Julie's congratulations reached them three days later at the decayed
seaport, an hour's run out of Boston, which they had chosen at laughing
haphazard in their flight. It was a skillful piece of literature.
Ostensibly for both, its real message was for the errant Craig. There
were delicate allusions to their close companionship of years, so
precious to her. To him, a man, it had of course meant less. A woman's
devotion--but she would not weary him with protestations. What she had
been, she would always be. She bore him no unkindness for shutting her
out at the momentous hour; she knew marriage would raise no future
barrier. That was all.
"Dear old Julie!" said Atwood. "It did cut her." He smoked for a
pensive interval, gazing out from their balcony over the rotting hulks
of a vanished trade. "She's been my right hand almost," he went on
presently. "Not many endearments between us--surface tendernesses. Some
people think her hard, but she's as stanch as stanch. Did I tell you
how she nursed me through typhoid?"
"Yes."
"That showed! Or take our Irving Place days. Many a play or concert she
gave up for me--and gowns! She believed in me from the first. I can't
forget that. What nonsense to talk of marriage shutting her out! We
must not let her feel that way, Jean."
"No," said the wife; for to such charity toward the beaten enemy had
she already come.
Indeed, her happiness had softened her to a point where she questioned
whether MacGregor did Julie complete justice. He was a man of strong
prejudices, set, dogmatic; even, she suspected, a man with a grievance,
for Craig now told her that something in the nature of an engagement
had once existed between his sister and his friend. Might not Atwood's
insight be the truer? She began to put herself in Julie's place,
and then, without much difficulty, saw herself acting Julie's part.
Ambitious for Craig, scheming for him always, self-sacrificing if need
arose, why should she not resent his marriage to a nobody whom she knew
only as a model?
This flooding charity likewise embraced Mrs. Fanshaw. Her mother's
chronicles of the small beer of Shawnee Springs had continued with
the punctuality of tides. The weekly letter seemed to present itself
to her mind as an imperative duty, like the Wednesday prayer-meeting,
Saturday's cleaning, or church-going Sunday. Duty bulked less
prominently in Jean's view of it, but she had answered, desultorily
at first, and then by habit, almost with her mother's regularity. Yet
she had told little of her life. The changes from cloak-factory to
department store, from store to the Acme Company, and from the dental
office to the studio had been briefly announced, but despite questions,
never lengthily explained. Now she felt the need for confidence.
Feelings quickened in her which she supposed atrophied, and under their
impulsion she wrote her mother for the first time the true history of
her flight from the refuge and traced the romance there begun to its
miraculous flower.
A second note from Mrs. Van Ostade, received two days later, voiced in
the friendliest way her acceptance of things as they were. She wondered
whether they had formulated any plans for living? Craig's bachelor
quarters, she pointed out, were scarcely adaptable for housekeeping,
and surely they would not care for hotel life or furnished apartments?
What they did want, she assumed, was an apartment of their own; that
is, eventually. But, again, did they at this time of such critical
importance in Craig's work, want the exhausting labor of house-hunting?
Her suggestion--she was diffident, but oh, not lukewarm, in broaching
it--was that for the time being they make the freest use of her much
too spacious home. Craig knew how burdensome the East Fifty-third
Street place had seemed to her since Mr. Van Ostade's death; he would
remember how often she had urged his sharing it. Well, why not now?
It need be only temporary, if they wished; merely for the critical
present. It could easily be arranged from a financial point of view.
When had he and she ever quarreled over money! And the domestic
problem was as simple. Wouldn't they consider it? She meant literally
_consider_, not decide. They could decide on the spot, for come to her
they must on their return. She claimed that of them at least. They
should be her guests first; then--but no more of that now.
They read the letter shoulder to shoulder; and so, without speaking,
sat for a long moment after they reached the end.
"Well?" he said at last, with a vain reading of the still face.
"Well, Craig?"
"Bully of her, isn't it?"
She assented.
"And practical," he added; "more practical than our air-castles, I dare
say."
A quick fear caught at her throat.
"Could you give them up, Craig?"
"Give them up!" he exclaimed. "Give up the air-castles that we've
planned while drifting in the bay, roaming the fields, watching the
sunset from this dear window? Never! We'll have our own home yet. But
it does mean time, as Julie says, and this is a critical period in my
affairs. I feel it strongly."
"And I."
"It would be practical," he said again thoughtfully. "We must admit
it, Jean. How Julie seems to set her heart upon it! We owe her some
reparation, I suppose. We might--at least, till the portrait is under
way? Oh, but you must decide this point."
"No," she answered. "Your work must decide. But need we worry over it
_now_?"
"Indeed, we'll not," he declared. "When we reach town will be soon
enough, as Julie says. Come out for a row."
