“What’s this?”
“Deed to this house,” he said. “It’s from Coxey. Thank him. We kept it all in his name until today. Now it’s in your name.”
CHAPTER XII A BROKEN SYMBOL
i
Vera by this time was in high, romantic quest of that which cannot be found outside oneself. She had a passion to be utterly free. It was a cold, intellectual phantasy, defeated in every possibility by some strange, morbid no-saying of her emotional nature. Her delusion had been that circumstances enthralled her. That refuge now was gone. Wealth gave her control over the circumstances of her life. She could do what she pleased. She was free to seek freedom and her mind was strong and daring.
She leased an old house in West Tenth Street and had it all made over into studio apartments, four above to be let by favor to whom she liked and one very grand on the ground floor for herself. Then she became a patron of the arts. It is an easy road. Art is hungry for praise and attention. Artists are democratic. They keep no rules, go anywhere, have lots of time and love to be entertained by wealth, if only to put their contempt upon it. The hospitality of a buyer must be bad indeed if they refuse it. Vera’s hospitality was attractive in itself. Her teas were man teas. Her dinners were gay and excellent. They were popular at once and soon became smart in a special, exotic way. Her private exhibitions were written up in the art columns.
She had first a conventional phase and harbored academic art. That passed. Her taste became more and more radical; so also of course did her company. I went often to see her there,—to her teas and sometimes to her dinners, because one could seldom see her anywhere else. But it was a trial for both of us. She introduced me always with an air which meant, “He doesn’t belong, as you see, but he is all right.” I was accepted for her sake. The men were not polite with each other. They quarrelled and squabbled incessantly, mulishly, pettishly, in terms as strange to me as the language of my trade would have been to them. They were polite to me. That was the distinction they made.
As Vera progressed, her understanding of art becoming higher and higher, new figures appeared, some of them grossly uncouth, either naturally so or by affectation. She discovered a sculptor who brought his things with him to be admired,—small ones in his pockets, larger ones in his arms. I could not understand them. They resembled the monstrosities children dream of when they need paregoric. He had been stoker, prize-fighter, mason, poet, tramp,—heaven knows what!—with this marvellous gift inside of him all the time. He wore brogans, trousers that sagged, a shirt open to the middle of his hairy chest, a red handkerchief around his neck and often no hat at all.