Ludlow did not come to see Cornelia, but they met, from time to time,
at Mrs. Westley's, where he was aware of her being rather taken up; at
Mrs. Maybough's, where he found it his duty to show himself after his
failure with Charmian's picture, so as to help Mrs. Maybough let people
know there was nothing but the best feeling about it; and, more to his
surprise, at Wetmore's. At the painter's, Charmian, who came with her,
realized more than anywhere else, her dream of Bohemia, and Wetmore
threw a little excess into the social ease of his life that he might
fulfil her ideal. He proposed that Mrs. Wetmore should set the example
of hilarities that her domestic spirit abhorred; he accused her of
cutting off his beer, and invented conditions of insolvency and
privation that surpassed Charmian's wildest hopes. He borrowed money of
Ludlow in her presence, and said that he did not know that he should
ever be able to pay it back. He planned roystering escapades which were
never put in effect, and once he really went out with the two girls to
the shop of an old German, on the Avenue, who dealt in _delicatessen_,
and bought some Nuremberg gingerbread and a bottle of lime-juice, after
rejecting all the ranker meats and drinks as unworthy the palates of
true Bohemians. He invited Charmian to take part in various _bats_, for
the purpose of shocking the Pymantoning propriety of Cornelia, and they
got such fun out of it as children do when the make-believe of their
elders has been thinned to the most transparent pretence; but Charmian,
who knew he was making fun of her, remained as passionately attached to
the ideal he mocked as ever; and Cornelia had the guilty pang of
wondering what he would think of her if he knew all about Mr.
Dickerson, whose nature she now perceived to be that of the vulgarest
_batting_.
She did not answer the letter she first got, nor any of those which
immediately followed, and this had the effect of checking Mr.
Dickerson's ardor for so long a time that she began to think he would
not trouble her again.
There was no real offence between her and Ludlow, or any but such as
could wear itself away with time and the custom of friendly meeting. He
had the magnanimity to ignore it when he first saw her after that
Thursday of Mrs. Westley's, and she had too keen a sense of having been
a fool not to wish to act more wisely as soon as she could forget.
There came so long a lapse between the letters of Mr. Dickerson that he
ceased, at least perpetually, to haunt her thoughts. She had moments
when it seemed as if she might justly consent to be happy again, or at
least allow herself to enjoy the passing pleasure of the time without
blame. She even suffered herself to fancy taking up the picture of
Charmian, and carrying it farther under Ludlow's criticism. She was
very ambitious to try her fate with the Academy, and when he offered so
generously to help her again, as if she had not refused him once so
rudely, she could not deny him. She found herself once more in
Charmian's studio, and it all began to go on the same as if it had
never stopped. It seemed like a dream, sometimes, when she thought
about it, and it did not seem like a very wise dream. Cornelia now
wished, above all things, to have a little bit of sense, as she phrased
it in her thoughts; and she was aware that the present position of
affairs might look rather crazy to some people. The best excuse for it
was that it would have looked crazier yet if she had refused such an
opportunity simply because of the circumstances. She began to be a
little vague about the circumstances, and whether they were queer
because she had fancied a likeness of herself in Mr. Ludlow's picture
of Charmian, or because she had afterwards made a fool of herself so
irreparably as to be unworthy Mr. Ludlow's kindness.
If it was merely kindness, and she was the object of charity, it was
all right; she could accept it on those terms. She even tempted him to
patronize her, but when he ventured upon something elderly and paternal
in his monitions, she resented it so fiercely that she was astonished
and ashamed. There was an inconsistency in it all that was perplexing,
but not so perplexing as to spoil the pleasure of it.
There were not sittings every day, now; Ludlow came once or twice a
week, and criticised her work; sometimes he struck off a sketch
himself, in illustration of a point, and these sketches were now so
unlike Cornelia, and so wholly like Charmian, that when he left them
for her guidance, she studied them with a remote ache in her heart.
"Never mind," Charmian consoled her once, "he just does it on purpose."
"Does what?" Cornelia demanded awfully.
"Oh, nothing!"
One of the sketches he fancied so much that he began to carry it
forward. He worked at it whenever he came, and under his hand it grew
an idealized Charmian, in which her fantastic quality expressed itself
as high imagination, and her formless generosity as a wise and noble
magnanimity.
She made fun of it when they were alone, but Cornelia could see that
she was secretly proud of having inspired it, and that she did not
really care for the constant portrait which Cornelia had been
faithfully finishing up, while Ludlow changed and experimented, though
Charmian praised her to his disadvantage.
One day he said he had carried his picture as far as he could, and he
should let it go at that. It seemed an end of their pleasant days
together; the two girls agreed that now there could be no further
excuse for their keeping on, and Cornelia wondered how she could let
him know that she understood. That evening he came to call on her at
Mrs. Montgomery's, and before he sat down he began to say: "I want to
ask your advice, Miss Saunders, about what I shall do with my sketch of
Miss Maybough."
Cornelia blenched, for no reason that she could think of; she could not
gasp out the "Yes" that she tried to utter.
