Trenor, a tall, tired, exquisitely groomed young man, who once had painted a superficially attractive portrait of a popular débutante, and had been overwhelmed with fashionable orders ever since, was the adored of women. He dropped one attenuated knee over the other and lighted an attenuated cigarette.
Fancy anybody bothering enough about anything to fight over it! he said languidly.
Were going to war, Trenor, repeated Barres, jamming his brushes into a bowl of black soap. Thats my positive conviction.
Yours is so disturbingly positive a nature, remonstrated the other. Why ever raise a row? Nothing positive is of any real importance not even opinions.
Barres, vigorously cleaning his brushes in turpentine and black soap, glanced around at Trenor, and in his quick smile there glimmered a hint of good-natured malice. For Esmé Trenor was notoriously anything except positive in his painting, always enveloping a lack of technical knowledge with a veil of camouflage. Behind this pretty veil hid many defects, perhaps even deformities protected by vague, indefinite shadows and the effrontery of an adroit exploiter of the restless sex.
But Esmé Trenor was both clever and alert. He had not even missed that slight and momentary glimmer of good-humoured malice in the pleasant glance of Barres. But, like his more intelligent prototype, Whistler, it was impossible to know whether or not discovery ever made any particular difference to him. He tucked a lilac-bordered handkerchief a little deeper 92 into his cuff, glanced at his jewelled wrist-watch, shook the long ash from his cigarette.
To be positive in anything, he drawled, is an effort; effort entails exertion; exertion is merely a degree of violence; violence engenders toxins; toxins dull the intellect. Quod erat, dear friend. You see?
Oh, yes, I see, nodded Barres, always frankly amused at Trenor and his ways.
Well, then, if you see Trenor waved a long, bony, over-manicured hand, expelled a ring or two of smoke, meditatively; then, in his characteristically languid voice: To be positive closes the door to further observation and pulls down the window shades. Nothing remains except to go to bed. Is there anything more uninteresting than to go to bed? Is there anything more depressing than to know all about something?
You do converse like an ass sometimes, remarked Barres.
Yes sometimes. Not now, Barres. I dont desire to know all about anybody or anything. Fancy my knowing all about art, for example!
Yes, fancy! repeated Barres, laughing.
Or about anything specific a woman, for example! He shrugged wearily.
If you meet a woman and like her, dont you want to know all there is to know about her? inquired Barres.
I should say not! returned the other with languid contempt. I dont wish to know anything at all about her.
Well, we differ about that, old top.
Religiously. A woman can be only an incidental amusement in ones career. You dont go to a musical 93 comedy twice, do you? And any woman will reveal herself sufficiently in one evening.
Nice, kindly domestic instincts you have, Trenor.
Im merely fastidious, returned the other, dropping his cigarette out of the open window. He rose, yawned, took his hat, stick and gloves.
Bye, he said languidly. Im painting Elsena Helmund this morning.
Barres said, with good-humoured envy:
Ive neither commission nor sitter. If I had, you bet Id not stand there yawning at my luck.
It is you who have the luck, not I, drawled Trenor. I give a portion of my spiritual and material self with every brush stroke, while you remain at liberty to flourish and grow fat in idleness. I perish as I create; my life exhausts itself to feed my art. What you call my good luck is my martyrdom. You see, dear friend, how fortunate you are?
I see, grinned Barres. But will your spiritual nature stand such a cruel drain? Arent you afraid your morality may totter?
Morality, mused Esmé, going; that is one of those early Gothic terms now obsolete, I believe
He sauntered out with his hat and gloves and stick, still murmuring:
Morality? Gothic very Gothic
Barres, still amused, sorted his wet brushes, dried them carefully one by one on a handful of cotton waste, and laid them in a neat row across the soapstone top of his palette-table.
Hang it! he muttered cheerfully. I could paint like a streak this morning if I had the chance
He threw himself back in his chair and sat there smoking for a while, his narrowing eyes fixed on a great window which opened above the court. Soft spring 94 breezes stirred the curtains; sparrows were noisy out there; a strip of cobalt sky smiled at him over the opposite chimneys; an April cloud floated across it.
