“I don't see what it has to—do with me.”
“No,” assented Greta.
Christian's colour deepened. “Go on with your history, Greta.”
“Only,” pursued Greta, “that he always tells you all about things,
Chris.”
“He doesn't! How can you say that!”
“I think he does, and it is because you do not make him angry. It is
very easy to make him angry; you have only to think differently, and he
shall be angry at once.”
“You are a little cat!” said Christian; “it isn't true, at all. He hates
shams, and can't bear meanness; and it is mean to cover up dislikes and
pretend that you agree with people.”
“Papa says that he thinks too much about himself.”
“Father!” began Christian hotly; biting her lips she stopped, and turned
her wrathful eyes on Greta.
“You do not always show your dislikes, Chris.”
“I? What has that to do with it? Because one is a coward that doesn't
make it any better, does it?”
“I think that he has a great many dislikes,” murmured Greta.
“I wish you would attend to your own faults, and not pry into other
people's,” and pushing the book aside, Christian gazed in front of her.
Some minutes passed, then Greta leaning over, rubbed a cheek against her
shoulder.
“I am very sorry, Chris—I only wanted to be talking. Shall I read some
history?”
“Yes,” said Christian coldly.
“Are you angry with me, Chris?”
There was no answer. The lingering raindrops pattered down on the roof.
Greta pulled at her sister's sleeve.
“Look, Chris!” she said. “There is Herr Harz!”
Christian looked up, dropped her eyes again, and said: “Will you go on
with the history, Greta?”
Greta sighed.
“Yes, I will—but, oh! Chris, there is the luncheon gong!” and she meekly
closed the book.
During the following weeks there was a “sitting” nearly every afternoon.
Miss Naylor usually attended them; the little lady was, to a certain
extent, carried past objection. She had begun to take an interest in the
picture, and to watch the process out of the corner of her eye; in the
depths of her dear mind, however, she never quite got used to the vanity
and waste of time; her lips would move and her knitting-needles click in
suppressed remonstrances.
What Harz did fast he did best; if he had leisure he “saw too much,”
loving his work so passionately that he could never tell exactly when
to stop. He hated to lay things aside, always thinking: “I can get it
better.” Greta was finished, but with Christian, try as he would, he was
not satisfied; from day to day her face seemed to him to change, as if
her soul were growing.
There were things too in her eyes that he could neither read nor
reproduce.
Dawney would often stroll out to them after his daily visit, and lying
on the grass, his arms crossed behind his head, and a big cigar between
his lips, would gently banter everybody. Tea came at five o'clock, and
then Mrs. Decie appeared armed with a magazine or novel, for she was
proud of her literary knowledge. The sitting was suspended; Harz, with
a cigarette, would move between the table and the picture, drinking his
tea, putting a touch in here and there; he never sat down till it was
all over for the day. During these “rests” there was talk, usually
ending in discussion. Mrs. Decie was happiest in conversations of a
literary order, making frequent use of such expressions as: “After all,
it produces an illusion—does anything else matter?” “Rather a poseur,
is he not?” “A question, that, of temperament,” or “A matter of the
definition of words”; and other charming generalities, which sound
well, and seem to go far, and are pleasingly irrefutable. Sometimes
the discussion turned on Art—on points of colour or technique; whether
realism was quite justified; and should we be pre-Raphaelites? When
these discussions started, Christian's eyes would grow bigger and
clearer, with a sort of shining reasonableness; as though they were
trying to see into the depths. And Harz would stare at them. But the
look in those eyes eluded him, as if they had no more meaning than Mrs.
Decie's, which, with their pale, watchful smile, always seemed saying:
“Come, let us take a little intellectual exercise.”
Greta, pulling Scruff's ears, would gaze up at the speakers; when the
talk was over, she always shook herself. But if no one came to the
“sittings,” there would sometimes be very earnest, quick talk, sometimes
long silences.
One day Christian said: “What is your religion?”
Harz finished the touch he was putting on the canvas, before he
answered: “Roman Catholic, I suppose; I was baptised in that Church.”
“I didn't mean that. Do you believe in a future life?”
“Christian,” murmured Greta, who was plaiting blades of grass, “shall
always want to know what people think about a future life; that is so
funny!”
“How can I tell?” said Harz; “I've never really thought of it—never had
the time.”
“How can you help thinking?” Christian said: “I have to—it seems to me
so awful that we might come to an end.”
She closed her book, and it slipped off her lap. She went on: “There
must be a future life, we're so incomplete. What's the good of your
work, for instance? What's the use of developing if you have to stop?”
“I don't know,” answered Harz. “I don't much care. All I know is, I've
got to work.”
“But why?”
