The Hollow of Her Hand Part 27

"It's maddening, not to be able to remember."

The dusk of night hid the look of relief that came into her eyes.

Hetty met them at the top of the steps. The electric porch lights had just been turned on by the butler. The girl stood in the path of the light. Booth was never to forget the loveliness of her in that moment. He carried the image with him on the long walk home through the black night. (He declined Sara's offer to send him over in the car for the very reason that he wanted the half-hour of solitude in which to concentrate all the impressions she had made on his fancy.)

The three of them stood there for a few minutes, awaiting the butler's announcement. Sara's arm was about Hetty's shoulders. He was so taken up with the picture they presented that he scarcely heard their light chatter. They were types of loveliness so full of contrast that he marvelled at the power of Nature to create women in the same mould and yet to model so differently.

They were as near alike in height, figure and carriage as two women could be, and yet there was a subtle distinction that left him conscious of the fact that two vastly different strains of blood ran through their veins. Apart, he would not have perceived this marked difference in them. Hetty represented the violet, Sara the pansy. The distinction may be subtile. However, it was the estimate he formed in that moment of comparison.

The English girl's soft white gown was cut low in the neck, her shapely arms were bare. Sara's black covered her arms and shoulders, even to the slender throat. The hair of both was black and rich and alive with the gloss of health. The eyes of one were blue and velvety, even in the glare of light that fell from above; those of the other were black, Oriental, mysterious.

As they entered the vestibule, a servant came up with the word that Miss Castleton was wanted at the telephone, "long distance from New York."

The girl stopped in her tracks. Booth looked at her in mild surprise, a condition which gave way an instant later to perplexity. The look of annoyance in her eyes could not be disguised or mistaken.

"Ask him to call me up later, Watson," she said quietly.

"This is the third time he has called, Miss Castleton," said the man. "You were dressing, if you please, ma'am, the first time--"

"I will come," she interrupted sharply, with a curious glance at Sara, who for some reason avoided meeting Booth's gaze.

"Tell him we shall expect him on Friday," said Mrs. Wrandall.

"By George!" thought Booth, as she left them. "I wonder if it can be Leslie. If it IS--well, he wouldn't be flattered if he could have seen the look in her eyes."

Later on, he had no trouble in gathering that it WAS Leslie Wrandall who called, but he was very much in the dark as to the meaning of that expressive look. He only knew that she was in the telephone room for ten minutes or longer, and that all trace of emotion was gone from her face when she rejoined them with a brief apology for keeping them waiting.

He left at ten-thirty, saying good-night to them on the terrace.

Sara walked to the steps with him.

"Don't you think her voice is lovely?" she asked. Hetty had sung for them.

"I dare say," he responded absently. "Give you my word, though, I wasn't thinking of her voice. SHE is lovely."

He walked home as if in a dream. The spell was on him.

Far in the night, he started up from the easy chair in which he had been smoking and dreaming and racking his brain by turns.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed aloud. "I remember! I've got it! And to-morrow I'll prove it."

Then he went to bed, with the storm from the sea pounding about the house, and slept serenely until Pat and Mary wondered whether he meant to get up at all.

"Pat," said he at breakfast, "I want you to go to the city this morning and fetch out all of the STUDIOS you can find about the place. The old ones are in that Italian hall seat and the late ones are in the studio. Bring all of them."

"There's a divvil of a bunch of thim," said Pat ruefully.

He was not to begin sketching the figure until the following day.

After luncheon, however, he had an appointment to inspect Hetty's wardrobe, ostensibly for the purpose of picking out a gown for the picture. As a matter of fact, he had decided the point to his own satisfaction the night before. She should pose for him in the dainty white dress she had worn on that occasion.

While they were going over the extensive a.s.sortment of gowns, with Sara as the judge from whom there seemed to be no appeal, he casually inquired if she had ever posed before.

Two ladies' maids were engaged in flinging the costly garments about as if they represented so much rubbish. The floor was littered with silks and satins and laces. He was accustomed to this ruthless handling of exquisite fabrics by eager ladies of wealth: it was one way these pampered women had of showing their contempt for possession. Gowns came from everywhere by the armload; from closets, presses and trunks, ultimately landing in a conglomerate heap on the floor when cast aside as undesirable by the artist, the model and the censor.

He watched her closely as he put the question. She was holding up a beautiful point lace creation for his inspection, and there was a pleading smile on her lips. It must have been her favourite gown.

The smile faded away. The hand that dangled the garment before his eyes suddenly became motionless, as if paralysed. In the next instant, she recovered herself, and, giving the lace a quick fillip that sent its odour of sachet leaping to his nostrils, responded with perfect composure.

"Isn't there a distinction between posing for an artist, and sitting for one's portrait?" she asked.

He was silent. The fact that he did not respond seemed to disturb her after a moment or two. She made the common mistake of pressing the question.

"Why do you ask?" was her inquiry. When it was too late she wished she had not uttered the words. He had caught the somewhat anxious note in her voice.

"We always ask that, I think," he said. "It's a habit."

"Oh," she said doubtfully.

"And by the way, you haven't answered."

She was busy with the gown for a time. At last she looked him full in the face.

"That's true," she agreed; "I haven't answered, have I? No, Mr.

Booth, I've never posed for a portrait. It is a new experience for me. You will have to contend with a great deal of stupidity on my part. But I shall try to be plastic."

He uttered a polite protest, and pursued the question no farther.

Her answer had been so palpably evasive that it struck him as bald, even awkward.

Pat, disgruntled and irritable to the point of profanity,--he was a privileged character and might have sworn if he felt like it without receiving notice,--came shambling up the cottage walk late that afternoon, bearing two large, shoulder-sagging bundles. He had walked from the station,--a matter of half-a-mile,--and it was hot. His employer sat in the shady porch, viewing his approach.

"Have you got them?" he inquired.

Pat dropped the bundles on the lower step and stared, speechless.

Then he mopped his drenched, turkey-red face with his handkerchief.

He got his breath after a spell of contemptuous snorting.

"Have I got what?" he demanded sarcastically. "The measles?"

"The STUDIOS, Patrick," said Booth reprovingly.

"No, sor," said Pat; "I came absolutely empty-handed, as you may have seen, sor."

"I knew I couldn't be mistaken. I was confident I saw nothing in your hands."

"I kept thim closed, sor, so's you couldn't see what was r'ally in thim. I've been wid you long enough, sor, to know how you hate the sight av blisthers."

"They must be quite a novelty to you, Patrick. I should think you'd be proud of them."

"Where am I to put them, sor?"

"The blisters?"