But the next morning when Miss Mell opened the door to put a bundle of
rubbish out into the hall she found there a neat little package, and in
it a sketch of Rosaleen standing with the mouse-trap in her hand,
startled and puzzled.
“To you!” he had written. “Because you look just as a little female
artist ought to look. All soul. Of course, you haven’t any soul. But I
will help you to play being an artist, because of your lovely soulful
artist eyes.”
“Hum!” said Enid. “She’d better not have that. It won’t do to let her
get conceited. She’s too useful.”
And she tore it into pieces and threw it into the fire.
“My dear!” cried Miss Mell. “I don’t think that was right!”
“Rot!” said Enid. “He’s simply trying to show that he’s not attracted by
me. Can’t you see?”
“What I can’t see,” said Miss Mell, thoughtfully. “_Is_--which is the
most unbearably conceited--you or Lawrence Iverson?”
“He is,” said Enid, “because he’s older. It gets worse, always.”
He came up again that afternoon; and, though they hadn’t spoken of it,
they were all three quite sure that he would come, and were waiting for
him.
He went over to Miss Mell.
“Your work,” he said, “is entirely hopeless. And you don’t care. You’re
really the cleverest of the lot. You know what you’re doing. You’re
earning a living.... But I can’t look at it. It’s too obscene.”
She smiled good-humouredly, without looking up from the picture of a
small boy and a big package of coffee “For My Mudder.”
“And you,” he said to Enid. “You’re so infernally puffed up with pride
in your work and your fine body that you can’t see the truth. Nothing
but crazy visions. What you ought to be is an artist’s model. That is
what you were intended for.”
“That’s a part that wouldn’t suit you very well,” she answered, looking
at his great, ungainly bulk.
“Cheap!” he said. “Cheap wit. Cheap impudence. My skeleton is largely
covered with fat, which is a source of great discomfort to me. And it
seems humourous to you. Very well; that is Enid. Now this sweet child,
Rosaleen, is promising. She is innocent, naïve. She sees what is,
because she is rather too stupid to imagine what is not. I am going to
teach her.”
“To see what is not, I suppose,” said Enid. “Go ahead, then. Of course
you’ll spoil her. She was useful before. She used to cook the meals and
go to market and sweep and mend our clothes. Now she’ll want to _draw_.”
“So she shall draw! She shall be my Galatea. I shall create an artist
with my own breath.”
He sat down beside the alarmed and confused Rosaleen and began to
instruct her. He was wonderful. He explained with exquisite lucidity; he
was patient, he was kind. But Rosaleen was too nervous to profit by his
teaching. Her hand trembled pitiably.
“Very well, then, my dear,” he said, kindly, “I’ll wait until you’re
more used to me. But in the meantime, don’t touch a pencil. Every
stroke you draw is a step on the road to perdition.”
He patted her shoulder and left her, and began walking up and down the
room.
“Don’t!” said Enid, impatiently. “It shakes the floor.... Sit down and
smoke.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Why don’t you work?”
“Still the school marm. You imagine you can ‘be an artist’ by sitting
over your work all your life. You haven’t the wit to see that art is the
outcome of experience----”
“No, it isn’t. Unless it’s your ancestors’ experience. It comes with you
when you’re born. Art is the result of impressions----”
“And how do you get impressions, woman, except through experience?”
“Some people can get a vivid impression by looking at a blank wall. It’s
inside, not outside. What you call experience is nothing but
distractions, interruptions....”
“Young woman, what _I_ call experience _is_ experience. I’m not a timid
female thing.”
Then he began to boast--of how he had lived, how he had felt, what he
had seen. He swaggered amazingly, pacing up and down the room, stroking
his little black mustache, continually fixing his monocle with a
tremendous grimace. Rosaleen was lost in bewilderment. She couldn’t for
the life of her tell whether he was joking or serious, whether his talk
was brilliant or idiotic. She could get no clue from Miss Mell, for she
was still working and apparently paying no heed. Enid’s face had its
usual fierce and scornful look, her voice its usual impatient vigour.
She longed to have this man interpreted.
She waited until Enid had gone out to the theatre that evening, and
then, when she and Miss Mell were alone together in their candle-lighted
studio, with a fire burning and a great air of peace and comfort, she
said:
“Isn’t that Mr. Iverson--queer?”
“Not so queer as he pretends to be,” she answered, which gave Rosaleen
very little help.
“Don’t you think he’s--sort of like Enid?”
“Oh, mercy, no!” cried Miss Mell. “What makes you think that, Rosaleen?”
Rosaleen couldn’t quite explain.
“They’re both so--they’re such--they talk----”
“They’re both very rude, if that’s what you mean. But Enid’s rude
because she’s so honest, and Iverson’s rude as a pose. He’s a famous
poseur.”
That was Greek to Rosaleen. Miss Mell saw her puzzled frown and
expatiated.
“I’ve met him before,” she said. “He doesn’t remember me, though. I’ve
seen him two or three times. And I’ve heard a great deal about him. He’s
a remarkable man--in some ways. But a poseur.... He affects that
bluntness, but he’s not sincere.... I don’t think anyone could be less
like Enid. To begin with, he hasn’t any self-control. They say he has
the most terrific temper. He quarrels with everyone. And he’s perfectly
reckless; he doesn’t care what he does. I’ve heard the most
extraordinary stories about him. He’s like a madman. And yet very
greedy. He runs after people with money. While Enid--but you must know
Enid a little by this time. She’s never reckless. She always knows what
she’s doing, and she’d rather cut her heart out than do anything to
injure her career. And as for toadying, she _couldn’t_. She cares no
more for money than a baby.”
“You think a lot of Enid, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do!” said Miss Mell.
There was a pause.
“Well--do you like--him?” asked Rosaleen.
“No,” said Miss Mell. “Not much. And don’t you, either!”
But Rosaleen couldn’t help liking him!
He didn’t come up the next afternoon. Rosaleen, going out on an errand,
had of course to pass the door of his studio on the floor below, and
from within she heard a most pleasant sound of feminine voices, gay,
light, well-bred voices. On her way in again, she had paused for just a
moment outside that door, and the hidden festivity was still going on;
she heard the clink of silver on china, and those nice voices again.
Later on, from the window upstairs, she saw a motor car glide up to the
door in the dusk and stand there waiting, until finally two exquisitely
dressed women came out and entered it, escorted gallantly by Lawrence
Iverson. They drove off, leaving him standing bare-headed in the street.