Hers was low and calm, but very earnest; and there was in it some inflection or intonation which reminded me of the country girls I had known on the farm and at school. His was of a peculiarly sonorous and vibrant quality, its every tone so clear and distinct that it would have been worth a fortune to a public speaker. Such a voice and enunciation are never associated with any mind not strong in the qualities of resolution and decision.
On looking at her, I saw nothing countrified corresponding to the voice. She was dressed in something summery and cool, and wore a sort of flowered blouse, the presence of which was explained by the easel before which she sat, and the palette through which her thumb protruded. She had laid down her brush, and the young man was using her mahlstick in a badly-directed effort to smear into a design some splotches of paint on the unused portion of her canvas.
He was by some years her senior, but both were young—she, very young. He was swarthy of complexion, and his smoothly-shaven, square-set jaw and full red lips were bluish with the subcutaneous blackness of his beard. His dress was so distinctly late in style as to seem almost foppish; but there was nothing of the exquisite in his erect and athletic form, or in his piercing eye.
She was ruddily fair, with that luxuriant auburn-brown hair which goes with eyes of amberish-brown and freckles. These latter she had, I observed with a renewal of the thought of the country girls and the old district school. She was slender of waist, full of bust, and, after a lissome, sylph-like fashion, altogether charming in form. With all her roundness, she was slight and a little undersized.
So much of her as there was, the young fellow seemed ready to absorb, regarding her with avid eyes—a gaze which she seldom met. But whenever he gave his attention to the mahlstick, her eyes sought his countenance with a look which was almost scrutiny. It was as if some extrinsic force drew her glance to his face, until the stronger compulsion of her modesty drove it away at the return of his black orbs. My heart recognized with a throb the freemasonry into which I had lately been initiated, and, all unknown to them, I hailed them as members of the order.
Their conversation came to me in shreds and fragments, which I did not at all care to hear. I recognized in it those inanities with which youth busies the lips, leaving the mind at rest, that the interplay of magnetic discharges from heart to heart may go on uninterruptedly. It is a beautiful provision of nature, but I did not at that time admire it. I pitied them. Alice and I had passed through that stage, and into the phase marked by long and eloquent silences.
“I was brought up to think,” I remember to have heard the fair stranger say, following out, apparently, some subject under discussion between them, “that the surest way to make a child steal jam is to spy upon him. I should feel ashamed.”
“Quite right,” said he, “but in Europe and in the East, and even here in Chicago, in some circles, it is looked upon as indispensable, you know.”
“In art, at least,” she went on, “there is no sex. Whoever can help me in my work is a companion that I don’t need any chaperon to protect me from. If I wasn’t perfectly sure of that, I should give up and go back home.”
“Now, don’t draw the line so as to shut me out,” he protested. “How can I help you with your work?”
She looked him steadily in the face now, her intent and questioning regard shading off into a somewhat arch smile.
“I can’t think of any way,” said she, “unless it would be by posing for me.”
“There’s another way,” he answered, “and the only one I’d care about.”
She suddenly became absorbed in the contemplation of the paints on her palette, at which she made little thrusts with a brush; and at last she queried, doubtfully, “How?”
“I’ve heard or read,” he answered, “that no artist ever rises to the highest, you know, until after experiencing some great love. I—can’t you think of any other way besides the posing?”
She brought the brush close to her eyes, minutely inspecting its point for a moment, then seemed to take in his expression with a swift sweeping glance, resumed the examination of the brush, and finally looked him in the face again, a little red spot glowing in her cheek, and a glint of fire in her eye. I was too dense to understand it, but I felt that there was a trace of resentment in her mien.
“Oh, I don’t know about that!” she said. “There may be some other way. I haven’t met all your friends, and you may be the means of introducing me to the very man.”
I did not hear his reply, though I confess I tried to catch it. She resumed her work of copying one of the paintings. This she did in a mechanical sort of way, slowly, and with crabbed touches, but with some success. I thought her lacking in anything like control over the medium in which she worked; but the results promised rather well. He seemed annoyed at her sudden accession of industry, and looked sometimes quizzically at her work, often hungrily at her. Once or twice he touched her hand as she stepped near him; but she neither reproved him nor allowed him to retain it.
I felt that I had taken her measure by this time. She was some Western country girl, well supplied with money, blindly groping toward the career of an artist. Her accent, her dress, and her occupation told of her origin and station in life, and of her ambitions. The blindness I guessed—partly from the manner of her work, partly from the inherent probabilities of the case. If the young man had been eliminated from this problem with which my love-sick imagination was busying itself, I could have followed her back confidently to some rural neighborhood, and to a year or two of painting portraits from photographs, and landscapes from “studies,” and exhibiting them at the county fair; the teaching of some pupils, in an unnecessary but conscientiously thrifty effort to get back some of the money invested in an “art education” in Chicago; and a final reversion to type after her marriage with the village lawyer, doctor or banker, or the owner of the adjoining farm. I was young; but I had studied people, and had already seen such things happen.
But the young man could not be eliminated. He sat there idly, his every word and look surcharged with passion. As I wondered how long it would be until they were as happy as Alice and I, the thought grew upon me that, however familiar might be the type to which she belonged, he was unclassified. His accent was Eastern—of New York, I judged. He looked like the young men in the magazine illustrations—interesting, but outside my field of observation. And I could not fail to see that girl must find herself similarly at odds with him. “But,” thought I, “love levels all!” And I freshly interrogated the pictures and statues for transportation to my own private Elysium, forgetful of my unconscious neighbors.
My attention was recalled to them, however, by their arrangements for departure, and a concomitant slightly louder tone in their conversation.
“It’s just a spectacular show,” said he; “no plot or anything of that sort, you know, but good music and dancing; and when we get tired of it we can go. We’ll have a little supper at Auriccio’s afterward, if you’ll be so kind. It’s only a step from McVicker’s.”
“Won’t it be pretty late?” she queried.
“Not for Chicago,” said he, “and you’ll find material for a picture at Auriccio’s about midnight. It’s quite like the Latin Quarter, sometimes.”
“I want to see the real Latin Quarter, and no imitation,” she answered. “Oh, I guess I’ll go. It’ll furnish me with material for a letter to mamma, however the picture may turn out.”
“I’ll order supper for the Empress,” said he, “and—”
“And for the illustrious Sir John,” she added. “But you mustn’t call me that any more. I’ve been reading her history, and