"Let us see if he has any more secrets!" There was relaxation in the clear voice. "Let us hurry; Dick may be here at any moment, and I do so want to get ahead of him just to punish him for his underhand methods!"
Janet heard the two turn; she knew they were coming directly to the platform.
"Once,"—the slow, fine voice had regained its smoothness,—"once in New York I dropped in at Dick's studio when he did not expect me. I wanted him to take me out to luncheon; and I had the oddest experience! Oh! Mr. Devant, look at that bit, pinned to the wall! That is really exquisite! Well, as I was saying, I stole in upon Dick. I called from the outer room that it was I—I wished afterward that I had not!—and then I ran into the studio. As quick as a flash, Dick dropped a curtain, just like this, between me and his easel! I was determined to see what he had been painting, but he positively forbade it. He said it was a painter's prerogative to warn even—love from that holy of holies. I often wonder what was behind the curtain. I realized from that moment that if you want to see a great artist's best work, you must override his modesty and secretiveness—and tear the screen from his altar!"
With a light laugh, the girl now drew aside the sheltering curtain with playful, dramatic force, and lay bare the secret that it hid!
Janet did not move. Her great, startled eyes, dark, intense, and passion-filled, stared helplessly at the two, who, transfixed, returned the stare in frozen silence. So rigid and deathlike the model lay in the meshes of the net, so beautiful and graceful in her motionless pose, that for an instant the intruders could not trust their senses. Then the woman found voice and action.
"I fear," she said slowly, coldly, and distantly, "I fear we really have intruded where we have no right, Mr. Devant." Then she laughed a rich, rippling laugh. "And the captains! where are the captains, my dear Mr. Devant? They seem to have omitted the captains to-day. Pray let us go at once. I would not interfere with Dick's future fame for all the world! I can quite understand why artists hide their best work at times!" Without a word, Mr. Devant dropped the curtain.
Janet heard them go out, heard them lock the door, and realized that they hid the key. She tried to get up, but the intention was only mental and died without an effort. A physical sickness and bodily weakness held her. To lie still was the only course possible, but the thoughts rushed madly through the awakened mind. In that hour womanly instinct was born, the instinct that armed itself against suspicion and another's contempt. Shame, for what was not real but suggested by a coarser mind, hurt and blinded her. The child in Janet had been killed by that white, cold woman, and what arose was more terrible than the slayer could have imagined, for this new creature scorned the innocence and weakness of that lately crushed childhood. It held in contempt the poor, vain, cheap thing that had offered, actually offered, itself to a being that came from a world that knew and had power to despise.
Wave after wave of torment engulfed the poor girl as she lay without a struggle in her net. The apple of understanding had been forced between her lips by the refined cruelty of another woman. Instinctively, Janet found a sort of dumb comfort in the memory of the look she recalled in Mr. Devant's eyes, but while life lasted her soul would shrivel at the memory of the glance which that proud, beautiful girl had cast upon her.
The lovely face upon the sea-green pillows paled and flushed as the flood of growing knowledge gathered force. The eyes grew dark and terror-racked, and misery claimed the newborn woman.
Then again the key grated in the lock. Strengthened by the perception that was now hers, the girl sprang to a sitting posture and drew her feet beneath the shelter of the coarse red skirt. The net ensnared her further and so she sat, caught fast in the meshes and in the terror of her condition.