“You may imagine that with her talent and mine, and the swastika working away for us, we are not going to starve—”
* * * *
“That’s just what we intend to do. Bunsen’s Baby Biscuit Company will appreciate our talents. Besides, she can draw—”
* * * *
“You can call it blackmail if you choose. But what do you offer us to refuse advances from Bunsen?”
* * * *
“No, I won’t consider it. My price is full partnership in the Hildreth’s Honey Wafer Company, a cordial blessing from you, use of your apartments for a year, and the same old cozy place in your testament.”
* * * *
“Yes, in return we will write your poetry and draw your pictures for you. And, besides, we’ll name after you our first—”
“Jack!” she exclaimed, aghast.
“Dearest, for Heaven’s sake let me deal with him!” whispered Hildreth; then he shouted through the transmitter:
“Is it all right, Uncle Peter?”
* * * *
“I promise you — we promise you that we will name him Peter! If you don’t, by Heaven, I’ll name him Bunsen—”
* * * *
“That’s all right, but we’re desperate. Peter or Bunsen; take your choice!”
* * * *
“Yes; and I’ll have his photograph taken for Bunsen, and under it I’ll print: ‘A Bunsen’s Baby Biscuit Boy!’”
* * * *
“Don’t use such language; they’ll cut us off!”
* * * *
“What?”
* * * *
“Good! All right, Uncle Peter, you’re a brick. But — just one thing more; please put that crystal away for an hour or two—”
* * * *
“Because we’d like a little privacy!”
* * * *
“Of course I shall. Long engagements are foolish—”
“Jack!”
“Dearest, you know they are,” he said, turning toward her. “Shall I tell him in a week?”
Her blue eyes filled; again the little tremor of acquiescence set her red mouth quivering.
“In a week, Uncle Peter!” he shouted.
* * * *
“What? I’ll ask her. Hold the wire.”
And to her he said: “Sweetheart, our kind Uncle Peter desires to say something civil to you. I — I think it may be something about a check. Will you speak to him?”
She rose and came toward him; he handed her the receiver; she raised her head, and he bent his. They kissed — while his uncle waited.
Then she raised the receiver to her pretty ear, and said, very softly:
“Hello! Hello, Uncle Peter!”
CHAPTER X
THE GHOST OF CHANCE
As young Leeds entered the imposing bronze and marble portico of the Algonquin Trust Building, where he had a studio on the top floor, the elevator boy handed him a telegram and he opened it with instinctive foreboding of trouble. Meanwhile, the Ghost of Chance, which had followed him into the building, looked over his shoulder at the telegram.
There was evidently trouble enough in it; he had turned rather white as he stood there, eyes riveted on the yellow paper. Minute after minute sped; the elevators whizzed up and down in their gilded cages; people passed and repassed; the ornamental marble pavement of the rotunda echoed the clatter of footsteps. Several people he knew nodded to him as they entered or left the elevators: an architect domiciled on the top floor in the east wing, McManus, of the Belden Building and Construction Company; young Farren, private Secretary to De Peyster Thorne, president of the great Algonquin Trust Company, and director of about everything worth directing in the five boroughs.
“Mr. Farren!” called out Leeds; and, as that suave man checked his speed, wheeled, and came back, “Mr. Farren, could I see Mr. Thorne for half a second?”
Farren’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “If it’s a favor you want to ask, don’t ask it now—”
“It is, and I’ve got to—”
“Better not; he’s in a devilish humor; he’d foreclose on his own grandmother to-day.”
“But I can’t wait! I’ll use your telephone while you’re taking my card.”
Farren shrugged, turned, and led the way across the rotunda, ushered Leeds into the outer office, and took his card. Leeds went to a desk and used the telephone vigorously until Farren reappeared, nodding; and Leeds walked into the president’s private room. De Peyster Thorne, handsome, rather too elaborately groomed, and ruddier of face and neck than usual, looked up to return the young man’s greeting with an expressionless word and nod. He did not see the Ghost of Chance standing at Leeds’s elbow.
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Leeds, “but I don’t see how I can finish the key panel on time, Mr. Thorne.”
“Why not?” said Thorne, a darker flush mounting his heavy face and neck.
