Ruth waited impatiently for the noon hour, so that she might ask Nels
what news he had of Professor Pendragon, but when she finally met him he
had not seen nor heard from the Professor since the day they all had tea
together. On Sunday morning Dorothy was to go to him to begin his
portrait and Ruth was to accompany her. Until then she probably would
get no news. In the afternoon when she returned to the house she found
Gloria there before her, having returned early from the motion picture
studios. Terry was there too, reading the last of his new comedy which
was now completed. Gloria was enthusiastic about it and Billie Irwin,
who had been quite depressed for over a fortnight, was now as cheery as
if the contract was already signed, for Gloria had picked out a part
that must certainly be given to Billie if she, herself, was to play the
lead.
They all talked as if the production of the play was assured, and as if
no one but the author would have a word to say about how it should be
cast, a thing that seemed quite logical to Ruth until Terry himself
explained that he would have very little to say about it, except as to
Gloria, and she would be given the leading rôle when the play was
produced, not so much because Terry wanted her, as because she was the
only well-known actress who could possibly fit it.
To hear the others talking one would think that the play was going into
rehearsals tomorrow with all the parts distributed among Gloria’s
friends. Even Ben Stark begged Terry to try and hold out one of the
parts until he saw how his road tour was coming out, and they were all
discussing how the various parts ought to be dressed.
Terry had no opportunity to talk to Ruth alone, but they exchanged
significant glances when George appeared with tea, looking so correct
and conventional that it was difficult to believe that they had seen him
the night before burning incense and kneeling to a snake.
“Any news?” Terry whispered, and Ruth could only shake her head.
When George had left the room Terry ventured to speak of him:
“What’s all this that George is telling me about going up to the
Peyton-Russells’ with you to amuse the guests with vaudeville magic?” he
asked.
“Oh, he’s been telling!” exclaimed Gloria. “I intended it to be a
surprise. He’s really quite wonderful, you know, or at least he was
quite wonderful if he hasn’t forgotten.”
“It can’t do any harm, my knowing, as I’m not to be one of them,” said
Terry.
“I’d get you an invitation, if there was the slightest chance that you’d
accept,” said Gloria.
“You know I’d like to go, just to see George.”
“Consider yourself invited then. Angela will ask any one that I tell her
I want. They’ve got loads of room and men are never too numerous even in
the trail of the fair Angela.”
“Don’t you think that George ought to go back to his profession? If he’s
as good as you say it ought to be easy to get him signed up on the
Orpheum circuit. If he doesn’t know the ropes here in the States I’ll be
glad to help him,” said Terry.
“It can’t be done—the biggest salary in the world wouldn’t tempt George
away from my service. It’s the Eastern idea of gratitude. We had that
all argued out ten years ago. I told George that he ought not to give up
his career to serve me, but he wouldn’t listen to me at all. He said
that I had saved his life, therefore it belonged to me. He almost wept
at the idea of having to go, and yet I sometimes think that it is my
life that belongs to George instead of his life that belongs to me. He
is a most despotic servant and tries to rule all of my actions. If my
conduct displeases him he inconsistently threatens to leave, but of
course he doesn’t mean it.”
Gloria was smiling, reciting the peculiarities of an amusing servant,
but to Ruth her words were appalling. She seemed to see Gloria as a
bright plumaged bird, charmed by a snake. Once, years ago when she was a
little girl visiting in the country, she had seen a bird thus charmed,
circling, circling, downward toward the bright-eyed snake that waited
for it. She had been unable to move or help, as fascinated as the bird
itself. She felt the same sensation of helplessness now. She dared not
look at Terry, but a few minutes later he came to her side and whispered
to her:
“Meet me at Mori’s tomorrow at five.”
She had never heard of Mori’s, but she could look it up in the telephone
directory. Evidently Terry had some plan. The thought cheered her
immeasurably.
The situation in the house was a curious one, for Amy shrank with terror
whenever George came near her, at the same time leaping to do his
slightest bidding. Ruth, so far as possible, ignored George completely
and he never spoke to her directly unless it was absolutely necessary,
and Gloria did not seem to either observe or sense that there was a
strained atmosphere in the house.
The distrust of George and foreboding of the future descended on Ruth
the moment she entered the house in the afternoon and remained with her,
colouring all her thoughts until she entered the Art Students’ League in
the morning. Here she forgot everything in passionate pursuit of art,
daily lifting her ambition to higher ideals and daily seeming to
demonstrate more and more her lack of talent for the career which she
had chosen.
