Madcap | Page 4

the painter, seemed this morning to be the only luminous spot on the Countess Olga's social horizon and by the time the car had reached lower Fifth Avenue she had related most of the known facts of his character and career including his struggle for recognition in Europe, his revolutionary attitude toward the Art of the Academies as well as toward modern society, and the consequent and self-sought isolation which deprived him of the intercourse of his fellows and seriously retarded his progress toward a success that his professional talents undoubtedly merited.
Hermia listened with an abstracted air. Artists she remembered were a race of beings quite apart from the rest of humanity and with the exception of a few money-seeking foreigners, one of whom had painted her portrait, and Teddy Vincent, a New Yorker socially prominent (who was unspeakable), her acquaintance with the cult had been limited and unfavorable. When, therefore, her car drew alongside the curb of the old-fashioned building to which Olga directed the chauffeur, Hermia was already prepared to dislike Mr. Markham cordially. She had not always cared for Olga's friends.
There was no elevator in the building before which they stopped, and the two women mounted the stairs, avoiding both the wall and the dusty baluster, contact with either of which promised to defile their white gloves, reaching, somewhat out of breath, a door with a Florentine knocker bearing the name "Markham."
Olga knocked. There was no response. She knocked again while Hermia waited, a question on her lips. There was a sound of heavy footsteps and the door was flung open wide and a big man with rumpled hair, a well-smeared painting-smock and wearing a huge pair of tortoise-shell goggles peered out into the dark hall-way, blurting out impatiently,
"I'm very busy. I don't need any models. Come another day--"
He was actually on the point of banging the door in their faces when the Countess interposed.
"Such hospitality!"
At the sound of her voice Markham paused, the huge palette and brushes suspended in the air.
"Oh," he murmured in some confusion. "It's you, Madame--"
"It is. Very cross and dusty after the climb up your filthy stairs--I suppose I ought to be used to this kind of welcome but I'm not, somehow. Besides, I'm bringing a visitor, and had hoped to find you in a pleasanter mood."
He showed his white teeth as he laughed.
"Oh, Lord! Pleasant!" And then as an afterthought, very frankly, "I don't suppose I am very pleasant!" He stood aside bowing as Hermia emerged from the shadows and Olga Tcherny presented him. It was a stiff bow, rather awkward and impatient and revealed quite plainly his disappointment at her presence, but Hermia followed Olga into the room with a slight inclination of her head, conscious that in the moment that his eyes passed over her they made a brief note which classified her among the unnecessary nuisances to which busy geniuses must be subjected.
Olga Tcherny, who had now taken full possession of the studio, fell into its easiest chair and looked up at the painter with her caressing smile.
"You've been working. You've got the fog of it on you. Are we de trop?"
"Er--no. It's in rather a mess here, that's all. I was working, but I'm quite willing to stop."
"I'm afraid you've no further wish for me now that I'm no longer useful," she sighed. "You're not going to discard me so easily. Besides, we're not going to stay long--only a minute. I was hoping Miss Challoner could see the portrait."
He glanced at Hermia almost resentfully, and fidgeted with his brushes.
"Yes--of course. It's the least I can do--isn't it? The portrait isn't finished. It's dried in, too--but--"
He laid his palette slowly down and wiped his brushes carefully on a piece of cheese-cloth, put a canvas in a frame upon the easel and shoved it forward into a better light.
Hermia followed his movements curiously, sure that he was the most inhospitable human being upon whom two pretty women had ever condescended to call, and stood uncomfortably, realizing that he has not even offered her a chair. But when the portrait was turned toward the light, she forgot everything but the canvas before her.
It was not the Olga Tcherny that people knew best--the gay, satirical mondaine, who exacted from a world which had denied her happiness her pound of flesh and called it pleasure. The Olga Tcherny which looked at Hermia from the canvas was the one that Hermia had glimpsed in the brief moments between bitterness and frivolity, a woman with a soul which in spite of her still dreamed of the things it had been denied.
It was a startling portrait, bold almost to the point of brutality, and even Hermia recognized its individuality, wondering at the capacity for analysis which had made the painter's delineation of character so remarkable,