Part 2

“You don’t really want compliments from me, Margaret?”

She was silent a moment, then she lifted her softest glance to his face, her own pensive again and slightly shadowed with thought. “No, I don’t!” she said abruptly, “I don’t think I should believe in them--it makes me shiver sometimes to even imagine what you must think of me!”

Fox hesitated how to reply; he was by no means a prudent man, but he was instinctively aware of the dangers of her mood, and he had swiftly entertained and rejected two or three answers which would have led them into yet deeper intricacies, when they were happily interrupted by the approach of the French ambassador, a gentleman who united with great astuteness and diplomatic suavity a strong resemblance to an intelligent and bewhiskered French poodle.

“We have heard so much of those dancing steps, Mrs. White; when shall we have the pleasure of seeing them?” he asked, smilingly courteous and attentive.

“Oh, now!--on the instant,” Margaret retorted, her mood changing like a flash and her eyes sparkling a gay defiance; “there’s no time like the present. William, are the musicians there?”

Fox looked across at the palm-screened alcove, and catching a glimpse of a violin, assented. She clapped her hands. “Tell them to play me the Spanish piece which they played on Tuesday,” she commanded.

At the first note there was a general cessation of conversation, and every eye turned quickly toward her. She stood in the centre of the room, her slender arms raised and her hands clasped behind her head, a dreamy expression on her half lifted face, the shadowy masses of her pale brown hair framing a white brow. Her eyes drooped, her whole aspect seemed to change, like the chameleon’s, to become an embodiment of the dreamily seductive strains which floated softly into space, then, as the music quickened and developed, she began to sway slightly, dancing down the long room alone, her clinging, shimmering skirts trailing around her feet, flowing in and out, but never seeming to arrest the wonderful rhythmic swing of her movements. With her, dancing was an interpretation of music, an expression of some subtle mystery of her nature, the very personification of an enchanting grace.

There was an almost breathless attention on the part of her guests, and no one was conscious of the displeasure on White’s full flushed face. No one but his wife; as she danced to and fro, weaving in the fantasy of strange figures, her eyes rested occasionally on him, and the mockery of her glance was a revelation to those who could read it. It was but little observed, however, nor was she understood when, at last, with a sudden swift movement she caught up her filmy draperies, displaying two slender ankles and a pair of wonderfully shod feet, as she executed a deliberate fandango which not a little amazed the more sedate of her guests.

In answer, perhaps, to some secret signal of White’s, the music stopped abruptly and with it Margaret’s astonishing performance. Quite unmoved, and ignoring the interruption, or rather treating it as the natural termination of her dance, she turned with a graceful swirl of gleaming silks and received the rather effusive applause of her guests with heightened color and flashing eyes.

Louis Berkman alone had lost all the bizarre effect of the finish, and been absorbed in the dance. “A poem in motion, superb!” he exclaimed, with such genuine enthusiasm that Margaret’s expression softened.

The French ambassador was still softly applauding. It appeared that he had seen Bernhardt execute the same figures once; “but madame’s performance was more exquisite, an interpretation, the very expression of the music itself!”

“Naturally,” laughed Margaret maliciously, “I’m an American, ambassador. Did you dream that even Bernhardt could excel one?”

“_Bien!_ I admire your patriotism, also,” he replied smiling.

“Oh, it’s only the screech of the eagle! Of course you are all enthusiastic--all except you, William,” she added abruptly, whirling around to confront Fox with a teasing glance, “you are mute; didn’t I please you?”

He smiled. “You bewildered me; the sudden transitions are confusing. Where did you learn the dance?”

She put her head on one side. “Last week--that’s all I shall ever tell you!” she replied, “but I want Bobby Allestree to paint my portrait dancing. Wicklow would prize it so highly,” and she laughed wickedly.

“Allestree is painting a portrait now, I think,” Fox said, to turn her aside from a dangerous channel, “Miss Temple’s, I believe.”

