“Oh, no more than I am with any of the other boys.”
Menna had his thumb through his palette, and he stared at me hard. Then
he said suddenly:
“Gee! What a fool I was to let him get ahead of me.”
He set down his palette, and came over to my stool:
“Say, Marion” (he had never called me Marion
[Illustration: “She’s quite a painter,” he said, after a moment, to
Menna, who looked up and nodded and said, “Yes, she does quite O. K.”]
before), “you and I would make a corking good team. Suppose we pair off
together to-night, and we’ll put Miss Fleming on to Bonnat? What do you
say?”
“Mr. Menna, you had better stick to your own girl,” I said, feeling
uneasy. Menna continued to stare down at me and as he said nothing to
that, I added:
“You know you and I are just partners in our work, and don’t let’s fool.
It’ll spoil everything.”
“Oh, all right,” said he, “I don’t have to get down on my knees to you
or any other girl.”
He had never spoken to me like that before. Until this day, he had never
asked me to go anywhere with him, nor tried to see me after work hours,
and I did not suppose he was the least bit interested in me, and I
supposed he was quite settled with his own sweetheart. I was so glad
when Miss Fleming knocked on the door.
That evening we all went to Shefftel Hall. It was one of the oldest
places in New York, and was interesting because of the class of people
who patronized the place and its resemblance to the German gardens,
which it was in fact itself. There were German ornaments and steins all
around the place on a high shelf. There was an excellent orchestra which
played good selections and Bonnat hummed when they played some of his
favorites. Menna and Bonnat seemed to differ on almost every subject,
and Menna seemed in a savagely contrary mood that night.
Bonnat would explain his point of view about something, and Menna would
say irritably:
“Yes, yes, but what’s the use?”
Bonnat said that a man should show in his work the human mood, and that
a picture should mean something more than a pretty melody of colors.
Menna interrupted him with:
“What’s the use, as long as we get good Pilsener beer?”
Paul laughed at that, and called to a waiter to bring some more Pilsener
for Menna right away. After the dinner was over, Mr. Menna took Miss
Fleming home, and Paul and I walked up Fourteenth Street, stopping to
look in the windows, and to glance at the curious people in the throngs
that passed us. Fourteenth Street was then a very gay and bedizened
place at night.
When we reached my door, Paul, who had been very silent, took my hand
and held it for some time, without saying a word. I could feel his eyes
looking down on me in the darkness of the street, and somehow the very
clasp of his hand seemed to be speaking to me, telling me things that
made me feel warm, and, oh! so happy. When he did speak at last, his big
voice was curiously repressed, and he said huskily:
“I think I know now why some men give up art for the sake of protecting
their _own_!” He said “own” with such strange emphasis, pressing my hand
as he said it, that I felt too moved to answer him, and I had a great
longing to put my arms around him and draw his head down to mine.
After that night Mr. Menna did not seem the same to me. All the little
kindnesses I had been accustomed to receive from him, such as cleaning
my palette, my brushes, and nailing my canvases on the stretchers, he
now let me do myself, and once when I asked him to varnish a painting of
mine, he answered:
“Why don’t you get that Bonnat to do it for you?”