For the last weeks, Inga had been aware of a change in Dangerfield.
His moments of abstraction, of inner brooding, grew less frequent.
Instead, she found him with his eyes set profoundly on her, until
she became uncomfortably conscious of this increasing curiosity.
At times in his work, he would begin singing to himself snatches
of old French songs, and occasionally, when he was pleased with
what he was doing, he would break out full-voiced into the
marching-chant of his student days.
_C’est les quatz’ arts,
C’est les quatz’ arts,
C’est les quatz’ arts qui passent;
C’est les quatz’ arts passés._
By the wall were the first two drawings he had made, and at the end
of the afternoon’s sketching, he would take each new canvas and
compare it with the two that now represented to him the parting of
the ways. If it passed the inspection, he would nod contentedly,
trill out a gay refrain, and replace it on the easel for further
study. But occasionally, when old habits tricked him back to the
easy, graceful, superficial method, he would burst into a roar of
anger and bring the offending canvas to Inga, crying:
“_Nom d’un pipe_; here I go again! Inga--quick; execute justice!”
And Inga, laughing, with a flash of green stockings, would send her
pointed slipper through the canvas. Sometimes she would protest at
the judgment, but he would remain obdurate.
“Not half bad, perhaps--but that’s not what I want. No more
mawkishness, no more sentimentality. I know now what I want. Come
on; one, two, three!” Then, as the little foot reluctantly tore
through the canvas, he would glance down admiringly and say, “And
that’s a better fate than it deserves!”
Two and three days in succession this execution would take place
and then there would be sure to be long periods of restless
depression, sometimes ending in a wild spree with the consequent
grim reaction. But gradually these backslidings grew less frequent,
as his feverish love of work increased with his growing confidence.
The mornings were spent in rigorous drawing, Madame Probasco,
Sassafras, Schneibel, uncle Paul of the pawn shop, every model of
strong and unusual picturesqueness being impressed into service,
again and again, until the canvas yielded to his satisfaction the
quality of penetrating analysis he sought. Tootles’ easel made
the third in these mornings of merciless criticism, and, under
Dangerfield’s stern guidance, the young fellow began to reflect
some of the enthusiasm of the master and to make genuine progress.
In the afternoon, Dangerfield returned to the portrait of Mr.
Cornelius, always grumbling, always dissatisfied.
With Inga came a more docile mood. In fact, it seemed to amuse him
to say:
“Well, young lady, what are your commands for the day?”
He began to talk to her, to discuss seriously as he did with
“the baron.” In truth, he was now alertly curious. What did she
understand; what had she read, seen, and experienced? He recalled
certain criticisms which had come unexpectedly from her lips, and
wondered from what source she had acquired such views. Between
them, it was agreed that there should be no recalling of the past,
but the very embargo whetted his appetite. He remembered darkly
the sequences of his midnight wandering through the city with
Inga; yet enough remained to suggest sides of her life that seemed
incongruous with the present calm routine. He knew, also, from the
gossip of the Arcade that there had been another, Champeno, his
predecessor in the studio, who had dropped out in disaster; but to
what extent he had come into her life, whether profoundly or only
as an agreeable acquaintance, he could not divine. He recalled
the strange feeling which had come to him in the first days that
there was a third in the studio, a figment of the memory which
seemed to rise before the girl’s eyes when she came to him in his
hours of weakness; and, remembering this, often as he studied her,
he wondered, yes, even with a sense of irritation, a restless
beginning of jealousy. So marked was his contemplation, that Inga
said to him one afternoon:
“Why do you look at me so?”
“I’m thinking, wondering many things about you, Inga,” he said.
She looked into his eyes swiftly a moment and then turned hurriedly
away, busying herself with the stowing of her easel, for the
light had died out in the overcast sky of April showers, and the
afternoon’s work was over.
“Suppose we wander up into Harlem, where the new Jewish quarter
might give us some types, and try our luck for dinner,” he said,
watching the lightness of her movements, the grace of her pliant
back as she stooped, the flitting note of the green stockings.
“It’s showery,” she said doubtfully.
“All the better fun, tramping in the rain.”
