The Pagans | Page 4

Featherstone's studio the other day. Nick found his match in the new model."
"What new model?" inquired Fenton, arranging himself into an effective pose before the fire.
"Do you remember the picture of an Italian girl that Tom Demming sent to the Academy exhibition two years ago? A homely face with lots of character in it, and a splendid pose?"
"You mean the one he called _Marietta?_ It was well done, if I remember."
"Oh, stunningly. That's the girl. She's just landed, and Demming gave her letters to me. She's a staving good model!"
"But she isn't pretty."
"No; but she is suggestive. She has one of those faces that you can make all sorts of things out of. Rollins made a sketch of her head that is stunning; a lovely thing; and it looked like her too. Then her figure is perfect, and what is more, she knows how to pose. She meets an idea half way, you know, and hits the expression wonderfully. She has given me points for my picture every time she has been at the studio."
"Is her name Ninitta?" Grant Herman asked.
"Yes; do you know any thing about her?"
"I think I've seen her in Rome. But what is she doing on this side of the water?"
To Arthur Fenton's keen perception there seemed more feeling in the tone than an inquiry into the affairs of a stranger would be likely to evoke, but he gave the matter no especial thought.
"Yes," he echoed lightly, "what is she here for? There is no art in this country. New York is the home of barbarism and Boston of Philistinism; while Cincinnati is a chromo imitation of both. She'd better have staid abroad."
"Your remark is true, Arthur," Bently laughed, "if it isn't very relevant. What people in this country want isn't art at all, but what some Great Panjandrum or other abroad has labeled art. They don't know what is good."
"That is so true," was the retort, "that I almost wonder they don't buy your pictures, Tom."
"But why does the girl come to America?" persisted Herman, with a faint trace of irritation in his tone. "She could do far better at home."
"Oh, Demming wrote that she was bound to come. You can never tell what ails a woman anyhow. Probably she has a lover over here somewhere."
Herman made no reply save by an involuntary lowering of his heavy brows, and Rangely brought the conversation back to its starting-point by asking:
"But what about Nick Featherstone?"
"Oh, Nick? Well, Nick tried to kiss her yesterday, and she offered to stab him with some sort of a devilish dagger arrangement she carries about like an opera heroine."
"Featherstone is always a strong temptation to an honest man's boot," growled Herman out of his beard, as he sat with his head sunk upon his breast, staring into the fire.
"They had a scene that wouldn't have done discredit to a first-class opera-bouffe company," Bently went on, laughing at the remembrance.
"Nick was fool enough to hollo to somebody in the next room, and the result was that we all came trooping in like a chorus. It was absurd enough."
And he laughed afresh.
"But the girl?" persisted Grant Herman, not removing his gaze from the fire. "How did she take it?"
"Oh, she was as calm and cold as you please. She gathered herself together and went off without any fuss."
"I wish when you are done with her, you'd send her round to me," Herman rejoined. "I want a model for a figure, and if I remember her, she'll do capitally."
He rose as he spoke, with the air of a man who intends going home.
"By the way," Fenton said to him, "isn't the Pagan night next week? Don't you have it this month?"
"Yes; you'll get your invitations sometime or other. Good night all."
"Oh, don't break good company," Rangely remonstrated. "I have half a bottle here, and I do hate an alcoholic soliloquy."
But the movement for departure was general, and in a few moments more the members of the company were wending their individual ways homeward through the pelting rain.

III.
THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT. Othello; iv.--i.
The sun shone brightly in at the windows of a little bare studio next morning, as if to atone for the gloom of the darkness and storm of the night. The Midas touch of its rays fell upon the hair of Helen Greyson, turning its wavy locks into gold as she softly sang over her modeling.
She seemed to find in her work a joy which accorded well with the bright day. Pinned to the wall was an improved sketch of the bas-relief whose design had attracted Fenton's notice in her portfolio, while before the artist stood a copy in clay, upon which she was working with those mysterious touches which to the uninitiated are mere meaningless dabs, yet under which the figures were growing