June had come and I was filling the last of my engagements. There was
not a single other day on my calendar for the week, and it was
Wednesday. I had had only two engagements the week before.
I was posing for three women. The work was easy, as they were amateurs,
and liked to meet together and use the same model, and paint and have a
social time. I was posing in a gypsy costume, and they talked to me
occasionally in a patronizing way, as if I were a little poodle. One of
them asked me if I wouldn’t like to paint. I knew I could paint better
than she could, but I pretended to simper and said:
“Oh, yes, indeed.”
One of the women, with kind-looking eyes, smiled at me and asked me if I
managed to make a living, and then the one who had asked me if I would
like to paint said:
“Oh, by the way, we won’t need you again, as we are all off for the
country.”
She added that they might be able to use me the next season, and I
wondered dully to myself whether I would need them when the new season
came. A feeling of despair was stealing over me--despair and
recklessness.
The woman with the kind eyes who asked me if I made a living, I have
since recognized as the wife of the President. I wish I had known her
better.
Though I had so little work to do, nevertheless I was feeling languid
and tired in these days, and when I reached my room that afternoon, I
threw myself bodily down upon my bed. I felt that I did not want to get
up even to go out for my dinner. I was lying there with my face buried
in the pillow, when Miss Darling called up the stairs:
“There’s a gentleman to see you, Miss Marion.”
I jumped up and ran out into the hall. A short, dark man was mounting
the stairs. I thought at first he was a picture-dealer I had once seen
at Mr. Sands’ studio.
“Miss Ascough?” he asked.