Before I could frame an answer to that, Gigi emerged, pushing before him a little stand on which was a block of fine pink marble which I had obtained years before, in peculiar circumstances. It was a piece I had long been guarding for some future master-work of mine—something that was to be absolutely original, yet wholly classic; one has such dreams. And here was Gigi showing it to that girl! His admiration for her had become so boundless that he opened up his heart to her in all the three languages he could use. If the Signorina would deign, he would explain to Mademoiselle that this was a little, little block of marble which his own cognato had stolen one night (knowing it to be a good action) from the workshop of the marvellous Duomo which she herself would see when she saw the most beautiful cathedral in all Italy! And his brother-in-law had sold it to a great sculptor who was visiting Italy at that time, but of course did not know it was stolen. (Gigi was lying a little, but his lying blends so agreeably with his candor that I myself cannot always distinguish one from the other.)
I saw that the blue-eyed girl was thoroughly enjoying Gigi. Though this was before the day of the so-called Greenwich Village, I am sure that Miss Chittenden thought that now at last, freed alike from her Missouri uncle and her Fifth Avenue aunt, she was seeing Bohemia; perfectly respectably too. If only a celebrated model or two had strayed in, her happiness would have been complete. As it was, she garnered up Gigi’s sayings with the same single-hearted attention she had given to my own. He explained, in his party-colored way of speech, that this little block was marvellously fine in grain; it was free from dark streaks, too—he would stake the tomb of his fathers on that!—while its crowning exquisiteness lay in its color, a pale surpassing pink as of earliest dawn over Tuscany. There was no other marble in the world quite like it. That was why his cognato had been obliged to steal it, for the sake of art. If you had any taste at all, any love for the beautiful, you would call it using, not stealing! And again, behold! While it was too small for a head (except a bambino’s head, and it was a little too long for that, unless you wasted a great deal, and certainly it was more of a sin to waste such marble than to steal it), it was just exactly the right size for the dear hand of the Signorina’s mother, lying upon the open book, or even on the closed book, with the knitting-needles protruding; difficult, of course, but where there’s a wish, there’s a road—
I stared astounded at Gigi. In all the ten years he had worked for me, I had never heard from him so many words at once. I could not dam the flood.
“Ah, oui,” he pursued, “certamente Mademoiselle could have the lace around the wrist, if she so wished, and—”
“No, Gigi,” I interposed firmly. “The lady cannot have the lace. Not with the knitting-needles. At one or the other I draw the line.” Again, we three laughed together. What was there about this dewy-eyed girl that made us so natural and human? Was it the Missouri in her? Old Schneider was from Missouri, but he never made me feel human. Was it her beauty? Very likely, but at the time, I doubted it. One always does doubt it, at the time. The result was, as I have already confessed, I fell for the girl in blue, as I was to call her in later days. I weakly told her that if Gigi would rough out the hand and the book, in the pale pink marble, I would be willing to finish it for her; yes, I added cynically, I would put in all the morbidezza the most exacting client could require. I would charge her four hundred dollars for the completed work. It was a high price, I told her. Others might do it for less; not I. And mind, there were to be no knitting-needles and no lace, unless I should greatly change my idea. She drooped visibly, not at the price, which seemed to be of little moment to her, but at the loss of the homely details in the work by which she hoped to elevate our art. To console her, I said that I would probably design a bit of drapery to take the place of the lace, but nothing fussy or obtrusive. I told her that she could have the thing completed, on her return to New York, a year later. Just as she was leaving the studio, to rouse the footman from his colored supplement in the anteroom, where he had remained, doubtless under orders from Auntie, I pulled myself together to contemplate the extent to which I had fallen. Perhaps I could climb up again. Perhaps my high ideals in art were not lost forever.
“Remember, Miss Chittenden,” said I, in what I hoped would be an impressive manner, “remember this! If after you have visited galleries and studios abroad, and seen the works of Rodin and Dampt and Donatello and Bourdelle and Praxiteles and Maillol and a few others, remember, if one year later, when you’ve had more observation of art, you should no longer care to have this hand in marble, I for my part will call this contract of ours null and void; and you may do the same.” It sounded well, as I said it.
The blue-eyed one flashed back on me her friendly, all-conquering smile. “I shall remember,” she said. “But you know, my name isn’t Chittenden, at all. Never was, and never will be, I hope! In fact, I have other plans—but no matter! You thought I was a chit, and so you called me Chittenden—”
This bit of girlish reasoning struck me as being so straight from Sigmund Freud that I was disconcerted. But she hastened to cover my confusion.
“It’s all right,” she laughed. “I didn’t want to take up your time by correcting a perfectly reasonable mistake. And if you’d rather call me Chittenden, pray do! But my name is really Clarenden, with Mariellen in front. See!” She offered me another of her cards. Her face took on a look of charming gravity as we shook hands. “Whatever happens,” she said, “I know you will be very careful of the plaster cast. I know you understand my feeling about it.”