She rose and opened the door. Outside was her husband, with his hat and coat on.
“Gilbert!”
“I’m going down to my chambers for an hour or two. I’m sick of this coddling, and the only thing to do is to work it off. It was a mistake to take to bed at all. I’m convinced you bring on illnesses that way.”
“Come in a minute. Did Dr. Neeburg say you might go?”
“No. Doctors always try and keep you in bed, and Fritz is no better than the rest of them.”
His face was flushed and unhealthy in colour. His eyes seemed more sombre than ever, and he was obviously quite unfit to go out of the house.
“Gilbert, this is madness. Have you looked at yourself in the glass? At least wait to see the doctor this morning. Surely your work can wait for awhile, or one of your clerks can come down as he did yesterday?”
“I’ve got to be in court on a big case four days hence, and all my books and things are down there. Lots of people have influenza and don’t stop indoors. I’m strong; I’ll soon throw the thing off if my mind is occupied.”
[178]
She did not know what to say. She knew it was very unwise for him to go out, but, after all, she could not force him to stay indoors. Neeburg had told her privately that he was very much run down and needed a good rest. Was it a good thing to tell a man he was not as strong as he thought he was? Gilbert was always so proud of his robust health, and so contemptuous of weaker men. An old friend of his, a barrister, who often secured his services, had recently had to go for a sea-voyage owing to nerve-strain, and Gilbert had commented on it with a complete lack of sympathy and understanding. People who got ill easily he dubbed “weaklings.”
“Well, Gilbert,” she said gravely, “of course I can’t make you keep to the doctor’s orders, but I do ask you to give yourself a fair chance. You know”—tentatively—“you have really been overworking for a long time, and your constitution may be strong, but you can’t tax it when you have an attack of influenza.”
“I’m all right,” he said rather truculently. “And I’m going down in the car to a well-warmed room. It won’t harm me, and I shall feel easier in my mind. I loathe having nothing to do.”
She looked at him, and wondered what he would do if he had a real long illness. The whole man was his work, and his work was the man. He had practically no hobbies, no pursuits, no amusements. When she had married him he had been keen on golf, but even that he had dropped.
Suddenly she said to him, “Do you ever wonder how I spend my days, Gilbert?”
He looked at her in dull surprise. “Oh! women always find something to do, don’t they? Dressmakers, shopping, et cetera. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. You know Frank Hamilton is painting my portrait, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think you did tell me. Is it going to be good?”[179] He was obviously not very interested, and anxious to be gone.
“Yes, I think so, this time. But he needs a good many sittings.... Do you like Frank Hamilton?”
“I never thought about it. Yes, I suppose he’s all right for an artist. Well, I must go now. I daresay I shan’t be away many hours.”
“Gilbert,” she said pleadingly, “don’t go. You are not fit, really. If you don’t want to stop in bed, stay here with me and read some books, or if your eyes hurt, I’ll read to you. There’s such an amusing biography here.”
He shook her hand off his coat-sleeve and went towards the door. “I’m too restless, Claudia. Tell Neeburg I had to go.”
He was gone, and Claudia walked back to her desk. Though various thoughts were buzzing through her head, inflammatory, rebellious thoughts, she completed the list of undesirables and requested the honour of their company at dinner. Most of the stodgy ones were friends of Gilbert’s family and good and worthy men at the Bar, with their good and worthy wives.
At last Claudia laid down her pen and took up the telephone. Frank’s voice answered her at the other end.
“I say, I told you I couldn’t come this afternoon for the sitting. But I find I can, after all. Is it still convenient?”
“Yes, and I’m delighted to hear it. I haven’t seen you for three whole days—an eternity!”
“What a pretty speech!” mocked Claudia; “but I’ve got the grain of salt here.”
“You can laugh at me if you like, but it only makes things worse. I sometimes wonder if you are quite heartless. Don’t you believe in any man?”
“Not—not if I can help it. Well, I’ll be with you about three. I can’t talk now; I’m busy.”
But she sat for half an hour quite unoccupied, at least[180] she had no tangible occupation. She wrote no letters and she sent no more invitations. The only thing she did was to light a cigarette and stare out of the window at the bare branches of the trees, just faintly beginning to bud. And yet she was not thinking of the view, for she looked for quite five minutes at the Albert Memorial, and it was an edifice she loathed. Her face was set and expressionless, only her eyes burned like live, glowing coals in her head.
Rhoda Carnegie was lunching with her. She had rung up earlier in the day and requested the meal, saying quite frankly that a man had failed her and that she wanted some decent food.
