His expression—amused, intensely, boyishly amused—halted her. She had been blushing. She flamed scarlet, looked as if she were about to sink with humiliation. Then she lifted her head proudly and a strange light came into her eyes—a light that made him quail. “Anyway you please,” she said—and the words came jerkily—“Anything you please.” And she fled.
He stared after her until she was lost to view among the rocks and bushes. He held the brush poised before the canvas—laid it down again—gazed at the radiant figure he was conjuring in the midst of his picture. He drew a huge breath. “Well, to-morrow night will be the finish,” he muttered. “And it’s high time.”
V
AN ATTEMPT TO DAZZLE
At a quarter past eight the following night Roger drove up to the vast entrance to Red Hill in the buggy he had hired from Burke, the Deer Spring liveryman. Five lackeys in gorgeous livery, with powdered hair and white silk stockings—five strapping fellows with the dumb faces and the stalwart figures the rich select as menial showpieces—appeared in the huge doorway. Three of them advanced to assist Roger. A fourth disappeared—to telephone the stables about this unexpected, humble equipage. The fifth stood upon the threshold, ready to take the hat and coat of the evening’s one guest from without. The moon was high, almost directly above the towers of the great, gray chateau. By the soft, abundant light Roger surveyed the splendid, broad terraces that broke the long and steep descent to Lake Wauchong; the enormous panorama of untouched wilderness covering little mountain, big hill and valley far as the eye could reach—all of it the property of Daniel Richmond. Nearer, in the immediate neighborhood of the house were the elaborations of the skilled landscape gardener. It was indeed a scene of beauty—beauty as well as magnificence—an interesting exhibit of the grandiose style of living wherein the rich sacrifice practically all the joys of life and most of its comforts for the sake of tickling their own vanity and stimulating the envy of their fellow-beings.
As Roger advanced into the lofty, gloomily paneled entrance hall—its carvings had cost a fortune—he drew off his overcoat, disclosing evening dress that would have passed muster on a figure far less in need of ornamentation than his massive yet admirably proportioned frame with its climax of godlike head. And the most impressive feature of that head was the frank simplicity of the expression of the face—that expression which marks the man who is something and lifts him high above the flocks and herds of men who are trying—not too successfully—to seem to be something. The modern evening dress for men is one of the few conventions—perhaps the only one—not designed to bolster up insignificance by reducing all to the same level of smooth elegance. It is one of the curiosities of the history of manners how such a blunder came to be firmly established as a propriety. In evening dress, as in no other kind of costume or lack of costume, the personality, the individuality, of the wearer obtrudes itself to every eye. At a glance one may classify any number of men by their qualities and quantities of head and heart. Beatrice Richmond, coming along the corridor leading into the entrance hall from the east, stopped short at sight of her artist.
She herself, in an evening gown of pale silver, with lovely shoulders bare and graceful head looking exquisite under its crown of simply arranged, yellow hair, was quite a different person from the rather hoydenish elf of wood and stream whom Roger had been painting. But she had lost, instead of gaining, in the transformation. She was more beautiful, but much less fascinating. She had been leveled down toward the conventional. She merely looked what the newspapers call “a beautiful, young, society girl.” Roger, on the other hand, had gained. He was retaining all his charm of the large, the free, the sincere, the natural; he now had in addition a certain refinement that yet had nothing of conventionality’s cheapness. It was somewhat like the difference between a thoroughbred uncurried and curried. His natural proportions showed to better advantage in this sleekness than they had in the rough.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Roger, as he took her hand. “Am I late, or is it the wrong evening?”
“Neither,” she assured him, and it delighted her to note that he did not dream of taking to himself her pale and trembling joy in his splendor of manhood. “Nothing much. Just—I was thinking this is the first time we’ve seen each other in civilized dress.”
“Oh!” Roger evidently thought this not worth pursuing. “This is a wonderful place you’ve got here. It’d be hard to blame anybody for making any sort of sacrifice to keep it.” He glanced round with the expression of a man used to such surroundings. In fact, there was nothing about him which in the remotest degree suggested the ill-at-easeness she had anticipated and feared. She felt humbled. He was again—and where she had least expected it—rebuking her nervousness over trifles and exaggeration of them. As they stood in the corridor, talking, she could discover not a trace of the awe she had confidently expected and hoped for. He treated her precisely as he had in the woods. But she was not discouraged. She felt that he must be deeply impressed, that he must be understanding now why she had taken the proposing upon herself—and must be appreciating what a fine thing that proposal was. He was concealing his feelings, reasoned she—was perhaps unconscious of them; later on they would show in results.
“I’ll take you to mother,” said she.