How did she manage to reclaim him? In part by the unquestioning
service which she yielded him, without weariness or discouragement,
until, out of pity for her, he began to fight with himself,
and, in a minor degree, through unforeseen influences, trivial
in themselves, yet working together to restore his interest in
those who lived about him. Tootles and the difficulties of his
masterpiece drew from him a wild outburst of laughter, but he
stayed to criticize and suggest, until gradually he came to the
moment when, in his amused enthusiasm, he took up the brush
himself. He had come to the point now where he could not bear to be
alone, never content unless Inga were at his side. She transported
her easel into his studio for the morning’s work, with Belle Shaler
serving as model for the magazine covers which she drew with a
certain deftness and charm.
During the first mornings, Dangerfield paid them scant attention
beyond an occasional glance. The third day, he criticized a pose of
Belle Shaler’s, and rose to superintend the readjustment. Then he
glanced at Inga’s work and nodded.
“Pretty and delicate.”
The second week, Belle being engaged elsewhere, Inga had recourse
to a model she sometimes used, an Italian mother, heavy and a bit
dowdy, but picturesque and vital. He noticed the substitution
with surprise and a long, contemplative stare. All at once he
sprang up, brought out his easel, took a canvas, and began to
draw. Inga, afraid to notice this unhoped-for development even by
a word, continued a simulation of work while watching him from
the corners of her eyes. He worked rapidly, humming to himself,
frowning occasionally and stepping back to study the result with
dissatisfied glances. In the end, he stood back, his head on one
side, scowling.
“Atrocious!” he said abruptly. Then he laughed, returned, replaced
the canvas by a fresh one, and started again.
“Come and behold!” he said grimly, when he had completed the second
study. “Let’s see how good an artist you are. Which?”
He placed the two sketches together and stood back as Inga came
eagerly up. They were done in a manner so opposite that they
might have been by different hands--the last graceful, charming,
inclining to the sentimental; the first trenchant, direct, almost
cruel in its reality.
“Which?” he said, watching her gloomily.
But almost before the words were on his lips, her answer had come.
She went past the thing of grace and charm to the first drawing he
had made.
“That’s wonderful!” she said, with outstretched finger.
“What! You prefer that?” he said savagely. She faced his look and
nodded.
“Any one can do the other; but this, this shocks you--it’s so
savage and yet so convincing!”
He came to her side and viewed the canvases, trying to see them
with her eyes, to feel a glimmer of her enthusiasm. So pathetic was
the effort she saw writ on his clouded face that she longed, in a
rush of maternal pity, to take him in her arms and cry.
“But it is good; it is!”
At the end, he said curtly:
“You don’t know--if, indeed, you really meant it.”
“But, Mr. Dan, I do; I do,” she said, seizing his arm. “You’ve done
something unusual--something different from the way others do.”
“My dear child,” he said impatiently, “they are both hopeless. One
is a pretty fake, and the other is as hard as rocks! Don’t argue; I
know.”
He lifted the canvases and set them down with a crash against the
wall, while she watched him, with a sinking heart, go and stand by
the window in a brooding revulsion. The test had come which she had
striven for, prayed for, waited for, and it had failed. She had a
moment of intense, hopeless despair.
That night, matters were even worse. Dangerfield relapsed into his
wildest mood, as though he, too, had felt the finality of the test
and knew that nothing was left to hope for. He managed to slip away
without her noticing it, and when he staggered back, late in the
night, he was in such a frenzy of remorse, depression, and weakness
that she did not dare to leave his side an instant.
Yet, by noon of the next day, when he had recovered his poise, by
one of the miracles of which his extraordinary constitution was
capable, curiously enough he did a thing for which she would never
have dared to hope. He went over to the canvases which he had
discarded so fiercely, chose the one Inga had preferred, and placed
it on the easel.
At this moment Mr. Cornelius, coming in, expecting to find
Dangerfield prostrate after the night’s debauch and perceiving him
actually standing before his easel, burst into an exclamation of
delight.
“Monsieur Cornelius,” said Dangerfield (he, of all the floor, never
called him “baron”), “tell me what you think of this?”
“The baron” went lightly across the floor, picking up his feet
and glancing in wonder at Inga, until he reached the easel, and
adjusted his glasses with nicety. Then he looked up suddenly.
“You did this--you, my friend?”
“Yes; yesterday. What do you think of it?”
Mr. Cornelius examined it with care, nodding, raising his eyebrows,
pursing his lips.
“I did not think you so strong,” he said slowly, and the look of
wonder with which he examined Dangerfield had more flattery in it
than his words. “_C’est fort; c’est plus que fort--c’est du vrai!_”
“Yes; there is something in it--something odd,” said Dangerfield
slowly, to Inga’s amazement.
“You did not see things like that in Paris,” said “the baron,”
still nodding. “_Cristi_--but it’s astonishing what you make a line
do; what modeling!”
“Yes, yes,” said Dangerfield breathlessly, “it’s bold; it has
audacity; it is not trivial, at any rate. Curious thing--last
night--I thought it insufferably bad. I even preferred this!”
He held up the other sketch with a guilty laugh. Mr. Cornelius did
exactly the right thing. He put his foot through it.
