Having done his duty by the arts and crafts of his country, Nick was
suddenly moved, on that eve of his departure, to go miles uptown--to
Washington Bridge. He has rather an eye, Nick. I had forgotten how
the tall arches of High Bridge stand up against the bright water and
smoking gold of a Harlem sunset. It was better than the Academy, if I
do so say who am a slave of the brush. And it inspired us to pick up a
dinner somewhere in the neighborhood.
I don’t know whether it was because the place was German or whether it
was that the proprietor produced for Nick such a Moselle as you didn’t
come across every day even in that faraway year. But as we sipped the
last of it and debated how we might worthily spend our last evening on
our native shore, Nick casually proposed:
“Let’s go and see Zephine.”
I am not usually the one to lag behind. But Nick had refused, with
opprobrious implications, to play with me, and it seemed good to me to
refuse to play with Nick.
“Come on, Herb,” he persisted. “Don’t be a spotted zebra. Let’s go find
Zephine.” And he called for the bill.
“How on earth do you propose to find Zephine at this time of day--and
we sailing for Norway at ten to-morrow morning?”
“Where do you think I was born--Island Pond?” inquired Nick suavely.
“There’s a telephone book in front of your nose, and a directory beside
it. In addition to which I might remind you that her address was in the
catalogue.”
“What was it?” I asked. I knew in my reluctant soul that if Nick had
made up his mind there was no use sulking.
“O, Corlear’s Hook some place,” answered Nick, charming the heart of an
anxious-looking waiter--if the heart may be charmed by that which is
put into the hand.
“Corlear’s Hook!” I exclaimed. “She’s moved then, though it sounds
enough like Zephine. But it’s some way from Washington Bridge.”
Nick didn’t mind, however. Neither the taxi man who presently undertook
to jounce us from one end of Manhattan Island to the other. And I am
happy to add that we ran over no one on the way, though we did run out
of gasoline. Incidentally Nick soothed my ruffled feelings by making
me tell him about Zephine all over again. I fancied, though, it was
really the Corlear’s Hook that caught him. He made me promise that I
would say nothing to Zephine about the picture.
At Corlear’s Hook there was no Zephine. It wasn’t that she was dining
out, or anything so simple as that. She had gone up to paint at Fort
Lee, in a farmhouse whose whereabouts the janitor endeavored to make
plain to us in the accent of Warsaw. To Fort Lee we accordingly
proceeded, to the vast delight of the taxi man. Luckily it was a
moonlight night, or we never would have succeeded in tracking Zephine
to her farmhouse. As it was, we nearly tumbled off the Palisades a
dozen times.
I have no idea what time of night it was when we finally floundered
through an orchard to Zephine’s dark and silent lair. I bet Nick she
wouldn’t be in it. Nick bet me she would. She was--fast asleep in bed.
But we routed her out, and she parleyed with us through a window while
we kicked our heels on the edge of the piazza. It was rather like the
third act of “Faust”--except that Zephine was a contralto. She had a
pleasant gurgle in her voice that I had forgotten. She also had the
proper yellow braid over her shoulder, if not two of them. And the
whole place was operatic with apple blossoms and moonlight.
Many ladies might have betrayed a certain surprise at receiving a visit
at an unknown hour of the night, in a New Jersey orchard, from a New
York taxicab and two men of whom they had never seen one before in
their life. Not so Zephine. She accepted it as perfectly natural that
I, who had not seen her for longer than either of us could remember,
should feel irresistibly impelled to bid her farewell before sailing
for Norway, and that Nick, whose name she had apparently never heard,
should pay this somewhat unusual tribute to a lady whose work he had
happened to admire.
In token of his admiration Nick invited her to join us in a little
drive--at this I heard a snicker from the direction of the taxi--and
help us pick up an ice on the way. Zephine judicially considered the
matter, stroking one of her Marguerite’s braids, but eventually opined
that she would better not. She had models coming at sunrise, and she
couldn’t paint if she were sleepy.
“O!” sighed Nick in evident disappointment. “Couldn’t you put your
models off? What I really hoped was that you would get a little
acquainted with us, or with me, and consent to go to Norway too.”
That was what I heard Nick Marler say, in Zephine’s moonlit orchard,
swinging his long legs off her rickety little piazza! And I listened
for her answer with my mouth open. For I knew she was perfectly capable
of taking Nick at his word. Her deep gurgle however, reassured me.
“That is awfully nice of you, Mr. Marler. If I had sold my picture in
the Academy, I might. But as it is, I’m afraid Norway is not for me.”
“O, I didn’t mean that!” cried Nick, secretly giving me an infernal
pinch of reminder. “I do hope you won’t think me rude, or anything like
that. But Herb here is going as my guest, to give me his expert opinion
on some old enamels we have an idea of hunting up, and we’d be ever so
pleased if you’d be good enough to come along too and make one of the
jury.”