I
Peter (flourish-in-red) Quick (flourish-in-green) Banta (period-in-blue)is the style whereby he is known to Our Square.
Summertimes he is a prop and ornament of Coney, that isle of the blest,whose sands he models into gracious forms and noble sentiments, inanticipation of the casual dime or the munificent quarter, wherewith, ifyou have low, Philistine tastes or a kind heart, you have perhapsaforetime rewarded him. In the off-season the thwarted passion of colorpossesses him; and upon the flagstones before Thornsen's EliteRestaurant, which constitutes his canvas, he will limn you a full-riggedship in two colors, a portrait of the heavyweight champion in three, or,if financially encouraged, the Statue of Liberty in four. These be,however, concessions to popular taste. His own predilection is forchaste floral designs of a symbolic character borne out and expounded byappropriate legends. Peter Quick Banta is a devotee of his art.
Giving full run to his loftier aspirations, he was engaged, one Aprilday, upon a carefully represented lilac with a butterfly about to lighton it, when he became cognizant of a ragged rogue of an urchin regardinghim with a grin. Peter Quick Banta misinterpreted this sign of interest.
"What d'ye think of that?" he said triumphantly, as he sketched in aset of side-whiskers (presumably intended for antennae) upon thebutterfly.
"Rotten," was the prompt response.
"What!" said the astounded artist, rising from his knees.
"Punk."
Peter Quick Banta applied the higher criticism to the urchin's nearestear. It was now that connoisseur's turn to be affronted. Picking himselfout of the gutter, he placed his thumb to his nose, and wiggled hisfinger in active and reprehensible symbolism, whilst enlarging upon hisoriginal critique, in a series of shrill roars:
"Rotten! Punk! No good! Swash! Flubdub! Sacre tas de--de--piffle!"Already his vocabulary was rich and plenteous, though, in those days,tainted by his French origin.
He then, I regret to say, spat upon the purple whiskers of the butterflyand took refuge in flight. The long stride of Peter Quick Banta soonovertook him. Silently struggling he was haled back to the profanedtemple of Art.
"Now, young feller," said Peter Quick Banta. "Maybe you think you coulddo it better." The world-old retort of the creative artist tohis critic!
"Any fool could," retorted the boy, which, in various forms, is almostas time-honored as the challenge.
Suspecting that only tactful intervention would forestall possiblemurder, I sauntered over from my bench. But the decorator of sidewalkshad himself under control.
"Try it," he said grimly.
The boy avidly seized the crayons extended to him.
"You want me to draw a picture? There?"
"If you don't, I'll break every bone in your body."
The threat left its object quite unmoved. He pointed a crayon at PeterQuick Banta's creation.
"What is that? A bool-rush?"
"It's a laylock; that's what it is."
"And the little bird that goes to light--"
"That ain't a bird and you know it." Peter Quick Banta breathed hard."That's a butterfly."
"I see. But the lie-lawc, it drop--so!" The gesture was inimitable. "Andthe butterfly, she do not come down, plop! She float--so!" The grimyhands fluttered and sank.
"They do, do they? Well, you put it down on the sidewalk."
From that moment the outside world ceased to exist for the urchin. Hefell to with concentrated fervor, while Peter Quick Banta and I divertedthe traffic. Only once did he speak:
"Yellow," he said, reaching, but not looking up.
Silently the elder artist put the desired crayon in his hand. When thelast touches were done, the boy looked up at us, not boastfully, butwith supreme confidence.
"There!" said he.
It was crude. It was ill-proportioned. The colors were raw. Thearrangements were false.
But--the lilac bloomed. And--the butterfly hovered. The artist hadspoken through his ordained medium and the presentment of life stoodforth. I hardly dared look at Peter Quick Banta. But beneath his uncouthexterior there lay a great and magnanimous soul.
"Son," said he, "you're a wonder. Wanta keep them crayons?"
Unable to speak for the moment, the boy took off his ragged cap in oneof the most gracious gestures I have ever witnessed, raising dog-likeeyes of gratitude to his benefactor. Tactfully, Peter Quick Bantaproceeded to expound for my benefit the technique of the drawing, givingthe youngster time to recover before the inevitable questioning began.
"Where did you learn that?"
"Nowhere. Had a few drawing lessons at No. 19."
"Would you like to work for me?"
"How?"
Peter Quick Banta pointed to the sidewalk.
"That?" The boy laughed happily. "That ain't work. That's fun."
So the partnership was begun, the boy, whose name was Julien Tennier(soon simplified into Tenney for local use), sharing Peter Quick Banta'sroomy garret. Success, modest but unfailing, attended it from the firstappearance of the junior member of the firm at Coney Island, where, asthe local cognoscenti still maintain, he revolutionized the art andpractice of the "sand-dabs." Out of the joint takings grew a bankaccount. Eventually Peter Quick Banta came to me about the boy'seducation.
"He's a swell," said Peter Quick Banta. "Look at that face! I don't careif he did crawl outa the gutter. I'm an artist and I reco'nizearistocracy when I see it. And I want him brung up accordin'."
