A Top-Floor Idyl Part 7

"I'm not going away yet," he answered, "and I emphatically cannot employ her, or, at any rate, I won't, which comes to the same thing. Hitherto I have kept my serenity of mind unimpaired by the simple process of fighting shy of females in distress. There are lots of models who can be depended on to keep their mouths shut and not bother a fellow. My interest is in my picture and nothing else, and I refuse to have it diverted by the economical problems of ladies on their uppers. If you want a check, I'll give it to you for her, not on her account, but because you're the best, old, weak-minded idiot in this burg and I'm glad to help you out, however silly your quixotic ideas may be. Wait a minute, I'll write one out for you."

"No," I answered, "I've just sold two stories and got some advance royalty on my novel. I'd come and ask you for money, if I needed it, urgently. I might have to, some day. But this poor thing's worrying herself to death and that's what I want to remedy at once, if possible.

A little occupation would give her something else to think about. If I tell her that she will have to pose in silence, that it's a part of the work she's engaged for, she won't say a word. She's an intelligent woman."

"Why doesn't Frieda employ her?" he asked.

"Because she's no slender, ethereal sprite. Doesn't have anything of the woodland nymph about her, that's why. Besides, Frieda's doing an Orion with a covey of Pleiades scattering before him, at present."

"I have nothing for the Winter Academy, just now," said Gordon, appearing to relent a little. "Strangely enough, Miss Van Rossum doesn't care to have her portrait exhibited. If I really found a remarkable type, I'd like to do a mother and child. If you really think this Mrs.

Dupont will keep still and is willing to earn a few weeks of bread and cheese by the silence of her tongue and some ability to sit quietly in a chair without getting the fidgets, I shouldn't mind trying her. But, of course, she'd have to come up to specifications. I'll have to look at her first. Have you spoken to her about it?"

"Not a word," I answered, "I didn't want to see her disappointed."

"Of course, it's a foolish thing to do," he said, "but you're so anxious about it that I'll see whether it can be managed. She's just heard of her husband's death, has she? Well, she won't be thinking of other men for a while and won't expect to be made love to. Take up your hat, and we'll go over to that nursery of yours. I'll look her over."

If I hadn't known him so well, I should have been provoked at his speaking as if the woman had been some second-hand terrier I wanted to dispose of. We took the elevator and were shot down to the ground floor.

"Mind you," he warned me, "it's ten to one that I'll discover something that will make this errand useless. The mere fact of a woman's having a broken-down voice and a baby doesn't necessarily qualify her to pose as a mother. The woods are full of them. You've probably endowed her with good looks that exist only in your imagination."

To this I made no answer. The mere fact of his having consented to investigate was already a distinct triumph for me. Twenty minutes later we were climbing up the stairs of what he called my zoological boarding-house.

On the second landing, he stopped abruptly and listened. Then he turned to me with a corner of his mouth twisted in the beginning of one of his sarcastic grins.

"Who's that playing your piano?" he asked.

"I--I fancy it must be Mrs. Dupont," I answered. "You see, she's very much alone, and my door was open, and I suppose she saw the thing and walked in, not knowing that I should return so soon."

"Oh! You needn't look so sheepish," he told me. "You look as if a policeman had caught you with a jimmy in your hip-pocket. My dear old boy, I hope she isn't the straw that's going to break your back, you old Bactrian camel! The little wagons they use for the carrying of dynamite in New York, wherewith to soften its tough old heart and permit the laying of foundations, are painted red and marked _explosives_. Were I the world's czar, I should have every woman labelled the same way.

They're dangerous things."

Gordon is somewhat apt to mix his metaphors, a thing rather natural to one who seeks to wed his wit with a pose of scepticism. Really simple language, clothing ordinary common sense, is inadequate for a scoffer; also, I am afraid, for a man who writes about mules and virtuous dogs.

I think we both instinctively stepped more lightly in ascending the remaining stairs. She was playing very softly. It was a dreamy thing with recurring little sobs of notes. For a moment we stopped again; I think it had appealed to us. Then I went in, accompanied by Gordon, and she ceased at once, startled and coloring a little.

"I am so glad you were diverting yourself with the old piano," I told her. "I hope you will always use it when I am out, and--and perhaps once in a while when I am in. My mother used to play such things; she wasn't always happy. I beg to present my friend Gordon McGrath, who is a great painter. He's awfully fond of Frieda."

This, I think, was a canny and effective introduction. Any friend of Frieda's must be very welcome to her.

"Madame," said Gordon, after she had proffered her hand, "won't you oblige us by sitting down. You have been caught in the act and deserve the penalty of being humbly begged to play that over again."