Margaret’s eyes widened and she looked keenly at him, an indescribable change in her face. “Rose--yes,” she said slowly, “have you seen it?”

He shook his head. “I saw her for the first time to-night.”

She made no immediate reply. M. de Caillou and Berkman had begun to talk together, and the others were already engaged in animated conversation; the controversy between the Italian and the Frenchman having been resumed was rising in a staccato duet. Fox was abruptly aware of a stir in the room beyond and surmised the arrival of evening guests, but his hostess was apparently oblivious.

“She is supremely lovely at times,” she said quietly, after a moment, “but--but not exactly a beauty. What do you think of her?”

Fox parried the question easily. “My dear Margaret, I only saw her for a moment getting into her carriage.”

She gave him a searching glance and bit her lip. He thought he had never seen her wear so entirely the air of a spoiled child; her flushed cheeks, her slightly rumpled hair and the angry droop of her eyes, all appealed for praise and resented criticism. “Allestree is painting her on his knees,” she said, with a little bitter laugh; “he doesn’t regard her as human; you will see that he will make me the imp to her angel, he--”

“Margaret!” Mr. White was hurrying forward, with the ruffled manner of an affronted host; “are you blind as well as deaf, my dear?” he asked curtly, “here are your guests!”

She turned haughtily and looked over her shoulder, her smallest attitude always seeming to defy him, while Fox had an uneasy feeling that he was more acutely aware than usual to-night of the impossible relations between the two. Meanwhile, the entrance to the long room was already filling with the rapidly arriving throng which seemed, to the casual observer, a mass of satin and jewels and lavishly exposed necks and shoulders, with here and there a sprinkling of the black coats of the men.

In spite of this influx, however, the young hostess stood a moment longer looking at them with a glance of malicious amusement in her drooping eyes, noting the whole effect of White’s large and rather florid personality as he received the first enthusiastic advance, responding genially to the murmur of congratulations. Then she turned and swept across the wide intervening space, her small head thrown proudly back, her whole grace of figure and dignity of pose--in direct contradiction to her former wild gayety and audacity--at once suggesting the _grande dame_ assuming her rightful and appropriate place. But Fox found it impossible to as easily free himself from the haunting sorrow of her beautiful haggard eyes. Sometimes she seemed to him to be as fragile, as exquisite and as perishable as a bit of delicately carved ivory. Yet he was forced to dismiss the analogy, for ivory, no matter how marvellously carved in imitation of a living creature, is inanimate, while she was the very personification of unrest; it seemed rather that some wild and beautiful sprite must have been enthralled into temporary captivity, and was wearing its way to liberty through the exquisite clay which had been fashioned into human shape for its mortal disguise, that the touch of inevitable sadness which sometimes came upon her was the moment when the sprite relapsed into the melancholia of prolonged captivity.

III

IT was a little past noon on Saturday when Rose Temple went to Allestree’s studio accompanied by Aunt Hannah Colfax, a faithful old negro woman who had been devoted to her from childhood and now performed the dual duties of maid and duenna with all the complacence and shrewdness of her age and color.

Passing the quaint show-windows of Daddy Lerwick’s curiosity-shop on the first floor, in which were displayed--in amazing medley--pewter cups, old line engravings, camel’s-hair shawls and horse-pistols, they ascended the long narrow flight of stairs to the rooms above. On reaching them, Aunt Hannah promptly ensconced herself and her knitting under the window on the landing, while Rose pushed aside the portière and entered the studio, unconsciously carrying with her some of the crisp out-of-door atmosphere from whence she came and of which, in her buoyant and radiant youth, she seemed a visible and triumphant embodiment.

“It’s perfectly angelic of me to come to-day, Robert,” she remarked, as she greeted him, “for I’m not in the mood for a sitting and, of course, I shall behave abominably.”