He rose, walked over to the window and glanced down into the court. Several more hyacinths were now in blossom. The Prophet dozed majestically, curled up on an Italian garden seat. Beside him sprawled the snow white Houri, stretched out full length in the sun, her wonderful blue eyes following the irrational gambols of the tortoise-shell cat, Strindberg, who had gone loco, as usual, and was tearing up and down trees, prancing sideways with flattened ears and crooked tail, in terror at things invisible, or digging furiously toward China amid the hyacinths.
Dulcie Soane came out into the court presently and expostulated with Strindberg, who suffered herself to be removed from the hyacinth bed, only to make a hysterical charge on her mistresss ankles.
Stop it, you crazy thing! insisted Dulcie, administering a gentle slap which sent the cat bucketing and corvetting across the lawn, where the eccentric course of a dead leaf, blown by the April wind, instantly occupied its entire intellectual vacuum.
Barres, leaning on the window-sill, said, without raising his voice:
Hello, Dulcie! How are you, after our party?
The child looked up, smiled shyly her response through the pale glory of the April sunshine.
What are you doing to-day? he inquired, with casual but friendly interest.
Nothing.
Isnt there any school?
Its Saturday.
Thats so. Well, if youre doing nothing youre 95 just as busy as I am, he remarked, smiling down at her where she stood below his window.
Why dont you paint pictures? ventured the girl diffidently.
Because I havent any orders. Isnt that sad?
Yes But you could paint a picture just to please yourself, couldnt you?
I havent anybody to paint from, he explained with amiable indifference, lazily watching the effect of alternate shadow and sunlight on her upturned face.
Couldnt you find somebody? Her heart had suddenly begun to beat very fast.
Barres laughed:
Would you like to have your portrait painted?
She could scarcely find voice to reply:
Will you let me?
The slim young figure down there in the April sunshine had now arrested his professional attention. With detached interest he inspected her for a few moments; then:
Youd make an interesting study, Dulcie. What do you say?
Do do you mean that you want me?
Why yes! Would you like to pose for me? Its pin-money, anyway. Would you like to try it?
Y-yes.
Are you quite sure? Its hard work.
Quite sure she stammered. The little flushed face was lifted very earnestly to his now, almost beseechingly. I am quite sure, she repeated breathlessly.
Why yes! Would you like to pose for me? Its pin-money, anyway. Would you like to try it?
Y-yes.
Are you quite sure? Its hard work.
Quite sure she stammered. The little flushed face was lifted very earnestly to his now, almost beseechingly. I am quite sure, she repeated breathlessly.
So youd really like to pose for me? he insisted in smiling surprise at the girls visible excitement. Then he added abruptly: Ive half a mind to give you a job as my private model!
Through the rosy confusion of her face her grey eyes were fixed on him with a wistful intensity, almost painful. For into her empty heart and starved mind had suddenly flashed a dazzling revelation. Opportunity was knocking at her door. Her chance had come! Perhaps it had been inherited from her mother God knows! this deep, deep hunger for things beautiful this passionate longing for light and knowledge.
Mere contact with such a man as Barres had already made endurable a solitary servitude which had been subtly destroying her childs spirit, and slowly dulling the hunger in her famished mind. And now to aid him to feel that he was using her was to arise from her rags of ignorance and emerge upright into the light which filled that wonder-house wherein he dwelt, and on the dark threshold of which her lonely little soul had crouched so long in silence.
She looked up almost blindly at the man who, in careless friendliness, had already opened his door to her, had permitted her to read his wonder-books, had allowed her to sit unreproved and silent from sheer happiness, and gaze unsatiated upon the wondrous things within the magic mansion where he dwelt.
And now to serve this man; to aid him, to creep into the light in which he stood and strive to learn and see! the thought already had produced a delicate intoxication in the child, and she gazed up at Barres from the sunny garden with her naked soul in her eyes. Which confused, perplexed, and embarrassed him.
Come on up, he said briefly. Ill tell your father over the phone.
She entered without a sound, closed the door which 97 he had left open for her, advanced across the thick-meshed rug. She still wore her blue gingham apron; her bobbed hair, full of ruddy lights, intensified the whiteness of her throat. In her arms she cradled the Prophet, who stared solemnly at Barres out of depthless green eyes.
Upon my word, thought Barres to himself, I believe I have found a model and an uncommon one!