Claudia neither liked nor disliked her, she had got used to her, for every now and then she had drifted into the Iverson household.
Rhoda was late, but as Claudia knew her habits she had ordered lunch a quarter of an hour later than usual.
“I’m late, dear. So sorry. But I put on six hats and hated them all, so I’ve come out in the ugliest.” It was a queer-shaped one, that showed the tip of her nose and part of an ear.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get run over when you wear a hat like that?” laughed Claudia.
“It does make the day seem gloomy, I admit. But a hat like this intrigues a man. He doesn’t know what else there is to it. There’s nothing like mystery about a hat. Well, and how goes l’affaire Hamilton?”
Claudia started to frown and then changed her mind. Rhoda was not actively malicious, except when she hated a rival, and a frown would be wasted on her.
“Oh! quite nicely,” she said coolly, inwardly a little startled that it should have come to that. “I think the picture will be a success this time.”
“Ah! if I were interested in a portrait-painter I should certainly have my portrait painted, but that type[181] doesn’t appeal to me, and I hate having to talk art and look at daubs that are not half as nice as the things they represent. We hate one another most cordially. Two poseurs together, you know. It takes a poseur to catch a poseur.”
Claudia stopped in the act of raising a glass of hock to her lips. “You consider him a poseur?”
“Haven’t you spotted that?” drawled Rhoda. “I wish I could afford a decent cook. No, you wouldn’t. You think he has an artistic soul. I am certain he hasn’t. But if you don’t rub the veneer too hard I daresay it won’t come off while you are playing with it.”
“I don’t see why you call him a poseur,” returned Claudia. “Unless you think we are all poseurs and—well, one has to wear clothing!”
“I’ll call it acting if you like it better. Wasn’t it Meissonier who said, ‘Painters always have in them something of the actor, they have the instinct for attitude and gesture’? But he’s clever, he acts rather well. So do I. And a pose is justified by its cleverness.”
She leaned forward on the table and smiled in her hostess’s face.
“My dear, don’t think I am trying to say that his love for you is a pose. But—well, naturally. You are very handsome and an excellent companion. Shall I tell you what he is not?”
“If you like,” said Claudia, with an affectation of indifference.
“He is not working for art’s sake. He is not generous, except to himself. He is not quite a gentleman—yes, let me finish—either by birth or natural feeling. And he is not—good enough for you, ma chère.”
“There is hardly any question——” began Claudia hotly.
“Claudia, don’t pretend. It’s not necessary with me. I daresay he is more amusing than Gilbert, but still, he’s[182] not the right man. One’s husband is an accident; a lover is sometimes—a mistake. After all, in spite of the sweetest poodles and coon-can, love is the one thing that interests women. But be careful with Frank Hamilton. He is the sort of a man who gives a woman away, and discretion is the first requisite for a lover.”
Claudia ignored the bigger issues. It was impossible to snub Rhoda.
“You don’t like him, and therefore you are prejudiced,” she replied, playing with a fat little quail on her plate. “What do you know about him?”
“I know he is the son of a small country solicitor who used to live at Salisbury. Now he lives in Kensal Green Cemetery. His grandfather was the butcher of that town, and I believe his grandfather wanted to put Frank into his business, but——”
“Oh, Rhoda! don’t be ridiculous. Besides, what does it matter what his grandfather was? You’re talking like Lady Currey now. And it’s so old-fashioned!”
“Pooh! I don’t care about people’s ancestors, although I think a butcher peculiarly unpleasing, let us say. Loinchops and rumpsteaks are so prosaic. No, that isn’t the point. He hasn’t got the innate feelings of a gentleman, and with his upbringing he would let any woman down. There are some things that men of the world with decent breeding don’t do. And now tell me what the scandal is about Lucy Morgan and the card that dropped on the floor?”
At three, Claudia left Rhoda with the box of cigarettes—she had already smoked five—and the latest thing in novels, and went to Frank’s studio. She felt rather self-conscious as she ascended the stairs, for now someone had labelled it l’affaire Hamilton it seemed to have taken a different complexion. Well, other women were all having flirtations, why not she? She had never meant to; she recalled how she had looked on such[183] affairs during her engagement—not with disgust, her upbringing was against that, but she had been sorry for the women who had to fill up their lives in underhand ways. Life had looked so easy then, now she was beginning to realize that life is most subtle, most complex, most alluring and—most disappointing.
She involuntarily stopped and gave a delicate sniff as she entered the studio. It was full of some over-sweet perfume.
“Have you upset a bottle of perfume?” she asked. “This is sweetness twice distilled.”