Seeing her earnestness her fellow students strove to help her, giving
her advice and criticism and now and then a word of encouragement, and
Ruth, whose confidence in herself was fast slipping, listened to
everything, following the advice last received and struggling to “find
herself.”
The thing that hurt her most was the fact that as yet she had seemed to
attract no particular notice from her instructors. In Indianapolis she
had been rather important and she could not think that the greater
attention she had received there was entirely due to there not being so
large a number of students. She longed to ask one of the instructors,
but it was hard to do that. They came through, looked impersonally at
her work and made brief comments about drawing, proportion, composition,
etc. Finally the courage came to her very suddenly in the portrait class
one morning. She had come early and was in the front row. Very slowly
the instructor, the most frank and vitriolic of all the instructors,
according to Nels, was coming toward her. Suddenly she knew that she
would speak to him that day. As he stopped from time to time, her
courage did not desert her. She waited quite calmly until he reached her
side. She rose to let him have her chair, and for some seconds he looked
at her work without speaking. Then he began:
“Don’t you see that your values are all wrong? And the entire figure is
out of drawing; it’s a caricature!”
Ruth listened almost without emotion. It was as if he was speaking to
some one else.
“By the way,” continued the instructor, looking up at her suddenly,
“didn’t I see some work of yours in one of the Sunday newspapers about a
month ago?”
Ruth nodded; she could not speak.
“I thought so; I was pleased and surprised at the time to see how much
better your work in that line was than anything you have done here.
That’s what is the trouble with this; it’s a cartoon.”
“But I want to be a portrait painter; I’m interested more in landscapes.
Please tell me the truth. Do you think I have talent—possibilities—will
I ever do anything?”
He looked at her, frowning, yet with a half smile on his lips.
“Tell me first, what are you studying for? Are you collecting canvases
to take home and show Mother, or do you intend to try for a career—to
make a profession of painting?”
“It is my profession—I’ve never wanted to do anything else—I must be a
great painter.”
She spoke with almost hysterical intensity.
A shadow passed over the instructor’s face.
“It is difficult to say who has and who has not talent. So far I have
seen no signs of it in your work here. Unquestionably you have the
cartoon gift, but as for painting—still a great desire may do much. Rome
wasn’t built in a day.”
She had listened attentively, almost hopefully, until those last
words. Then she knew that he was doing what Nels would have called
“stalling.” He did not believe that there was any chance for her. He
rose and went on about his tour of inspection, and Ruth sank down into
the empty chair. She did not work any more, but sat still, looking at
her work, but not thinking of it—not thinking of anything. She was
roused by seeing the other students filing out at the luncheon hour.
She did not want to see Nels and Dorothy; she would not go to their
restaurant, instead she would eat the “cheap and wholesome” lunch
offered in the building. There she would be with strangers. She ate
something, she did not know what, and returned to her life class, but
again she could not work. She was beginning to think definitely now.
She had no talent—no future. If she could not be a great artist, a
great painter, there was nothing in life for her. She didn’t want
anything else, not even love. If she could come to Terry with a great
gift, she would not stop hoping that he would love her, but to be just
an ordinary woman—just a wife. If she was not to be a great painter,
then what was she to be? Very carefully she went over every word of
the professor. He had admitted that it was difficult to say exactly
whether she had talent or not; he had only said that he had discovered
no signs of it. Yet he was only one man. Thousands of geniuses in
every field of endeavour had been discouraged by their elders simply
because the new genius worked in a different manner from those who had
gone before. But that didn’t apply to herself. She had no new and
original methods. She changed her style of work every day in response
to something she had heard or had seen. She had no knowledge, no ideas
about art, in herself. Yet all beginners must be swayed by what they
saw and heard, influenced by this or that painter from day to day,
until they found themselves. Then she wondered if she had a self to
find. She was vaultingly ambitious; she was industrious and something
of a dreamer, but with all this Ruth was practical. She thought of
perpetual students—did she want to become one of them? That was what
it meant, following a muse who had not called. Art is not chosen. It
chooses its own. Dorothy Winslow was wrong—fame could not be achieved
merely by ambition, energy, and determination—neither is genius the
art of taking pains, she thought. Sometimes it is achieved with
infinite carelessness. The hour was afternoon, class was over and she
had not touched crayon to paper. Not until she was on the street,
hurrying out to avoid speaking to Nels or Dorothy, did she remember
her engagement with Terry. Mori’s was on Forty-second Street. If she
walked she would arrive at the right time. She was no longer curious
as to what Terry would have to say. Gloria and George did not interest
her. She was arrived at branching roads and she must choose. She
realized that. Not that she could not keep on with her studies,
regardless of whether she had talent or not. She could, for she was
responsible to no one. No one counted on her to make good, nor was
there any one to warn her against mistakes. She only knew that she did
not want to devote her life to something for which she was not
intended. She did not want to fail, even less did she want to be a
mediocre success. She must live on Olympus or in the valley. It
occurred to her that her very thoughts were proof of her unworthiness.
