The Empty Sack Part 31

"I'm not a thief-but I took the money. They're after me, and they mustn't get me. I'll shoot myself first; but I don't have to shoot myself-yet."

He would not have to shoot himself so long as he was safe, and safety might take many turns. The abandoned, half-burnt sty in which he had found refuge was a fortress in its very loneliness. Close to the road, close to Jersey City, not very far from Pemberton Heights, it had probably no visitor but a toad or a bird or a truant boy from twelvemonth to twelvemonth.

His chief danger was that of being seen. The door and the window were both on the side toward the road. By avoiding the one and ducking under the other, he could move, but he could move very little. That little, however, would stretch his muscles and relieve the intolerable idleness.

The idleness, he knew, would be irksome. By looking at his watch, which had not run down, he found it was six o'clock. The six o'clock stir was also in the air. Motors had begun to dash along the road, and market garden teams were lumbering toward the big town. He was hungry again, but with his seven doughnuts still in the bag he couldn't starve to death.

By getting on the floor he found a peephole just above the level of the gra.s.s through which he could see without detection. This must be his spying place. Unlikely as it was that anyone would track him to this lair, he must be carefully on the lookout. What he should do if threatened with a visitor was not very clear to him. There being no exit except by the door, and the door being toward the road from which a visitor would naturally approach, there was no escape on that side.

Escape being out of the question, there would only remain-the other thing. The other thing was always the great possibility. He hadn't abandoned the thought of it; he had only postponed the necessity. He would live as long as he could; and yet the necessity of the other thing would probably arise. If it arose, he hoped he should get through it by that tendency which he recognized in himself as clearly as Mr. Bickley had read it from his profile-to act before he thought.

With this as a possibility, he got down to his peephole, put the pistol near him on the floor, and began on his doughnuts. For breakfast, he allowed himself three, keeping the rest for his midday needs. When darkness fell he would steal out and buy more. He could do this as long as his money held out, and before it was spent something would probably have happened. What that something would be he did not forecast. He was in a fix where forecasting wasn't possible. The minute was the only thing, and a thing that had grown precious.

Even the family had somehow become subordinate to that. In the strangeness of his night, he seemed to have traveled away from them. A man clinging to a spar on the ocean might have had this sense of remoteness from his dear ones safe on sh.o.r.e. Since they were safe on sh.o.r.e, that would be the main thing. Since his mother and sisters could come and go in Indiana Avenue, he could wish them nothing more. That was the all-essential, and they had it. Want, anxiety, grief, "and no Teddy coming home in the evenings," were trifles as compared with this priceless blessing of security.

So he settled down amid filth and slime and the debris of charred wood to watch and wait and cling to his life till he could cling to it no longer.

Later that morning, Mrs. Collingham motored from Marillo to see Hubert Wray's much-discussed picture, "Life and Death," in a famous dealer's gallery in Fifth Avenue. It had hung there a week, and though the season was dead, it was being talked about. Among the few in New York who care for the art of painting, the picture had "caught on." The important critics had honored it with articles, in which one wrote black and another white with an equal authority. The important middlemen had come in to look at it, saying to one another, "Here's a fellow who'll go far-_en voila un qui va faire son chemin_." The important connoisseurs had made a point of viewing it, with their customary fear of expressing admiration for the work of a native son. From the few who knew, the interest was spreading to the many who didn't know but were anxious to appear as if they did.

Junia's introduction to the picture had caused her some chagrin. She had not ranked Hubert among the important family acquaintances, and when he came down to Collingham Lodge, for a night or two, as occasionally he did, she presented him to only the more negligible neighbors. "A young man Bob met in France," was all the explanation he required.

But in dining out recently she had been led in to dinner by a man of unusual enlightenment, with whose flair and discernment she liked to keep abreast. To do this she was accustomed to fall back on such sc.r.a.ps of reviews or art notes as drifted to her through the papers, bringing them out with that knack of "putting her best goods in the window" which was part of her social equipment. Books and the theater being too light for her attention, she was fond of displaying in music and painting the _expertise_ of a patroness. She could not only talk of Boldini and Cezanne, of Paul Dukas and Vincent d'Indy, but could throw off the names of younger men just coming into view as if eagerly following their development.