So I inducted the youngster into such modest groves of learning as anold, half-shelved pedagogue has access to, and when the Bonnie Lassiecame to Our Square to make herself and us famous with her tiny bronzes(this was before she had captured, reformed, and married Cyrus theGaunt), I took him to her and he fell boyishly and violently in lovewith her beauty and her genius alike, all of which was good for hisdeveloping soul. She arranged for his art training.
"But you know, Dominie," she used to say, wagging her head like aprofound and thoughtful bird; "this is all very foolish and shortsightedon my part. Five years from now that gutter-godling of yours will bedoing work that will make people forget poor little me and my poorlittle figurines."
To which I replied that even if it were true, instead of the veriestnonsense, about Julien Tenney or any one else ever eclipsing her, shewould help him just the same!
But five years from then Julien had gone over to the Philistines.
II
Justly catalogued, Roberta Holland belonged to the idle rich. She wouldhave objected to the latter classification, averring that, with therising cost of furs and automobile upkeep, she had barely enough to keepher head above the high tide of Fifth Avenue prices. As to idleness, shescorned the charge. Had she not, throughout the war, performedprodigious feats of committee work, all of it meritorious and some of ituseful? She had. It had left her with a dangerous and destructiveappetite for doing good to people. Aside from this, Miss Roberta was adistracting young person. Few looked at her once without wanting to lookagain, and not a few looked again to their undoing.
Being-done-good-to is, I understand, much in vogue in the purlieus ofFifth Avenue where it is practiced with skill and persistence by a largeand needy cult of grateful recipients. Our Square doesn't take to it. Asrecipients we are, I fear, grudgingly grateful. So when Miss Hollandtransferred her enthusiasms and activities to our far-away corner of theworld she met with a lack of response which might have discouraged onewith a less new and superior sense of duty to the lower orders. She cameto us through the Bonnie Lassie, guardian of the gateway from the upperstrata to our humbler domain, who--Pagan that she is!--indiscriminatelyaccepts all things beautiful simply for their beauty. Having arrived,Miss Holland proceeded to organize us with all the energy ofhigh-blooded sweet-and-twenty and all the imperiousness of confidentwealth and beauty. She organized an evening sewing-circle for womenwhose eyelids would not stay open after their long day's work. Sheformed cultural improvement classes for such as Leon Coventry, theprinter, who knows half the literatures of the world, and MacLachan, thetailor, to whom Carlyle is by way of being light reading. She deliveredsome edifying exhortations upon the subject of Americanism to PolyglotElsa, of the Elite Restaurant (who had taken upon her sturdy youngshoulders the support of an old mother and a paralytic sister, so thather two brothers might enlist for the war--a detail of patriotism whichthe dispenser of platitudes might have learned by judicious inquiry).And so forth and so on. Miss Roberta Holland meant well, but she hadmany things to learn and no master to teach her.
Yet when the flu epidemic returned upon us, she stood by, efficient,deft, and gallant, though still imperious, until the day when sheclashed her lath-and-tinsel sword of theory against the tempered steelof the Little Red Doctor's experience. Said the Little Red Doctor (whowas pressed for time at the moment): "Take orders. Or get out. Which?"
She straightened like a soldier. "Tell me what you want done."
At the end of the onset, when he gave her her release from volunteerservice, she turned shining eyes upon him. "I've never been so treatedin my life! You're a bully and a brute."
"You're a brick," retorted the Little Red Doctor. "I'll send for younext time Our Square needs help."
"I'll come," said she, and they shook hands solemnly.
Thereafter Our Square felt a little more lenient toward herministrations, and even those of us who least approved her activitiesfelt the stir of radiance and color which she brought with her.
On a day when the local philanthropy market was slack, and Miss Holland,seated in the Bonnie Lassie's front window, was maturing some new andbenign outrage upon our sensibilities, she called out to the sculptressat work on a group:
"There's a queer man making queer marks on your sidewalk."
"That's Peter Quick Banta. He's a fellow artist."
"And another man, young, with a big, maney head like an amiable lion;quite a beautiful lion. He's making more marks."
"Let him make all he wants."
"They're waving their arms at each other. At least the queer man is. Ithink they're going to fight."
"They won't. It's only an academic discussion on technique."
"Who is the young one?"
"He's the ruin of what might have been a big artist."
"No! Is he? What did it? Drink?"
"Does he look it?"
The window-gazer peered more intently at the debaters below. "It's apeculiar face. Awfully interesting, though. He's quite poorly dressed.Does he need money? Is that what's wrong?"
"That's it, Bobbie," returned the Bonnie Lassie with a half-smile. "Heneeds the money."
The rampant philanthropist stirred within Miss Roberta Holland's fatallywell-meaning soul. "Would it be a case where I could help? I'd love toput a real artist back on his feet. Are you sure he's real?"
On the subject of Art, the Bonnie Lassie is never anything but sincereand direct, however much she may play her trickeries with lesserinterests, such as life and love and human fate.
"No; I'm not. If he were, I doubt whether he'd have let himself go sowrong."
"Perhaps it isn't too late," said the amateur missionary hopefully. "Ishe a man to whom one could offer money?"
The Bonnie Lassie's smile broadened without change in its subtlequality. "Julien Tenney isn't exactly a pauper. He just thinks he can'tafford to do the kind of thing he wants and ought to."