If she were really a great artist she would not be thinking of either
fame or failure, but only of her work. She was walking rapidly so that
she arrived at Mori’s before five. She glanced at the watch on her
wrist before entering and he was beside her, coming from the opposite
direction.
“On time,” he said with mock surprise.
“No, I am ahead of time. I just came from the League.”
They went in together—a big room crowded with innumerable tiny tables
and many people, yet when she found herself seated opposite him, pouring
tea, they seemed to be quite alone together. Perhaps it was because the
tables were so tiny, perhaps because of the small, soft, rose-shaded
light on each one, that she seemed to be nearer him than ever before,
both physically and spiritually.
“You were looking quite downcast when we met; I hope you aren’t worrying
too much about George,” he said.
His tone was friendly, intimate, comforting, inviting confidence.
“No, it’s not that. Much more selfish. I was thinking of my own
troubles.”
“I didn’t know you had any.”
“Yes, it’s art. You know I have thought for years—three years to be
exact—that I would one day be a great painter and today I discovered
that I have no talent.”
“You can’t know that; you’re discouraged over some little failure. I
don’t know anything about art, but you’ve only been studying a few years
and that’s not time enough to tell.”
“Yes, it is—I’ve compared my work with that of other students and I’ve
been afraid for some time. Today I asked Burroughs, one of the
instructors, and now I know.”
“But that’s only one man’s opinion. Just what did he say?—I know the
pedagogue-al formula, three words of praise and one of censure to keep
you from being too happy, or three words of adverse criticism and one of
praise to keep you from being too discouraged. Wasn’t it like that?”
“No; he just said very frankly that he would not say that I had no
future at all, but he did say that if I had any my work at school had
never given any indication of it. He said my portraits looked like
cartoons, and then he remembered those awful sketches in the _Express_—”
She stopped embarrassed.
“You never will live that down, will you?” said Terry, smiling.
“That isn’t fair, I didn’t mean that, only it’s all so discouraging, to
want to paint masterpieces and to be told to draw cartoons.”
“Did he tell you that?” Terry spoke eagerly.
“Not in so many words, but that’s what he meant.”
“Then he rather admired your ability to do cartoons?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then why don’t you go in for that? One must do something, you know—play
some game and that is better than most.”
Ruth did not answer.
“If you’d like I dare say you could do theatrical caricatures for the
Sunday _Express_ every week. It wouldn’t take much time. Of course you’d
soon get as fed up with the theatre as a dramatic critic, but it would
be interesting for a time and you could continue to study, to take time
to prove whether or not you have talent. If you say I may, I’ll speak to
Daly about it the next time I see him.”
“I’d like it I think—after all, as Mr. Courtenay said, it’s better to be
a good cartoonist than a bad painter, and I can always keep on studying.
It will not be exactly giving up my ambition, only I won’t be gambling
everything on it.” Then, as if half ashamed of her surrender, and
wishing to change the subject, “But we didn’t intend to talk about me,
we were going to talk about Gloria, weren’t we?”
“Is it absolutely necessary that we should have something very definite
to talk about?” he asked, smiling. “Suppose I just asked you to meet me
for tea, because.”
Was he teasing her, she wondered.
“But now that we are together, because, let’s talk about Gloria. I won’t
know anything more about Professor Pendragon until Sunday. I’m going
there with Dorothy Winslow, who is going to do a portrait of him, but in
the meantime I’d feel very much happier if he was out of the house, or
if not George, at least the snake. Couldn’t you kill it, Terry? That
might make George so angry that he’d leave. And anyway, the snake is the
important thing. Without the snake George would be comparatively
harmless. You must kill the snake.”
“But, my dear girl, how do you propose that I am to make away with
George’s little pet? It belongs to George, you know. I don’t even know
where he keeps it, and if I did it is his property and it wouldn’t be
legal, you know—”
“I wish you wouldn’t laugh at me—”
“I’m not laughing at you. Even if I can’t quite believe all the things
that you believe, I can still see that the situation is serious, but I
can’t see how killing the snake would help any. My idea is a bit
different and perhaps quite as bizarre in its way. I’ve been thinking
that if we could bring Gloria and Professor Pendragon together again,
then he would take her away from George and the snake and save us the
trouble of taking George and the snake away from her.”
