Gerard Fane's victoria drew up at the iron gate of No. 5 Ilbury Road,
Kensington, at a quarter past four the following afternoon. A narrow
strip of garden divided the sculptor's big red house from the road.
Ornamental ironwork on a brick foundation closed it in. The great
studio, with its huge windows and its fluted pillars, was built out at
one end. The failing sunlight glittered on its glass, and the dingy
sparrows perched upon the roof to catch the parting radiance as the
twilight fell. The doctor glanced round him and thought, "How hard this
man must have worked! In London this is a little palace."
"Will you come into the studio, sir, please?" said the footman in answer
to his summons. "Mr Brune is there at present."
"Surely he cannot be working," thought the doctor, as he followed the
man down a glass-covered paved passage, and through a high doorway
across which a heavy curtain fell. "If so, he must possess resolution
almost more than mortal."
He passed beyond the curtain, and looked round him curiously.
The studio was only dimly lit now, for daylight was fast fading. On a
great open hearth, with dogs, a log-fire was burning; and beside it, on
an old-fashioned oaken settle, sat a woman in a loose cream-coloured
tea-gown. She was half turning round to speak to Reginald Brune, who
stood a little to her left, clad in a long blouse, fastened round his
waist with a band. He had evidently recently finished working, for his
hands still bore evident traces of labour, and in front of him, on a
raised platform, stood a statue that was not far from completion. The
doctor's eyes were attracted from the woman by the log-fire, from his
patient, by the lifeless, white, nude figure that seemed to press
forward out of the gathering gloom. The sculptor and his wife had not
heard him announced, apparently, for they continued conversing in low
tones, and he paused in the doorway, strangely fascinated--he could
scarcely tell why--by the marble creation of a dying man.
The statue, which was life size, represented the figure of a beautiful,
grave youth, standing with one foot advanced, as if on the point of
stepping forward. His muscular arms hung loosely; his head was slightly
turned aside as in the attitude of one who listens for a repetition of
some vague sound heard at a distance. His whole pose suggested an alert,
yet restrained, watchfulness. The triumph of the sculptor lay in the
extraordinary suggestion of life he had conveyed into the marble. His
creature lived as many mollusc men never live. Its muscles seemed tense,
its body quivering with eagerness to accomplish--what? To attack, to
repel, to protect, to perform some deed demanding manfulness, energy,
free, fearless strength.
"That marble thing could slay if necessary," thought Gerard Fane, with a
thrill of the nerves all through him that startled him, and recalled him
to himself.
He stepped forward to the hearth quietly, and Brune turned and took him
by the hand.
"I did not hear you," the sculptor said. "The man must have opened the
door very gently. Sydney, this is Dr Gerard Fane, who is kindly looking
after me."
The woman by the fire had risen, and stood in the firelight and the
twilight, which seemed to join hands just where she was. She greeted the
specialist in a girl's young voice, and he glanced at her with the
furtive thought, "Does she know yet?"
She looked twenty-two, not more.
Her eyes were dark grey, and her hair was bronze. Her figure was thin
almost to emaciation; but health glowed in her smooth cheeks, and spoke
in her swift movements and easy gestures. Her expression was responsive
and devouringly eager. Life ran in her veins with turbulence, never with
calm. Her mouth was pathetic and sensitive, but there was an odd
suggestion of almost boyish humour in her smile.