The Penalty | Page 6

face, but all filled with a sort of hopeless
longing to 'get back,' and remorse. I invited him to pose for me--not for
a dime--but for real money. Well, he fell for it. And for all that morning
he looked just the way I wanted him to look. But the next morning,
having had the spending of certain moneys, he looked too tidy and well

fed for Satan. And this morning he was hopeless. He looked smug and
fatuous and disgustingly self-satisfied. So I gave him quite a lot of
money, not wishing to hurt the creature's feelings, and told him to go
away." She looked up, laughing at herself. "Do you know, I really
believed I'd dreamed out a golden inspiration, and then to strike just the
face I wanted--and then to have everything foozle out!"
Wilmot walked over to the modelling-table on which, strongly
modelled in wet clay but quite meaningless, was the bust of a man.
"I think." said Barbara, "it would look better if you snubbed his nose
for him."
Wilmot snubbed the long nose heavenward, and the effect was such as
to make them laugh. Barbara recovered all her usual good humor.
[Illustration: She had on her work-apron, but she was not working.]
"Get some forms out of the kitchen," she said, "and we'll turn him into
mud pies."
For half an hour they diverted themselves, displaying a tremendous
rivalry and enthusiasm. And then Barbara announced that there had
been enough foolishness, and that if Wilmot would put fuel on the fire,
he might talk with her till lunch-time and then take her out to lunch.
"Always provided," she said, "that you are not broke at the moment. In
which case Barbara will pay and tip."
"I've had a funny adventure," said Wilmot. "I was dreadfully broke. A
man I hadn't seen for years and years--and only the once at
that--stopped me in the street, told me I was broke, and offered to lend
me money. Wilmot accepted, and is now plenty flush enough to blow
to lunch, thank you!"
Barbara, reseated herself in the deep chair, and once more presented the
soles of her shoes to the flames. "Look here," she said, "aren't you, just
among old friends, rather flitting your life away? I don't think it's very

pretty to borrow money from strangers, and to be always just getting
into difficulties or just getting out of them. Do you?"
"Well, you know," said Wilmot earnestly, "I don't. When I don't hate
myself, I don't like myself any too well. But there's something wrong
with me. Maybe I'm just lazy. Maybe I lack an impulse. Maybe I'd do
better if any single solitary person in this world really gave a damn
about me."
His cheerful boyish face assumed a proper solemnity of expression, and
a certain nobility. At the moment he really thought that nobody in the
world cared what became of him.
"Nobody," said Barbara, "likes to back a flighty pony. You yourself,
for instance, are always putting money, your own or some one else's,
on horses that always run somewhere near form. Of course you have
excuses for yourself."
"I? None."
"Oh, yes, you have. You were brought up to be rich, and you were left
poor, and a man has to live and even secure for himself the luxuries to
which he has been accustomed. Haven't you ever excused yourself to
yourself something like that?"
Wilmot admitted that he had, and went further. "You can't knock
livings out of a tree with a stick like ripe apples," he said. "You've
either got to use your wits or begin at the bottom and work up. And it
seems to me that I'd rather be a little bit tarnished than toil away the
best years of my life the way some men I know are doing."
"Yes," said Barbara, "but why not go somewhere where the world is
younger, and there are real chances to be a man, and real opportunities
to make money in real ways? I don't blame you for living on your wits.
I blame you for gambling and never getting anywhere and not caring."
"Not caring? And this from you?"

She changed color under his steady eyes.
"You just give me a certain promise, Barbs, and I give you my word of
honor I'll settle to something above-board and make it hum. Look here
now! How about it? Who's been so faithful to the one girl for so long?
Who understands her so well? Who'd enjoy dying for her so much?"
"Good old Wilmot," she said gently and gave him her hand. He kissed
it and would have liked to go on holding it forever, but she took it away
from him, and after a silence said, with some bitterness: "I mustn't