A Top-Floor Idyl Part 11

"The steamer was awfully early," explained the young lady, "but she took forever to dock. Don't you think we were awfully good to come in town on such a warm day? I could have played thirty-six holes, you know, but, of course, we hadn't seen Dad for a long time. Mamma asked him to come with us, but he said he'd have to run over to the Club. He'll join us here at three."

"Let me see, he was gone four months, wasn't he?" said Gordon.

"Yes, something like that," answered the mother, holding up a tortoise-sh.e.l.l lorgnette and looking at me.

"I want to introduce my friend, David Cole, Mrs. Van Rossum," hastened Gordon. "Miss Van Rossum, David is my very best pal. He's the novelist, you know."

"How very interesting!" clamored the young lady. "Gordon has given me two of your books to read. Now that I have met you, I shall certainly have to begin them. You see, there is so much to do in summer, Mr.

Cole."

"Indeed there is, Miss Van Rossum," I a.s.sented. "I hardly find time even to look over the morning paper."

"Oh! Newspapers are such rubbish," she declared, airily.

"Why, Sophia!" cried Mrs. Van Rossum. "One of them had your picture last week."

"It was rotten," said Miss Sophia, with some firmness.

"Oh, my dear! Why will you use such dreadful language?" the mother reproved her.

"That's all right, Ma, every one says it now."

Miss Van Rossum, having thus established the status of her vocabulary, at least to her own satisfaction, took a few steps across the big studio and stopped before the picture.

"Oh! I say! Did you do that, Gordon?" she asked. "Isn't she a stunner?

Was it her own baby or did she borrow it? Cunning little mite, isn't it?"

"A study from a model," Gordon informed her. "Yes, it is her own baby."

The older lady also came forward and inspected the painting.

"Of course, you must have flattered her a great deal," she opined. "You have _such_ an imagination, my dear Mr. McGrath!"

"It isn't a patch on David's," he replied. "Novelists can beat painters all hollow at that sort of thing."

"I'm awfully hungry," interrupted Miss Van Rossum. "Had to get up at an unearthly hour to come down and meet Dad."

At once we went to the small table in the next room. The flowers were exquisite. The young lady crunched radishes, with enthusiasm, and spoke disparagingly of a certain hackney which, according to her, had unfairly been awarded a blue ribbon at Piping Rock, gaining a decision over her own palfrey. Also, she discussed Mrs. Pickley-Sanderson's form at tennis and spoke of the new shotgun her father had brought over for her, from England.

"What's your handicap at golf, Mr. Cole?" she asked me, graciously.

"I'm afraid David's a fossil," put in Gordon. "He's utterly ignorant of the most important things of life."

"What a pity," she sympathized. "And how do you manage to spend the time?"

"I--I don't spend it, Miss Van Rossum," I answered, inanely. "I try to save it and make it last as long as possible."

"How funny," she declared, and gave me up as hopeless, directing the remainder of her conversation at Gordon.

Finally, I took my leave, conscious that I had been asinine in my remarks and had made a deplorable impression. Upon the picture I cast one more look before leaving. Those wonderful eyes of Frances were directed towards the baby, of course, but for an instant I felt that she was about to raise them and smile at me. At any rate she doesn't consider me as a useless inc.u.mbrance of the earth because I can't play golf or shoot birds. She is restful and gentle, whereas Miss Van Rossum appears to me to have the soothing qualities of a healthy ba.s.s drum. But then, I may be mistaken.

CHAPTER VIII

WE TAKE AN EXCURSION

The day was a hot one. In Gordon's studio a slight breeze had blown in and mingled with the scent of the flowers with which his table was adorned, and the behavior of my collar had been of the best. The ladies, secure in the absence of starched things such as we men throttle ourselves with, had been pictures of comfortable coolness. But in the street I plunged in an atmosphere of sodden heat and refused to obey the instinct that usually leads me to walk whenever I am not pressed for time. This happens often, for the productive hours of a writer are few, leaving many to be employed in alleged thoughts. Of these the most harrowing lie in the fact that a laborer can dig for eight hours a day, whereas helplessness comes to me after writing a few pages.

