"Come, now," said Little O'Grady; "help the lame duck over the stile. Be
a good Gowan--give the poor fellow the use of your studio. Mordreth's
isn't enough better to be worth asking for, and Stalinski is working from
the model. Come,--as a personal favour to me. It was I let you in on the
bank scheme and gave you a chance to make big money; and now you must
just let Ignace have the use of your place for a few hours--he can't
paint the girl's picture in that little hole upstairs."
"Much you let me in!" retorted Gowan with a grin. "Tell me who is in,
anyway, and how far, and for how much, and I'll give you half I get."
"Haven't I seen them?" returned Little O'Grady. "Didn't I address the
whole board? Didn't I go for them with the architect himself to help me?
Haven't I got the mantel-piece in the president's parlour? And now if
Ignace can only get a chance to paint the fav'rite grandchild of one of
the----Yes, sir; I talked to them as a business-man to business-men, and
it went. They're square; they're solid; they'll treat us right. Never you
fear. In a year from now you'll be wearing diamonds and saying: 'O'Grady,
you're the wan that hung them on me.' _Now_ will you give Ignace your
room?"
"Why, he's no portrait painter, is he?"
"She thinks he is. And it's what the girls think of us that makes us what
we are. As for me, I believe he can do anything. Come, give the poor lad
a show."
"What could he do in an hour or two?"
"He could get acquainted with her," said Little O'Grady.
Preciosa, thanks to O'Grady's chatterings through the Temple of Art--he
blew in and out with great freedom and was as much at home there as in
the humbler establishment--had come to some knowledge of Ignace Prochnow.
She learned his name--in itself an immense advance, and the location of
his studio; and she arranged with the Gibbons girls, who, by reason of
their fencing, were developing great self-reliance and a high capacity
for initiative, to search him out in his private haunts.
"Set the day," chirped Little O'Grady, "and we'll be ready for you."
Preciosa set the day; Little O'Grady traced Prochnow's name in elaborate
letterings and clapped this new placard over Gowan's own; and all waited
intent to see just what of interest would develop in the countenance of
the daughter of the McNultys, and just what Ignace Prochnow would be able
to make of it.
Preciosa wore her green velvet toque, and let her chestnut hair stray and
ramble whithersoever it would, and sat in Gowan's best high-backed
mahogany chair with the brass rosettes, and tried to view with kindly
indulgence his flimsy knick-knacks and shabby hangings (they came nowhere
near Dill's) on account of her interest in their supposed proprietor. Nor
did she find in her painter any of Dill's soft suavity. Prochnow was
direct and downright almost to brusqueness, seeming to see no need of
such graduated preliminaries as even O'Grady found place and reason for.
He admired her, and admired her extremely, as she perceived at once; but
he offered none of the appropriate deferences that she had received on
occasion from obscure young men of less than modest fortune. He was
intent, he was earnest, he was even a bit peremptory; but she felt
perfectly certain that he was not treating her as a subject and a subject
merely. His black eyes looked at her with a sort of sharp severity across
the leg of the easel, and his rasping crayon promptly scratched down his
impressions upon the promising blank of his canvas. Preciosa was slightly
puzzled, but on the whole pleased. She knew she was worth looking at, and
felt herself fit to stand the keenest scrutiny. She leaned back easily in
her chair. Let time attend to the rest.
"Doesn't she _compose_!" said Little O'Grady in a poignant whisper to
Elizabeth Gibbons, as he thrust out his arms akimbo and squinted
learnedly at Preciosa through his fingers. "And hasn't the lad got
_line_!" he presently added in a rapturous undertone, as the black and
white tracing began to take shape. Prochnow was drawing with immense
freedom, decision, confidence; every stroke told, and told the first
time. "He knows how! He knows _how_!" moaned Little O'Grady, locking his
hands and forearms in a strange twist and rocking to and fro with
emotion. "He's got the wrist!--the _wrist_!" he exclaimed further,
liberating his hands and fanning the air with long pendulous fingers.
"There, he's caught her already!" he cried, leaning forward,--"inside of
five minutes. Not a line more, Ignace; not a line more!"
Prochnow turned on him with a grim tight smile--a smile that slightly
dilated the nostrils of his good firm nose and shifted in ever so small a
degree the smutch of black beneath that was slowly advancing to the
status of a moustache. It was an acknowledgment from one who _could_ to
one who _knew_. "_Ah, si jeunesse_...!" ejaculates the poet; but here
_jeunesse_, by a doubling of forces, both _pouvait_ and _savait_.
