Five Nights Part 32

"Take my hair down, here and now! Why, it's done up for a fortnight!"

she answered simply, while the shop-girl turned away to replace a hat and hide her t.i.tters.

"Do you only do your hair once a fortnight?" I enquired, surprised in my turn.

"Yes, that's all. It's such a bother to do. It was done just before you came. I thought it would do for a month, I took such pains with it."

A month! So that beautiful, scented, s.h.i.+ning coiffure was only brushed out once a month!

A sudden memory of Viola and her gleaming light tresses swept over me, as I had seen them at night lying on her shoulders. But had I not often waited for her till I was deadly sleepy, and when at length she came to the bedside and I had asked her what she had been doing all that time, had she not generally said--"brus.h.i.+ng her hair"?

Perhaps, after all, a coiffure that never detained its owner at night except once a month might have its advantages.

By the time these reflections had swept over me, Suzee herself had found a little grey velvet hat that looked less dreadful than the rest. I had only to pay for it, which I did, and she walked away with me in her Western clothes. At the glove counter things went well, and she triumphed over her civilised sisters. Her tiny supple hands were easily fitted by number five, and tired and thirsty with our efforts we left the store and found our way to a tea-shop.

The change in dress made matters easier. She did not attract much notice now; and unless any one looked very closely at her, she would pa.s.s for any little ordinary, unattractive European girl. It rather ruffled my vanity to think she should look like this, but I consoled myself with thinking of the evening, when the hideous disguise could be laid aside and she would appear again in her amber beauty and I could pose her in a hundred ways.

We had several cups of tea apiece. Very good I found it, though Suzee somewhat disdainfully remarked it was not like China tea; and then returned to the hotel.

As I pa.s.sed through the swing doors with my reclothed and much altered companion, the proprietor came hastily forwards with protestation written on his face. He evidently thought I had erred again and this was another investment. He was about to impart vigorously his opinion of me when a hasty glance at Suzee's face and my bland look of enquiry stopped him. Instead of addressing us, he wheeled round discomfited and disappeared into his bureau.

"Why does that man always look so crossly at you?" enquired Suzee, as we were walking down the pa.s.sage to our rooms.

"He does not approve of my wickedness in having you here," I answered laughing. "He thinks a man must never be with any woman but his wife."

"And has he a wife?"

"Yes, that great creature you saw sitting in the gla.s.s desk downstairs."

Suzee threw up her chin and pursed up her soft blue-red lips.

"I know that man by sight quite well. He was always down with the girls in Chinatown. He was one of Nanine's best customers."

I laughed as I put the key in, and opened our door.

"That accounts then, quite, for his terrific propriety in his hotel,"

I answered. "It's always the way. You can tell the really vicious person by his affected horror of vice."

We dined upstairs, and directly after dinner I got her to pose for me that I might catch the first idea for my picture "The Joy of the East."

She still shewed an apparently unconquerable objection to any undraped study, so I did not press it, but told her to dress as she had been dressed the previous night, in blue and mauve with silver ornaments, and I would take her in that.

While she was arraying herself I sat back in my chair, thinking.

How strange it was that a girl like Viola, who I believed would have been burnt alive rather than let an untruth pa.s.s her lips, who could not possibly have done a dishonourable action, had posed for me so simply and fearlessly, viewing the whole matter from that artistic standpoint which is so lofty because so really pure; and this girl, whose soul, as I knew, was full of trickery and treachery, and whose lips were worn with lies, clothed herself about with this ridiculous prudery and imagined it was modesty!

She came back presently, wonderfully lovely in the bizarre Oriental costume, and I wanted her to stand on tiptoe, leaning towards me and laughing.

But she was not a good model; she soon grew tired and failed to keep the same pose or expression. She fidgeted so, that at last I laid the paper aside.

"Your expression won't go with that t.i.tle," I said. "What is the matter? Can't you stand still and look happy for fifteen minutes?"

"It's so tiring to stand quite still," she said crossly, and my heart reproached me as I thought of Viola and the hours she had stood for me without a word of complaint in the London studio!

"Well, I'll try another picture. I shall call it 'The Spoiled Favourite of the Harem,' Throw yourself into that chair and look as cross as you like."

Suzee sat down opposite me. I put her head back against the chair; her right arm hung over the side, in her left hand she held a cigarette, one foot was bent under her, the other swung listlessly to the ground.

Her expression, restless and dissatisfied, her att.i.tude, weary and enervated, gave the idea of the t.i.tle admirably, and I made a good sketch.

She was sitting down now so she could keep still without much difficulty, and her air of _ennui_ suited this theme well enough.

As soon as I had finished the sketch and told her she might get up she was delighted. She did not seem to take much interest in the picture, however, but rather regard it grudgingly as it took up my attention.

She was only happy again when I took her on my knees and caressed her, telling her she was the loveliest Eastern I had ever seen.

The following day we started on our journey southward.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: Sleeping berth for two persons in the Pullman car.]

CHAPTER X

IN THE SHADOW OF THE VOLCANO

The journey down to the City of Mexico, in itself, was a delight to me, and I felt how infinitely more I could have enjoyed it had Viola been with me.

My present companion did not seem able to appreciate any but physical beauty. If a good looking man came on board the train she glanced over him, demurely enough, but with the eye of a connoisseur. The glorious beauty, however, of the painted skies and magnificent stretches of open country we were pa.s.sing through affected her not at all.

For four days, on either side of the train, America unrolled before us her vast tracts of entrancing beauty, from which I could hardly tear my gaze, and this little almond-eyed doll sat in a lump on the seat opposite me yawning and fidgeting, or else reading some childish book; or spent the time at the other end of the car playing with some American children on board the train.

I did not intend to have my journey spoilt by her, so I gave my own attention to the scene and told her to go and play, if she wished, or buy oranges and pictures from the train-venders, do anything she liked, in fact, as long as she did not disturb me and prevent my taking a pleasure in the beauty she could not see.

Suzee, annoyed at my admiration of something she could not appreciate, was mostly sulky and pettish through the day, regaining her good temper at night when we retired into our section.

As a toy to caress, to fondle, she was enchanting. Nature had apparently made her for that and for nothing else. Her extreme youth, her beauty, her joy in love, made her irresistible at such moments.

And as I was young, at the height of youth's powers and desires, our relations in that way held a great deal of pleasure for us both.

But that was the limit. Beyond this there was nothing.

That exquisite mental companions.h.i.+p, that sharing of every thought and idea, that constant conversation on all sorts of subjects that interested us both, all this which I had had with Viola, and which filled so perfectly those intervals when the tired senses ask for, and can give, no more pleasure, was completely absent here.

That delight in beauty which is to an artist as much a part of his life as another man's delight in food or wine Viola had shared with me in an intense degree.

And sharing any of the delights of life with one we love enhances them enormously. One can easily imagine a gourmand being dissatisfied with his wife if she resolutely refused to share any of his meals!