“It sounds good, but there’s no way to do it. I’ve given Gloria my word
that I’ll not mention her name to him and the other day she even made me
promise not to mention his name to her again.”
“Even so, there must be other people who know both of them.”
“He’s only been in America two years—they’d move in different circles,
naturally.”
“Yes, but circles cross—and look here, those pictures will be coming out
soon.”
“I don’t imagine he goes to the movies, certainly not now that he’s
ill.”
“Yes, but he reads the newspapers; he’ll see her pictures.”
“But that isn’t meeting her. If he’s at all like Gloria, he’ll be too
proud to look her up; besides we may be talking nonsense. How do we know
that they don’t really hate each other?”
“That’s not the worst. People don’t usually hate over ten years. They
may be utterly indifferent. I realize that possibility, but I don’t
believe they are indifferent. It’s all just guessing.”
“The simplest way would be to get rid of the snake,” persisted Ruth.
“Yes, I know, but who’s to do it, and how?”
“You’re to do it, and I suppose that I, being in the house, should plan
the means—find out where he keeps his pet and how to kidnap it.”
“Even if it has the significance you suppose, what’s to prevent him
getting a new one?”
“They don’t sell them in the department stores, you know,” said Ruth,
smiling.
“Let’s wait until you see Pendragon again before we do anything rash,”
Terry closed the discussion.
He came home with Ruth, who wondered if Gloria would observe them coming
together, and if it might not wake in Gloria some latent jealousy.
“I’ve persuaded Ruth to take up cartooning as a profession,” he
announced. His putting it into words like that before all of them seemed
to make it final.
“You mean those political things of fat capitalists and paper-capped
labouring men?” asked Ben Stark.
“Certainly not,” said Terry. “You’re horribly behind the times. That
sort of thing isn’t done. If she goes in for political cartoons at all
she will draw pictures of downtrodden millionaires defending themselves
from Bolsheviki, rampant on a field of red, or of a mob of infuriated
factory owners throwing stones at the home of a labour leader—she may
draw a series of pictures showing in great detail how a motion picture
actress makes up to conceal the wart on her nose before facing the
camera.”
“It isn’t at all settled yet,” said Ruth. “I may not be able to get a—a
job.” She hated the word, but pronounced it in a perfect fury of
democratic renunciation.
“I don’t think there’ll be any trouble,” said Terry. “There’s always a
demand for that sort of thing.”
Altogether, however, the announcement produced surprisingly little
comment from Gloria and her friends. They seemed to take it as a matter
of course, like Gloria’s going into motion pictures. She had been,
despite her fears, rather successful, and had been offered a new
contract, which, however, she was unwilling to sign until she knew more
about the production of Terry’s comedy. If Terry’s play really got a New
York production, Gloria would be only too glad to desert the camera.
The revelation of Ruth’s duplicity to Professor Pendragon was threatened
in a most unexpected manner, Sunday morning. First Dorothy called for
her at the house, and this time, manifested more curiosity about her
surroundings than she had done previously, because this time her mind
was not on the more important matter of frocks.
“Who do you live with here?” she asked Ruth, as she waited for her to
put on her hat and coat.
Ruth hesitated; she hated deception of any kind, or making mysteries.
After all it was very silly of Gloria. If one must leave ex-husbands
scattered around the world, one should contemplate the possibility of
running across them now and then with equanimity. And then the stupid
idea of concealing their relationship. It was all most annoying.
“With a woman who was a friend of my father,” she answered at last, but
Dorothy was not to be put off so easily.
“I mean what’s her name?” she asked with frank curiosity.
“Gloria Mayfield—she’s really my aunt,” said Ruth with a desperate
realization that she might as well speak now as have her secret come out
later under less favourable circumstances. After all, Dorothy didn’t
know that Pendragon was one of Gloria’s husbands and she might not
mention their relationship to him anyway.
“The actress?” asked Dorothy, with a rising inflection composed of
astonishment, envy, and doubt in her voice.
“Uh—huh.” She tried not to be pleased at the look in Dorothy’s blue
eyes.
“She’s in pictures, isn’t she, now? I saw her picture in at least three
newspapers this morning.”
“I don’t know—I’ve not seen any newspapers this morning,” she answered.
“Will I meet her?” asked Dorothy. She was a most distressingly natural
and unaffected person. She always said what she thought and asked for
what she wanted without the slightest effort at concealment.
