THE CITY STUDIO
"I'm quite anxious to see this paragon of a poet," said Nan, as she sat
in Patty's room one evening.
Patty was dressing for the party at the Blaneys', and Sam was coming to
take her.
"You'll like him, Nan, you can't help it. He is most interesting,--not
a bit like other men. And they have such delightful people at their
parties. They do big things, you know,--really big."
"Such as what?"
"Oh, they sing, and play on unusual instruments,--zitherns and
lutes----"
"That doesn't sound so awfully wonderful."
"No; I suppose not. But it's the _way_ they do it,--and the--the
atmosphere, you know, and the general exalted effect----"
"The what?"
"Oh, I don't know how to express it so you'll understand,--but I like
it all. It's on a higher plane than the usual evening party."
"Don't they dance?"
"Yes, some. But more Solo dances, and Interpretative ones. I'm going
to do a splendid dance for them, soon. Mr. Blaney is making it up for
me."
"Can I see it?"
"I guess so. I think they mean to have a large audience for that
occasion."
"What _are_ you doing, Patty? Are you going to wear your hair like
that?"
"Yes, Sam likes it so."
"But, my gracious goodness, you look like a crazy person!"
"Oh, not so bad as that."
Patty spoke carelessly, but her colour heightened a little. She was
sitting at her toilet mirror, while Nan lounged in an easy chair, near
by. Patty's golden hair was drawn smoothly down from a central part,
and tightly confined at the back of her neck, where it was rolled and
twisted into an immense knot, hard and round, that was exceedingly
unbecoming.
"It's awful!" declared Nan, "I never saw you look really plain before."
"It's all right," and Patty tossed her head. "That fluffy, curly
business is a sign of a light-weight brain,--this arrangement is far
more intellectual."
"And is that your gown!" Nan fairly gasped, as Patty took from her
wardrobe a strange-looking affair of mulberry-coloured woolen goods.
"Yes, it's really stunning, Nan. I had it made by Alla Blaney's
dressmaker, and it's a triumph."
"Looks to me as if it had been made by a dressmaker in the house."
"Not much! It's a marvel of line and type. Wait till it's all on."
Patty adjusted the shapeless garment, which hung in loose folds from
her shoulders, but which, with its muddy hue and clumsy drapery, was
decidedly unattractive. Over it she put on a sort of tunic of green
and orange damask, edged with glittering sequins.
"Oh," cried Nan, relieved, "I didn't know it was a fancy dress affair."
"It isn't," returned Patty. "They all wear this sort of clothes."
"They _do_? Are they supposed to be brainy?--Blaney, I mean!"
"Don't be unpleasant, Nancy, it doesn't suit you. And, honestly, I
like these people, and I like to be with them. Now, it would be silly
of me to wear my usual dance frocks where everybody dresses quite
differently. So, don't criticise unkindly, will you?"
"Of course not, you goosie. But it seems a shame when you look so
pretty in your own clothes, to wear these hideous duds."
"Thank you for the compliment on the side, but the Cosmic Centre people
think I look rather well in these things. I haven't shown them this
gown yet, but I know they'll love it."
"It's lucky for you your father isn't at home! He'd make you take it
right straight off."
"Oh, no, he wouldn't, Nancy-lady. I'm not a little girl any more, to
be scolded and sent to bed. There, I'm ready."
Patty had added a long string of queer-looking beads, terminating in a
huge pendant of Oriental effect. It was composed of coloured stones
set in dingy metalwork.
"Where did you get that horror? Gift from the Cosmickers?"
"Funny, aren't you? No, I bought it myself, out of my hard-saved
income. It's great! I found it at Ossilovi's. He says there isn't
another like it out of Asia."
"I should hope not! Though I doubt if it ever saw Asia."
"Nan, you're positively unbearable! One more speech of that sort, and
I'll be right down mad at you."
"Forgive me, Patty, I did let my feelings run away with me. It's all
right for you to do these things if you want to, but it doesn't seem
like you,--and it jars, somehow."
They went downstairs, and soon Sam Blaney came to take Patty away.
Nan greeted him very pleasantly, but inspected him very carefully. He
was not in evening dress, their coterie did not approve of anything so
conventional. This was against him in Nan's eyes, for she was a
stickler for the formalities. But as he threw back his topcoat, and
she saw his voluminous soft silk tie of magenta with vermilion dots,
his low rolling collar, and his longish mane of hair, she felt an
instinctive dislike to the man. Her sense of justice, however, made
her reserve judgment until she knew more of him, and she invited him to
tarry a few moments.
