The Common Law | Page 4

little disturbed, he walked across to the folding doors; and the same low, suppressed sound caught his ear.
"What in the name of--" he began, walking into the room; and halted, amazed.
She sat all huddled together behind the screen, partly undressed, her face hidden in her hands; and between the slender fingers tears ran down brightly.
"Are you ill?" he asked, anxiously.
After a moment she slowly shook her head.
"Then--what in the name of Mike--"
"P-please forgive me. I--I will be ready in a in-moment--if you wouldn't mind going out--"
"Are you ill? Answer me?"
"N-no."
"Has anything disturbed you so that you don't feel up to posing to-day?"
"No.... I--am--almost ready--if you will go out--"
He considered her, uneasy and perplexed. Then:
"All right," he said, briefly. "Take your own time, Miss West."
At his easel, fussing with yard-stick and crayon, he began to square off his canvas, muttering to himself:
"What the deuce is the matter with that girl? Nice moment to nurse secret sorrows or blighted affections. There's always something wrong with the best lookers.... And she is a real beauty--or I miss my guess." He went on ruling off, measuring, grumbling, until slowly there came over him the sense of the nearness of another person. He had not heard her enter, but he turned around, knowing she was there.
She stood silent, motionless, as though motion terrified her and inertia were salvation. Her dark hair rippled to her waist; her white arms hung limp, yet the fingers had curled till every delicate nail was pressed deep into the pink palm. She was trying to look at him. Her face was as white as a flower.
"All right," he said under his breath, "you're practically faultless. I suppose you realise it!"
A scarcely perceptible shiver passed over her entire body, then, as he stepped back, his keen artist's gaze narrowing, there stole over her a delicate flush, faintly staining her from brow to ankle, transfiguring the pallour exquisitely, enchantingly. And her small head drooped forward, shadowed by her hair.
"You're what I want," he said. "You're about everything I require in colour and form and texture."
She neither spoke nor moved as much as an eyelash.
"Look here, Miss West," he said in a slightly excited voice, "let's go about this thing intelligently." He swung another easel on its rollers, displaying a sketch in soft, brilliant colours--a multitude of figures amid a swirl of sunset-tinted clouds and patches of azure sky.
"You're intelligent," he went on with animation,--"I saw that--somehow or other--though you haven't said very much." He laughed, and laid his hand on the painted canvas beside him:
"You're a model, and it's not necessary to inform you that this Is only a preliminary sketch. Your experience tells you that. But it is necessary to tell you that it's the final composition. I've decided on this arrangement for the ceiling: You see for yourself that you're perfectly fitted to stand or sit for all these floating, drifting, cloud-cradled goddesses. You're an inspiration in yourself--for the perfections of Olympus!" he added, laughing, "and that's no idle compliment. But of course other artists have often told you this before--as though you didn't have eyes of your own I And beautiful ones at that!" He laughed again, turned and dragged a two-storied model-stand across the floor, tossed up one or two silk cushions, and nodded to her.
"Don't be afraid; it's rickety but safe. It will hold us both. Are you ready?"
As in a dream she set one little bare foot on the steps, mounted, balancing with arms extended and the tips of her fingers resting on his outstretched hand.
Standing on the steps he arranged the cushions, told her where to be seated, how to recline, placed the wedges and blocks to support her feet, chalked the bases, marked positions with arrows, and wedged and blocked up her elbow. Then he threw over her a soft, white, wool robe, swathing her from throat to feet, descended the steps, touched an electric bell, and picking up a huge clean palette began to squeeze out coils of colour from a dozen plump tubes.
Presently a short, squarely built man entered. He wore a blue jumper; there were traces of paint on it, on his large square hands, on his square, serious face.
"O'Hara?"
"Sorr?"
"We're going to begin now!--thank Heaven. So if you'll be kind enough to help move forward the ceiling canvas--"
O'Hara glanced up carelessly at the swathed and motionless figure above, then calmly spat upon his hands and laid hold of one side of the huge canvas indicated. The painter took the other side.
"Now, O'Hara, careful! Back off a little!--don't let it sway! There--that's where I want it. Get a ladder and clamp the tops. Pitch it a little forward--more!--stop! Fix those pully ropes; I'll make things snug below."
[Illustration: "'Now, Miss West,' he said decisively."]
For ten minutes they worked deftly, rapidly, making fast the