I took the car, turning in my mind the observations I had made in the studio. Several times I had heard Miss Van Rossum call my friend by his first name, and the mother had manifested no surprise. They are probably old acquaintances. I think he once told me that he had first met them in Paris. For aught I know, however, he may have dandled her on his knees when she was a child. The process now would be lacking in comfort, for she outweighs him by a good thirty pounds. Her forearms seem larger and just as hard as those of Frieda's pugilistic model. And then, Gordon is a misogynist and considers the feminine form divine from a chilly, artistic standpoint. From this I judged that Miss Van Rossum is a young lady who calls every man she meets two or three times by his first name.

Gordon certainly doesn't mind it, but then, he got five thousand for the portrait, a sum that excuses some lack of formality.

The young woman's looks are undeniable. She's an utterly handsome creature and, as far as I have been able to see, accepts the fact as she does the family fortune. It is something due to a Van Rossum, and she is too ladylike to boast of such advantages. This serves to make her very simple and natural. Like many of the mortals built on a generous scale she is good tempered. I wondered that she had asked so few questions in regard to the model of the picture she had seen. Practically, she had come, looked and turned away to the contemplation of scrambled eggs with truffles, followed by squabs. True, she had inquired whether the baby belonged to the model. To Pygmalion his sculptured beauty came to life, but from the young lady's standpoint I think that the purchased beauty that is to be changed into limned or chiselled grace must be already considered to have turned to paint or stone. If I had declared that a model was probably a thing of pulsing blood and quivering nerves, it is likely that she would have opened her fine blue eyes in surprise. But then, most of us, subconsciously, are apt to feel that those we deem beneath us in position or talent or virtue can really possess but the outward semblance of humanity.

The foregoing plat.i.tudes came to me, I think, because I actually resented the scanty attention they had paid to Frances. They had looked at the "Mother and Child," and approved. The signature made it a valuable work of art and, as such, had awakened a polite interest. But then, after all, it was worth but a few thousand dollars, and a Van Rossum couldn't very well go into ecstasies over an article of such moderate worth.

Poor Frances! She has come down to the rank of the women who stand behind counters till ready to drop; of those who toil in spite of aching heads and weary limbs. It is appalling to think of men by the million considered as food for cannon, but it seems just as cruel on the part of fate to designate women in equal numbers as carriers of burdens, destined for most of their lives to bear pain and weariness and the constant effort to smile in spite of these.

And then, Frances is further punished on account of that little child.

It hangs about her neck, a heavy treasure. She has fulfilled the most glorious purpose of womanhood, and, for the time being, her reward lies in the fact that she can scarce find an occupation that will keep body and soul together. There is no room for sprouting manhood in workrooms, in offices, in any of the places wherein only the ripe are of avail to be squeezed into the vintage of the prosperity destined to a few. Her gift of voice and her inheritance of beauty have served but to bring bitterness. Had she possessed a shrill voice and ordinary looks, there would have been no going abroad, no love for a kindred artistic soul, no tiny infant to weep over. By this time she might have been a nice schoolmarm, conscious of superiority over the small flock in her care and tranquil in the expectation of a modest salary. Also, there might have been dreams of a plush-covered parlor in a little home, some day, when honest John or Joe should at last decide to let her teach little pupils of her own providing. I suppose that such dreams must come to all. Even the little cripple in the library, the other day, who was looking at the fine girl who never noticed him, indulges in them, and who shall say that they do not brighten some of his hours even if, at other times, they deepen his darkness.

Gordon seems to me like the only exception I know to the rule I have just formulated. He has the brain of an artist, but the soul of an actuary, and, sometimes, I wish I were not so fond of him. The way he speaks of Frances actually revolts me. For another week or two he may, perhaps, make use of her, forsooth! But he must not indulge such weakness too long, for fear he may be considered as a man of one model.

He has plucked the flower of her beauty and spread it on canvas, destined to bring forth admiration and dollars. But now, like squeezed out paint tubes and worn out brushes she may be discarded. He has obliged me, and made a good speculation. Next week he will be playing golf and cultivating damsels and dowagers who may desire immortality in paint. On the putting-green he may obtain commissions, and in the tennis court inveigle some white-flanneled banker into leaving his facial characteristics to posterity. I could have forgiven him, if he had shown a little real enthusiasm in his model and deplored his inability to employ her further. After all, she has inspired him to great accomplishment and he is a cold-blooded opportunist, in spite of our mutual fondness. The last word I heard from him as he saw me to the door was a whispered one, as he jerked his head towards the studio, where we had left the ladies.

