“Perhaps you can’t,” allowed her adviser magnanimously. “On second thought, it won’t be necessary. You just go back—after powdering your nose a little—and say that you’ve come to see the picture once more, or that it’s a fine day, or that competition is the life of trade, or that—oh, anything! And, if he doesn’t do the rest, I’ll kill and eat him.”
“But, Cecily—”
“You would be a patroness of Art. Now I’ve given you something real to patronize. Don’t you dare fail me.” Suddenly the speaker gave herself over to an access of mirth. “Heaven help that young man when he comes to own up.”
“Own up to what?”
“Never mind.”
Having consumed a vain and repetitious half-hour in variations upon her query, Bobbie gave it up and decided to find out for herself. It was curiosity and curiosity alone (so she assured herself) that impelled her to return for the last time (she assured herself of that, also) to the attic.
A voice raised in vehement protest, echoing through the open door of the studio, checked her on the landing below as she mounted.
“And you’re actually going to let thirty-five thousand a year slip through your fingers, just to pursue a fad?”
To which Julien’s equable accents replied:
“That’s it, Merrill. I’m going to paint.”
The unseen Merrill left a blessing (of a sort) behind, slammed the door upon it, and materialized to the vision of the girl on the landing as an energetic and spruce-looking man of forty-odd, with a harassed expression. At need, Miss Holland could summon considerable decisiveness to her aid.
“Would you think me inexcusably rude,” she said softly, “if I asked who you are?”
The descending man snatched off his hat, stared, seemed on the point of whistling, then, recovering himself, said courteously: “I’m George Merrill, advertising manager for the Criterion Clothing Company.”
“And Mr. Tenney has been doing drawings for you?”
“He has. For several years.”
“So that,” said the girl, half to herself, “is his pot-boiling.”
“Not a very complimentary term,” commented Mr. Merrill, “for the best black-and-white work being done in New York to-day. Between my concern and two others he makes a railroad president’s income out of it.”
“Yes, I overheard what you said to him. Thank you so much.”
“In return, may I ask you something?”
“Certainly.”
“Will you not, for his own good, dissuade Mr. Tenney from throwing away his career?”
“Why should you suppose me to have any influence with Mr. Tenney?”
Mr. Merrill’s face was grave, as befitted the issue, but a twinkle appeared at the corner of his glasses. “I’ve seen the portrait,” he replied, and with a bow, went on his way.
Julien opened the door to her knock. She stepped inside, facing him with bright, inscrutable eyes.
“Why have you been fooling me about your circumstances?” she demanded.
“D—n Merrill!” said Julien with fervor.
“It’s true that your ‘pot-boiling’ brings you a big income?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you take employment as a chauffeur?”
“I don’t. That car belongs to me.”
“And your being a waiter? I don’t suppose the Taverne Splendide belongs to you?”
“An impromptu bit of acting,” confessed the abashed Julien.
“And this attic? Was that hired for the same comedy?”
“No. This is mine, really.”
“I don’t understand. Why have you done it all?”
“If you want to know the truth,” he said defiantly, “so that I could keep on seeing you.”
“That’s a very poor excuse,” she retorted.
“The best in the world. As a successful commercial artist, what possible interest would you have taken in me? You took me for a struggling young painter—that was the Bonnie Lassie’s fault, for I never lied to you about it—and after we’d started on that track I didn’t—well, I didn’t have the courage to risk losing you by quitting the masquerade.”
“How you must have laughed at me all the time!”
He flushed to his angry eyes. “Do you think that is fair?” he retorted. “Or kind? Or true?”
“I—I don’t know,” she faltered. “You let me offer you money. And you’ve probably got as much as I have.”
“I won’t have from now on, then. I’m going to paint. I thought, when you told me you were going away, that I couldn’t look at a canvas again. But now I know I was wrong. I’ve got to paint. You’ll have left me that, at least.”
“Mr. Merrill thinks you’re ruining your career. And if you do, it’ll be my fault. I’ll never, never, never,” said the patroness of Art desolately, “try to do any one good again!”
She turned toward the door.
“At least,” said Julien in a voice which threatened to get out of control, “you’ll know that it wasn’t all masquerade. You’ll know why I’ll always keep the picture, even if I never paint another.”
She stole a look at him over her shoulder and, with a thrill, saw the passion in his eyes and the pride that withheld him from speaking.
“Suppose,” she said, “I asked you to give it up.”
“You wouldn’t,” he retorted quickly.
“No, I wouldn’t. But—but—” Her glance, wandering away from him, fell on the joyous line of Béranger bold above the door.
“ ‘How good is life in an attic at twenty,’ ” she murmured. Then, turning to him, she held out her hands.
“I could find it good,” she said with a soft little falter in her voice, “even at twenty-two.”
Everything passes in review before my bench, sooner or later. The two, going by with transfigured faces, stopped.
“Let’s tell Dominie,” said Julien.
I waved a jaunty hand. “I know already,” said I, “even if it hadn’t been announced to a waiting world.”
“Wh-wh-why,” stammered Bobbie with a blush worth a man’s waiting a lifetime to see, “it—it only just happened.”
“Bless your dear, innocent hearts, both of you! It’s been happening for weeks. Come with me.”
I lead them to the sidewalk fronting Thornsen’s Élite Restaurant. There stood Peter Quick Banta, admiring his latest masterpiece of imaginative symbolism. It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in its powerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and of orange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials. “J.T.” and “R.H.” Below, in no less than four colors, ran the legend, “Cupid’s Token.”
“O Lord! Dad!” cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out with frantic feet. “How long has this been there?”
“What’re you doing? Leave it be!” cried the anguished artist. “It’s been there since noon.”