"What ought he to do?"
"Paint--paint--paint!" said the Bonnie Lassie vehemently. "Five yearsago I believe he had the makings of a great painter in him. And now lookwhat he's doing!"
"Making marks on sidewalks, you mean?"
"Worse. Commercial art."
"Designs and that sort of thing?"
"Do you ever look at the unearthly beautiful, graceful and gloriouslydressed young super-Americans who appear in the advertisements, ridingin super-cars or wearing super-clothes or brushing super-teeth withsuper-toothbrushes?"
"I suppose so," said the girl vaguely.
"He draws those."
"Is that what you call pot-boiling?"
"One kind."
"And I suppose it pays just a pittance."
"Well," replied the Bonnie Lassie evasively, "he sticks to it, so itmust support him."
"Then I'm going to help him."
"'To fulfill his destiny,' is the accepted phrase," said the BonnieLassie wickedly. "I'll call him in for you to look over. But you'd bestleave the arrangements for a later meeting."
Being summoned, Julien Tenney entered the house as one quite at homedespite his smeary garb of the working artist. His presentation to MissHolland was as brief as it was formal, for she took her departureat once.
"Who is she?" asked Julien, staring after her.
"Bobbie Holland, a gilded butterfly from uptown."
"What's she doing here?"
"Good."
"O Lord!" said he in pained tones. "Has she got a Cause?"
"Naturally."
"Philanthropist?"
"Worse."
"There ain't no sich a animile."
"There is. She's a patron of art."
"Wow!"
"Yes. She's going to patronize you."
"Not if I see her first. How do I qualify as a subject?"
"She considered you a wasted life."
"Where does she get that idea?"
The Bonnie Lassie removed a small, sharp implement from the left eye ofa stoical figurine and pointed it at herself.
"Do you think that's fair?" demanded the indignant youth.
The Bonnie Lassie reversed the implement and pointed it at him. "Do youor do you not," she challenged, "invade our humble precincts in afive-thousand-dollar automobile?"
"It's my only extravagance."
"Do you or do you not maintain a luxurious apartment in Gramercy Park,when you are not down here posing in your attic as an honestworking-man?"
"Oh, see here, Mrs. Staten, I won't stand for that!" he expostulated."You know perfectly well I keep my room here because it's the only placeI can work in quietly--"
"And because Peter Quick Banta would break his foolish old heart if youleft him entirely," supplemented the sculptress.
Julien flushed and stood looking like an awkward child. "Did you tellall this stuff to Miss Holland?" he asked.
"Oh, no! She thinks that your pot-boiling is a desperate and barelysufficient expedient to keep the wolf from the door. So she is planningto help you realize your destiny."
"Which is?" he queried with lifted brows.
"To be a great painter."
The other winced. "As you know, I've meant all along, as soon as I'vesaved enough--"
"Oh, yes; I know," broke in the Bonnie Lassie, who can be quiteruthless where Art is concerned, "and you know; but time flies andhell is paved with good intentions, and if you want to be that kind of apavement artist--well, I think Peter Quick Banta is a better."
"Do you suppose she'd let me paint her?" he asked abruptly.
If statuettes could blink, the one upon which the Bonnie Lassie wasbusied would certainly have shrouded its vision against the dazzlingradiance of her smile, for this was coming about as she had planned itfrom the moment when she had caught the flash of startled surprise andwonder in his eyes, as they first rested on Bobbie Holland. Here, shehad guessed, might be the agency to bring Julien Tenney to his artisticsenses; and even so it was now working out. But all she said was--andshe said it with a sort of venomous blandness--"My dear boy, youcan't paint."
"Can't I! Just because I'm a little out of practice--"
"Two years, isn't it, since you've touched a palette?"
"Give me a chance at such a model as she is! That's all I ask."
"Do you think her so pretty?" inquired the sculptress disparagingly.
"Pretty? She's the loveliest thing that--" Catching his hostess's smilehe broke off. "You'll admit it's a well-modeled face," he saidprofessionally; "and--and--well, unusual."
"Pooh! 'Dangerous' is the word. Remember it," warned the Bonnie Lassie."She's a devastating whirlwind, that child, and she comes down herepartly to get away from the wreckage. Now, if you play your partcleverly--"
"I'm not going to play any part."
"Then it's all up. How is a patroness of Art going to patronize you,unless you're a poor and struggling young artist, living from hand tomouth by arduous pot-boiling? You won't have to play a part as far asthe pot-boiling goes," added his monitress viciously. "Only, don't lether know that the rewards of your shame run to high-powered cars andhigh-class apartments. Remember, you're poor but honest. Perhaps she'llgive you money."
"Perhaps she won't," retorted the youth explosively.
"Oh, it will be done tactfully; never fear. I'll bring her around to seeyou and you'll have to work the sittings yourself."