“I’ve a telegram this moment from my model; she’s ill. I telephoned for another, but there’s scarcely a chance I can get one I want. Something went wrong with the colors yesterday and I scraped out all I had done, expecting to finish to-day with a drier, dry to-morrow, and have Mr. McManus set the key panel in the ballroom Thursday morning. Now, I’ve probably got to spend to-day chasing up a red-haired model; and if I do, I cannot finish by Thursday. Couldn’t you give me one day more?”
“Mr. Leeds,” said Thorne, biting off his words unpleasantly, “a contract is a contract. Can you fulfill yours?”
“I’ve told you,” began Leeds, astonished — for never before had Thorne looked or spoken in that way—” I told you that my model—”
“Can you keep your contract?” repeated Thorne sharply.
“There’s a ghost of a chance if I can get a proper model,” replied Leeds, keeping his temper.
“Then you’d better take that ghost of a chance, Mr. Leeds. On reflection it will occur to you that my housewarming can scarcely be postponed to suit your rather erratic convenience. If the key panel is not in place, the room will be as attractive as a man in evening clothes without a collar. I’d rather tear out the entire frieze, and call the contract void! — and I’ll do it, too, if the contract is not fulfilled.”
“Is that the language you employ in all your commercial transactions?” asked Leeds without a trace of the passion that clutched at him.
“It is. An artist is as amenable to the commercial code of responsibility as any man I deal with — I don’t care a damn who he is or how he likes it.... Is there anything more I can do for you, Mr. Leeds?”
“No,” said Leeds thoughtfully, “unless you choose to take a kindergarten course in the elements of decency.”
Leaving the door ajar as he went out, and far too amazed and furious to notice Mr. Farren, the amused secretary, he crossed the corridor, followed by the Ghost of Chance, entered an elevator, and shot up to the top floor. Black rage and astonishment still possessed him when he met McManus in the hall, and he would have passed on with a nod and a scowl had that genial Irishman permitted.
“Phwat the divil’s up now, Misther Leeds?” inquired the big contractor and builder. “I’ll lay twinty to wan ye’ve joost come from Thorne.” Leeds laid his hand on the door knob of his studio.
“I have; I — I’m not in very good humor, Mr. McManus—” He jerked open the door and started to enter.
“Hould on! — don’t be runnin’ away. Sure haven’t I come from him meself — an’ kept me temper, too, Irish that I am! Phwat’s wrong betchune you an’ Misther Thorne an’ the hydrant?”
“Nothing much; my model is ill and I can’t promise to give you that key panel to set. Thome said — one or two things — oh, I can’t talk about it; he said one or two things—”
“Bedad, thin, he said a dozen things to me; an’ me as cool as a Waldorf julep, an’ he dammin’ the gildin’ whin I asked f’r the sivinth installment due this day. ‘It’s an expert I’ll have f’r to examine it,’ sez he. ‘Projooce the wad,’ sez I, ‘an’ afther that I’ll talk talks to ann
y expert ye name.’ An’ he had to.”
Leeds’s heart turned heavy. “I don’t know what Thorne means to do,” he said. “I’m not much on contracts; I’ve done my best. I suppose he will rip it out if he wants to. If he does, and if he cancels the contract, it will about ruin me. I never had but four other commissions; it cost me more to execute them than I was paid.”
The big Irishman studied the younger man with keen, kindly eyes. He knew what Leeds’s frieze really was — a piece of work that for sheer inspired beauty had not its equal in modern mural art. He knew — even his artisans knew. And he knew, also, that in this fifth essay, a young man, of whom the public had already heard, was stepping half unconsciously into the highest place in the Western world of art. All this McManus was shrewdly aware of, and he was aware, too, that Leeds was more or less conscious of it, and that Thorne was utterly unconscious that, in his new house, the golden ballroom already contained the mural masterpiece of the twentieth century — an exquisite, gay riot of color and design, so lovely, so fresh, that, concealed under the miracle of its simplicity, the marvelous technical perfections of color, drawing, and composition were almost unnoticed in the blinding brilliancy of the ensemble.
“Did that red-necked madman say he’d rip it out?” inquired McManus, his fiery blue eyes aglitter.