“And you wish me to be bowed in the dust with gratitude for your angelic determination to behave abominably?” he replied dryly, looking at her with all an artist’s perception of her beauty and a reluctant consciousness that the glow in her eyes and the color in her cheeks were purely responses to the keen winter air, and that neither had ever been inspired by his presence nor called into being by his words.

Meanwhile Rose moved unconsciously before the long mirror, and removing her hat, slightly and deftly rearranged her beautiful and luxuriant hair as she answered him. “Why not?” she said banteringly; “you can’t believe that any one likes to pose for an hour--even to be made into one of your delightful pictures--but I’ll try to behave beautifully if you’ll answer all my questions, instead of going on with your painting, with a cigarette between your teeth and with the face of a sphinx, as you did the other day!”

“When you asked a dozen questions I couldn’t answer!” Allestree was selecting his brushes and contemplating the canvas on his easel with a despairing eye.

He had already outlined Rose’s figure and decided on the desired pose, but it seemed to him impossible to do justice to the exquisite charm of her beauty. It was a simple picture; he had endeavored to preserve what seemed to him the keynote of her personality, and had forborne to use any of those effects of brilliant color, rich draperies and elaborate accessories which a portrait painter commonly loves to lavish on a beautiful subject; instead, he had made her figure, with its superb poise, stand out in absolute simplicity. To Allestree she personified all the glorious possibilities of youth, with its buoyant hopes, its poignant truth, its magnificent faith in life, in the world, in itself. But when he looked from her to the canvas--where he had hoped to express something of all this--he felt deeply discouraged; his brush might be touched with the magic of a deep if unspoken passion, but it could never paint her as she appeared to him!

“I do not remember asking anything but the simplest questions,” she remarked, as she took her seat in the carved armchair which he had placed for her before a curtain of soft deep blue which seemed to suggest an April sky; “only you didn’t want to answer them. I warn you that I mean to be answered to-day! There’s nothing so abominable as your silences.”

Allestree smiled a little as he began to paint, with a slow and reluctant touch, feeling his way toward some achievement which might at least foreshadow success. “I fancied there was a virtue in silence; there’s a copy-book axiom to that effect,” he remarked; “besides, you would never come here at all punctually if you are not left in doubt on some mooted point. Mystery lures a woman as surely as magic.”

Rose gave him a reproachful glance. “And you think I like to sit here and listen to Mammy Hannah snore while you smoke and paint?” she said in a vexed tone, “for you always smoke and she always falls asleep.”

“Which is a special providence,” he retorted, “and the greatest virtue I ever met in a duenna.”

Without replying Rose looked absently around her, observing the details of his workshop more carefully than usual and noticing the harmonious effect of the colors, which he had grouped in his hangings. There was the high northern light concentrated on his subject, but beyond, in the corners, there were invitingly rich shadows, and here and there a bold, half finished sketch had been nailed to the walls. A well worn Turkey rug covered the portion of the floor occupied by his model, and a table in the window was set with a chafing-dish, a box of Egyptians and an odd shaped bronze tea-pot with some egg-shell cups which he had purchased in Japan. In a way Rose knew the history of everything in the room and almost the cost, but there was a touch of luxury about it which vaguely irritated her; it often seemed that Allestree was too well off to ever be a great artist,--he lacked the spur of necessity.

“Shall you paint for a living if you are ever poor?” she asked abruptly, resting her chin in her hand and contemplating him with a clear and impersonal gaze.

Allestree looked up, and observing the delicate hand with its tapering fingers and the jewelled chain which clasped her throat, smiled. “Shall you sing?” he asked, amused.

She sighed softly. “I wish that I might--and in opera too!” she replied, “I fear I should to-day but for father. You think me a very useless person, I see,” she added, smiling a little, “and perhaps I am. But isn’t it because I’ve had no chance? Girls are trained up in such an objectless way unless they are brought up to marry. Thank heaven, I escaped that; father is as innocent of such designs as a baby! But if I had been a boy I should have been given a profession, I should have had something to do instead of being expected merely to dress well and look ornamental!”