"I'm going to do the old girl this fall," he said.

The man has put all of his art and wonderful taste into his picture of Frances. Just as hard he will toil over the fat face of the good lady he thus disrespectfully alluded to. It may, perhaps, pay him better. The man's temperature, if my young friend Porter took it, would probably turn out to be that of a fish.

My thoughts made me forget the heat, but I arrived home in a dilapidated state of moisture and with a face thoroughly crimsoned. As soon as I reached my room I changed my stiff s.h.i.+rt and collar for a softer and lighter garment of alleged silk, purchased at a bargain sale. When I came out, Frances's door was opened and I looked in. She was sitting in the armchair, with the baby in her lap, and the smile she greeted me with could do little to conceal the fact that she had been a prey to unhappy thoughts.

"Isn't it hot?" I observed, with scant originality.

"It is dreadful," she answered, "and--and I wonder if Baby suffers from it. Do you think he is looking pale?"

At once, I inwardly decided that he was. The idea would probably not have entered my head without her suggestion, but an uneasy feeling came over me, born probably of reading something in the paper about infant mortality. I took a blessed refuge in prevarication.

"He is looking splendidly," I told her. "But they take sick babies and give them long jaunts out on the bay, with nurses and doctors. If that sort of thing can cure an ailing infant, it must make a healthy one feel like a fighting-c.o.c.k. Get ready, and we'll take the boat to Coney Island and spend a couple of hours at sea. It will put better color in the little man's cheeks and do no harm to your own. I'm craving for the trip, come along and hurry up!"

She began the usual objections, to which I refused any attentions. I suspect I have a little of the bully in my nature. At any rate we sallied forth, soon afterwards, and went to the Battery, where we percolated through the crowd into a couple of folding seats on the upper deck.

"Oh! It is such a blessed relief," she said, after the boat had started and made a breeze for us, since, on the water, none but the tiniest flaws rippled the surface. I called her attention to the remarkable sight of Manhattan fading away behind us in a haze that softened the lines, till they appeared to be washed in with palest lavenders and pinks.

"The insolence of wealth and the garishness of its marts are disappearing," I told her. "Our moist summer air, so worthless to breathe and cruel to ailing babes, is gilding a pill otherwise often hard to swallow. All about us are people, most of whom live away from the splendors we behold. Some of them, like ourselves, burrow in semi-forgotten streets and some dwell on the boundary where humanity rather festers than thrives. They are giving themselves up to the enjoyment of a coolness which, an hour ago, appeared like an unrealizable dream. Let us do likewise."

Frances smiled at me, indulgently. Like all really good women, she has an inexhaustible patience with the vagaries and empty remarks of a mere man. Women are more concerned with the practicalities of life. About us the fairer s.e.x was apparently in the majority and the discussions carried on around us concerned garments, the price of victuals and the evil ways of certain husbands. Young ladies, provided with male escorts, sprinkled poetry, or at least doggerel, over the conversation of more staid matrons. Their remarks and exclamations seldom soared to lofty heights, but in them there was always the undertone of present pleasure and antic.i.p.ated joys. One thin little thing, who had mentioned a ribbon-counter, looked up with something akin to awe at a broad-faced and pimply youth, who spoke hungrily of a potential feast of Frankfurter sausages. I have no doubt that to her he represented some sort of Prince Charming. Close to her a buxom maiden addressed a timid-looking giant, all arms and legs, and described the bliss of shooting the chutes. It was evident that he aspired to the dignity and emoluments of a gay suitor, but was woefully new or incompetent at the game. She was helping him to the best of her ability, with a perseverance and courage ent.i.tling her to my respect. In her companion she must have discerned the makings of a possible husband or, at least, the opportunity to practise a talent of fascination she thinks ought not to lie fallow.

"And how is Baby Paul enjoying himself?" I asked my companion.