Then Prochnow turned the canvas itself round toward Preciosa. "Does
Mademoiselle recognise herself?"
"It's you, Preciosa, to the life," said the daughter of Roscoe Orlando
Gibbons.
"Oh, Ig!" cried Little O'Grady, much moved, "you're the king-pin sure.
People _shall_ know you; people _must_ know you!" He faced about toward
Preciosa. "Ah, my fair young thing, he's got you dead. Why, Daff himself
couldn't have reached this in an hour!"
Preciosa was like most of the rest of us--inclined to take good
workmanship for granted; where there was nothing to criticise there was
nothing to take hold of. But the words and actions of Little O'Grady--he
was now hopping about on one leg, holding the other in his hand--made the
matter perfectly certain. Her painter had done a notable thing, and done
it easily, promptly, without revisions, without fumblings. His own face
and attitude expressed his consciousness of this. "Nobody could have done
it better," she read in his eyes; "and you, you blooming young creature,
have been the inspiration." He had called her "Mademoiselle" too; could
anything be more charming? Nothing save his accent itself,--a trick of
the tongue, an intonation ever so slightly alien that addressed her ear
just as some perfume's rich but smothered pungency might address the
nose. Yes, the first stage in her apotheosis was an undoubted success.
All that was needed now was her translation from black and white to
colour. Well, the chariot was ready to take her up still higher.
"I have found you very easily, Mademoiselle,"--Preciosa felt a sugary
little shudder at this repetition of the word,--"I have found you very
easily," said Prochnow, casting about for his palette and brushes; "and
now I may just as easily lose you."
"Oh no," said Elizabeth Gibbons, with great earnestness.
"Never fear," said Little O'Grady confidently. "Though the likeness
generally gets submerged at first, it comes to the surface again in the
end."
"Don't risk it," continued Elizabeth Gibbons.
"What has been done once," said Prochnow, motioning with a brush-handle
toward the charcoal sketch, "can be done once more."
Prochnow handled his brushes with the same firmness and confidence that
he had shown in handling his crayon. The "resemblance" soon sank beneath
the waves, as prophesied, but Little O'Grady continued to ride on the
topmost crest with unabated enthusiasm. "Whee! hasn't he got the nerve!
hasn't he got the stroke! Doesn't he just more than slather it on!" he
cried. "Catch the shadows in that green velvet! R-r-rip!--and the high
light on that tan jacket!" he proceeded in a smothered shout, as he
nudged Elizabeth Gibbons in the side. Elizabeth had never been nudged
before, and moved farther down the settle, after giving him a _look_.
Little O'Grady, who never knew when he was squelched--he never, as a
fact, had been squelched by anybody whomsoever--moved along after her.
"Oh, my! Can't he _paint_! Can't he more than lay it _on_! Did you get
that last one, now?"
Buoyed up by such support as this, Prochnow forged ahead with quadrupled
_brio_, and Preciosa felt the chariot rising heavenward cloud by cloud.
Little O'Grady continued to lead the performance, prompting Preciosa to
look her prettiest and Prochnow to do his best. "Ah, my sweet child," he
declared, "you've fallen into good hands. You're trying to get away,
true: you've nearly lost those bright eyes, and I wouldn't want to swear
to your ears or your chin, just yet; but your blessed old-gold hair is
there all right, and it's put on to stay. The rest of you will be coming
back tomorrow, or next day, or the day after. And then you'll be all on
deck, jew'l. You'll see; you'll hear; you'll speak, by heaven! Won't she,
Lizzie?"
Miss Gibbons gave Little O'Grady another _look_. Preciosa paused in her
heavenward ascent, and seemed to be wondering with a questioning little
glance just how far along, after all, she had got. When she finally left
her high-backed chair--"That's as far as we will go to-day," Prochnow had
said--she felt herself very close to earth again: the cherished
"resemblance" had vanished altogether. But Prochnow seemed satisfied with
the result, and Little O'Grady was rapturously fluent over the brushwork.
"Ignace is a wunder-kind," he declared to the doubting girl. "I never saw
such swing, such certainty. He'll fish you back, and he'll have you to
the life in less than a week. Or I'll eat my hat."
There was a knock at the door. O'Grady rushed to open it. "Go right
away," Miss Gibbons thought she heard him say, in a tense undertone.
The face of Kitty Gowan showed in the doorway, puzzled, protesting.
Medora Joyce was behind, her hands full of parcels.
"Go away?" repeated Mrs. Gowan. "What does this mean? Let me in at once."