As she spoke her face lost a little of its vivid color and animation, but the slight pensiveness of her look seemed to Allestree to increase the poignancy of her spell; there was a subtle suggestion of that imaginative longing for the fulfilment of those vague youthful conceptions of happiness and life and love which stir in all young things, as the sap stirs in the trees in springtime and the bud forms under the leaves.

He did not immediately reply, but continued to work on the portrait before him which seemed to him more and more hopelessly colorless and lifeless compared with his model. “Perhaps my point of view is too concentrated to be of much value,” he said at length; “to me the mere fact of your existence seems enough to compensate for the loss of a good many more actively employed and earthly individuals who must be working out your privileged season as a lily of the field.”

She gave him a quick, slightly amazed look, and blushed. “You speak as though I were selected from the rubbish heap!” she exclaimed laughing, “as though I profited by the misfortunes of others. I don’t know whether to regard it as a compliment or not!”

But Allestree was quite unmoved, absorbed indeed in his work. “Did I ever pay you a compliment, Rose?” he asked, after an instant, meeting her glance with one that was so eloquent of deeper feeling that she withdrew hers, vaguely alarmed.

“I don’t believe you ever did,” she replied hastily, with an instinctive desire to put off any suggestion of passion on his part, for much as she liked him and long as she had known him, Allestree was only a lay figure on her horizon; he had never stirred her heart, and she dreaded a break in that friendship which she dreamed of prolonging forever with a girl’s usual infatuated belief in the possibilities of such a friendship between a man and a woman. The channel into which their talk had unconsciously drifted so alarmed her indeed that she rose abruptly and went to the window and stood looking down into the street, her perfect profile and the soft upward sweep of her beautiful hair showing against the dark draperies which she had pushed aside, and moving the painter in turn to still deeper depths of artistic self-abasement.

“Robert,” she said suddenly, after a moment’s embarrassed silence, “who was that with you the other evening? Was it Mr. Fox?”

Allestree glanced up quickly, and then stooped to pick up a brush which had dropped to the floor. “Yes,” he said quietly, “how did you happen to recognize him?”

“I was not sure--but I’ve seen two or three pictures of him in the magazines and the weeklies. One can’t forget his head, do you think?” and she came slowly back to her chair, unconscious of the change in Allestree’s expression.

“Well, I never tried,” he confessed; “I’ve known William Fox all my life, and he’s my own first cousin besides. It’s rather odd,” he added, “by the way, that you never met him, but then you have been away from the city when he has been here.”

Rose regarded him thoughtfully, her composure fully restored. “He has a very remarkable face,” she observed, “and it is fine and pale like a bit of old ivory.”

“Oh, yes, all the women fall in love with him,” Allestree assented with impatient irony.

“Do they? That doesn’t sound interesting, but I should not believe it of his face, he doesn’t look like a lady’s man! Is it true--” she added with a moment’s hesitation--“that he has never loved any one but Margaret White?”

“It’s true that Margaret treated him abominably,” said Allestree bluntly; “she was engaged to him when they were both very young and threw him over to marry White.”

“What a singular choice,” Rose observed, “White has nothing attractive about him, and he is so selfish, so hard; they say he treats her badly.”

“He should--in poetic justice,” replied Allestree laughing, “for she married him for his money and his position. Fox was a poor man then with no prospects but his brains and, strange to say, Margaret underestimated their possibilities.”

“And yet she is very clever. Did he really feel it so much?” she added, her natural sympathy for a sentimental situation touched and strengthened by the remembrance of Fox’s clear-cut face, which had appeared to her vision cameo-like against the night.