“I dare say you will if you come often enough. She’s asleep now, but
she’s not at all difficult to meet.”
“Perhaps I could paint her,” again suggested Dorothy.
“I don’t think Gloria could sit still long enough.”
Things were developing too rapidly for Ruth. She had known that Dorothy
would be interested, but she had not thought that her interest would
take this turn, though she might have guessed, for Dorothy looked at
everything and every person as so much available material. She worked
incessantly with both hands and brain. She didn’t just study art; she
lived it in the most practical manner possible. She was becoming quite
well known as a fashion artist and could have been busy all the time,
had she not continued her studies. As it was she did quite as much work
as many fashion artists who devoted all their time to it. And she never
for a moment let herself think that being a fashion artist today would
debar her from becoming a famous portrait painter tomorrow. She was
building high hopes on Professor Pendragon.
On the way to his hotel Ruth told her about her decision to go in for
cartooning professionally, and she rather hoped that Dorothy would
discourage her, but she was disappointed.
“Splendid! You’re doing the right thing. You know I don’t think you’ll
ever get any place with painting. Nels thinks that, too, but you have a
genius for caricature. Those things in the _Express_ were really clever.
Lots of character and good action. You’ll be famous.”
“Famous!” Ruth put as much scorn as possible into the one word.
“Of course—beginning with Cruickshank there have been ever so many
caricature artists in the last two centuries whose names will last as
long and longer than most of the painters.”
Ruth did not respond to this. She was wondering if after all she might
not one day, not only be reconciled to the work destiny had given her,
but be actually rather proud of it.
They were expected by Professor Pendragon and were conducted immediately
to his apartment, but when the boy knocked at his door, he did not open
it as on the former occasion, instead they were met by a white uniformed
nurse.
“Professor Pendragon begs to be excused from his appointment. He is very
much worse. The paralysis has extended from his knee to his hip. He
asked me to say that he will be glad to make good his promise as soon as
he is well.”
The effect of this announcement was bad enough on Dorothy, who naturally
was bitterly disappointed, but its effect on Ruth was much worse.
Professor Pendragon’s misfortune had fallen upon him on the night that
she first watched George, and a repetition of George’s ceremonial had
brought with it the increased misfortune to him that she had feared. She
was eager to hurry away and find an opportunity to tell Terry of this
new development, but Dorothy lingered at the door, expressing sympathy,
which Ruth suspected was more for herself than for Professor Pendragon.
Professor Pendragon called to the nurse to let them come in. He was
propped up on a chaise longue, with newspapers and the remains of
breakfast scattered about on the floor and on a low table beside him.
His face was very pale and Ruth thought that he looked as if he had not
slept. She tried not to look at some photographs of Gloria prominently
displayed on the scattered sheets. Evidently he had seen them, so now he
knew that she was in New York, or at least in America.
“I’m awfully sorry to disappoint you and myself. But you see a man can’t
have his portrait painted in a pose like this,” he said. “I can’t
imagine what’s wrong with me, but of course it won’t last long. A friend
of mine has asked me out to his place in the Berkshires and I think I’ll
go. Perhaps this may be the result of nerves, and anyway, lots of cold
air and altitude and quiet can’t do any harm. When I return I’ll be very
glad to make good, but perhaps by that time you will have so many
commissions that you won’t have time for me.”
“No chance,” said Dorothy. “I shall be waiting for you.” And then: “How
long do you think it will be?”
“You’ll know definitely after Christmas eve, next dark of the moon, you
know.” He was smiling, the smile that Ruth had grown to suspect hid a
serious thought. “Either the paralysis will have crept up to my heart,
or it will have gone entirely. I am waiting.”
Dorothy laughed nervously.
“What nonsense; of course you’ll get well and the moon hasn’t anything
to do with it anyway. We’re awfully sorry that you’re ill, and don’t
forget to let me know when you get back to town.”
When Ruth took his hand to say good-bye she thought he looked at her
reproachfully, but she dared not meet his eyes. Dorothy was looking down
at the pictured face of Gloria that was smiling up at them, but
apparently she looked with unseeing eyes, for she did not say anything.
In a way it would have relieved Ruth’s conscience if Dorothy had spoken.
She might then have discovered whether Pendragon knew of her deception
and what he thought. One thing she knew. Professor Pendragon was really
facing death—a mysterious, relentless death that could not be overcome
or even combated. When he died no one would search for his murderer—no
one would believe that his death was anything but natural, and the force
that had killed him would still go on through the world, too mysterious
and unbelievable for modern minds to compass.