Dulcie, watching his expression, smiled slightly and stroked the Prophet.
Ill paint you that way! Dont stir, said the young fellow pleasantly. Just stand where you are, Dulcie. Youre quite all right as you are He lifted a half-length canvas, placed it on his heavy easel and clamped it.
I feel exactly like painting, he continued, busy with his brushes and colours. Im full of it to-day. Its in me. Its got to come out And you certainly are an interesting subject with your big grey eyes and bobbed red hair oh, quite interesting constructively, too as well as from the colour point.
He finished setting his palette, gathered up a handful of brushes:
I wont bother to draw you except with a brush
He looked across at her, remained looking, the pleasantly detached expression of his features gradually changing to curiosity, to the severity of increasing interest, to concentrated and silent absorption.
Dulcie, he presently concluded, you are so unusually interesting and paintable that you make me think very seriously And Im hanged if Im going to waste you by slapping a technically adequate sketch of you onto this nice new canvas which might give me pleasure while Im doing it and 98 might even tickle my vanity for a week and then be laid away to gather dust and be covered over next year and used for another sketch No No!.. Youre worth more than that!
He began to pace the place to and fro, thinking very hard, glancing around at her from moment to moment, where she stood, obediently immovable on the blue meshed rug, clasping the Prophet to her breast.
Do you want to become my private model? he demanded abruptly. I mean seriously. Do you?
Yes.
I mean a real model, from whom I can ask anything?
Oh, yes, please, pleaded the girl, trembling a little.
Do you understand what it means?
Yes.
Sometimes youll be required to wear few clothes. Sometimes none. Did you know that?
Yes. Mr. Westmore asked me once.
You didnt care to?
Not for him.
You dont mind doing it for me?
Ill do anything you ask me, she said, trying to smile and shivering with excitement.
All right. Its a bargain. Youre my model, Dulcie. When do you graduate from school?
In June.
Two months! Well all right. Until then it will be a half day through the week, and all day Saturdays and Sundays, if I require you. Youll have a weekly salary He smiled and mentioned the figure, and the girl blushed vividly. She had, it appeared, expected nothing.
Why, Dulcie! he exclaimed, immensely amused. 99 You didnt intend to come here and give me all your time for nothing, did you?
Yes.
But why on earth should you do such a thing for me?
She found no words to explain why.
Nonsense, he continued; youre a business woman now. Your father will have to find somebody to cook for him and take the desk when hes out at Grogans. Dont worry; Ill fix it with him By the way, Dulcie, supposing you sit down.
She found a chair and took the Prophet onto her lap.
Now, this will be very convenient for me, he went on, inspecting her with increasing satisfaction. If I ever have any orders any sitters you can have a vacation, of course. Otherwise, Ill always have an interesting model at hand Ive got chests full of wonderful costumes genuine ones He fell silent, his eyes studying her. Already he was planning half a dozen pictures, for he was just beginning to perceive how adaptable the girl might be. And there was about her that indefinable something which, when a painter discovers it, interests him and arouses his intense artistic curiosity.
You know, he said musingly, you are something more than pretty, Dulcie I could put you in eighteenth century clothes and youd look logical. Yes, and in seventeenth century clothes, too I could do some amusing things with you in oriental garments A young Herodiade Calypso Theodora She was a child, too, you know. Theres a portrait with bobbed hair a young girl by Van Dyck You know you are quite stimulating to me, Dulcie. You excite a painters imagination. 100 Its rather odd, he added naïvely, that I never discovered you before; and Ive known you over two years.
He had seated himself on the sofa while discoursing. Now he got up, touched a bell twice. The Finnish maid, Selinda, with her high cheek-bones, frosty blue eyes and colourless hair, appeared in cap and apron.
Selinda, he said, take Miss Dulcie into my room. In a long, leather Turkish box on the third shelf of my clothes closet is a silk and gold costume and a lot of jade jewelry. Please put her into it.
So Dulcie Soane went away with her cat in her arms, beside the neat and frosty-eyed Selinda; and Barres opened a portfolio of engravings, where were gathered the lovely aristocrats of Van Dyck and Rubens and Gainsborough and his contemporaries a charmingly mixed company, separated by centuries and frontiers, yet all characterised by a common something some inexplicable similarity which Barres recognised without defining.