She made a gesture of despair. "Then there's no use talking about it. I'll never leave mother, never! I'll just have to go on practising out here as best I can, with nobody to listen to me."
"I'll listen to you," consoled Channing, "whenever you'll let me."
"But you'll be going away soon."
"Not very soon," he said. He did not add that he had decided on the moment to remain Farwell's guest until he had exhausted this new interest thoroughly. Channing was not the man to deny himself the luxury of any passing sensation.
He had found himself pleasurably wakeful during the night, thinking of the picture the girl made as she rode into the glare of lamplight, skirts and hair in disarray, laughing like a young Bacchante, the spirit of youth and joy incarnate. Now he drew her out very skilfully, so that he might watch the changing expressions on her vivid face as she talked, or smiled, or bent broodingly over the child in her arms. Here, he thought, was temperament as well as talent. Properly handled, the girl had a career before her.
Nor was his curiosity about her entirely impersonal. Channing, as a rule, felt rather at a loss with girls. Occasionally in his work he found it necessary to introduce the young person, chiefly by way of contrast, and then he did extravagant justice to her rose-white flesh and her budding curves, and got her as speedily as possible into the arms of the villain; after which she became interesting. His natural taste in heroines was for the lady with a past, preferably several pasts. The blot on the woman's character was as piquant to him as the mole upon her shoulder. He had spent an impressionable youth in Paris.
But this Bouncing Bet of the Banister, as he had called her, this young wildwoods creature with all the instincts and none of the experience of his own class, gave an effect of warmth, of vitality, that thrilled him. His gaze kindled as he watched her. She promised to be even lovelier than she was, never as beautiful as the mother, perhaps, but quite beautiful enough to be disturbing, with her soft, thick-lashed eyes, her tender mouth, her slender, straight, finely molded body; no finished product this, but a bit of virgin soul-clay waiting to be modeled; an empty, exquisite vase waiting to be filled with life.
He thought suddenly of that matchless nude of Ingres', "La Source." Young Jacqueline Kildare might have posed for it.
Percival Channing; at thirty-four, had moments of regretting that he had not conserved his energies more carefully, been more truly "wedded to his Art," to use the girl's quaint phrase. He felt latterly a little stale, a little jaded and world-worn. It had occurred to him during the night that contact with so vital a personality might refresh him, might do for him what contact with the earth did for the giant Antæus. Indeed, to his imagination she suggested the earth, field and pasture and wooded stream, nature in her abundance, promise. She was the very essence of this Kentucky, this half-tamed wilderness that he had come to study and to portray.
There is no more charming companion than your temperamentalist, when once the spark is struck. Jacqueline for the first time in her life enjoyed that most subtle flattery of being understood. Here was a person, a thoroughly "grown-up" person, who did not pet and humor her, and tease her as if she were a child; who on the other hand did not demand of her the impossible formalities of young ladyhood. Famous author as he was, he accepted her just as he found her, and liked her that way. She compared him with Philip, always suggesting some change, always trying to improve her; and after all Philip was nothing but a country clergyman!