“That’s what he said. I don’t know whether the work is good or bad; I’m two years stale on it. I could paint a better one now. But if he holds me to the letter of the contract and throws back two years’ work on my hands, what can I do? I — I never imagined he was that sort of a man; I knew he didn’t care much for painting — his architects got him to give me the work — my first commission that promised any profit—”
Something tightened in his throat, and he turned his head sharply to the window of the corridor.
“Arrah, thin,” said McManus hastily, “don’t be frettin’. G’wan, now, an’ paint like the divil. Give him anny ould thing f’r to ploog the key. Sure, ’tis his fri’nds will tell him fasht enough the bargain he’s got in a frieze — a frieze, begob! that no man twixt the two poles can paint like you! — an’ that’s the truth, Misther Leeds, though ye don’t know it, bein’ modestlike an’ misthrustin’ av the powers God sinds ye. Ploog him up with a key panel — anny ould daub, I tell ye! — f’r to clinch the contract come pay-day! An’ I’ll set it accordin’ to conthract Thursday cornin’; an’ afther he’s opened his big gilt house to the millionaires he consorts with, an’ afther the bunch has christened their muddy wits with the j’yful juice, go to him quietlike, yer foot in yer hand an’ the tongue in the cheek o’ ye, an’ say modestlike: ‘Wisha, sorr, me mastherpiece is not quite to me likin’; an’ I’m thinkin’ to add a few millions to its value wid a stroke av a badger brush.’”
The big Irishman laughed heartily and laid an enormous paw on Leeds’s shoulder — a gesture so kindly that the familiarity seemed without offense.
“Phwat does the like o’ youse care for Mr. Thorne an’ his big red neck an’ the pants o’ him wid the creases, an’ his collar buttoned by his valley? F’r all his scarf pin an’ his shiny shoes an’ his Thrust Company an’ his millions, I seen a bit of a lass give him the frozen face an hour ago.” Leeds looked up curiously.
“Arrah, thin, that’s what crazed him. I was there in his office discoorsin’ on conthracts, pwhen the dure opened an’ a young lady sthepped in not seein’ me pwhere I sat behind the dure.
“‘Naida!’ sez he, joompin’ up, the Burrgundy flush on the face an’ neck av him.
“‘I came to tell you that I can’t do it,’ sez she, her purty face like a rose in blush. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sez, ‘but I thought you ought to be told, an’ I drove downtown in a hurry,’ sez she, ‘f’r to tell you,’ she sez, ‘that I was not in me right mind when you asked me to marry you,’ sez she. ‘So I’m sorry — I’m so sorry,’ she sez, ‘an’ good-by!’ an’ wid that the breath stopped in her an’ she gulped, scairtlike.
“‘Phwat!’ sez he, bitin’ the worrud in two halves. An’ she gulped an’ shook her head.
“Wid that he began in a wild way, clane forgettin’ me in the corner, me hat on me two knees; an’ the young lady was a bit wild, too, bein’ very young an’ excited; an’ there they had it like John Drew an’ his leadin’ lady — quietlike an’ soft-spoken, but turrible as a dress-shirt drama, till she said: ‘No! No! No!’ wid a little sob, an’ out o’ the dure an’ off, he afther her. Sorra the sight av her he got, with Farren hunting her, an’ himself ridin’ up an’ down in the cages when the porther tould him she’d dodged an’ gone up to the top floor.”
“So that was why he was so ugly,” said Leeds curiously.
“It was. He was smooth enough till the lass came in an’ left him her sweet little mitten. But whin he came back, red as a bottle o’ Frinch wine, an’ the two eyes o’ him like black holes burnt in a blanket — save us! All that was close an’ hard an’ mean an’ sly an’ bitter an’ miserly came out in the man, an’ the way he talked to me av honest work done wud stir the neck hair on a fightin’ pup. I was wild; but I sez to meself, lave him talk his talk; it’s all wan on pay-day. An’ so it is, Misther Leeds; it is so. G’wan into ye’re workshop, an’ shpit on ye’re hands, an’ we’ll ploog that key space by 5 P.M., come Thursday, bad cess to the bad, an’ luck to the likes of us, glory be!” Leeds stood half inside his threshold, the edge of the open door grasped in his hand, gazing thoughtfully at the floor.