"Depart!" hissed Little O'Grady. "This is not Mr. Prochnow's day. Come
to-morrow."
"Step aside, O'Grady," said Kitty Gowan spunkily. "Let me pass." An
afternoon of shopping had tired her and shortened her temper.
"Well, as a visitor, possibly," said O'Grady condescendingly. "Ignace, do
you feel disposed to----" He glanced back and forth between Prochnow and
the petitioners.
Prochnow took down the canvas and set its face against the wall.
Kitty Gowan strode in holding her head high. "How do?" she said
carelessly, by way of general salute. "Sit there, Medora," she directed
Mrs. Joyce, indicating a chair.
"Sit here, Medora," said O'Grady firmly, placing another. "Prochnow,
Preciosa dear, allow me to present----" and so on. "And you sit here," he
said to Kitty Gowan, placing a third chair. "You're a visitor, remember,"
he whispered to her fiercely; "so behave like one. Stay where you're put
and don't own the earth. We have loaned the shop for the day.
Understand?"
Preciosa passed lightly over Kitty Gowan, whom she found brusque in her
manners and plain in her looks; but she fixed her best attention on
Medora, with whom she was as much charmed as at the first. Idealist and
heroine-worshipper, she was always ready to prostrate herself before a
young married woman of Medora's gracious and fashionable cast.
O'Grady lingered over Medora's chair. "We've had a wonderful session," he
said, laying his hand affectionately on her shoulder. "You ought to have
come a bit sooner, my dear."
Preciosa shivered. It was like the profanation of an idol.
Medora unconcernedly pushed away his hand. Preciosa envied such serenity
and self-poise.
"Why, how's this?" asked O'Grady, studying his hand curiously, as some
detached thing, some superfluity rejected and returned. "Ain't we
friends? Ain't we old pals? You can't mean to stand me off with your
London clothes and your London manners? Don't say you're trying to do
that, Dodie!"
Preciosa shuddered. Medora laughed carelessly--oh, how could she! Kitty
Gowan jumped up and boxed O'Grady's ear with one of Medora's long, flat
parcels. "Get away, you saucy child!" she said.
O'Grady grimaced and nursed his ear. "It serves you right!" said
Elizabeth Gibbons tartly.
Preciosa was placated; the great retribution had fallen. She banished the
wish that she herself might have had the daring to be a third avenging
fury, and fell to studying the folds of Medora's bottle-green cloak. She
wondered if she herself were not as pretty as Mrs. Joyce--oh, in an
entirely different way!--and if she were glad or sorry that Medora and
her companion had come a little late for seeing the picture. Would it be
a success--this portrait? Was it all that Mr. Prochnow's lively little
friend seemed to think?
Prochnow, putting away his palette and brushes, grandly overlooked the
late irruption of trivialities. He glanced across to Preciosa, and she
felt that he was thanking her for having held herself quite aloof from
them.
Preciosa went away not completely reassured, yet on the whole pretty well
pleased. She felt that she had been taken hold of by a strong, decided
hand. She had made an excursion into a new land where feeble compliments
were dispensed with and where meek-eyed ingratiation seemed not to exist.
Yes, he was a forcible, clever fellow. That Virgilia Jeffreys should have
tried to make her think anything else, and that she should have permitted
Virgilia to make the attempt! She should see Virgilia soon, somewhere,
and should regain the lost ground; she should not allow herself to be
walked over a second time. She should probably say something very
cutting, too--if she could but find the right words. Suppose she were
younger than Virgilia and less expert? Was that any reason why she should
be played with, be cajoled into making fun of a----Yes, Ignace Prochnow
was a fine clever fellow; good-looking too, in a way; and masterful,
beyond a doubt. Had she been kind enough to him to cancel her cruelty at
their first meeting? She was afraid not. Should she have been kinder but
for the abundance of company and the absorbing nature of the work?
Probably so. Should she be kinder next time? That would depend on
him;--yes, if he became a little less professional and a little more
personal. Would he become so? She hoped he might. And if he didn't? Then
he might be encouraged to. How? Preciosa opened her purse for her fare
and postponed an answer.
At that same moment, Prochnow, banished along with the canvas to his own
room by the return of Gowan, sat staring at the portrait as it stood
propped against his trunk. Little O'Grady, if he had been present,
instead of being occupied on the other side of the partition in sweeping
up the dried plaster that littered his floor, would have decided that the
personal interest was in fair proportion to the professional, and would
have rated Prochnow no higher as an artist than as a man.