A Top-Floor Idyl

by George Van Schaick

"You've evidently stuck to the model a great deal," I commented further, "but you've also idealized, made poetry of her."

"And you're talking like a donkey," my friend told me, rather impatiently. "I simply have better eyes than you. Of course, I suppose you've seen a lot of her, for she seems to think the sun rises and sets on you, but you haven't studied every bit of her face as I've done. I've idealized nothing at all, but my own appreciation of her, and perhaps a trick or two, have caught you. The light came right through this open window, naturally, and caused that glint of the fluffy ends of hair, like powdered sunlight dusted over the dark chestnut. It also threw those strong high lights over the edges of the features. Then, I stuck those roses between her and the window and they gave the reflected tints. It's just a portrait, you old idiot, and nothing else, except perhaps for the fancy shawl. Of course, everything that wasn't directly illumined was in subdued tones, which account for the softness. You may think it's rather ideal, but that's only because I saw her right and got an effective pose. Hang it all, man! If I gave you a pond and a bunch of trees and blue hills back of them, you might describe them accurately, and yet make the picture an interesting one, in one of those fool stories of yours."

"She is very beautiful," I said, knowing that he expected no direct answer to his tirade.

"If she hadn't been, I shouldn't have bothered with her," he replied, in a tone that rather rasped on my feelings. "That's just what's the matter with her; she's a good-looker and you daren't change anything. If I were to use her again for anything important, fellows would ask if I intend to stick to the same old model, all my life. If I get her to pose just once more, it will be about the end of her usefulness to me, and I'd do it just for the fun of making another study of an interesting type, something to stick among the unframed things piled up against the wall and show people, after this one's sold."

He moved off to get a cigarette from the small square stool on which he keeps brushes and tubes, leaving me to stare in great desolation at the picture of Frances and her baby. So he's going to sell it! Indeed, the more I looked at it the better I realized that it was the woman herself, described by a master. He had naturally seen things I had not noticed, that was all. I think I've never had a great desire for money, but the idea was very irksome that her portrait would be sold and that it would hang on some rich man's wall, stared at only by people merely concerned with the beauty their dollars had bought.

It is, perhaps, just as well that I have some sense of humor. The idea of this wonderful thing hanging in my rather dingy room suddenly struck me as rather incongruous. As well think of a necklace of brilliants about some ragged pauper's neck. To the best of my belief I have never envied the people who can afford to possess the gauds I have sometimes admired in the windows of shops, in which only the rich can ever deal. Why this sudden obsession of a desire to have that picture of the young woman where I could look at it, daily, and delight in its perfection? I have often thought that in my den or in her own room she is as nearly out of place as her picture would be. She impresses one as being able to lend further grace to the most splendid dwelling-place.

Once more I catch myself communing with my folly. After all, Madame Dupont is just a woman; her smile gives charm to her surroundings. When she sits in my old Morris chair, she converts it into the throne of beautiful motherhood and the place into a palace of grace. Why should I care for daubs, for splashes of paint never so cleverly put on, since I can see the model from time to time and rejoice that she counts me among her friends?

"You're the grumpiest old curmudgeon I ever knew," said Gordon, interrupting my cogitations. "You haven't said a word for ten minutes. And so you like it, do you?"

"You've never done anything half so good," I affirmed.

"To tell you the truth, I've a notion I've happened to do something pretty big," he said, nodding. "But a fellow's apt to get hypnotized by his own work, sometimes. I'll have to stop looking at the thing. It'll stay here while I go off to the country for a few weeks and, when I come back, I'll have the right perspective again. But I know it's devilish good. I feel as I did once at the Salon, when I got the Mention Honorable for that codfish and lobster on a marble table. You know, the one Tilson bought. I knew it was right, as soon as I'd finished it."