Her neighbor's comments on the new picture, "Life and Death," at the Kahler Gallery were of value to her chiefly because they were up to date and told her what to say. "A reaction against the cubists and post-impressionists in favor of an art rich in color, suggestion, and significance," was a useful phrase and one easy to remember. But not having caught the painter's name, she felt it something of a shock when, with the impressiveness of one whose notice confers recognition, her escort went on to remark: "I'm going to look up this young Hubert Wray and ask him down to Marillo. You and Bradley will be interested in meeting him."

Junia's chagrin was inward, of course, and arose from the fact of having had a budding celebrity like a tame cat about the house, not merely without suspecting it, but without keeping in touch with the thing he was creating. At the same time, she couldn't have been the woman she was had it not been for the faculty of tuning herself up to any necessary key.

Her smile was of the kind that grants no superiority even to a man of unusual enlightenment.

"You can't imagine how interested I am in hearing your opinion of the dear boy's work, and so I've been letting you run on. He happens to be a very intimate friend of ours-he comes down to stay with us every few weeks-and I've been watching his development so keenly. I really do think that with this picture he'll arrive; and to have a man like you agree with me delights me beyond words."

It was also the excuse she needed for calling Hubert up. More than two months had pa.s.sed since her meeting with Jennie, and the twenty-five thousand dollars was still lying to her credit at the bank. She was not unaware of a reason for this, in that Bradley had told her of old Follett's death, and even a "bad girl" like Jennie must be allowed some leeway for grief. But Follett had been nearly two weeks in his grave, and still the application for the twenty-five thousand didn't come.

Unless a pretext could be found for keeping Bob in South America, he would soon be on his way homeward, and she, Junia, was growing anxious.

To be face to face with Hubert would give her the opportunity she was looking for.

He met her at the street entrance to the Kahler Gallery, conducting her through the main exposition of canvases to a little shrine in the rear.

It was truly a shrine, hung in black velvet, and with no lighting but that which fell indirectly on the vivid, vital thing just sprung into consciousness of life, like Aphrodite risen from the sea foam. But, just sprung into consciousness of life, she had been called on at once to contemplate death, eying it with a mysterious spiritual courage. The living gleam of flesh, the marble of the throne, and the skull's charnel ugliness stood out against a blue-green atmosphere, like that of some other plane.

Junia was startled, not by the power and beauty of this apparition, but by something else.

"You've-you've changed her," she said, with awed breathlessness, after gazing for three or four minutes in silence.

"You mean the model?"

She nodded a "Yes," without taking her eyes from the extraordinary vision.

"You've seen her?" he asked, in mild surprise.

"Just once."

"The figure is exact," he explained, "but I did have to make changes in the features. It wouldn't have done, otherwise."

"No, of course not."

More minutes pa.s.sed in silent contemplation, when she said:

"I thought there was more of the gleam of the red in amber in the hair.

This hair is a brown with a little red in it."

"I got it as nearly as I could," he felt it enough to say. "The shade and sheen and silkiness of hair are always difficult."

After more minutes of hushed gazing, Junia made a venture. She spoke in that insinuating, sympathetic tone which in moments of tensity a woman can sometimes take toward a man.

"You're in love with her-aren't you?"

He jerked his head in the direction of the nude woman.

"With her? That model? Why, no! What made you think so?"

Junia was disconcerted.

"Oh, only-only the hints that have seeped through when you didn't think you were giving anything away."

He said, with some firmness:

"I never meant to give that away-or to hint that it was-that it was love-a _rouleuse_ of the studios, whom any fellow can pick up."

Junia felt like a person roaming aimlessly through sand who suddenly stumbles on gold. There was more here than, for the moment, she could estimate. All she could see were possibilities; but there was one other point as to which she needed to be sure. It was conceivable that the thing might have been painted long ago, before Bob's departure for South America, in which case it would lose at least some of its value for her purpose.

"When did you do this, Hubert?"

"Oh, just within the last few weeks."

This was enough. With her usual swiftness of decision, she had her plans in mind.

"What are you asking?"

He named his price. It was a large one, but her balance at the bank was large. It could be put to this use as well as to another.

"I'll take it," she said, after a minute's consideration, "if you could let me have it within a few days."

Not to betray the eagerness he felt, he said that it would give him publicity to keep it on view as long as possible.

"It will be almost as much publicity to have it on view at Marillo."

And in the end he agreed that this was so.

He walked back to the studio as if wings on his feet were lifting him above the pavement. It was the seal on his success. "Sold to a private collector" would be a bomb to throw among the dealers, who had been taking their time and d.i.c.kering. It was more than the seal on this one success; it was a harbinger of the next success. And with this thing behind him, the next success was calling to him to begin.