He went to the window hastily. “Don’t accuse me of using perfume. One of my sitters.”
“Heavens! who uses such a perfume?”
He busied himself with the chair she was to sit in. “Oh, you’ve met her. Mrs. Jacobs.”
“Mrs. J—— Oh, yes! the yellow lady with much wealth. Well, you might make something odd and bizarre out of her. But perhaps she wants to be depicted as a blush-rose?”
“Don’t let’s talk about her. I don’t want to remember any other woman when you are here.... No, that arm isn’t quite right.” His hand was subtly caressing as he bent it into the position required, and it sent a little physical thrill through her. But when she met his eyes, he saw only a mocking light in them. All the same, he was quick to detect a slight difference in her attitude towards him. After the episode of the drive home from Hampstead he had been at first furiously angry, but after a while her very elusiveness had intrigued him to fresh efforts. His experience with women had been that they were always rather shy when it came to the last moves in the game; and Claudia was certainly a prize in the feminine market.
“You don’t know the happiness it gives me to work on your portrait.... Just look a little more to the left—a[184] trifle more—yes, that’s right.... You must give me the chance of finishing it. I shall be restless and unhappy until it is done.... Don’t make me more unhappy than I am already,” he concluded softly.
The studio was very warm—too warm, and the scent still lingered in the air. It was an unpretentious apartment, but it had not that bare, unclothed look which distinguished some artists’ studios. Frank declared that he worked better in a coloursome atmosphere, and he had picked up some beautiful Oriental hangings, subdued but rich, which draped the walls with dull gold and reds. The few pieces of furniture were good. Frank had bought them very cheaply from a former tenant.
“I don’t see why you should be unhappy,” answered Claudia languidly, watching him mix some colours on his palette. “Young and successful, that ought to be enough to make a man happy.”
“Unsuccessful in the one thing that he really wants,” replied the man at the easel, with a quick glance at her.
Claudia knew it was injudicious to continue in this strain, but something within her, reckless and craving for excitement, urged her on.
“We never get the things we really want. That would be Paradise.... And what do you want so particularly?”
“What I am afraid there is no chance of gaining,” he replied softly; “the heart of the dearest, most beautiful woman in the world.”
“You want—a good deal.”
“Nothing less would content me.”
The studio was on the roof of a building in Victoria Street and was reached by a long flight of stairs from his living apartments below. Somewhere down there a middle-aged, flat-footed woman acted as his servant, but she never came into the studio unless Frank rang for her. The sounds of the traffic made a dull, heavy[185] grumbling below, but no other noise intruded upon them.
He looked at his sitter and he found her very desirable and very beautiful, especially to-day, with that touch of languor, that air of laisser faire, as of one who lays down the oars and deliberately lets the boat drift with the current. Was it only a momentary mood? Did he dare to say more?
She looked at the man, and she found him young and very much alive, fully aware and appreciative of her femininity.
Unconsciously she sighed.
In an instant he had thrown down the brushes and was at her side, a light in his eyes, a look on his face that made her shrink back a little and catch at the arms of the chair.
“Claudia!”
She raised her eyebrows interrogatively.
He had dropped on his knees beside her chair—he could do such things gracefully—and his lips were pressed on the back of her hand, on her wrist, on her soft forearm.
“Don’t, Frank, I——”
“Claudia, I worship you” he said recklessly. “You must know it. Don’t keep me at arm’s length any longer. You are driving me mad by your coldness. I can’t paint, I can’t sleep.... I can only think of you as you might be if you would let yourself love me.”
They had both risen to their feet, and he slipped his arm persuasively round her shoulders. His nearness seemed to deprive her of any will or any desire to repulse him. Love is sweet, and his evident sincerity and passion seemed to soothe some aching wound within her. Was not this what she needed to make her life tolerable? Every woman is entitled to love, and her marriage had been a mistake. Perhaps, if she had known all she knew now and she had met Frank earlier....
[186]
“Claudia, my dearest, say something to me.”
He drew her unresistingly to him, and the lids drooped over her eyes as she felt the warmth of his breath on her face and then the pressure of his lips.
There was none of the fierce masculinity and violence of Gilbert’s early love-making. Frank Hamilton was too much of an artist for that, and it was not the first time he had made love to a fastidious, sensitive woman. He gave her just the right impression, just the assurance she needed at that moment of tender affection and almost reverent passion. Had he been more virile in his love-making, memory would have awakened, and with her later knowledge she would have repulsed him. She would have said to herself, “This is passion, only passion, and I know what a little it means.” Suspicion would have plucked at her sleeve. But Frank struck the right note, partly by instinct, partly by design.