The end of the honeymoon came sooner than they thought. A third missive
from Julie, laid before them at breakfast, asked when she might look
for them, and added that Mrs. Joyce-Reeves also wished enlightenment,
as she should soon be leaving town. Jean herself had urged a prompt
return for the portrait's sake, but it seemingly needed his sister's
spur to prick Craig to action. Time-tables immediately absorbed him.
Noon saw them in Boston and the evening in New York, where a week to
a day, almost to an hour, from the fateful dinner, they passed again
through Mrs. Van Ostade's door.
Throughout the homeward journey Jean had shrunk from this moment, and,
though he said nothing, she divined that Craig himself dreaded facing
Julie. But the actual meeting held no terrors. Mrs. Van Ostade greeted
them cordially and at once led the way to the suite of rooms set apart
for their use.
"This is your particular corner," she said at the threshold, "but the
whole house, remember, is yours."
"My books!" exclaimed Atwood, bringing up in the little living-room,
the charm of which won Jean instantly. "My old French prints! Have you
moved me bag and baggage, Julie?"
"I did send to your rooms for a few things to make you comfortable.
I think you'll find the essentials. Had I dared," she added, turning
smilingly on Jean, "I should have laid hands on your belongings, too."
They came upon discovery after discovery as they traversed the
successive rooms. Julie's deft touch showed itself everywhere. Flowers
met them on every hand, and a great bowl of bride's roses lavished its
fragrance from Jean's own dressing-table. Her face went down among
their petals.
"You don't mind?" murmured Julie at her side. "I wanted to do
something, belated as it seems."
Atwood caught up one of the dainty trifles with which the
dressing-table was strewn.
"See, Jean!" he called. "They're yours. This is your monogram."
The remorseful lump in the girl's throat stifled speech.
"You don't mind?" Julie repeated.
Jean's response was mute, but convincing. Atwood went out precipitately
and closed the door upon his retreat.
Nor did Mrs. Van Ostade's thoughtfulness stop at their welcome, or yet
at the almost imperceptible point where, the portrait deciding, their
status as guests changed to a relation less transient. It concerned
itself with the revision of Jean's wardrobe, with the more effective
dressing of her hair, with the minutiæ of calls and social usages,
intricate beyond her previous conception, but not lacking rime and
reason in her altered life.
Jean had no galling sense of pupilage--the thing was too delicately
done. Often Julie's lessons took the sugar-coated form of a gentle
conspiracy against Craig, who, his sister confided, had in some
respects lapsed into a bohemianism which needed its corrective. A
portrait-painter, she reasoned, must defer to society more than
other artists. It was an essential part of his work to acquaint
himself sympathetically with the ways of the leisured class who made
his profession commercially possible. Mrs. Joyce-Reeves furnished
a concrete illustration. Even if the studio stairs had not proved
too great an obstacle for her years, how enormously more to Craig's
advantage it was that he could paint her here! Coming to this house,
his sitter entered no alien environment. She retained her atmosphere.
"I make it a point to serve tea at their afternoon sittings," she
added. "And I try to chat with her whenever I can. It draws her out,
lets Craig see her as she really is, makes up for his lack of knowledge
of her individuality."
Plastic as she was under coaching, Jean nursed a healthy doubt of the
wisdom of Mrs. Van Ostade's constant presence in the billiard-room over
the extension, which Atwood had chosen for the work because of its
excellent north light. When had he so changed that the chatter of a
third person helped him to paint?
Moreover, Craig was openly dissatisfied.
"I'm only marking time," he fretted, as he and Jean sat together
before the canvas after Mrs. Joyce-Reeves's third sitting. "All my
preconceived notions were merely blind scents. I'm not getting at the
woman behind."
"Yet it's wonderfully like her," she encouraged, studying the strong,
mocking old face.
"So are her photographs! Is that portraiture? Look at their stuff," he
cried, catching a handful of unmounted prints from a drawer. "See what
Huntington did with her girlhood! See Millais's woman of thirty! Look
at Zorn's great portrait! Take Sargent's!"
"But none of them have painted her old age," she reminded. "You have
that advantage."
"And what have I got out of it? Wrinkles!"
Crossing Madison Square a day or two later, Jean met MacGregor. He had
congratulated them promptly by letter and sent them one of his desert
studies which he knew for a favorite; but she had not come face to
face with him since her marriage. She wanted to speak to him, for an
unfulfilled penance hung over her, and almost her first word was a
confession of her feeling that she had done Julie an injustice.
He listened with a caustic stare.
"Buried the hatchet?" he remarked.
"If there ever was a hatchet. I'm not so sure there was. I think we
both misjudged her."
"Both, eh!" snorted MacGregor, huffily. "I dare say. After all, I'm a
raw young thing with no experience."
"No; seriously," Jean laughed.
He changed the topic.
"Is the portrait coming on?" he asked.
"Craig is despondent."