As a setting for the abode of a struggling beginner, Julien's atticneeded no change. It was a whim of his to keep it bare and simple. Heworked out his pictorial schemes of elegance best in an environmentwhere there was nothing to distract the eye. One could see that MissRoberta Holland, upon her initial visit, approved its stark and cleanlypoverty. (Yes, I was there to see; the Bonnie Lassie had taken me alongto make up that first party.) Having done the honors, Julien droppedinto the background, and presently was curled up over a drawing-board,sketching eagerly while the Bonnie Lassie and I held the doer of gooddeeds in talk. Now the shrewd and able tribe of advertising managers donot pay to any but a master-draughtsman the prices which "J.T."--withan arrow transfixing the initials--gets; and Julien was as deft andrapid as he was skillful. Soon appreciating what was in progress, thevisitor graciously sat quite still. At the conclusion she held out herhand for the cardboard.
To be a patroness of Art does not necessarily imply that one is anadequate critic. Miss Holland contemplated what was a veritable littlegem in black-and-white with cool approbation.
"Quite clever," she was pleased to say. "Would you care to sell it?"
"I don't think it would be exactly--" A stern glance from the BonnieLassie cut short the refusal. He swallowed the rest of the sentence.
"Would ten dollars be too little?" asked the visitor with brightbeneficence.
"Too much," he murmured. (The Bonnie Lassie says that with a littlecrayoning and retouching he could have sold it for at least fiftytimes that.)
The patroness delicately dropped a bill on the table.
"Could you some day find time to let me try you in oils?" he asked.
"Does that take long?" she said doubtfully. "I'm very busy."
"You really should try it, Bobbie," put in the crafty Bonnie Lassie. "Itmight give him the start he needs."
What arguments she added later is a secret between the two women, butshe had her way. The Bonnie Lassie always does. So the bare studio wasfrom time to time irradiated with Bobbie Holland's youthful lovelinessand laughter. For there was much laughter between those two. Shrewdlyforeseeing that this bird of paradise would return to the bare cage onlyif it were made amusing for her, Julien exerted himself to the utmost tokeep her mind at play, and, as I can vouch who helped train him, thereare few men of his age who can be as absorbing a companion as Julienwhen he chooses to exert his charm. All the time, he was working with apassionate intensity on the portrait; letting everything else go;tossing aside the most remunerative offers; leaving his mail unopened;throwing himself intensely, recklessly, into this one single enterprise.The fact is, he had long been starved for color and was now satiatinghis soul with it. Probably it was largely impersonal with him at first.The Bonnie Lassie, wise of heart that she is, thinks so. But that couldnot last. Men who are not otherwise safeguarded do not long retain aneutral attitude toward such creatures of grace and splendor asBobbie Holland.
Between them developed a curious relation. It was hardly to be calledfriendship; he was not, to Bobbie's recognition, a habitant of herworld. Nor, certainly, was it anything more. Julien would as soon haverenounced easel and canvas as have taken advantage of her coming to makelove to her. In this waif of our gutters and ward of our sidewalk artistinhered a spirit of the most punctilious and rigid honor, the gift,perhaps, of some forgotten ancestry. More and more, as the intimacygrew, he deserted his uptown haunts and stuck to the attic studio abovethe rooms where, in the dawning days of prosperity, he had installedPeter Quick Banta in the effete and scandalous luxury of two rooms, abath, and a gas stove. Yet the picture advanced slowly which is the moresurprising in that the exotic Bobbie seemed to find plenty of time forsittings now. Between visits she took to going to the MetropolitanMuseum and conscientiously studying pictures and catalogues with a viewto helping her protege form sound artistic tastes. (When the BonnieLassie heard that, she all but choked.) As for Julien!
"This is all very well," he said, one day in the sculptress's studio;"but sooner or later she's going to catch me at it."
"What then?" asked the Bonnie Lassie, not looking up from her work.
"She'll go away."
"Let her go. Your portrait will be finished meantime, won't it?"
"Oh, yes. That'll be finished."
This time the Bonnie Lassie did look up. Immediately she looked backagain.
"In any case she'll have to go away some day--won't she?"
"I suppose so," returned he in a gloomy growl.
"I warned you at the outset, 'Dangerous,'" she pointed out.
They let it drop there. As for the effect upon the girl of JulienTenny's brilliant and unsettling personality, I could judge only as Isaw them occasionally together, she lustrous and exotic as a buddingorchid, he in the non-descript motley of his studio garb, serenelyunconscious of any incongruity.
"Do you think," I asked the Bonnie Lassie, who was sharing my bench oneafternoon as Julien was taking the patroness of Art over to where hercar waited, "that she is doing him as much good as she thinks she is, orought to?"
"Malice ill becomes one of your age, Dominie," said the Bonnie Lassiewith dignity.
"I'm quite serious," I protested.
"And very unjust. Bobbie is an adorable little person, when you knowher."
"Does Julien know her well enough to have discovered a self-evidentfact?"
"Only," pursued my companion, ignoring the question, "she is bored and alittle spoiled."
"So she comes down here to escape being bored and to get more spoiled."
"Julien won't spoil her."
"He certainly doesn't appear to bore her."
"She's having the tables turned on her without knowing it. Julien isdoing her a lot of good. Already she's far less beneficent and bountifuland all that sort of stuff."
"Lassie," said I, "what, if I may so express myself, is the big idea?"