Blaney sat down, gracefully enough, and chatted casually, but Patty
realised that Nan was looking him over and resented it. And, somehow,
Blaney didn't appear to advantage in the Fairfield drawing-room, as he
did in his own surroundings. His attitude, while polite, was the least
bit careless, and his courtesy was indolent rather than alert. In
fact, he conducted himself as an old friend might have done, but in a
way which was not permissible in a stranger.
Nan led the conversation to the recent work of some comparatively new
and very worthwhile poets. She asked Blaney his opinion of a certain
poem.
"Oh, that," and the man hesitated, "well, you see,--I--ah,--that is,
I'm reserving my opinion as to that man's work,--yes, reserving my
opinion."
"And a good idea, too," agreed Nan. "One shouldn't judge, hastily.
But you've doubtless made up your mind regarding this poet," and she
picked up a book from the table, containing the poems of another modern
and much discussed writer.
"Oh, yes," said Blaney, "oh, yes, of course. But, if you'll excuse me,
Mrs. Fairfield, I'd rather not announce my views. You see, I--er--that
is,--I might be quoted wrongly,--misquoted, you know, and it would
militate against my influence,--yes,--militate against my standing.
One must be so careful."
"Indeed you are right," Nan said, smiling at him; "a poet yourself, you
must be careful of what you say about others."
"Yes, just that. How quickly you understand."
Patty and her escort went away, and after a short silence, Blaney said,
"You didn't show Mrs. Fairfield the verses I wrote for you, did you?"
"No," said Patty, "I promised you I wouldn't."
"And I didn't mean to doubt your word, but I thought you might think
that your mother--or stepmother, didn't count."
"No, I haven't shown them to any one. But I wish you weren't so
sensitive about your beautiful work."
"I wish so, too," and Blaney sighed. "But it's the penalty of----"
"Of genius, why not say it?"
"Yes, why not say it? I'm glad you recognise the beauty of truth
spoken in defiance of conventional modesty."
"Oh, yes, I do think if one is talented, it is silly to deny it."
"It is. That is why our people are so frankly sane and honest about
their own achievements----"
"And yet, you're so modest,--I mayn't show your verses!"
"That's a different matter. You know those were for your eyes alone."
"I know. I will keep them for myself."
The Studio of the Blaneys in the city was much like the one Patty had
seen at Lakewood, only a little more elaborately bizarre. The Moorish
lamps were bigger and dustier: the thick brocade draperies a little
more faded and tattered; the furniture a little more gilded and wobbly.
Alla came gliding to greet Patty, and gave her an enthusiastic welcome.
"You darling!" she cried, "you _very_ darling! Look at her, everybody!
Look! Gloat over this bit of perfect perfection! Did you ever _see_
anything so wonderful?"
Alla had led Patty to the middle of the room, and she now turned her
round and round, like a dressmaker exhibiting a model.
Patty felt no embarrassment, for the people all about accepted the
exhibition as a matter of course, and gazed at her in smiling
approbation. Moreover, all the guests were dressed as unconventionally
as Patty, and even more so. There were more queer costumes than she
had seen at the Lakewood party, more weird effects of hairdressing and
more eccentric posing and posturing. The New York branch of these
Bohemians were evidently farther advanced in their cult than the others
she had seen.
A little bewildered, Patty allowed herself to be ensconced on a crimson
and gold Davenport, and listened to a rattle of conversation that was
partly intelligible, and partly, it seemed to her, absolute nonsense.
"I am exploiting this gem," Alla announced, indicating Patty herself as
the "gem." "She hasn't quite found herself yet,--but she will soon
command the range of the whole emotional spectrum! She is a wonder!
Her soul is stuffed to bursting with dynamic force! We must train her,
educate her, show her, gently guide her dancing feet in the paths of
beauty,--in the star-strewn paths of cosmic beauty."
"We will!" shouted a dozen voices. "What can she do?"
"Dance," replied Alla. "But such dancing! She is a will-o'-the-wisp,
a pixie, a thistledown, a butterfly!"
"All those and more," said Sam Blaney. "She is a velvet angel, a
rose-coloured leaf in the wind, a fluttering scarf end."
"What imagery!" murmured somebody, and some one else said,
"Inspiration!" in an awed tone.
"And now to work," urged Alla. "We must plan for our holiday party.
Shall we have it here?"
"Here, of course," she was answered.
"But others of you have larger homes, more pretentious dwellings----"
"But not the atmosphere. This Studio,--" it was a large-eyed young
musician talking, "this hallowed room has more elevating
tendency,--more inspiring atmosphere than any other. Let us meet here
by all means, and let us have such a program--such a feast of glories
as never before."