She looked at me, uncertainly.

"It would give me ever so much pleasure," I a.s.sured her.

At once she sat again and touched the keys. I know so little of music that my opinions in regard to it are utterly worthless, but I knew at once that she was no marvelous pianist. No, she was only a woman with a soul for harmony, which found soft and tender expression on my mother's old Steinway. Gordon, I noted, sat down in my worst chair, with an elbow on his knee, his chin resting on the closed knuckles. It was evident that he was watching her, studying her every motion, the faint swaying of her shapely head, the wandering of her hands over the keyboard. Once, she stopped very suddenly and listened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No, she was only a woman, with a soul for harmony.]

"I beg your pardon," she said, "I thought it was Baby."

She went on, rea.s.sured, to an ending that came very soon. It left in me a desire for more, but I could not ask her to continue. She had brought a tiny bit of herself into the room, but she belonged body and soul to the mite in the other.

"I am ever so much obliged to you," I said, as she rose.

"Madame," said Gordon, "it was indeed a treat."

"I am very glad you liked it," she said very simply, "and--and now I must go back."

She smiled, faintly, and inclined her head. We had both risen and thanked her again. She pa.s.sed out of the room and, once she had regained her own, I heard her faint, husky voice.

"It's mother's own wee lamb!" it said.

Gordon picked up one of my cigarettes, looked at it, put it down, and took one of his own from his case. Then, he went and stood in front of my open window, looking out, with his hands stuffed deeply in his trousers pockets. I maintained a discreet silence.

"Come over here," he ordered, brusquely, as is often his way, and I complied, holding on to my calabash and filling it from my pouch.

"Dave," he said, very low, that his voice might not carry through the open doors into the next room. "Those powder-wagons aren't in it. When the dynamite happens to blow up some Dago, it's a mere accident; the stuff itself is intended for permissible purposes. A woman like that is bound to play havoc with some one, and I'm afraid you're the poor old idiot marked by fate. You're as weak as a decrepit cat. I can see the whole programme; sympathy at first and the desire to console, all mixed up with the imagination that has permitted you to write that 'Land o'

Love.' My dear man, you might just as well go and commit suicide in some decent way. If you don't look out, you're done for!"

"Don't be an a.s.s, Gordon," I told him, lighting my pipe.

"All right, it's your own funeral. But don't come to me, afterwards, and weep on my s.h.i.+rtfront, that's all. Women get over the loss of a husband, they even become reconciled to the death of a baby, sometimes.

And this one has music in her soul, and for ever and a day she is going to deplore the song that fled from her lips. She'll always be unhappy and you'll have to keep on consoling, and the freedom of your thoughts will vanish, and, when you try to write, you will have her and her miseries always before you. Then you will shed tears on your typewriter instead of producing anything. Better give Frieda some money for her and go fis.h.i.+ng. Don't come back until the Milliken woman sends a postal telling you that the coast is clear."

"I know nothing about fis.h.i.+ng," I answered.

"Then go and learn."

"You're talking arrant nonsense," I informed him.

"I am giving you the quintessence of solid wisdom," he retorted. "But now I'll tell you about her posing for me. I'm not doing this for your sake or hers, but because she has a really interesting head, and I know myself. I can get a good picture out of her, and I'll employ her for about three weeks. That'll be plenty. After that, I expect to go away and stay with the Van Rossums in the country. While Mrs. Dupont is busy posing for me, you and Frieda can look up another job for her. Let me see; I might possibly be able to pa.s.s her on to some other studio, if she takes to posing, properly."

I put my pipe down, intending to strike while the iron was hot.

"Come in with me," I told him.

"Of course you understand that in some ways she's going to be a good deal of a nuisance," he said hurriedly. "The baby squalling when I've just happened to get into my stride and the mother having to retire to feed the thing. But never mind, she's got quite a stunning face."

I knocked at her door, although I could see her sitting at the window with the baby in her arms.

"Please don't trouble to get up," I said. "My friend Gordon happens to need a model; he's thinking of a picture of a mother and child and has told me that, if you could pose for him, he would be glad to employ you.

It wouldn't last very long, but you would have the baby with you. By the way, painters have to think very hard when they're at work and so they can't talk much at the same time, so that models have to keep very still. I know you won't mind that, because it's part of the work."

The top b.u.t.ton of her waist was open. Instinctively her hand went up to it and covered the very small expanse of white neck that had been revealed.

"A model!" she exclaimed huskily. "I--I don't know----"

Gordon's face looked as if it was graven in stone.