When at last she made a faint resistance to the pressure of his arms, he slowly let her go, only to catch her hands and cover them again with kisses. She looked down at the waves of his dark hair, worn a little longer than is usual, but not noticeably “artistic,” and she felt sure that she cared for him. He had given a grateful warmth to her heart. A glow of tenderness rose in her for him.
“I think you are foolish to care so much for me,” she said softly.
He drew her hands up till they rested on his shoulders, and he smiled with happy contradiction into her face. He was very good-looking in his triumph, and she could not help rejoicing in his comeliness. The Greeks worshipped beauty, and were they so wrong? Youth and good looks ought to be part of love. Surely it is the ideal.
“Now you look as I knew you could look,” he said half dreamily; “your eyes are soft and velvety like the[187] petals of the pansy. I must kiss them once again ... dear eyes ... beautiful eyes ... and I’ve looked into them such a long time, hoping to see them soften and glow as they do now. Claudia, if you knew how much I love you.”
“I wonder why,” she laughed, with the harmless coquetry of the woman who knows herself loved, “when there are such a number of women in the world.”
“There isn’t any woman comparable to you. I don’t realize now that another woman exists on the face of the earth. I feel as if you and I were standing on a desert island. There are many people on the other islands, of course, but not on ours.” He really meant it at the moment.
She pretended to laugh at his extravagance, but all the time she felt that this was the way a man should love a woman. Had she not felt like that when she had been in love with Gilbert? The world had consisted of Gilbert—and people. Of course, Frank loved her more than she did him, but that somehow evened up things a little. She had loved Gilbert more than he had loved her.
“Always I know how little severs me
From my heart’s country....”
he murmured.
“Then I saw the tombstones in the dark and their message,” she interrupted, the scene in the motor recurring to her.
“You saw——?”
“Nothing ... only don’t quote poetry; it makes everything seem so unreal.”
“Unreal?” He caught her to him passionately. “Is this unreal? Don’t you believe in my love?”
She let her head droop on his shoulder. “Men have such large hearts—or such small ones. Don’t look so hurt, dear.... It’s true. Men love and unlove so much more easily than women.” But her lips smiled and took the sting out of her words. The lips said, “I want to believe,”[188] while the worldly, cynical words flowed over them. “What is fire to-day, Frank, is ashes to-morrow.”
“You don’t believe that love can last?”
His eyes shone, and he made a most convincing lover. His voice had the right ring. She could feel the pulsating warmth of his hand through the thin ninon of her sleeve. “Claudia, you mean everything to me—everything. I hardly dared to hope, and yet I had to, just as a ship-wrecked sailor has to dream of land or he would die. I have worked hard because I wanted to be worthy of your praise, of your confidence. You have inspired everything I have done. All the time I have been striving to please you.”
It was balm to her, it was food for her heart’s hunger. He had worked hard at his profession but to please her, to lay his success as an offering at her feet—art, not for art’s sake, but for love’s. That was the right romantic spirit, a little exalté, a little extravagant; but then, he was an artist, and had not innumerable artists owed their lives’ inspiration to women? She was glad she had been able to help him, to introduce him into a circle that had started the ball of success a-rolling for him. She had been able to give and he had appreciated the giving, for love always seeks self-immolation, and Claudia had nothing of the vampire in her composition. Love! Did she love him? Was it not inevitable after her first experience that she should be a little uncertain of her own feelings?
“I hoped, I prayed you would turn to me one day.... He doesn’t appreciate you. He takes your beauty and your sweetness as his right. Everyone sees it.”
She was a little startled. So she and Gilbert’s marital relations were being discussed just like other couples’ in their set. Gilbert’s coldness and neglect were being talked about over the teacups of Mayfair. Her pride revolted against it, and her half-formed determination to[189] console herself like the other women she knew hardened. Something that had been pricking her a little ceased to do so. She would take the sweets offered her. After all, life soon ended—in a tombstone. An epigram she had heard a few days previously recurred to her mind: “Let every woman see to it that she has a present, so that the future may not find her unprovided with a past.” Who cared about either her morals or her ethics? She had only herself to reckon with. Herself! Well, she would consider that another time.
“We won’t discuss him.... Never. You understand, Frank?”
He had read the sudden tumult of her thoughts.
“You are still in love with him?” he said jealously. “Of course, I know a woman like you must have married for love. Tell me—you must answer me this one question, then I will respect your wishes.... Are you?”
She did not hesitate, but she made a deliberate pause, as though she were finally settling the question with her own heart.
