Later in the evening somebody told her what a personage he had become, and she became even more deeply thrilled, impressed, and tremulously desirous that he should seek her out again, not venturing to seek him, not dreaming of encouraging him to notice her by glance or attitude—not even knowing, as yet, how to do such things. She thought he had already forgotten her existence.
But that this thin, freckled young thing with grey 42 eyes ought to learn how much of a man he was remained somewhere in the back of Neeland’s head; and when he heard his hostess say that somebody would have to see Rue Carew home, he offered to do it. And presently went over and asked the girl if he might—not too patronisingly.
In the cutter, under fur, with the moonlight electrically brilliant and the world buried in white, she ventured to speak of his art, timidly, as in the presence of the very great.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I studied in Paris. Wish I were back there. But I’ve got to draw for magazines and illustrated papers; got to make a living, you see. I teach at the Art League, too.”
“How happy you must be in your career!” she said, devoutly meaning it, knowing no better than to say it.
“It’s a business,” he corrected her, kindly.
“But—yes—but it is art, too.”
“Oh, art!” he laughed. It was the fashion that year to shrug when art was mentioned—reaction from too much gabble.
“We don’t busy ourselves with art; we busy ourselves with business. When they use my stuff I feel I’m getting on. You see,” he admitted with reluctant honesty, “I’m young at it yet—I haven’t had very much of my stuff in magazines yet.”