"Slang is an execrable thing from a professed scholar," she reproved."However, the big idea is that Julien is really painting. And it'smine, that big idea."
"Mightn't it be accompanied by a little idea to the effect that theexperience is likely to cost him pretty dear? What will be left whenBobbie Holland goes?"
"Pooh! Don't be an oracular sphinx," was all that I got for my pains.
Nor did Miss Bobbie show any immediate symptoms of going. If thepainting seemed at times in danger of stagnation, the same could not besaid of the fellowship between painter and paintee. That nourishedalong, and one day a vagrant wind brought in the dangerous element ofhistorical personalities. The wind, entering at the end of a session,displaced a hanging above the studio door, revealing in bold script uponthe plastering Beranger's famous line:
"Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans!"
"Did you write that there?" asked the girl.
"Seven long years ago. And meant it, every word."
"How did you come to know Beranger?"
"I'm French born."
"'In a garret how good is life at twenty,'" she translated freely. "Iwouldn't have thought"--she turned her softly brilliant regard uponhim--"that life had been so good to you."
"It has," was the rejoinder. "But never so good as now."
"I've often wondered--you seem to know so many things--where you gotyour education?"
"Here and there and everywhere. It's only a patchwork sort of thing."(Ungrateful young scoundrel, so to describe my two-hours-a-day ofbrain-hammering, and the free run of my library.)
"You're a very puzzling person," said she And when a woman says that toa man, deep has begun to call to deep. (The Bonnie Lassie, who knowseverything, is my authority for the statement.)
To her went the patroness of Art, on leaving Julien's "grenier" thatday.
"Cecily," she said, in the most casual manner she could contrive, "whois Julien Tenney?"
"Nobody."
"You know what I mean," pleaded the girl. "What is he?"
"A brand snatched from the pot-boiling," returned the Bonnie Lassie,quite pleased with her next turn, which was more than her companion was.
"Please don't be clever. Be nice and tell me--"
"'Be nice, sweet maid, and let who will be clever,'" declaimed theBonnie Lassie, who was feeling perverse that day. "You want me to definehis social status for you and tell you whether you'd better invite himto dinner. You'd better not. He might swallow his knife."
"You know he wouldn't!" denied the girl in resentful tones. "I've neverknown any one with more instinctive good manners. He seems to go rightnaturally."
"All due to my influence and training," bragged the Bonnie Lassie. "Ihelped bring him up."
"Then you must know something of his antecedents."
"Ask the Dominie. He says that Julien crawled out of a gutter with themanners of a preux chevalier. Anyway, he never swallowed any of myknives. Though he's had plenty of opportunity."
"It's very puzzling," lamented Bobbie.
"Why let it prey like a worm i' the bud of your mind? You're not goingto adopt him, perhaps?"
For the moment Bobbie Holland's eyes were dreamy and her tongueunguarded. "I don't know what I'm going to do with him," said she with agesture as of one who despairingly gives over an insoluble problem.
"Umph!" said the Bonnie Lassie.
And continued sculpting.
III
As Julien had prophesied, it was only a question of time when he wouldbe surprised by his patroness in his true garb and estate. The eventoccurred as he was stepping from his touring-car to get his golf-clubsfrom the hallway of his Gramercy Park apartment at the very moment whenBobbie Holland emerged from the house next door. Both her hands flewinvoluntarily to her cheeks, as she took in and wholly misinterpretedhis costume, which is not to be wondered at when one considers thesimilarity of a golfing outfit to a chauffeur's livery.
"Oh!" she cried out, as if something had hurt her.
Julien, for once startled out of his accustomed poise, uncovered andlooked at her apprehensively.
Her voice quivered a little as she asked, very low, "Do you have to dothat?"
"Why--er--no," began the puzzled Julien, who failed for the moment toperceive what of tragic portent inhered in a prospective afternoon ofgolf. Her next words enlightened him.
"I should think you might have let me help before taking a--servant'sposition."
"It's an honest occupation," he averred.
"Do you do this--regularly?" she pursued with an effort.
"Off and on. There's good money in it."
"Oh!" she mourned again. Then: "You're doing this so that you can affordto buy paints and canvas and--and things to paint me," she accused. "Itisn't fair!"
"I'd do worse than this for that," he declared valiantly.
Less than a fortnight later she caught him doing worse. She had ceasedto speak to him of his chauffeurdom because it seemed to cause himpainful embarrassment. (It did, and should have!) There had been a bigtheater party, important enough to get itself detailed in the valuablecolumns which the papers devote to such matters, and afterward supper atthe most expensive uptown restaurant, Miss Roberta Holland being one ofthe listed guests. As she took her place at the table, she caught aglimpse of an unmistakable figure disappearing through the waiter'sexit. And Julien Tenney, who had risen from his little supper party offour (stag) hastily but just too late, on catching sight of her, sawthat he was recognized. Flight, instant and permanent, had been hisoriginal intent. Now it would not do. Bolder measures must be devised.He appealed to the head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and thatfunctionary, developing a sense of humor under the stimulus of atwenty-dollar bill, procured him on the spot an ill-fitting coat and ablack string tie, and gave him certain simple directions. When thepatroness of Art next observed the object of her patronage, he wasperforming the humble but useful duties of an omnibus.
Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliableappetite.
Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms ofshock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance,stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat ordrink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals anexpressive monosyllable.
"Why not swear out loud, Caspar?" asked Bobbie presently. "It'll do youless harm."
"D'you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one fixing theforks?"
"Yes," said Bobbie faintly.
"Well, that's--No, by thunder, it can't be!--Yes, by the red-hot hinges,it is!"
"Do you think you know him?"
"Know him! I know him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at Grandpre.He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us clean outthat little wasp's nest. His name's Tenney, and if ever there was ahellion in a fight! And see--what he's come to! My God!"
"Well, don't cry about it," advised the girl, serenely, though it washard for her to keep her voice steady. "There's nothing to do about it,is there?"
"Isn't there!" retorted the youth, rising purposefully. "I'm going toget him and find him a job that's fit for him if I have to take him intopartnership. Of all the dash-blanked-dod-blizzened--"
"Caspar! What are you going to do? Don't. You'll embarrass himfrightfully."
But he was already heading off his prey at the exit. Bobbie saw herpainter's face flame into welcome, then stiffen into dismay. The pairvanished beyond the watcher's ken. On his return the gilded youthbehaved strangely. From time to time he shook his head. From time totime he chuckled. And, while Bobbie was talking to her other neighbor,he shot curious and amused glances at her. He told her nothing. But hisinterest in his supper returned. Bobbie's didn't.
To discuss the social aspects of menial service with a practitioner ofit who has been admitted to a certain implicit equality is a difficultand delicate matter for a girl brought up in Roberta Holland's school.Several times after the restaurant encounter she essayed it; trying boththe indirect approach and the method of extreme frankness. Neitheranswered. Julien responded to her advances by alternate moods of extremegloom and slyly inexplicable amusement. Bobbie gave it up, concludingthat he was in a very queer mood, anyway. She was right. He was.
The next episode of their progress took the form of a veritableunmasking which, perversely enough, only fixed the mask tighter uponJulien Tenney. By way of loosening up his wrist for the open season,Peter Quick Banta had taken advantage of an amiable day to sketch out acomposite floral and faunal scheme on the flagging in front ofThornsen's Elite Restaurant, when Miss Holland, in passing, paused toobserve and wonder. At the same moment, Julien hurrying around thecorner, all but ran her down. She nodded toward the decorator ofsidewalks.
"Isn't he the funny man that you were with the first time I saw you?"
"The very same," responded Julien with twinkling eyes.
"What is he doing?"
"He's one of the few remaining examples of the sidewalk or public-viewschool of art."
"Yes, but what does he do it for?"
"His living."
"Do people give him money for it? Do you think I might give himsomething?" she asked, looking uncertainly at the artist, who, on handsand knees and with tongue protruding, was putting a green head on a redbird, too absorbed even to notice the onlookers.
"I think he'd be tickled pink."
She took a quarter from her purse, hesitated, then slipped it into hercompanion's hand.
"You give it to him. I think he'd like it better."
"Oh, no; I don't think he'd like it at all. In fact, I doubt if he'dtake it from me."
"Why not?"
"Well, you see," explained Julien blandly, "we're rather intimatelyconnected." He raised his voice. "Hello, Dad!"
The decorator furled his tongue, lifted his head, changed his crayon,replied, "Hello, Lad," and continued his work. "What d' you think ofthat?" he added, after a moment, triumphantly pointing a yellow crayonat the green-headed red-bird.
"Some parrot!" enthused Julien.
"'T ain't a parrot. It's a nightingale," retorted the artistindignantly. "You black-and-white fellows never do understand color."
"It's a corker, anyway," said Julien. "Dad here's a--an art patron whowants to contribute to the cause."
The girl, whose face had become flushed and almost frightened, held outher quarter.
"I--I--don't know," she began. "I was interested in your picture and Ithought--Mr. Tenney said--"
Peter Quick Banta took the coin with perfect dignity. "Thank you," saidhe. "There ain't much appreciation of art just at this season. But ifyou'll come down to Coney about June, I'll show you some sand-modelingthat is sand-modeling--'s much as five dollars a day I've takenin there."
Miss Holland recovered her social poise.
"I'd like to very much," she said cheerfully.
She and Julien walked on in silence. Suddenly he laughed, a littlejarringly. "Well," he said, "does that help you to place me?"
"I'm not trying to place you," she answered.
"Is that quite true?" he mocked.
"No; it isn't. It's a downright lie," said Bobbie finding courage toraise her eyes to his.
"And now, I suppose, I shall be 'my good man' or something like that, toyou."
"Do you think it likely?"
"You called MacLachan that, you know," he reminded her.
"Long ago. When I was--when I didn't understand Our Square."
"And now, of course, our every feeling and thought is an open book toyour penetrating vision."
Her lip quivered. "I don't know why you should want to be so hateful tome."
For a flashing second his eyes answered that appeal with a look thatthrilled and daunted her. "To keep from being something else that I'veno right to be," he muttered.
"How many more sittings do you think it will take to finish thepicture?" she asked, striving to get on safer ground.
"Only one or two, I suppose," he answered morosely.