"You see," he went on, "I know that I've disappointed Mrs. Maybough,
and I'd like to make her some sort of reparation, but I can't offer her
the sketch instead of the portrait; if she liked it she would want to
pay for it, and I can't take money for it. So I've thought of giving
the sketch to Miss Maybough."
He looked at Cornelia, now, for the advice he had asked, but she did
not speak, and he had to say: "But I don't know whether she likes it or
not. Do you know whether she does? Has she ever spoken of it to you? Of
course she's said civil things to me about it. I beg your pardon! I
suppose you don't care to tell, and I had no right to inquire."
"Oh, yes; yes."
"Well?"
"I know she likes it; she must."
"But she hasn't said so?"
"Not--exactly."
"Then what makes you think she does?"
"I don't know. Any one would. It's very beautiful." Cornelia spoke very
dryly, very coldly.
"But is it a likeness? Is it she? Her character? What do _you_ think of
it yourself?"
"I don't know as I can say----"
"Ah, I see you don't like it!" said Ludlow, with an air of
disappointment. "And yet I aimed at pleasing you in it."
"At pleasing _me_?" she murmured thickly back.
"Yes, you. I tried to see her as you do; to do her justice, and if it
is overdone, or flattered, or idealized, it is because I've been
working toward your notion----"
"Oh!" said Cornelia, and then, to the great amazement of herself as
well as Ludlow, she began to laugh, and she laughed on, with her face
in her handkerchief. When she took her handkerchief down, her eyes
looked strange, but she asked, with a sort of radiance, "And did you
think I thought Charmian was really like that?"
"Why, I didn't know---- You've been very severe with me when I've
suggested she wasn't. At first, when I wanted to do her as Humbug, you
wouldn't stand it, and now, when I've done her as Mystery, you laugh."
Cornelia pressed her handkerchief to her shining eyes, and laughed a
little more. "That is because she isn't either. Can't you understand?"
"I could understand her being both, I think. Don't you think she's a
little of both?"
"I told you," said Cornelia gravely, "that I didn't like to talk
Charmian over."
"That was a good while ago. I didn't know but you might, by this time."
"Why?" she asked. "Am I so changeable?"
"No; you're the one constant and steadfast creature in a world of
variableness. I didn't really expect that. I know that I can always
find you where I left you. You are the same as when I first saw you."
It seemed to Cornelia that she had been asking him to praise her, and
she was not going to have that. "Do you mean that I behave as badly as
I did in the Fair House? No wonder you treat me like a child." This was
not at all what she meant to say, however, and was worse than what she
had said before.
"No," he answered seriously. "I meant that you are not capricious, and
I hate caprice. But do I treat you like a child?"
"Sometimes," said Cornelia, looking down and feeling silly.
"I am very sorry. I wish you would tell me how."
She had not expected this pursuit, and she flashed back, "You are doing
it now! You wouldn't say that to--to--any one else."
Ludlow paused thoughtfully. Then he said, "I seem to treat myself like
a child when I am with you. Perhaps that's what displeases you. Well, I
can't help that. It is because you are so true that I can't keep up the
conventions with you." They were both silent; Cornelia was trying to
think what she should say, and he added, irrelevantly, "If you don't
like that sketch of her, I won't give it to her."
"I? What have I to do with it?" She did not know what they were talking
about, or to what end. "Yes, you must give it to her. I know she wants
it. And I know how kind you are, and good. I didn't mean--I didn't wish
to blame you--I don't know why I'm making such a _perfect_ fool of
myself."
She had let him have her hand somehow, and he was keeping it; but they
had both risen.
"May I stay a moment?" he entreated.
No one thing now seemed more inconsequent than another, and Cornelia
answered, with a catching of her breath, but as if it quite followed,
"Why, certainly," and they both sat down again.
"There is something I wish to tell--to speak of," he began. "I think
it's what you mean. In my picture of Miss Maybough----"
"I didn't mean that at all. That doesn't make any difference to me,"
she broke incoherently in upon him. "I didn't care for it. You can do
what you please with it."
He looked at her in a daze while she spoke. "Oh," he said, "I am very
stupid. I didn't mean this sketch of mine; I don't care for that, now.
I meant that other picture of her--the last one--the one I painted out
before I gave up painting her---- Did you see that it was like you?"
Cornelia felt that he was taking an advantage of her, and she lifted
her eyes indignantly. "Mr. Ludlow!"
"Ah! Don't think _that_," he pleaded, and she knew that he meant her
unexpressed sense of unfairness in him. "I know you saw it; and the
likeness was there because--I wanted to tell you long ago, but I
couldn't, because when we met afterwards I was afraid that I was
mistaken, in what I thought--hoped. I had no right to know anything
till I was sure of myself; but--the picture was like you because you
were all the time in my thoughts, and nothing and no one but you.
Cornelia----" She rose up crazily, and looked toward the door, as if
she were going to run out of the room. "What is it?" he implored. "You
know I love you."
"Let me go!" she panted.
"If you tell me you don't care for me----"
"I don't! I don't care for you, and--let me go!"
He stood flushed and scared before her. "I--I am sorry. I didn't
mean--I hoped---- But it is all right---- I mean you are right, and I
am wrong. I am very wrong."