...
II
Some work that I was doing about
this time on the decorations for Geneviève's boudoir kept me constantly
at the quaint little hotel in the rue Sainte-Cécile. Boris and I
in those days labored hard but as we pleased, which was fitfully, and we
all three, with Jack Scott, idled a great deal together.
One quiet afternoon I had been wandering
alone over the house examining curios, prying into odd corners, bringing
out sweetmeats and cigars from strange hiding-places, and at last I stopped
in the bathing-room. Boris all over clay stood there washing his hands.
The room was built of rose-colored
marble excepting the floor which was tessellated in rose and gray. In the
center was a square pool sunken below the surface of the floor; steps led
down to it, sculptured pillars supported a frescoed ceiling. A delicious
marble Cupid appeared to have just alighted on his pedestal at the upper
end of the room. The whole interior was Boris' work and mine. Boris, in
his working clothes of white canvas, scraped the traces of clay and red
modelling wax from his handsome hands, and coquetted over his shoulder
with the Cupid.
"I see you," he insisted, "don't
try to look the other way and pretend not to see me. You know who made
you, little humbug!"
It was always my role to interpret
Cupid's sentiments in these conversations, and when my turn came I responded
in such a manner that Boris seized my arm and dragged he toward the pool,
declaring he would duck me. Next instant he dropped my arm and turned pale.
"Good God!" he said, "I forgot the pool is full of the solution!"
I shivered a little, and drily advised
him to remember better where he had stored the precious liquid.
"In Heaven's name why do you keep
a small lake of that grewsome stuff here of all places?" I asked.
"I want to experiment on something
large," he replied.
"On me, for instance!"
"Ah! that came too close for jesting;
but I do want to watch the action of that solution on a more highly organized
living body; there is that big white rabbit," he said, following me into
the studio.
Jack Scott, wearing a paint-stained
jacket, came wandering in, appropriated all the Oriental sweetmeats he
could lay his hands on, looting the cigarette case, and finally he and
Boris disappeared together to visit the Luxembourg gallery, where a new
silver bronze by Rodin and a landscape of Moneta's were claiming the exclusive
attention of artistic France. I went back to the studio, and resumed my
work. It was a Renaissance screen, which Boris wanted me to paint for Geneviève's
boudoir. But the small boy who was unwillingly dawdling through a series
of poses for it, to-day refused all bribes to be good. He never rested
an instant in the same position, and inside five minutes, I had as many
different outlines of the little beggar.
"Are you posing, or are you executing
a song and dance, my friend?" I inquired.
"Whichever monsieur pleases," he
replied with an angelic smile.
Of course I dismissed him for the
day, and of course I paid him for the full time, that being the way we
spoil our models.
After the young imp had gone, I
made a few perfunctory daubs at my work, but was so thoroughly out of humor,
that it took me the rest of the afternoon to undo the damage I had done,
so at last I scraped my palette, stuck my brushes in a bowl of black soap,
and strolled into the smoking-room. I really believe that, excepting Geneviève's
apartments, no room in the house was so free from the perfume of tobacco
as this one. It was a queer chaos of odds and ends hung with threadbare
tapestry. A sweet-toned old spinet in good repair stood by the window.
There were stands of weapons, some old and dull, others bright and modern,
festoons of Indian and Turkish armor over the mantel, two or three good
pictures, and a pipe-rack. It was here that we used to come for new sensations
in smoking. I doubt if any type of pipe ever existed which was not represented
in that rack. When we has selected one, we immediately carried it somewhere
else and smoked it; for the place was, on the whole, more gloomy and less
inviting than any in the house. But this afternoon, the twilight was very
soothing, the rugs and skins on the floor looked brown and soft and drowsy;
the big couch was piled with cushions, I found my pipe and curled up there
for an unaccustomed smoke in the smoking-room. I had chosen one with a
long flexible stem, and lighting it fell to dreaming. After a while it
went out, but I did not stir. I dreamed on and presently fell asleep.
I awoke to the saddest music I had
ever heard. The room was quite dark, I had no idea what time it was. A
ray of moonlight silvered one edge of the old spinet, and the polished
wood seemed to exhale the sounds as perfume floats above a box of sandal
wood. Some one rose in the darkness, and come away weeping quietly, and
I was fool enough to cry out "Geneviève!"
She dropped at my voice, and I had
time to curse myself while I made a light and tried to raise her from the
floor. She shrank away with a murmur of pain. She was very quiet, and asked
for Boris. I carried her to the divan, and went to look for him, but he
was not in the house, and the servants were gone to bed. Perplexed and
anxious, I hurried back to Geneviève. She lay where I had left her,
looking very white.
"I can't find Boris nor any of the
servants," I said.
"I know," she answered faintly,
"Boris has gone to Ept with Mr. Scott. I did not remember when I sent you
for him just now."
"But he can't get back in that case
before to-morrow afternoon, and are you hurt? Did I frighten you into falling?
What an awful fool I am, but I was only half awake."
"Boris thought you had gone home
before dinner. Do please excuse us for letting you stay here all this time."
"I have had a long nap," I laughed,
"so sound that I did not know whether I was still asleep or not when I
found myself staring at a figure that was moving toward me, and called
out your name. Have you been trying the old spinet? You must have played
very softly."
I would tell a thousand more lies
worse than that one to see the look of relief that came into her face.
She smiled adorably and said in her natural voice: "Alec, I tripped on
that wolf's head, and I think my ankle is sprained. Please call Marie and
then go home."
I did as she bade me and left her
there when the maid come in.
End of PART TWO..... GO TO PART
THREE..... 
