I had been posing all afternoon. Bonnat still insisted on my coming each
Sunday, although the other men were through with me for the time being.
I was not sure that Bonnat could really afford to have a model alone,
and I often thought I should not go; but somehow I found myself unable
to keep away. All week long I looked forward to that afternoon in Paul
Bonnat’s studio, and the thought that they could not last made me feel
very badly.
“Look at the time!” He pointed dramatically to the clock on the shelf.
It was upside down. Then he regarded me remorsefully:
“You must be tired out, and hungry, too. What do you say to having
dinner with me to-night? How about one of those awful Italian
table-d’hotes, where they give you ten courses with red ink for the
price of a sandwich? Will that suit you?”
I was seized with a distaste to go out in the rain, even with Bonnat, to
one those melancholy restaurants. I looked about me, and sighing, said:
“I wish I had a place to cook. I’m awfully tired of restaurants.”
“What, can you cook?” he demanded excitedly, just as if he had
discovered some miraculous talent in me.
“Why, yes,” I said proudly. “And I love to, too. I can cook anything,” I
added sweepingly.
“You don’t say.” His eyes swept the room. “Where’s that trunk?” He found
it, and called to me to come and see what it contained.
“See here--how’s this? I brought these things with me when I first left
home, and intended to cook for myself, but a fellow can’t bother with
these things. Hasn’t got the time, and then everything gets lost about
the place,” he added ruefully. “Now here’s a little gas stove. I use it
to heat water for shaving, and sometimes when the boys come in on a cold
night we make a hot drink.”
I had picked up a little brass kettle, and I saw him looking at it. He
put his hands on the other side of it gently, and he said:
“That belonged to my mother. She’s been dead two years now.”
“Oh, we’ll not touch it,” I declared. “We’ll make coffee in something
else.”
He pressed the little kettle upon me.
[Illustration: He stood in the doorway just looking about him, and
slowly over his face there came the most beautiful smile I have seen in
the world.]
“No, no, you shall make it in this. My mother would have liked you to. I
wish you could have known her.”
“I wish I could,” I said earnestly. Bonnat stared at me a moment, and
then he said, moving toward the door:
“I’m going to the delicatessen, and I’ll bring back what?”
“Anything that is not cooked,” I said. “I do so want to cook a real
dinner, and there’s a couple of pans here though I wish there was more
than one gas thing.”
While he was gone I went quickly to work. I fairly flew about that
studio, putting everything to rights, piling up the things in their
proper places, hanging up the things that should be hung, and sweeping,
tidying, dusting, till it really looked like a different place. Then I
set the table with two plates I found in his trunk, one teaspoon, one
knife and two forks. There was only one cup between us, but there were
two glasses. Presently Bonnat came in with his arms full of packages. He
stood in the doorway, just looking about him, and slowly over his face
there came the most beautiful smile I have ever seen in the world.
Somehow it just seemed to embrace the whole room, and me, too. He set
the packages down, and this is what he had bought: Frankfurters, cheese,
eggs, butter, bread, pickles, jam, and a lot of other things, but not a
thing to cook except the frankfurters. I must have looked disappointed,
for he asked anxiously:
“Isn’t it all right?”
“Oh, I had set my mind on making a rice pudding,” I said.
“That’s all right,” he declared eagerly. “You shall, too. What do you
need for it?”
“Well, rice, cinnamon, sugar, milk, eggs and butter.”
He laughed, and went singing and rattling down the stairs on his second
errand. I could hear him when he came back all the way from the entrance
of the building; but I loved his noise!
I made that pudding. As we had no oven, I had to boil it, but I put
cinnamon heavily on top, so it looked as if browned, and it did taste
good. We were both so tired of the cheap restaurants that everything
tasted just fine, and Bonnat leaned over the table and fervently
declared that I was the best cook he had ever met in his life. We were
both laughing about that, when after a rat-tat on the door, it burst
open and in came Fisher. He stopped short and stared at us.
“Well, upon my word, you look like newly-weds,” he said, and that made
me blush so that I pretended to drop something and leaned over to pick
it up, for I was ashamed to look at Paul Bonnat after that.
“My, but it smells good,” said Fisher. “Got a bite for another beggar,
Miss Ascough?” Then his eye went slowly and amazedly about the room, and
he exclaimed: “Gee whiz! Have the fairies been to work? Well, you
certainly look cozy now.”
He drew up a chair, and went to work on the remnants of our feast,
talking constantly as he ate.
“Say, Miss Ascough, we fellows can have lots of spreads like this, now
that we know you can cook.”
“What do you take her for?” growled Bonnat. “Do you think the whole
hungry bunch of you are going to have her cooking for you? Not on your
life, you’re not.”
Fisher laughed.
“By the way, there’s a bunch of us going down to the Bowery to-morrow
night. We’ll get chop suey at a pretty good joint there, and then we’re
going to Atlantic Garden where we can get those big steins of beer. Why
don’t you bring Miss Ascough along?”
Bonnat leaned over the table and asked:
“_Will_ you go with me?” just as if I would be conferring a great favor
on him, and I said that I would. After that I was included in all their
little trips, and sometimes I would try to pretend I was a boy, too;
only there was Paul, and somehow when I looked at Paul, I was glad I was
a girl.