Such was Julien's condition of mind after the last sitting that heactually left the precious portrait unguarded by neglecting to lock thedoor of the studio on going out, and the Bonnie Lassie and I, happeningin, beheld it in its fulfillment. A slow flush burned its way upward inthe Bonnie Lassie's face as she studied it.
"He's done it!" she exclaimed. "Flower and flame! Why did I ever take tosculpture? One can't get that in the metal."
"He's done it," I echoed.
"Of course, technically, it's rather a sloppy picture."
"It's a glorious picture!" I cried.
"Naturally that," returned the exasperating critic. "It always willbe--when you paint with your heart's blood."
"Do you think your friend Bobbie appreciates the medium in which she'spresented?"
"If she doesn't--which she probably does," said the Bonnie Lassie, "shewill find out something to her advantage when she sees me to-morrow. I'mgoing home to 'phone her."
In answer to the summons, Bobbie came. She looked, I thought, as I sawher from my bench, troubled and perplexed and softened, and glowinglylovely. At the door of the Bonnie Lassie's house she was met with thechallenge direct.
"What have you been doing to my artistic ward?"
"Nothing," replied Bobbie with unwonted meekness, and to prove itrelated the incidents of the touring-car, the supper at the TaverneSplendide, and the encounter with the paternal colorist.
"That isn't Julien's father," said the sculptress. "He's only anadoptive father. But Julien adores him, as he ought to. The real father,so I've heard, was a French gentleman--"
"I don't care who his father was!" cried Bobbie. (The Bonnie Lassie'sface took on the expression of an exclamation point.) "I can't bear tothink of his having to do servant's work. And I told him so yesterday."
"Did you look like that while you were telling him?"
"Like what? I suppose so."
"And what did he do?"
"Do? He didn't do anything."
"Then," pronounced the Bonnie Lassie, "he's a stick ofwood--hardwood--with a knot-hole for a heart."
"He isn't! Well, perhaps he is. He was very horrid at the last."
"About what?"
"About taking money."
"I'm a prophetess! And you're a patroness. Born in us, I suppose. Youdid try to give him money."
"Just to loan it. Enough so that he could go away to study and paint. Hewouldn't even let me do that; so I--I--I offered to buy the picture ofme, and he said--he said--Cecily, do you think he's sometimes a littlequeer in his head?"
"Not in the head, necessarily. What did he say?"
"He said he'd bought it himself at the highest price ever paid. And hesaid it so obstinately that I saw it was no use, so I just told him thatI hoped I'd see him when I came back--"
"Back from where? Are you going away?"
"Yes; didn't I tell you? On a three months' cruise."
"Had you told him that?"
"Of course. That's when I tried to get him to take the money. Cecily--"The girl's voice shook a little. "You'll tell him, won't you, that hemust keep on painting?"
"Why? Doesn't he intend to?"
"He said he'd painted himself out and he didn't think he'd ever lookat color again."
"He will," said the Bonnie Lassie wisely and comfortably. "Grief is justas driving a taskmaster as lo--as other emotions."
"Grief!" The girl's color ebbed. "Cecily! You don't think I've hurthim?"
The Bonnie Lassie caught her in a sudden hug.
"Bobbie, do you know what I'd do in your place?"
"No. What?"
"I'd go right--straight--back to Julien Tenney's studio." She pausedimpressively.
"Yes?" said the other faintly.
"And I'd walk right--straight--up to Julien Tenney--" Another pause,even more impressive.
"I d-d-don't think I'd--he'd--"
"And I'd say to him: 'Julien, will you marry me?' Like that."
"Oh!" said Bobbie in outraged amazement.
"And maybe--" continued the Bonnie Lassie judicially: "maybe I'd kisshim. Yes. I think I would."
Suddenly all the bright softness of Bobbie's large eyes dissolved intears. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she sobbed.
"You won't be ashamed of yourself," prophesied the other, "if you dojust as I say, quickly and naturally."
"Oh, naturally," retorted the girl in an indignant whimper. "I supposeyou think that's natural. Anyway, he probably doesn't care about me atall that way."
"Roberta," said the sculptress sternly, "did you see his portrait ofyou?"
"Y-y-yes."
"And you have the presumption to say that he doesn't care? Why, thatpicture doesn't simply tell his secret. It yells it!"
"I don't care," said the hard-pressed Bobbie. "It hasn't yelled it tome. Nobody's yelled it to me. And I c-c-can't ask a m-m-man to--to--"
"Perhaps you can't," allowed her adviser magnanimously. "On secondthought, it won't be necessary. You just go back--after powdering yournose a little--and say that you've come to see the picture once more, orthat it's a fine day, or that competition is the life of trade, orthat--oh, anything! And, if he doesn't do the rest, I'll kill andeat him."
"But, Cecily--"
"You would be a patroness of Art. Now I've given you something real topatronize. Don't you dare fail me." Suddenly the speaker gave herselfover to an access of mirth. "Heaven help that young man when he comesto own up."
"Own up to what?"
"Never mind."
Having consumed a vain and repetitious half-hour in variations upon herquery, Bobbie gave it up and decided to find out for herself. It wascuriosity and curiosity alone (so she assured herself) that impelled herto return for the last time (she assured herself of that, also) tothe attic.