“_Mon ami_, you are one colossal ass! Now, isn’t that a nice damn
thing? A man who can do what you can to behave so badly. If I could
do that, the whole damn family could go cut their throats; _je m’en
ficherais complètement_! That means, _mademoiselle_, the rest of
them too can go right to the devil!” He turned on Dangerfield and
shook his fist in his face in Gallic enthusiasm.
“You stop being the _big_ fool; you get to work! You draw; you
paint! Where is the model?”
The model, in truth, had been postponed as a result of the previous
night’s dissipation. Inga started up, seeing the eager look in
Dangerfield’s eyes.
“I’ll run out; I’ll get one right away.”
“Pooh!” said “the baron,” and, to the surprise of them both, he
strode to the model-stand, his violet dressing-gown floating
behind him, and installed himself in a chair. “Paint me--no
compliments--just as I am--Don Juan in old age--Beau Brummel in
poverty--_le vieux boulevardier_. Paint me, and I don’t see nothing
till you be satisfied. Now, paint like ze devil!”
In truth, he made a striking figure in his black-felt slippers
and white socks, his loose, yellowish trousers, a flash of white
at the throat above the faded violet of the dressing-robe, which
set forth strongly the aristocratic features; the eyes still alert
and compelling above the crinkled sacks which had formed about the
hollowed cheeks; the defiant rise of the Gallic mustache, as saucy,
as obstinate, and as proud in adversity as in the halls of revelry.
Dangerfield exchanged the chairs, giving him one of barer outline,
arranged a cold gray background over the screen, and added a faded
red footstool. In another ten minutes he was feverishly at work,
while Inga, at her pad, strove in vain to catch the spirit of the
pose--yet thoroughly content.
The incident sank deep into her understanding. Dangerfield had
rejected her sure instinct, and yet, a day later, had been
convinced at the first word from Mr. Cornelius. She comprehended,
not without a pang, all that lay in the feeling of caste, what
power Mr. Cornelius, of Dangerfield’s own world, might have over
him where she might strive in vain. At once she began to reach out
for his assistance, to study the reticent, kind old man, to flatter
him subtly, to please him by a dozen little attentions, and draw
him into the intimacy of the studio.
What pleased her most was that Mr. Cornelius had the power to make
Dangerfield talk. Often now, in the dark, after the day’s work
was done, the easel put away, and the rug rolled back, the two
men would stretch back, puffing on their pipes, and discuss art
and life and the thousand and one affairs of the world which may
always be better regulated in conversation. Dangerfield was still
far from being tamed, as O’Leary had put it, but something had come
now to aid her in the struggle, a new curiosity still unsatisfied,
a wonder whether the months of disappointment had not left a
compensating gift in a clearer vision. There were bad moments,
when he found that old habits had set their yoke over his will and
aroused a thirst of the flesh that rose up at times and overwhelmed
him in dazed nights of defeat. But the dawn had broken at last
through the clouds, and, little by little, hoping, doubting, he had
begun to believe in himself.
The Arcade dwellers, under Inga’s deft guidance, flocked in to the
studio, surrounding Dangerfield with youth, movement, and bubbling
spirits, and if there were times when he sat apart listlessly,
he was always grateful to the spirit of comradeship which they
flung about him as a protecting mantle. He made frequent visits
to the adjoining studio, emerging uproariously after a delighted
contemplation of Tootles’ work of art. He even visited Schneibel’s
home galleries, and stood in awe before the rainbows descending
into the valleys, the showers draping Roman temples, and the
mechanical cows which seemed to be skating over slippery green
meadows. So salutary were these visits, that, at times, when his
own work lagged or a fit of moroseness was impending, he would look
up grimly and say:
“The blue devils are around, Inga. Let’s go down to Schneibel’s and
cheer up.”
Meanwhile, Millie Brewster had made her début at the Gloria,
frantically applauded by the assembled Arcadians. The affair had
verged perilously close to a disaster, for the girl, suddenly
brought before the footlights with the many-headed monster
stirring beyond, had faltered and sung false. Already there were
titters and murmurs in the audience when O’Leary saved the day by
plumping out savagely:
“Millie, you can do better than that! Now do it!”
In her astonishment, the girl forgot herself. She looked down at
O’Leary and beheld his face, that had always looked upon her with
kindness, so set in fierce disapproval that straight away, all
else forgot, she began to sing like an angel, with the result that
the audience, always sensitive to dramatic changes, burst into
applause. But the work ended, no further engagements resulted, the
truth being that, though she had a certain girlish charm and a
pleasant though thin voice, she was completely lost in front of the
footlights.
On top of this came the announcement of Myrtle Popper’s engagement
to Mr. Pomello, which sent the floor into a fever of excitement.
To the surprise of every one, Dangerfield offered his studio for
the ceremony and asked the privilege of providing the supper.
Schneibel, not to be outdone, assumed the responsibility of Mr.
Pomello’s farewell to bachelordom, which was to be conducted on
certain original lines of his own. Dangerfield threw himself into
the spirit of the celebration with such zest that his good spirits
reflected themselves throughout the hall, and everything seemed now
to be fair sailing when a new complication arose.