“All right, McManus,” he said quietly; “I’ll do what I can to save my bread, but” — he looked straight at the Irishman— “it’s bitter bread we learn to eat sometimes — we who are employed.”
“Troth, I’ve swallyed worse nor that; I have so, Misther Leeds. Bide the time, sorr. An’ phwin it comes! — paste him wan.”
“Oh, I’ll have forgotten him by that time,” said Leeds, laughing, as McManus, with a significant and powerful gesture, turned on his broad heel and strode off toward his own rooms, where Kenna, his partner, had been making frantic signals to him for the last five minutes.
Leeds entered his studio, the Ghost of Chance at his heels, closing the door behind him. Through the golden gloom of the room his huge picture loomed up, somber in the subdued light; an aromatic odor of wet colors and siccatif hung in the air.
First, he laid aside his overcoat and hat, unhooked from a door peg a short painting blouse and pulled it over his head; then he moved about briskly, opening ventilators to air the place, manipulating the curtains for top and side lights, dragging the carved mahogany model stand into the position marked by the chalk crosses on the polished floor. Presently he touched a spring; the top shade rolled up with a click; a flood of pure north light fell upon the gorgeous colors of the canvas. He began to adjust the delicate machinery of the complex easel, turning a silver screw to regulate the pitch of the heavy canvas, twisting a cogwheel here, a lever there, until he had brought that part of the canvas within reach whereon he expected to work.
He was one of those modest, dissatisfied young men who can never be content with the work done, perfectly aware of possibilities not yet attained, willing to try for them, vaguely confident of attaining them; a young man who would go far — had gone far — farther than he realized. Yet, although the critics were joyously bellowing his praises as the coming man, his work so far had barely given him a living.
He required great surfaces to cover, and the beauty of the results was apparent in the new marble library, the Hotel Oneida, the Theater Regent, and the new Brooklyn Academy of Music. Superb color, faultless taste, vigor, delicacy — all were his. The technique that sticks out like dry bones, the spineless lack of construction, fads, pitiful eccentricities to cover inability — nothing of these had ever, even in his student days, threatened him with the pitfall of common disaster. Nor was there in his work the faintest hint of physical weakness — nothing unwholesome, smug, suggestive — nothing sugary, nothing insincerely brutal; perhaps because he was a very normal young man, inclined
to normal pleasures, and worldly enough to conform to the civilized code outside the barriers of which genius is popularly supposed to pasture.
And still, with all this, he had been paid so little for his work heretofore, and to produce his work had cost him so much in materials and in model and studio hire, that he scarcely knew how to make both ends meet in the most cruelly expensive metropolis of all the world.
For the first time, when approached by Thorne, he had dared name a price for his work which might give him a decent profit when the last brush stroke was laid on; and, while Thorne’s big new house slowly rose, stone on stone, overlooking the Park, he had worked on the frieze of life-size figures — two hundred in all — which was to complete the golden ballroom with an exquisite, springlike garland of youth and loveliness.
He had accepted Thorne’s cut-throat, cast-iron contract with the deadly time clause; he had used up every second of time, shirking nothing, sparing no expense; making life-size study after study, scintillating with a cleverness that would not only have satisfied but turned the heads of ninety-nine painters in a hundred. But he was the hundredth.
He had given himself just time to complete his work and say: “I can do no better. I have done all that was in me.” But, though he had foreseen trouble and delay from models, and the dozens of vexations artists fall heir to, he could not have foreseen that a young girl he never heard of should, at a critical moment, bring out a side of Thorne’s character he did not suspect existed in him — the sharp, ugly brutality of wounded arrogance, which vents itself where opportunity offers; the fiercely sullen desire to hurt, to stamp its power upon those who have no defense.
And now, with the entire frieze all but completed, the man had suddenly snarled at him — for no reason on earth save a willingness to crush and dominate. There was not a day of grace named in the contract; there was no grace to be expected from Thorne, who cared no more for the frieze that hid part of his golden-lacquered paneling than for the gilded sconces below. If one or the other did not suit him, he’d tear them out without a word and cover the raw space with ten thousand dollars’ worth of hothouse roses for his housewarming. Leeds understood that. He was beginning to appreciate the man. He must try to beat him.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1154