“Now you are beginning to ask me your unanswerable questions,” he retorted smiling grimly, with a keen sense of annoyance that Fox could intrude so sharply into their talk. “I know he was very much in love with her then, but he is on good terms with them both now and--” he stopped abruptly; his quick ear had caught a step on the stairs accompanied by another sound which startled him with an impatient certainty of a surprise.

It was the tread of a large Scotch collie who lifted the portière on his nose and walked deliberately into the room. Allestree laid down his brush with a peculiarly exasperated expression.

“Well, Sandy,” he said, not unkindly, addressing the dog.

Rose turned and held out her hand. “What a beautiful creature,” she remarked; “who does he belong to? Who is coming?”

Her companion gave her an enigmatical glance, observing the collie as he approached and laid his head against her knee. The step on the stair had now reached the landing, and they heard Aunt Hannah’s chair scrape as she moved and her knitting needles rattled on the floor, for she had been startled out of a nap.

“Who is it?” Rose repeated, framing the question with her lips.

“Fox,” replied Allestree dryly, laying down his palette and lighting a cigarette; “he has an uncommonly retentive memory it appears.”

She glanced at him quickly, a suddenly illuminated understanding in her eyes, and blushed exquisitely, for she was still young enough to be easily embarrassed. At the same moment Fox pushed aside the portière and entered the room.

“Hello, Bobby,” he began, and then paused abruptly at the sight of Rose. “I fear I’m an intruder,” he added courteously.

Allestree smiled grimly and presented him to Miss Temple. “On the contrary, I think you got the time pretty closely,” he remarked ironically.

Fox laughed. “Guilty!” he exclaimed with perfect good humor; “down Sandy!” he added sharply to his collie; “you’ve bewitched the dog, Miss Temple; he rarely makes friends with strangers.”

“Then I appreciate all the more his advances,” she replied smiling, “a dog always knows a friend.”

“And an honest man,” said Fox; “I’m free to confess that I don’t trust one who dislikes dogs.”

“Every man has his crank,” remarked Allestree, walking to and fro before his easel, “and if you begin on dogs with William there’s no end.”

Rose laughed, glancing from Allestree’s slightly vexed countenance to the serenity on the brow of his cousin, who had seated himself on the edge of an elaborate brass-bound chest which was one of the studio properties. “I can sympathize, Mr. Fox,” she said; “we’ve always had dogs.”

Fox gave her one of his brilliant inscrutable looks. “I entirely agree with Lamartine, Miss Temple,” he replied; “when a man is unhappy God gives him a dog.”

“Good Lord, Billy, are you making a bid for our sympathy?” exclaimed Allestree with exasperation.

Both Fox and Rose laughed merrily.

“He’s only quoting the modern classics,” she replied gayly.

“What I should like to know is how he gets out of school in the middle of the day,” said Allestree dryly; “for a man who is supposed to be a leader, he manages to desert at the most remarkable moments. One of the party whips told me the other day that Fox was as hard to trail as a comet.”

“Nothing of the sort,” replied Fox, with indolent amusement; “we adjourned over, last night, until Monday, and I came around here as usual to sit for my portrait.”

Allestree bit his lip, conscious that his irritability was thrown into sharp relief by his cousin’s imperturbable good humor, and resenting, with a sting of premonition, the effect of Fox’s pose upon Rose Temple. He was not a dull man and could not close his eyes to the fact that she had apparently come to life, been revivified and animated by Fox’s entrance, and he knew well enough the interest that the touch of romance in his past history added to his cousin’s brilliant personality. However, it was useless to sulk at the inevitable misfortune which had destroyed his hour with Rose, and he turned his attention to hospitality.

“Will you make tea for us, Rose, if I set the kettle boiling?” he asked, as he drew forward the table, “I’ve got some cakes in the cupboard and a few sandwiches.”

“Why, of course; it will be delightful,” she assented readily, rising from her chair to help him find the tea caddy. “I’m eternally indebted, Mr. Fox; he’s going to let me off a half-hour’s posing,” she added, smiling over her shoulder at him.