XIV
So Brown told her about his theory; how he desired to employ a model, how he desired to study her; what were his ideas of the terms suitable.
He talked fluently, earnestly, and agreeably; and his pretty audience listened with so much apparent intelligence and good taste that her very attitude subtly exhilarated Brown, until he became slightly aware that he was expressing himself eloquently.
He had, it seemed, much to say concerning the profession and practice of good literature. It seemed, too, that he knew a great deal about it, both theoretically and practically. His esteem and reverence for it were unmistakable; his enthusiasm worthy of his courage.
He talked for a long while, partly about literature,[127] partly about himself. And he was at intervals a trifle surprised that he had so much to say, and wondered at the valuable accumulations of which he was unburdening himself with such vast content.
The girl had turned her back to the lagoon and stood leaning against the coquina wall, facing him, her slender hands resting on the coping.
Never had he had such a listener. At the clubs and cafés other literary men always wanted to talk. But here under the great southern stars nobody interrupted the limpid flow of his long dammed eloquence. And he ended leisurely, as he had begun, yet auto-intoxicated, thrillingly conscious of the spell which he had laid upon himself, upon his young listener—conscious, too, of the spell that the soft air and the perfume and the stars had spun over a world grown suddenly and incredibly lovely and young.
She said in a low voice: "I need the money very much.... And I don't mind your studying me."
"Do you really mean it?" he exclaimed, enchanted.
"Yes. But there is one trouble."
"What is it?" he asked apprehensively.
"I must have my mornings to myself."[128]
He said: "Under the terms I must be permitted to ask you any questions I choose. You understand that, don't you?"
"Yes," she said.
"Then—why must you have your mornings to yourself?"
"I have work to do."
"What work? What are you?"
She flushed a trifle, then, accepting the rules of the game, smiled at Brown.
"I am a school-teacher," she said. "Ill health from overwork drove me South to convalesce. I am trying to support myself here by working in the mornings."
"I am sorry," he said gently. Then, aware of his concession to a very human weakness, he added with businesslike decision: "What is the nature of your morning's work?"
"I—write," she admitted.
"Stories?"
"Yes."
"Fiction?"
"Anything, Mr. Brown. I send notes to fashion papers, concerning the costumes at the Hotel Verbena; I write for various household papers special articles which would not interest you at all. I write little stories for the women's and children's[129] columns in various newspapers. You see what I do is not literature, and could not interest you."
"If you are to act for me in the capacity of a model," he said firmly, "I am absolutely bound to study every phase of you, every minutest detail."
"Oh."
"Not one minute of the day must pass without my observing you," he said. "Unless you are broad-minded enough to comprehend me you may think my close and unremitting observation impertinent."
"You don't mean to be impertinent, I am sure," she faltered, already surprised, apprehensive, and abashed by the prospect.
"Of course I don't mean to be impertinent," he said smilingly, "but all great observers pursue their studies unremittingly day and night——"
"You couldn't do that!" she exclaimed.
"No," he admitted, troubled, "that would not be feasible. You require, of course, a certain amount of slumber."
"Naturally," she said.
"I ought," he said thoughtfully, "to study that phase of you, also."
"What phase, Mr. Brown?"
"When you are sleeping."[130]
"But that is impossible!"
"Convention," he said disdainfully, "makes it so. A literary student is fettered.
"But it is perfectly possible for you to imagine what I look like when I'm asleep, Mr. Brown."
"Imagination is to play no part in my literary work," he said coldly. "What I set down are facts."
"But is that art?"
"There is more art in facts than there are facts in art," he said.
"I don't quite know what you mean."
He didn't, either, when he came to analyse what he had said; and he turned very red and admitted it.
"I mean to be honest and truthful," he said. "What I just said sounded clever, but meant nothing. I admit it. I mean to be perfectly pitiless with myself. Anything tainted with imagination; anything hinting of romance; any weak concession to prejudice, convention, good taste, I refuse to be guilty of. Realism is what I aim at; raw facts, however unpleasant!"
"I don't believe you will find anything very unpleasant about me," she said.
"No, I don't think I shall. But I mean to[131] detect every imperfection, every weakness, every secret vanity, every unworthy impulse. That is why I desire to study you so implacably. Are you willing to submit?"
She bit her lip and looked thoughtfully at the stars.
"You know," she said, "that while it may be all very well for you to say 'anything for art's sake,' I can't say it. I can't do it, either."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't. You know perfectly well that you can't follow me about taking notes every minute of the twenty-four hours."
He said very earnestly: "Sir John Lubbock sat up day and night, never taking his eyes off the little colony of ants which he had under observation in a glass box!"
"Do you propose to sit up day and night to keep me under observation?" she asked, flushed and astounded.
"Not at first. But as my studies advance, and you become accustomed to the perfectly respectful but coldly impersonal nature of my observations, your mind, I trust, will become so broadened that you will find nothing objectionable in what at first might scare you. An artist's model, for example——"[132]
"But I am not an artist's model!" she exclaimed, with a slight shiver.
"To be a proper model at all," he said, "you must concede all for art, and remain sublimely unconscious of self. You do not matter. I do not matter. Only my work counts. And that must be honest, truthful, accurate, minute, exact—a perfect record of a woman's mind and personality."
For a few moments they both remained silent. And after a little the starlight began to play tricks with her eyes again, so that they seemed sparkling with hidden laughter. But her face was grave.
She said: "I really do need the money. I will do what I can.... And if in spite of my courage I ever shrink—our contract shall terminate at once."
"And what shall I do then?" inquired Brown.
The starlight glimmered in her eyes. She said very gravely:
"In case the demands of your realism and your art are too much for my courage, Mr. Brown—you will have to find another model to study."
"But another model might prove as conventional as you!"
"In that case," she said, while her sensitive[133] lower lip trembled, and the starlight in her eyes grew softly brilliant, "in that case, Mr. Brown, I am afraid that there would be only one course to pursue with that other model."
"What course is that?" he asked, deeply interested.
"I'm afraid you'd have to marry her."
"Good Lord!" he said. "I can't marry every girl I mean to study!"
"Oh! Do you mean to study very many?"
"I have my entire life and career before me."
"Yes. That is true. But—women are much alike. One model, thoroughly studied, might serve for them all—with a little imagination."
"I have no use for imagination in fiction," said Brown firmly. After a moment's silence, he added: "Is it settled, then?"
"About our—contract?"
"Yes."
She considered for a long while, then, looking up, she nodded.
"That's fine!" exclaimed Brown, with enthusiasm.
They walked back to the Villa Hibiscus together, slowly, through the blue starlight. Brown asked her name, and she told him.
"No," he said gaily, "your name is Thalomene,[134] and you are the tenth muse. For truly I think I have never before been so thoroughly inspired by a talk with anyone."
She laughed. He had done almost all the talking. And he continued it, very happily, as by common consent they seated themselves on the veranda.[135]
