"And what did they say?"
"They balked," Sylvester admitted calmly. "They're fine girls, Miss
Sheila. And they're lookers. But they just aren't quite fine enough.
They're not artists, like your Poppa and like you—and like me."
Sheila put a hand up to her cheek. Her eyes came back to their accustomed narrowness and a look of doubt stole into her face.
"Artists?"
"Yes'm." Sylvester had begun to walk about. "Artists. Why, what's an artist but a person with a dream he wants to make real? My dream's—The Aura, girl. For three years now"—he half-shut his eyes and moved his arm in front of him as though he were putting in the broad first lines of a picture—"I've seen that girl there back of my bar—shining and good and fine—not the sort of a girl a man'd be lookin' for, mind you, just not that! A girl that would sort of take your breath. Say, picture it, Sheila!" He stood by her and pointed it out as though he showed her a view. "You're a cowboy. And you come ridin' in, bone-tired, dusty, with a thirst. Well, sir, a thirst in your throat and a thirst in your heart and a thirst in your soul. You're wantin' re-freshment. For your body and your eyes and your mind. Well, ma'am, you tie your pony up there and you push open those doors and you push 'em open and step plumb into Paradise. It's cool in there—I'm picturin' a July evenin', Miss Sheila—and it's quiet and it's shining clean. And there's a big man in white who's servin' drinks—cold drinks with a grand smell. That's my man Carthy. He keeps order. You bet you, he does keep it too. And beside him stands a girl. Well, she's the kind of girl you—the cowboy—would 'a' dreamed about, lyin' out in your blanket under the stars, if you'd 'a' knowed enough to be able to dream about her. After you've set eyes on her, you don't dream about any other kind of girl. And just seein' her there so sweet and bright and dainty-like, makes a different fellow of you. Say, goin' into that bar is like goin' into church and havin' a jim-dandy time when you get there—which is something the churches haven't got round to offerin' yet to my way of thinkin'. Now. I want to ask you, Miss Sheila, if you've got red blood in your veins and a love of adventure and a wish to see that real entertaining show we call 'life'—and mighty few females ever get a glimpse of it—and if you've acquired a feeling of gratitude for Pap and if you've got any real religion, or any ambition to play a part, if you're a real woman that wants to be an in-spire-ation to men, well, ma'am, I ask you, could you turn down a chance like that?"
He stood away a pace and put his question with a lifted forefinger.
Sheila's eyes were caught and held by his. Again her mind seemed to be fastened to his will. And the blood ran quickly in her veins. Her heart beat. She was excited, stirred. He had seen through her shell unerringly as no one else in all her life had seen. He had mysteriously guessed that she had the dangerous gift of adventure, that under the shyness and uncertainty of inexperience there was no fear in her, that she was one of those that would rather play with fire than warm herself before it. Sheila stood there, discovered and betrayed. He had played upon her as upon a flexible young reed: that stop, her ambition, this, her romanticism, that, her vanity, the fourth, her gratitude, the fifth, her idealism, the sixth, her recklessness. And there was this added urge—she must stay here and drudge under the lash of "Momma's" tongue or she must accept this strange, this unimaginable offer. Again she opened her eyes wider and wider. The pupils swallowed up the misty gray. Her lips parted.
"I'll do it," she said, narrowed her eyes and shut her mouth tight. With such a look she might have thrown a fateful toss of dice.
Sylvester caught her hands, pressed them up to his chest.
"It's a promise, girl?"