A voice raised in vehement protest, echoing through the open door of thestudio, checked her on the landing below as she mounted.
"And you're actually going to let thirty-five thousand a year slipthrough your fingers, just to pursue a fad?"
To which Julien's equable accents replied:
"That's it, Merrill. I'm going to paint."
The unseen Merrill left a blessing (of a sort) behind, slammed the doorupon it, and materialized to the vision of the girl on the landing as anenergetic and spruce-looking man of forty-odd, with a harassedexpression. At need, Miss Holland could summon considerable decisivenessto her aid.
"Would you think me inexcusably rude," she said softly, "if I asked whoyou are?"
The descending man snatched off his hat, stared, seemed on the point ofwhistling, then, recovering himself, said courteously: "I'm GeorgeMerrill, advertising manager for the Criterion Clothing Company."
"And Mr. Tenney has been doing drawings for you?"
"He has. For several years."
"So that," said the girl, half to herself, "is his pot-boiling."
"Not a very complimentary term," commented Mr. Merrill, "for the bestblack-and-white work being done in New York to-day. Between my concernand two others he makes a railroad president's income out of it."
"Yes, I overheard what you said to him. Thank you so much."
"In return, may I ask you something?"
"Certainly."
"Will you not, for his own good, dissuade Mr. Tenney from throwing awayhis career?"
"Why should you suppose me to have any influence with Mr. Tenney?"
Mr. Merrill's face was grave, as befitted the issue, but a twinkleappeared at the corner of his glasses. "I've seen the portrait," hereplied, and with a bow, went on his way.
Julien opened the door to her knock. She stepped inside, facing him withbright, inscrutable eyes.
"Why have you been fooling me about your circumstances?" she demanded.
"D---n Merrill!" said Julien with fervor.
"It's true that your 'pot-boiling' brings you a big income?"
"Yes."
"Then why do you take employment as a chauffeur?"
"I don't. That car belongs to me."
"And your being a waiter? I don't suppose the Taverne Splendide belongsto you?"
"An impromptu bit of acting," confessed the abashed Julien.
"And this attic? Was that hired for the same comedy?"
"No. This is mine, really."
"I don't understand. Why have you done it all?"
"If you want to know the truth," he said defiantly, "so that I couldkeep on seeing you."
"That's a very poor excuse," she retorted.
"The best in the world. As a successful commercial artist, what possibleinterest would you have taken in me? You took me for a struggling youngpainter--that was the Bonnie Lassie's fault, for I never lied to youabout it--and after we'd started on that track I didn't--well, I didn'thave the courage to risk losing you by quitting the masquerade."
"How you must have laughed at me all the time!"
He flushed to his angry eyes. "Do you think that is fair?" he retorted."Or kind? Or true?"
"I--I don't know," she faltered. "You let me offer you money. And you'veprobably got as much as I have."
"I won't have from now on, then. I'm going to paint. I thought, when youtold me you were going away, that I couldn't look at a canvas again. Butnow I know I was wrong. I've got to paint. You'll have left me that,at least."
"Mr. Merrill thinks you're ruining your career. And if you do, it'll bemy fault. I'll never, never, never," said the patroness of Artdesolately, "try to do any one good again!"
She turned toward the door.
"At least," said Julien in a voice which threatened to get out ofcontrol, "you'll know that it wasn't all masquerade. You'll know whyI'll always keep the picture, even if I never paint another."
She stole a look at him over her shoulder and, with a thrill, saw thepassion in his eyes and the pride that withheld him from speaking.
"Suppose," she said, "I asked you to give it up."
"You wouldn't," he retorted quickly.
"No, I wouldn't. But--but--" Her glance, wandering away from him, fellon the joyous line of Beranger bold above the door.
"'How good is life in an attic at twenty,'" she murmured. Then, turningto him, she held out her hands.
"I could find it good," she said with a soft little falter in her voice,"even at twenty-two."
Everything passes in review before my bench, sooner or later. The two,going by with transfigured faces, stopped.
"Let's tell Dominie," said Julien.
I waved a jaunty hand. "I know already," said I, "even if it hadn't beenannounced to a waiting world."
"Wh-wh-why," stammered Bobbie with a blush worth a man's waiting alifetime to see, "it--it only just happened."
"Bless your dear, innocent hearts, both of you! It's been happening forweeks. Come with me."
I lead them to the sidewalk fronting Thornsen's Elite Restaurant. Therestood Peter Quick Banta, admiring his latest masterpiece of imaginativesymbolism. It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in itspowerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and oforange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials."J.T." and "R.H." Below, in no less than four colors, ran the legend,"Cupid's Token."
"O Lord! Dad!" cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out with franticfeet. "How long has this been there?"
"What're you doing? Leave it be!" cried the anguished artist. "It's beenthere since noon."
"Never mind," put in Bobbie softly; "it's very pretty and tasteful eventhough it is a little precipitate. But how"--she turned the lovely andpuzzled inquiry of her eyes upon the symbolist--"how did you know?"
"Artistic intuition," said Peter Quick Banta with profound complacency."I'm an artist."