“Turn round, Mary,” went on Stefan; “the Nixie is behind you.”
Mary faced the canvas, another of his favorite underwater pictures. The Nixie sat on a rock, in the green light of a river-bed. Green river-weed swayed and clung about her, and her hair, green too, streamed out to mingle with it. In the ooze at her feet lay a drowned girl, holding a tiny baby to her breast. This part of the picture was unfinished, but the Nixie stood out clearly, looking down at the dead woman with an expression compounded of wonder and sly scorn. “Lord, what fools these mortals be,” she might have been saying.
The face was not a portrait—it was Felicity only in its potentialities, but it was she, unmistakably. The picture was brilliant, fantastic, and unpleasant. Mary said so.
“Of course it is unpleasant,” he answered, “and so is life. Isn't it unpleasant that girls should kill themselves because of some fool man? And wouldn't sub-humans have a right to ribald laughter at a system which fosters such things!”
“He has painted me as a sub-human, Mrs. Byrd,” drawled Felicity through her smoke, “but when I hear his opinion of humans I feel complimented.”
“It seems to me,” said Mary, “that she's not laughing at humans in general, but at this particular girl, for having cared. That's what makes it unpleasant to me.”
“I dare say she is,” said Stefan carelessly. “In any case, I'm glad you find it unpleasant—in popular criticism the word is only a synonym for true.”
To Mary the picture was theatrical rather than true, but she did not care to argue the point. She turned to the portrait, a clever study in lights keyed to the opalescent tones of the silk dress, and showing Felicity poised for the first step of a dance. The face was still in charcoal—Stefan always blocked in his whole color scheme before beginning a head—but even so, it was alluring.
Mary said with truth that it would be a fine portrait.
“Yes, I like it. Full of movement. Nothing architectural about that,” he said, glancing by way of contrast at the great Demeter drowsing from the furthest wall. “The silk is interesting, isn't it?”