“Want me to get ready?”
“Not yet--come here!”
He came back, drying his hands, still in his loose working-costume,
a serious light in his eyes.
“Do you know that was a good idea you gave me over in that
water-front restaurant that day--about getting down to realities,
expressing the world of the masses,” he said gravely. “I’ve been
thinking a lot about it.”
“Oh, I do mean it!” she said, her face lighting up with the rare
enthusiasm that gave it the touch of animation it needed to make it
bewildering to his eyes. “No one seems to paint New York--to look
for what he can find here. They’re all painting and sculpturing as
others used to do hundreds of years ago.”
“Inventing and not interpreting,” he said, nodding.
“Yes; that’s it--you express it better than I can. But that’s
what I mean--an artist ought to interpret all he sees around him,
express his time, its manners, its customs, the joy and the misery
of the streets. It’s not only that, but when he does that, when he
lives with the people, he can’t lose his enthusiasm.”
“And if he does the other thing, gets into society, society only
comes to prey upon him, to exhaust him, to waste his energies and
corrupt his imagination--that’s what you mean?”
She nodded.
“Just that!”
“Inga, you’re right,” he said abruptly. “That’s the trouble with us
all over here. We don’t keep to ourselves; we aren’t savage enough.
Our aim, after all, is the same as the business _parvenu_; we want
to do the things others do at the top--what we call the top! No;
it’s wrong, all wrong. Art was not produced like that in the great
days. Artists should live to themselves--yes, be savage about it.
The two things can’t mingle--don’t I know it!”
“Mr. Dan,” she said, her face aglow, “don’t you see that you have
got rid of all that?”
He was silent, moody. Then he placed his hand on her shoulders with
a smile.
“Inga, I believe you’re going to win,” he said slowly. She smiled
and, looking at him, nodded confidently.
“Lucky you got hold of me when you did,” he said, in a burst of
confidence. “Something else was getting a pretty tight grip on
me--might have been too late soon.” How completely the longing
still awoke in him at times, he did not tell her. His mind went
back to the thoughts she had just expressed, and he said, “You
know, your ideas surprise me.”
“How so?”
“Wonder where you got them. After all, though, that’s human nature,
woman nature,” he said, with a reflective smile, “to take knowledge
from one man to help another.”
“What do you mean?” she said, drawing back.
“You’ve heard others say those things, I suppose,” he said. “What’s
his name, the young fellow who was here before? Champeno, that’s
it. I suppose when you straighten me out, you’ll go on to the next
with what I’ve taught you.”
The question, which came with the swiftness of a sword-thrust, and
the quick concentration of his glance visibly upset her, so much so
that he hastened to say:
“Why, there’s nothing wrong in my saying that, is there?”
She frowned and finally said: “But I don’t see what reason you have
for thinking such things.”
“I’m frankly curious about you, Inga,” he said abruptly.
She turned away, plainly disconcerted. “I don’t like to talk about
myself.”
“You don’t remember some of the things you said to me that night.”
“What?” she asked steadily.
“The time we passed the child leading the drunkard, and you said it
brought back memories.”
“I didn’t think you remembered,” she said slowly.
“And at Costello’s--Costello’s greeting you.”
“What is there in that?” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
“Why, nothing, of course, except--well, I don’t like to think of
your being out with other men--I suppose that’s it.” She opened her
eyes in such astonishment that he added point blank: “No; I don’t
like the thought--just jealousy, that’s all.”
She drew back and her face flushed red, but before he could go
further, Tootles came down the hall.
* * * * *
The next afternoon Mr. Cornelius was unable to come for a sitting
and Dangerfield was in high dudgeon, for Madame Probasco and
O’Leary were away and Sassafras fixed to the elevator.
“You wanted to sketch the oyster-man behind his bar,” said Inga,
referring to a picturesque bit of human nature which had caught his
fancy the night before. “Why not take this afternoon?”
“I wanted to paint,” he said, like a spoiled child.
“Am I ugly enough to suit you?” she said, with a bit of malice.
He laughed at her rejoinder and the prospect of a busy morning, and
in a moment had her posed and fell to work. Presently he looked up
scowling.
