He looked down at her, considering her while the smile that she knew and liked best and thought best suited to his face, began to glimmer; that amused, boyish, bantering smile hinting of experience and wisdom delightfully beyond her.
"I really think that you're a very unusual girl," he said. "I don't want to spoil you by telling you so every minute."
"You don't spoil me by telling me so. Sometimes I think you may spoil me by not telling me so."
"Miss West! You're spoiled already! I'm throwing bouquets at you every minute! You're about the only girl who ever sat for me with whom I talk unreservedly and incessantly."
"Really, Mr. Neville?"
"Yesreally, Mr. Neville," he repeated, laughing"you bad, spoiled little beauty! You know devilish well that if there's any intellectual space between you and me it's purely a matter of circumstance and opportunity."
"Do you think me silly enough to believe that!"
"I think you clever enough to know it without my telling you."
"I wish you wouldn't say that."
She was still smiling but in the depths of her eyes he felt that the smile was not genuine.
"See here," he said, "I don't want you to think that I don't mean what I say. I do. You're as intelligent a woman as I ever knew. I've known girls more cultivated in general and in particular, but, I say again, that is the hazard of circumstance. Is all clear between us now, Miss West?"
"Yes."
He held out his hand; she glanced up, smiled, and laid her own in it. And they shook hands heartily.
"Good business," he said with satisfaction. "Don't ever let anything threaten our very charming accord. The moment you don't approve of anything I say or do come straight to me and complainand don't let me divine it in your eyes, Miss West."
"Did you?"
"Certainly I did. Your lips were smiling but in your eyes was something that did not corroborate your lips."
"Yes. But how could you see it?"
"After all," he said, "it's part of my business to notice such things." He seated himself on the arm of her chair and bent over the wax model, his shoulder against hers. And the chance contact meant nothing to either: but what he said about men and things in the world was inevitably arousing the intelligence in her to a gratitude, a happiness, at first timid, then stirring subtly, tremulously, toward passionate response.
No man can do that to a girl and leave the higher side of her indifferent or unresponsive. What he had arousedwhat he was awakening every day in her was what he must some day reckon with. Loyalty is born of the spirit, devotion of the mind; and spiritual intelligence arouses fiercer passions than the sensuous emotions born of the flesh.
Leaning there above the table, shoulder to shoulder, his light finger tips caressing the wax model which she had begun, he told her clearly, and with the engaging candour which she already had begun to adore in him, all about what she had achieved in the interesting trifle before themexplained to her wherein she had failed not only to accomplish but to see correctlywherein she had seen clearly and wrought intelligently.
He might have been talking to a brother sculptorand therein lay the fascination of this manfor herthat, and the pains he always took with herwhich courtesy was only part of himpart of the wonder of this man; of his unerring goodness in all things to her.
Listening, absorbed in all that he said she still was conscious of a parallel thread of thought accompanyinga tiny filament of innocent praise in her heart that chance had given her this man to listen to and to heed and talk to and to think about.
"I won't touch what you've done, Miss West," he said, smilingly; "but just take a pinch of waxthat way!and accent that relaxed flank muscle! Don't be afraid; watch the shape of the shadows. That's it! Do you see? Never be afraid of dealing vigorously with your subject. Every modification of the first vigorous touch is bound to weaken and sometimes to emasculate. I don't mean for you to parade crudity and bunches of exaggerated muscle as an ultimate expression of vigour. Only the devotee of the obvious is satisfied with that sort of result; and our exhibitions reek with them. But there is no reason why the satin skin and smooth contour of a naked child shouldn't express virility and vigourno reason why the flawless delicacy of Venus herself should not, if necessary, express violence unexaggerated and without either distortion or lack of finish."
He glanced across at the dozing cat:
"Under that silky black fur there are bones and fibres and muscles. Don't exaggerate them and call your task finished; merely remember always that they're there framing and padding the velvet skin. More is done by skilful inference than by parading every abstract fact you know and translating the sum-accumulative of your knowledge into the over-accented concrete. Reticence is a kind of vigour. It can even approach violence. The mentally garrulous kill their own inspiration. Inadequacy loves to lump things and gamble with chance for effective results."
He rose, walked over and examined Gladys, touched her contemplatively with the button of his mahl-stick, and listened absently to her responsive purr. Then, palette still in hand, he sat down opposite Valerie, gazing at her in that detached manner which some mistook for indifference:
"There are, I think, two reasons for failure in art," he said, "excess of creative emotion, excess of psychological hair-splitting. The one produces the normal and lovable failures which, decorate our art exhibitions; the other results in those curious products which amuse the public to good-humoured contemptI mean those pictures full of violent colour laid on in streaks, in great sweeps, in patches, in dots. The painter has turned half theorist, half scientist; the theories of the juxtaposition of colour, and the science of complementary colours, engrosses his attention. He is no longer an artist; he is a chemist and physiologist and an artisan.
"Every now and then there is a revolt from the accepted order of things. New groups form, sometimes damning what they call the artificial lighting of the studio, sometimes exclaiming against the carnival of harmonious or crude colour generally known as 'plein air.' Impressionists scorn the classic, and vice versa. But, Miss West, as a matter of fact, all schools are as good as all religions.
"To speak of studio lighting as artificial and unworthy is silly. It is pretty hard to find anything really artificial in the world, indoors, or out, or even in the glare of the footlights. I think the main idea is that a man should prefer doing what the public calls his work, to any other form of recreationshould use enough reasonnot too muchenough inspirationbut watching himself at every brush stroke; and finally should feel physically unfetteredthat is, have the a b c, the drudgery, the artisan's part of the work at his finger tips. Then, if he does what makes him happy, whether in a spirit of realism or romanticism, he can safely leave the rest to Fate."
He looked at her, curiously for a moment, then a smile wholly involuntary broke over his face:
"Lord! What a lecture! And you listened to all that nonsense like an angel!"
The dreamy absorption died out in her eyes; she clasped her hands on her knee, looked down, then up at him almost irritably:
"Please go on, Mr. Neville."
"Not much. I've a few stunts to execute aloft there"
He contemplated her in amused silence, which became more serious:
"You have talent, Miss West. Artistic talent is not unusual among Americans, but patience is. That is one reason why talent accomplishes so little in this country."