Pleasure? Never before had he taken such deep, utter joy in his work. Not merely joy in the doing—that was his invariable experience—but joy in the completed work. Never before had he brought anything so near to the finish without a feeling of dissatisfaction, sense of failure, of having just missed his aim. He viewed the picture from a dozen points. And each time he beheld in it something new, something yet more wonderful.
“I’m damned if it’s there! It simply can’t be. Not the greatest genius who ever lived could produce what I imagine I see.”
He took a dozen new positions, standing long at each view point. But the illusion—it must be illusion!—refused to vanish. The work—the figure part of it—persisted in appealing to him as a product of transcendent genius.
“That business didn’t stop a minute too soon—not a minute! For it’s evident I was on the verge of falling in love.”
“On the verge?”... What was the meaning of the illusion of a picture greater than ever artist made?... On the verge?
“Why, hang it all, I’ve done nothing but think about her since we kissed. I’m bewitched! I’m in love!”
The kiss was a week old now—ought to have lost its power long ago; for there is power in a kiss from a pretty woman, even though a man does not love her. But this kiss had an extraordinary, an unprecedented quality. Other kisses—in days gone by—had given their little sensation and had straightway drifted into the crowd of impressions about the woman or about the general joyousness of life when the senses are normal and responsive. But this kiss—it had individuality, a body and soul of its own, a Jack’s bean-stalk kind of vitality. It was more vigorous day by day. He could feel it much more potently to-day than on the day it was given. Really, it did not make a very powerful impression then. He had experienced much better kisses. He had felt awkward—a little ridiculous—rather uneasy and anxious to escape. Now——
“Not a minute too soon—not a minute! As it is, I’m going to have the devil’s own time forgetting her.”
What had become of all his projects for a career, for rapid striding into fame? Gone—quite gone. He simply wanted to stay at the studio and work on and on and yet on at the one picture—at the one figure in that picture. He had vaguely decided on a scheme for another picture when this should be done. What was it? Why, a picture of a woman sitting under a tree, her hands listless, her whole body relaxed and inert—except her eyes. Her eyes were to be winging into the depths of the infinite. He had planned out the contrast between the eyes, so intensely, so swiftly alive, and the passive rest of her. And who was this woman? Rix! He had still more vaguely planned a third picture. Of what? Rix again.
“Not a minute too soon? By Heaven, a minute too late!”