking down into the fire. For the moment, hehad created in himself a reaction against his present extraordinaryexperiment, his wilderness adventure. He was keenly conscious of adesire for civilized woman, for her practiced tongue, her poise, hermatchless companionship....
Joan spoke, "You mean I'm awful homely, Mr. Gael?"
The question set him to laughing outrageously. Joan's pride was stung.
"You've no right to laugh at me," she said. "I'd not be carin' whatyou think." And she left him, moving like an angry stag, head high,light-stepping.
He went back to his work, not at all in regret at her pique and stillamused by the utter femininity of her simple question.
Before dinner he rapped at her door. "Joan, will you do me a favor?"
A pause, then, in her sweet, vibrant voice, she answered, "I'd bedoin' anything fer you, Mr. Gael."
"Then, put on these things for dinner instead of your own clothes,will you?"
She opened the door and he piled into her arms a mass of shining silk,on top of it a pair of gorgeous Chinese slippers.
"Do it to please me, even if you think it makes you look queer, willyou, Joan?"
"Of course," she smiled, looking up from the gleaming, sliding stuffinto his face. "I'd like
to, anyway. Dressing-up--that's fun."
And she shut the door.
She spread the silk out on the bed and found it a loose robe of dullblue, embroidered in silver dragons and lined with brilliant rose.There was a skirt of this same rose-colored stuff. In one weightedpocket she found a belt of silver coins and a little vest of creamylace. There were rose silk stockings stuffed into the shoes. Joaneagerly arrayed herself. She had trouble with the vest, it was sofilmy, so vaguely made, it seemed to her, and to wear it at all shehad to divest herself altogether of the upper part of her coarseunderwear. Then it seemed to her startlingly inadequate even as anundergarment. However, the robe did go over it, and she drew thatclose and belted it in. It was provided with long sleeves and fell toher ankles. She thrilled at the delightful clinging softness of silkstockings and for the first time admired her long, round ankles andshapely feet. The Chinese slippers amused her, but they too werebeautiful, all embroidered with flowers and dragons.
She felt she must look very queer, indeed, and went to the mirror.What she saw there surprised her because it was so strange, sodifferent. Pierre had not dealt in compliments. His woman was hiswoman and he loved her body. To praise this body, surrendered in loveto him, would have been impossible to the reverence and reserve of hispassion.
Now, Joan brushed and coiled her hair, arranging it instinctively, butperhaps a little in imitation of that queer picture that had looked toher so hideous. Then, starting toward the door at Wen Ho's announcementof "Dinner, lady," she was quite suddenly overwhelmed by shyness. Fromhead to foot for the first time in all her life she was acutelyconscious of herself.
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