“Maybe your mother and sister won’t want me. If they knew I was a model, I’m sure they wouldn’t.”
“Great Scott!” burst from Jimmy, “that just proves how beautiful you are, Marion. If I were a girl, I’d be proud to say the artists wanted me for all those fine paintings. I’ve not seen a magazine cover to compare with your face, Marion, and, say—my folks ought to be proud to know you, eh, Evans?”
Evans grinned, and Benevenuto nodded violently. It was nice to have Jimmy think so well of my “profession,” and I didn’t tell him that all models were not necessarily beautiful. Some of them are very ugly but “paintable.”
As we were going along in the car, Jimmy said to Evans:
“Say, Bill, you want to get next to my sister’s friend, Miss Underwood. She’s a fine girl, and has heaps of dough. My sister wants her for a sister-in-law, but little Jimmy has his own ideas.” Turning to me, he added with a tender smile: “She can’t begin to hold a candle to you, Marion.”
Jimmy’s people lived in a very fine house, and I felt much impressed and somewhat anxious as we passed in. His sister looked like Jimmy and had his features, but where the tall, swinging figure and handsome features made a fine-looking man, the same type in a woman did not make a beauty. She looked hard and bony. Her manner to me was of the most frigid, and I saw her give Jimmy an angry glance, as he airily presented me. She kept him on one excuse or another right by her side and that of a very tall girl all evening. Benevenuto and Evans were soon playing for the company, and I, who had not been introduced to many of the people, found a quiet corner of the room, where I could sit unobserved and watch every one.
I had been there some time, and Benny and Evans had given way to a girl who was singing in a high voice “The Rosary,” when I heard Benevenuto’s voice speaking softly in my ear:
“Miss Marion, will you me permit to call upon you?”
He was small and dark, and his hands were soft and brown. He had shining black eyes and hair that curled. He could play beautifully, the reason why the students at the boarding-house chummed with him; and then Evans was a great favorite with them all, and the two were indispensable to each other. They got engagements to play together in concerts and musicales. Evans was working his way through college in this way. Many people looked upon Benevenuto as a musical prodigy. He could play almost any musical instrument. His father was a barber, his brother a cook; but all of his humble relatives were contributing to the musical education of this talented member of their family.
I had never given Benny much thought or attention, except when he played in the room below me, where Evans roomed. I would open my door and listen to the strains of music, and sometimes Evans would call up to me to come down. One day I had been listening to them play, and when they got through joked with Benny about something. He came over and sat down beside me on the couch, and he said: