I
“When I was a child,” he said, “I lived in an orphan asylum. It stood on
a hill, and down below there were a lot of iron foundries. The air was
always full of smoke. It came up sometimes in clouds—in clouds—in black
clouds that even covered up the sun.”
“Oh!” cried Stella, one hand pressed against her cheek. In the presence
of his great serenity her agitation seemed immense, unendurable.
“I never knew who my people were. From what I could make out, and it was
very little, I guess I must have been picked up somewhere.” He smiled
dreamily. “Yes, I guess that must have been it. One day I decided to
run away. It was a great many miles to New York, and I walked. Later on
I was earning three meals a day making artificial flowers in a garret
in Bleeker street. I can see it now—most of the plaster fallen off the
walls—dormers sticking out through the roof—elevated trains going by
all day right beside the windows.... We made everything,” he said, his
tone tender and a little caressing, “from single and double roses to
lilies-of-the-valley. But I liked to make violets best, and they let me
do them most of the time, because I could turn out so many in a day.”
“Violets....” Stella murmured, and saw again a florist’s boy standing at
her door with a small square box and a note.
“Later on, I became a model in a class of sculptors. Then for many
years I did whatever work I could get hold of and managed to keep from
starving. You see how beautiful it all is? But to get to the shoes....”
He paused just a moment, a faint smile signifying what pure and calm
delight this flow of reminiscence brought to his soul. Then he went on
speaking.
“How it happened was like this: A long, long time later, I worked through
a part of one winter in a popular-priced upstairs clothing concern,
posing in the window as a wax figure wearing the latest thing in business
suits. All I had to do,” he explained with another of his gentle,
bubbling laughs, “was put on a heavy makeup, that I learned how to do
once from an actor I roomed with. Then I dressed up and walked out into
the window. I would strike a pose and hold it fifteen or twenty minutes,
standing without moving. When I broke the pose, half the people out in
the street would be standing there with their mouths open.” He smiled,
a look of great happiness and light in his wasted face. “They paid me
ten dollars a week. I lived on stew and doughnuts, and slept a part of
the time in a sort of dormitory where the beds were twenty-five cents a
night, with special inducements if taken by the week.”
The man seemed all aglow and under the sway of eternal forces. Indeed, as
the excitement of narrative grew upon him he began to show even a tiny
flush across his sunken cheeks, which had become at length so grey and
sere. His eyes were bright and a little wild, as with fever.
King seemed eager that she should know what his life had been—just as
at first he had bowed to her silent mandate that only what was fine and
romantic in it need matter. He kept exclaiming: “Isn’t it beautiful?” And
she could do nothing but sit there and listen, while, on his serene and
breathless heights he tore the veil from a heart which had so long been
shut away in a realm of glamorous mystery.