“Something’s wrong--don’t look natural; let’s try something easier.”
Twice he changed the pose, and, finally, in a fit of temper, broke
the brush and threw it on the floor.
“Darned if I know what’s wrong! It’s not you--that’s all.” He stood
with folded arms, studying her angrily. “You don’t look _you_!”
he exclaimed suddenly. “Sounds idiotic, but it’s true. I believe
it’s the hair--something wrong there. It’s stiff--constrained, and
you’re not conventional. Yes, by Jove, that’s it! Take it down and
try it some other way.”
She hesitated, her fingers to her lips, and reluctantly unwound
the braids that she wore about her forehead in a Swedish coil.
Then, with deft fingers, she shook them loose while the man came
suddenly close to her, his eyes studying her face in surprise. The
long black hair, released, fell about her shoulders and softened
the marble coldness of her features, fell in black rippling waves
like the mysterious depths of the sea on a summer’s night. She
seemed like a released soul, something soaring and on the wing,
far-distant as the wild fjords of her native Scandinavia.
“Is this better?” she asked, smiling with a new archness as though
within her too a spirit had been released.
He was too startled by her sudden loveliness, to answer. All at
once he came to her and held her head between his hands, gazing
into the dark face where the blue-gray eyes shone forth with an
easy light.
“Inga,” he said tempestuously, looking at her so intensely that,
for the first time, she dropped her glance, “What are you? Where do
you come from? What is behind those eyes of yours? Do you really
care for me, or is it just an instinct in you to help? Sometimes I
think that’s all, that if I were not in such need of you, you would
disappear in the night like the elfin thing you are.”
“You are wrong,” she said, shaking her head.
He laughed and turned away.
“Put up your hair. I’ll paint you like that--but some other day.”
When she had braided and coiled her hair about her forehead and
come to his side, he took her hand and raised it to his lips, in
more genuine emotion than he had shown.
“Inga, you’re much too good for me with my cranky ways, my bad
temper and worse. If I’m rough--I’m always sorry for it.”
“I know that, Mr. Dan,” she said softly.
“Child, you must be starving here,” he said gently. “You weren’t
meant for this; you were meant for the woods and rocks, the rocks
that run into the sea--something tempestuous and free.”
“I should like the sea,” she said eagerly, and her eyes lit up as
though touched with phosphorus.
He took a long breath and glanced out of the open window, drinking
in the mild air laden with the stirring perfumes of the spring.
“We must get away,” he said joyfully, “from men and machines!
You’ve given me back life and ambition, child. Now I want to get
away to my own thoughts, back to the things that are eternal, the
things that heal.” They stood by the window. He raised her hand
again to his lips. “I’ve waited long enough to be fair to you--now
I’m going to carry you off!” he said, with a suddenness that took
away her breath.
The next moment his arms had snatched her up and she was looking
up into his steady domineering eyes. And, seeing his look, she
understood.
“To carry me off?” she said faintly.
“Yes, Mrs. Dangerfield.”
“You want me to marry you!” she said, staring at him.
He laughed out of the fulness of the joy in his heart.
“So quick it’ll take your breath--and then to get away!”
“Wait--no, no--wait!” she said breathlessly, as she felt him
drawing her up to him.
Something in the tone caused him to look at her suddenly and then
to release her. She stood, the picture of distress, her lips
parted, her eyes filling with tears, looking at him, one hand at
her throat as though to press back the sorrow that was there.
“Oh, I was so afraid you’d say that,” she said at last. “Why did
you, Mr. Dan--why did you--why couldn’t it go on just as it has!”
“Why?” he cried, in amazement, but before he could break into a
torrent of passion, she had turned and fled from the room.
“What in the world did I say that was wrong?” he thought, and he
began to search in bewilderment. At the end of a long, puzzled
self-examination, a light flashed over him. “What an idiot I am! Of
course! She’s made up her mind I asked her only out of gratitude!
Poor little child!”
He hastened to her room to repair his fancied blunder, but though
he knocked long and loud, no answer came. The next day, a slip of
paper lay on the floor under the crack of his door, where she had
thrust it.