The creating power lay in the slight, well-defined form, in the fine hair—that just missed being red gold—which waved over the high brows and played with the ears and neck, and in the little curves of fulness of the cheeks and neck, above all in the full grey-blue eyes which took such an absorbing interest in all things. She was a woman, now and always,—that fact so dominant in her presence eliminated any discussion of beauty. Some people, unimaginative and literal, called her plain, and talked about hands and feet and a waist much too ample, and features too heavy, and many other details, but those who had suffered her charm and remembered it, smiled—she would inspire a scarecrow.
“And how do you do, after all these months?” In the warmth of her special welcome Anthon forgot the little arrangement about his attitude to Miss Parker which he had made with himself. “I came from London to see you.”
“No, not really.” Miss Parker laughed as if it were a delicious fib, but one she would like to believe. “That was very good of you!”
“You were going out?”
“Yes, and we will go together. To the Louvre. Just think, I have been here six weeks, and I have peeped into the Louvre but once. Mrs. Ormiston Dexter—she’s my aunt whom I am travelling with—has been so miserable, and the children all had to go to the dentist’s. But we shall have such a beautiful time—you will take me to see just what is best. I like to be shown things so!” Her eager eyes looked out like a child’s over the prospect of a new toy. “Tell me about your year in London. What have you been doing? You never sent me any of your articles.”
Anthon twisted his moustache and evaded the last reproach.
“I’ve met a lot of people, the right kind, who are in things,” and he detailed a list of names naïvely. “They have been awfully kind and nice to me.”
“Of course,” Miss Parker responded slyly. She was so sympathetic, Mrs. Ormiston Dexter declared, that she would hobnob with the devil and take his views of the universe—for the time.
“So you will be a big literary man, and write books or become an editor and live in London.”
“Not so fast,” the young man protested. “You will make me poet laureate before you are done. I’m on the road, that is all. Now I must do something good, really good, you know, to justify all the belief those fellows have in me. But I knew enough not to stay in America. It’s the only way, to come over here and get in, get to be known and have your work talked about by the world, not write for the provinces.”