“Yes, yes,” said Dangerfield breathlessly, “it’s bold; it has audacity; it is not trivial, at any rate. Curious thing—last night—I thought it insufferably bad. I even preferred this!”
He held up the other sketch with a guilty laugh. Mr. Cornelius did exactly the right thing. He put his foot through it.
“Mon ami, you are one colossal ass! Now, isn’t that a nice damn thing? A man who can do what you can to behave so badly. If I could do that, the whole damn family could go cut their throats; je m’en ficherais complètement! That means, mademoiselle, the rest of them too can go right to the devil!” He turned on Dangerfield and shook his fist in his face in Gallic enthusiasm.
“You stop being the big fool; you get to work! You draw; you paint! Where is the model?”
The model, in truth, had been postponed as a result of the previous night’s dissipation. Inga started up, seeing the eager look in Dangerfield’s eyes.
“I’ll run out; I’ll get one right away.”
“Pooh!” said “the baron,” and, to the surprise of them both, he strode to the model-stand, his violet dressing-gown floating behind him, and installed himself in a chair. “Paint me—no compliments—just as I am—Don Juan in old age—Beau Brummel in poverty—le vieux boulevardier. Paint me, and I don’t see nothing till you be satisfied. Now, paint like ze devil!”
In truth, he made a striking figure in his black-felt slippers and white socks, his loose, yellowish trousers, a flash of white at the throat above the faded violet of the dressing-robe, which set forth strongly the aristocratic features; the eyes still alert and compelling above the crinkled sacks which had formed about the hollowed cheeks; the defiant rise of the Gallic mustache, as saucy, as obstinate, and as proud in adversity as in the halls of revelry. Dangerfield exchanged the chairs, giving him one of barer outline, arranged a cold gray background over the screen, and added a faded red footstool. In another ten minutes he was feverishly at work, while Inga, at her pad, strove in vain to catch the spirit of the pose—yet thoroughly content.
The incident sank deep into her understanding. Dangerfield had rejected her sure instinct, and yet, a day later, had been convinced at the first word from Mr. Cornelius. She comprehended, not without a pang, all that lay in the feeling of caste, what power Mr. Cornelius, of Dangerfield’s own world, might have over him where she might strive in vain. At once she began to reach out for his assistance, to study the reticent, kind old man, to flatter him subtly, to please him by a dozen little attentions, and draw him into the intimacy of the studio.
What pleased her most was that Mr. Cornelius had the power to make Dangerfield talk. Often now, in the dark, after the day’s work was done, the easel put away, and the rug rolled back, the two men would stretch back, puffing on their pipes, and discuss art and life and the thousand and one affairs of the world which may always be better regulated in conversation. Dangerfield was still far from being tamed, as O’Leary had put it, but something had come now to aid her in the struggle, a new curiosity still unsatisfied, a wonder whether the months of disappointment had not left a compensating gift in a clearer vision. There were bad moments, when he found that old habits had set their yoke over his will and aroused a thirst of the flesh that rose up at times and overwhelmed him in dazed nights of defeat. But the dawn had broken at last through the clouds, and, little by little, hoping, doubting, he had begun to believe in himself.