Everybody, of course, in the Studio Building knew the old man and his old sister by sight, but only one or two well enough to speak to him; none of them to speak to the poor, faded woman, who would climb the stairs so many times a day, always stopping for her breath at the landing, and always with some little package—a pinch of tea, or a loaf of bread, or fragment of chop—which she hid under her apron if she heard anyone's steps. She was younger than her brother by a few years, but there was no mistaking their relationship; their noses were exactly alike—long, semi-transparent noses, protruding between two wistful, china-blue eyes peering from under eyebrows shaded by soft gray hair.
The rooms to which the sister climbed, and where the brother worked, were at the top of the building, away up under the corridor skylight, the iron ladder to its trap being bolted to the wall outside their very door. It was sunnier up there, the brother said. One of the rooms he used for his studio, sleeping on a cot behind a screen; the other was occupied by his sister. What little housekeeping was necessary went on behind this door. Outside, on its upper panel, was tacked a card bearing his name:
Adolphe Woolfsen.
When he had moved in, some years before—long before Dalny arrived in the building—the agent had copied the inscription in his book from this very card, and had thereafter nailed it to the panel to identify the occupant. It had never been removed, nor had any more important name-plate been placed beside it.
Sometimes the janitor, in addressing him, would call him "Mr. Adolphe," and sometimes "Mr. Woolfsen"; sometimes he would so far forget himself as to let his tongue slip half-way down "Old Sunshine," bringing up at the "Sun" and substituting either one of the foregoing in its place.
The agent who collected his rent always addressed him correctly. "If it was agreeable to Mr. Woolfsen, he would like to collect," etc. Sometimes it was agreeable to Mr. Woolfsen, and sometimes it was not. When it was agreeable—this the janitor said occurred only when a letter came with a foreign postmark on it—the old painter would politely beg the agent to excuse him for a moment, and shut the door carefully in the agent's face. Then would follow a hurried moving of easels and the shifting of a long screen across his picture. Then the agent would be received with a courteous bow and handed to a chair—a wreck of a chair, with the legs unsteady and the back wobbly, while the tenant would open an old desk, take a china pot from one of the cubby-holes, empty it of the contents, and begin to count out the money, smiling graciously all the time. When it was not agreeable to pay, the door was closed gently and silently in the agent's face, and no amount of pounding opened it again—not that day, at least.
Only Dalny knew what was behind that screen, and only Dalny divined the old man's reasons for concealing his canvas so carefully; but this was not until after weeks of friendly greeting, including certain attentions to the old sister, such as helping her up the stairs with a basket—an unusual occurrence for her, and, of course, for him. This time it was a measure of coal and a bundle of wood that made it so heavy.
"Thank you, sir," she had said in her sweet, gentle voice, her pale cheeks and sad eyes turned toward him; "my brother will be so pleased. No, I can't ask you in, for he is much absorbed these days, and I must not disturb him."
This little episode occurred only a few days after the incident of the interchange of the portions of milk, and was but another step to a foregone intimacy—so far as Dalny was concerned. Not that he was curious, or lacked society or advice. It was Dalny's way to be gracious, and he rarely had cause to repent it. He did not pretend to any system of friendliness when meeting any fellow-lodger on the stairs. It began with a cheery "Good-morning," or some remark about the weather, or a hope that the water didn't get in through the skylight and spoil any of his sketches. If a pleasant answer came in response, Dalny kept on, and in a week was lending brushes or tubes of color or a scuttle of coal, never borrowing anything in return; if only a gruff "Yes" or a nod of the head came in reply, he passed on down or up the stairs whistling as usual or humming some tune to himself. This was Dalny's way.
At first the painter's sobriquet of "Old Sunshine" puzzled Dalny; he saw him but seldom, but never when his face had anything sunny about it. It was always careworn and earnest, an eager, hungry look in his eyes.