“No, I no longer love him, because the man I loved does not exist.... Now go on with the picture. The light will soon go, and I want to see it finished. Please.”
Reluctantly he went back to the easel and took up his palette. She stood on the platform, watching him. He caught her look and squared his shoulders.
“This is going to be my best picture,” he said enthusiastically. “Love and beauty! Why, the very worst artist would be inspired. I know I can do big things if you encourage me.” He stopped, and then came back to where she stood. “Claudia, you never acknowledged you loved me. Say you do, dearest?”
His eyes were very beseeching and like a child’s, a little distressed at the doubt that had flung its shadows across his happiness.
“Claudia, you do love me?”
[190]
“I—I think I do, Frank. No, you must be content with that at present.” She waved him back.
“But some day you will love me as I love you.” His eyes were steady now, and the accent of the voice was that of the conquering male.
She laughed a little uncertainly and a faint flush rose to her cheeks.
“Shall I? Oh, what conceited creatures men are! And—I don’t know how much you love me. A woman never knows. Now go on with the portrait.”
As she went down in the lift some time later it stopped at the second floor, and to her surprise the gate admitted Colin Paton.
“You!” he exclaimed pleasantly. “And what are you doing in Victoria Street?”
For a moment she had an unpleasant feeling of having been caught doing something clandestine, and her reply was a little embarrassed. She never remembered to have felt quite so before.
“Didn’t you know that Mr. Hamilton’s studio is up at the top? The portrait, you know.”
She was very annoyed with herself for the feeling, and went on quickly:
“It was you who begged me to continue the sittings. So I have been trying to please you. But it’s very tiresome.”
She wondered what made her tack on the last sentence even as she uttered it. Was it because she feared that his keen eyes would note her embarrassment? Why did she have to be a hypocrite? She was glad when the lift stopped and the bright electric light ceased to shine on her face. The street was grey and more kindly.
“Beauty must be penalized some way or another,” he rejoined smilingly. “Some women would be only too glad to put up with the boredom should a well-known portrait-painter beg them to sit.”
[191]
She arranged her veil and looked round for her motor.
“You don’t know his work, do you?”
The fresh air of the street was refreshing after the enervating atmosphere of the studio.
“I saw some of his pictures the other day at a show. It’s clever work.”
“Not more than that?” Her tone implied that his praise was too tepid.
“Does it quite satisfy you?”
She was feeling vaguely irritated at the encounter. Why did he make her feel uncomfortable, and why did he belittle Frank’s work? He was usually generous in his praise. Had he any suspicion with regard to their friendship? She answered untruthfully, with a touch of defiance:
“Yes, I think it quite satisfies me.”
“Well, you’re a good judge. Perhaps I’ve lost my taste for pictures in the Argentine. Big spaces are apt to make you rather intolerant of some so-called ‘artistic’ achievements. Genius always stands out, but talent somehow gets awfully dwarfed. Don’t you know what I mean?”
“Well, we’re not in the Argentine. We’re in Victoria Street.” No, she would not admit that Frank had only talent.
He laughed and dropped the subject. “I know it well by the roar of the buses. I met a fellow out there who was desperately homesick, and he confided to me that he’d give anything to see the scavengers washing down the street as he drove home from the club, and see the wet pavement shining under the street lamps. How’s Gilbert to-day?”
“He has gone to his chambers.”
“What? Why, he was in bed yesterday.”
“I know.” She shrugged her shoulders under their luxurious furs. “But the only thing that counts with[192] Gilbert is his work, you know. He refuses to stop in bed any longer.” She looked him straight in the face and her eyes were bright and hard. “Tell me something. Did you always know that work is the only real thing in Gilbert’s life? But, of course, you knew. You see most things in your quiet, undemonstrative way.”
They were standing beside the car. The door was open for her to step into it.
For a moment he was nonplussed. What answer could he make to such a question? But while he was groping for some words, she held out her hand with a little amused, cynical laugh.
“Yes. I see you did know. You need not tell a lie. I think you might have warned me. Good-bye.”
She left him standing on the pavement, his grey eyes troubled and anxious.
She leaned back and tried to think of Frank and the difference his love was going to make in her life. She tried to give herself up again to the pleasant feeling of being cared for, of being appreciated. She tried to recapture the thrill his caresses had given her; but she could not. She could only see the troubled grey eyes of Colin Paton.
“He’s spoilt my afternoon,” she said angrily to herself as the car sped homewards. “He’s spoilt my afternoon. And he is only a dreamer. He has no right to judge me.”
But Colin Paton was not the judge.