Then another man spoke. He was a tall young chap, with a good-natured
smile, and Patty liked his face.
"I am an artist," he announced, "and a rattling good artist. I haven't
yet achieved my ultimate recognition, but it will come,--it must come.
I, therefore, I will undertake the task,--the ineffably joyous task of
designing,--of inventing a dance for Miss Fairfield."
"Do, Grantham," cried Blaney. "No one could do it better. Dream out a
scheme, a picture plan that will be worthy of our little Terpsichore.
A dance that shall be a whirlwind of violets,--a tornado of lilting
veils."
"Veils!" cried Grantham, "that's the keynote! A Dance of the Year,--a
mad gyration of Time,--of Time, himself, translated into
thistledown,--into scented thistledown."
"Bravo!" "Glorious!"
Other praises were shouted, and the place was like a pandemonium.
Patty began to realise the Bohemians were a boisterous lot. She
clapped her hands over her ears in smiling dismay.
"Quiet!" said Blaney, in his low, exquisite tones, and in an instant
the room was almost silent.
Committees were appointed to take charge of the Christmas celebration,
and then the program began.
It was long, and, to Patty, a bit uninteresting. She tried hard to
understand the queer things they read or recited, but it seemed to her
a continuous repetition of sound without sense. She was willing to
admit her own stupidity, and noting the rapt expressions on the faces
round her, she concluded the lack was in herself. The music, too,
though strange and eccentric, didn't seem to her as worth while as it
had done before, though it was decidedly similar. Blaney read some of
his poems, to a zithern accompaniment, but they weren't very
impressive, and not nearly so poetic as the lines he had written for
her. She wondered if she had really inspired him to greater heights of
song than he could attain without her influence.
He had assured her of this, and she began to think it might be so.
The supper followed the program. This was not enjoyed by Patty.
Usually, after a dance or concert, she was hungry for some light
refreshment, but in this incense-laden, smoke-heavy atmosphere, she
felt no desire to eat, and had she done so, she could not have relished
the viands. For they were of highly-spiced and foreign-flavoured
sorts, and their principal ingredients were smoked fish, pungent
sauces, and strong cheese, all of which Patty detested. Moreover, the
service was far from dainty. The heavy china, thick glass, and
battered, unreal silver detracted still further from the appetising
effects of the feast.
But everybody was so genuinely distressed at Patty's lack of appetite
and made such to-do about it, that she forced herself to eat, and even
essayed a cup of their muddy, syrupy coffee.
And she enjoyed herself. She absorbed much of their jargon and stored
it up in her brain for future use. She unconsciously adapted herself
to their mannerisms and whimsical enthusiasm, and when she went home
everybody praised her and declared her one of them and the best of them.
"By far the best," said Blaney, as he tucked her into the Fairfield
limousine which, with an accompanying maid, had been sent for her.
"And may I call soon, and reiterate this,--in better and longer lines?"
"Yes, do," said Patty. "I'd love to have you."
Nan was waiting up for her.
"Well, I've seen your new friend?" she said, as Patty flung off her
wrap and stood for a moment by the library table.
"Yep," said Patty, smiling, "and sumpum tells me, Nan, that you're
going to be disagreeable or disapproving or disappointed or
dis--something or other about him. And I beg of you to don't,--at
least until I get a bite of supper. I couldn't eat their old
delicatessen shop stuff, and I want a decent sandwich and a glass of
milk,--so I do."
"Why, you poor child! I'll get it for you. Cook has gone to bed, but
I'll forage in the pantry."
"Do, that's a fairy stepmother. Bring some fruit, too, please."
Patty went up to her room, and when Nan appeared, shortly, with a most
attractive supper tray, she was in kimono and cap, waiting for it.
"My, but this is good! I tell you, Nan, those Cosmickers know how to
think, but they don't know a thing about foods."
"Your Blaney looks well nourished. But, he didn't strike me as very
erudite. Why, Patty, he didn't know who those poets _were_, I asked
him about!"
"Oh, yes, he did. He didn't want to discuss 'em, that's all."
"Nonsense! I saw his expression. He didn't know them, I tell you. He
has never read a word of them."
"Well, he doesn't have to. He can write his own poems."
"Does he? Is he a poet, really?"
"Yes, Nan, he is. And he's all right, and Alla is, too. I don't like
all their associate souls, but I like a lot of them, and you would too,
if you saw them in their proper setting. Anyhow, their old symposium
has tired my little brain all up, and with many thanks for your kind
charity,--what there was of it--I'll let you go, if you really feel you
must."
Nan laughed, for there was deep good feeling between these two, then
she kissed Patty good night and went off with the empty tray.