"Good thing!" he ejaculated. "Stimulates the gray matter." His face
went awry, however, when she mentioned Julie's theory and practice. "So
it's the tea-drinking Mrs. Joyce-Reeves our mighty painter thinks most
important," he broke out acidly, after violent bottling of comment more
pungent. "Fine! What insight! What originality!"
Jean's eyes snapped loyally.
"Don't be disagreeable," she retorted. "You know Craig doesn't think
anything of the kind."
They separated with scant courtesy, but she had not quitted the park
before MacGregor's tall figure again towered over her.
"Enlighten the brute a little further," he said with elaborate
meekness. "What is to become of your work? Richter says you haven't
darkened his door since your marriage."
"Four whole weeks!"
"Oh, jeer away," he grumbled. "Honeymoon or not, it's too long."
"I must think of Craig's interests first."
MacGregor lifted his hat.
"Your father also dabbled in clay--and matrimony, I believe," he said,
and left her definitely to herself.
She admitted the justice of his reminder when her cheek cooled, and,
turning into a cross-town street, set a straight course for Richter's.
The swathed model of a colossal group called "Agriculture," which he
had in hand for a Western exposition, hid the sculptor as she pushed
open the door of the big studio, and when she finally came upon the
little man it was to discover Mrs. Joyce-Reeves beside him in close
examination of an uncovered bit of foreground where a child tumbled in
joyous, intimate communion with the soil.
They broke out laughing at sight of Jean.
"I told you I should ask Richter," declared the old lady, briskly. "His
answer was to show me this."
Jean flushed at this indirect praise from the master.
"Mr. Richter let me have a hand in it," she said.
"A hand! He told me he should have had to leave the figure out
altogether if you had not experimented with the janitor's baby."
The sculptor was now blushing, too.
"He did not tell me," Jean laughed.
"Why didn't you?" demanded Mrs. Joyce-Reeves, abruptly. "Why didn't you
encourage the girl?"
"I think praise should be handled gingerly," he explained.
"Is it such moral dynamite? I don't believe it."
She beamed her approval of Jean's physical endowments as well,
lingering in particular upon her eyes. Suddenly she gave a little cluck
of surprise, whipped out a handkerchief, and laid it unceremoniously
across the girl's lower face.
"Do you know Malcolm MacGregor?" she demanded. "Yes? Then I'm the owner
of your portrait. It's called 'The Lattice.' Atwood's wife, MacGregor's
inspiration, Richter's collaborator--my dear, you are very wonderful.
Shall I take you home? I've promised your husband a sitting."
Jean said she must remain and work. She had thought only to run in and
appease Richter, but between his grudging praise and MacGregor's goad,
she found her fingers itching for the neglected tools; and she was into
her comprehensive studio-apron before Mrs. Joyce-Reeves's electric
brougham had purred halfway down the block. The sculptor squandered
no more compliments that day, however. Indeed, he swerved heavily
to the opposite extreme, but Jean dreamed audacious dreams over the
penitential copying of a battered antique, and the afternoon was far
gone when she reluctantly stopped work.
Leaving Richter's door, she beheld her husband swinging gayly down the
street. He waved to her boyishly and quickened his step.
"Good news?" she queried.
"The very best," he said, seizing both her hands, to the lively
edification of two nursemaids, a policeman, and the driver of a passing
dray. "I've got my interpretation, Jean! Got it at last! And it came
through you!"
For some reason, he told her, Mrs. Joyce-Reeves had arrived earlier
than her appointment. Julie was out, but luckily she caught him, and
so an hour of vast significance tamely began. By and by his sitter
mentioned Jean, her work, and Richter's opinions, and plied him with
kindly inquisitive questions about their love affair and elopement,
till--all in a lightning flash--it came to him that here, peeping
from behind the worldly old mask which everybody knew, was another,
unguessed Mrs. Joyce-Reeves with a schoolgirl's appetite for romance.
"And that is what I want to paint," he declared. "Cynic on the surface,
romanticist at heart."
The way home was too ridiculously short, and they pieced it out with
park and shop-window saunterings. The future was big with promise. Both
should wear the bays.
"For something she dropped set me thinking," Atwood said. "She sees,
like all of us, that children are your forte, and she thinks that in
this day of child study, your talent can't fail to make its mark. The
janitor's baby seems to have swept her off her feet. She said the
janitors, proud race though they be, must not be allowed to monopolize
your time. Then she spoke of her great-grandchild, and I think there's
something in the wind."
Jean trifled with the intoxicating possibilities for a dozen paces.
"Oh," she said finally, as if shaking herself awake, "Richter would
never consent to my trying such things yet."
They composed their frivolous faces under the solemn regard of Julie's
butler, who told Jean that a caller awaited her in the library.
"A lady from out of town," he added.
Jean wondered, "Why the library?" and, then, advancing, wondered again
as a silvery tinkle reached her ears; but the chief marvel of all was
the spectacle of Julie Van Ostade and Mrs. Fanshaw in amicable, even
intimate, converse over afternoon tea.