“For happiness—the real happiness is fighting—the rest is nothing. If
you have finished a thing, does it ever satisfy you? You look forward to
the next thing at once; to wait is wretched!”
Christian clasped her hands behind her neck; sunlight flickered through
the leaves on to the bosom of her dress.
“Ah! Stay like that!” cried Harz.
She let her eyes rest on his face, swinging her foot a little.
“You work because you must; but that's not enough. Why do you feel you
must? I want to know what's behind. When I was travelling with Aunt
Constance the winter before last we often talked—I've heard her discuss
it with her friends. She says we move in circles till we reach Nirvana.
But last winter I found I couldn't talk to her; it seemed as if she
never really meant anything. Then I started reading—Kant and Hegel—”
“Ah!” put in Harz, “if they would teach me to draw better, or to see a
new colour in a flower, or an expression in a face, I would read them
all.”
Christian leaned forward: “It must be right to get as near truth as
possible; every step gained is something. You believe in truth; truth
is the same as beauty—that was what you said—you try to paint the truth,
you always see the beauty. But how can we know truth, unless we know
what is at the root of it?”
“I—think,” murmured Greta, sotto voce, “you see one way—and he sees
another—because—you are not one person.”
“Of course!” said Christian impatiently, “but why—”
A sound of humming interrupted her.
Nicholas Treffry was coming from the house, holding the Times in one
hand, and a huge meerschaum pipe in the other.
“Aha!” he said to Harz: “how goes the picture?” and he lowered himself
into a chair.
“Better to-day, Uncle?” said Christian softly.
Mr. Treffry growled. “Confounded humbugs, doctors!” he said. “Your
father used to swear by them; why, his doctor killed him—made him drink
such a lot of stuff!”
“Why then do you have a doctor, Uncle Nic?” asked Greta.
Mr. Treffry looked at her; his eyes twinkled. “I don't know, my dear. If
they get half a chance, they won't let go of you!”
There had been a gentle breeze all day, but now it had died away; not
a leaf quivered, not a blade of grass was stirring; from the house were
heard faint sounds as of some one playing on a pipe. A blackbird came
hopping down the path.
“When you were a boy, did you go after birds' nests, Uncle Nic?” Greta
whispered.
“I believe you, Greta.” The blackbird hopped into the shrubbery.
“You frightened him, Uncle Nic! Papa says that at Schloss Konig, where
he lived when he was young, he would always be after jackdaws' nests.”
“Gammon, Greta. Your father never took a jackdaw's nest, his legs are
much too round!”
“Are you fond of birds, Uncle Nic?”
“Ask me another, Greta! Well, I s'pose so.”
“Then why did you go bird-nesting? I think it is cruel”
Mr. Treffry coughed behind his paper: “There you have me, Greta,” he
remarked.
Harz began to gather his brushes: “Thank you,” he said, “that's all I
can do to-day.”
“Can I look?” Mr. Treffry inquired.
“Certainly!”
Uncle Nic got up slowly, and stood in front of the picture. “When it's
for sale,” he said at last, “I'll buy it.”
Harz bowed; but for some reason he felt annoyed, as if he had been asked
to part with something personal.
“I thank you,” he said. A gong sounded.
“You'll stay and have a snack with us?” said Mr. Treffry; “the doctor's
stopping.” Gathering up his paper, he moved off to the house with
his hand on Greta's shoulder, the terrier running in front. Harz and
Christian were left alone. He was scraping his palette, and she was
sitting with her elbows resting on her knees; between them, a gleam of
sunlight dyed the path golden. It was evening already; the bushes and
the flowers, after the day's heat, were breathing out perfume; the birds
had started their evensong.
“Are you tired of sitting for your portrait, Fraulein Christian?”
Christian shook her head.
“I shall get something into it that everybody does not see—something
behind the surface, that will last.”
Christian said slowly: “That's like a challenge. You were right when you
said fighting is happiness—for yourself, but not for me. I'm a coward.
I hate to hurt people, I like them to like me. If you had to do anything
that would make them hate you, you would do it all the same, if
it helped your work; that's fine—it's what I can't do. It's—it's
everything. Do you like Uncle Nic?”
The young painter looked towards the house, where under the veranda old
Nicholas Treffry was still in sight; a smile came on his lips.
“If I were the finest painter in the world, he wouldn't think anything
of me for it, I'm afraid; but if I could show him handfuls of big
cheques for bad pictures I had painted, he would respect me.”
She smiled, and said: “I love him.”
“Then I shall like him,” Harz answered simply.
She put her hand out, and her fingers met his. “We shall be late,” she
said, glowing, and catching up her book: “I'm always late!”