CHAPTER XXIV.
When by a long and roundabout way he at last reached his home on foot, and walked through the stone-paved, whitewashed corridor, looking absently before him, he perceived sitting beneath a mulberry-tree, the lower boughs of which were covered with the blossoms of a climbing rose, an attractive female figure, whose golden hair gleamed in the sunlight. She was sitting in a basket chair, and was engaged upon a piece of delicate crochet-work. She wore a gown of some white woollen stuff, very simply made, and confined at the waist by a belt of russet leather; the sleeves, which were rather short, left exposed not only the wrists, but part of a plump arm, white and smooth as polished marble, and the finely-formed throat rose as white and polished from the turn-down sailor collar, beneath which a dark-blue cravat was loosely knotted. How deft and skilful, as she worked, was every movement of her rather large but faultlessly-shaped hands!
She was somewhat stout, but there was a certain charm in that. The broad full shoulders gave an impression of vigour that nothing could subdue. Lozoncyi could not but admire them. He was amazed. Yesterday there had been shrieks and screams, torn clothes and broken furniture, while to-day, after a scene that would have made any other woman ill, there was not a trace of fatigue, no dark shade beneath the steel-blue eyes, not a wrinkle about the rather large mouth. What a fund of inexhaustible vitality the woman possessed! what triumphant, healthy vigour! Not a sign of nervousness, of useless agitation; no breath of exaggeration.
Ah, she had her good side,--there was no denying it. He sighed, and, hearing himself sigh, was startled by the turn his thoughts were taking. Was it possible that after a forced companionship of scarcely two days--a companionship of which, when he could not avoid it, he had taken advantage to hurl in the woman's face his hatred and contempt for her--old habits were asserting their rights?
She went on crocheting. The sunlight crept down from among the climbing roses and glittered upon her crochet-needle. At last it shone in her eyes: she moved her chair to avoid the dazzling glare, and, looking up, saw him. Instead of the dark looks she had given him yesterday, she smiled slowly, blinking her strange cat-like eyes in the sunshine, and by her smile disclosing a row of pearly teeth. He passed her sullenly, as if she had taken an unjustifiable liberty with him, and went into the studio, wishing to persuade himself that he had a horror of her, that she repelled him. He hoped to feel that disgust for her with which the thought of her had inspired him since love for Erika had filled his heart; but he did not feel the disgust.
He lingered for less time than usual before Erika's portrait, which occupied a large easel in the most conspicuous place in the studio, and went to his writing-table. Several business letters awaited him there; he opened them with an impatient sigh. They were for the most part requests for answers to letters received by him weeks previously. Since he had been in Venice his business correspondence--in fact, his business affairs generally--had fallen into terrible disorder.
He opened the latest letter: it contained columns of figures. It was the account from his picture-dealer. He snapped his fingers, and, sitting down, tried to comprehend it. In vain! The figures danced before his eyes. Involuntarily he looked up. Through the glass door of the studio a pair of greenish eyes were gazing at him with an expression of good-humoured raillery. His heart began to beat fast. Formerly she had conducted his entire correspondence for him,--with what perfect regularity and skill! Before she had taken up the trade of model in consequence of a love-affair with an artist, she had been a dame de comptoir; she was as skilled in accounts as a bank-clerk. He needed but to speak the word, and she would reduce all these provoking affairs to perfect order; but he would ask no favour of her. Then she opened the studio door, and, entering softly, laid a warm strong hand upon his shoulder. He tried to persuade himself that he disliked the touch of this hand. But he did not dislike it: it had a soothing effect upon his excited nerves. Nevertheless he forced himself to shake it off.
The woman laughed, a low, gentle laugh,--the laugh of a cynic. She lighted a cigarette and handed it to him, saying, "Pauvre bébé, try to rest instead of settling those accounts: I will do it all for you in the twinkling of an eye, while it would take you until next week."
This time she did not lay her hand upon his shoulder, but stroked his head gently. "Voyons, Séraphine!" he said, crossly, shaking her off.
She laughed again, good-humouredly, carelessly, with unconscious cynicism. Before three minutes had passed, she was seated in his stead at the writing-table, and he, with the cigarette which she had offered him between his lips, was standing lost in thought before Erika's portrait.