The Azure Rose Part 15

"Yet you, sir, look pale, and your friend"--her forehead puckered--"told me that you had been ill."

"My friend?" He spoke as if he had none in the world, though now he knew better.

"Yes: such a pleasant old gentleman with gray hair and gla.s.ses. As I came in half an hour ago, I met him on the stairs."

"Fourget!"

"Was that his name? He seemed most anxious about you."

"He is my friend."

"I like him," said the Lady of the Rose.

"Then you understand him. I didn't understand him--till this morning.

He is an art-dealer: those that he won't buy from think him hard; the friends of those that he buys from think him a fool."

Although he had rea.s.sured her of his health, she seemed charmingly willing to linger. Really, she was looking at Cartaret's haggard cheeks with a wonderful sympathy.

"So he bought from you?"

Cartaret nodded.

"Only I hope _you_ won't think him a fool," he said.

"I shall consider," she laughed. "I must first see some of your work, sir."

She came farther into the room. She moved with an easy dignity, her advance into the light displaying the lines of her gracile figure, the turn of her head discovering the young curve of her throat; her eyes, as they moved about his studio, were clear and starry.

In the presence of their original, Cartaret had forgotten the portraits. Now she saw them and turned scarlet.

It was a time for no more pride on the part of the painter: already, head high in air, she had turned to go. It was a time for honest dealing. Cartaret barred her way.

"Forgive me!" he cried. "Won't you please forgive me?"

She tried to pa.s.s him without a word.

"But listen. Only listen a minute! You didn't think--oh, you didn't think I'd sold him one of those? They were on the wall when he came in, and I couldn't get them away in time. I'd put them up--Well, I'd put them up there because I--because I couldn't see you, so I wanted to see them."

His voice trembled; he looked ill now: she hesitated.

"What right had you, sir, to paint them?"

"I don't know. I hadn't any. Of course, I hadn't any! But I wouldn't have sold them to the Luxembourg."

What was it that Fourget had told her when he met her on the stair?--"Mademoiselle, you will pardon an old man: that Young Cartarette cannot paint pot-boilers, and in consequence he starves.

For more things than money, mademoiselle. But because he cannot paint pot-boilers and get money, he starves literally."--Her heart smote her now, but she could not refrain from saying:

"Perhaps the Luxembourg did not offer--in the person of M. Fourget?"

The last vestige of his pride left Cartaret.

"He wanted to buy those portraits," he said. "I know that my action loses by the telling of it whatever virtue it might have had, but I'd rather have that happen than have you think what you've been thinking.

He offered me more for them than for all my other pictures together, but I couldn't sell."

It was a mood not to be denied: she forgave him.

"But you, sir, must take them all down," she said, "and you must promise to paint no more of them."

He would have promised anything: he promised this, and he had an immediate reward.

"To-morrow," she asked, "perhaps you will eat _dejeuner_ with Chitta and me?"

Would he! He did not know that she invited him because of Fourget's use of the phrase "starving literally." He accepted, declaring that he would never more call Friday unlucky.

"At eleven o'clock?" she asked.

"At eleven," he bowed.

When she was gone, Cartaret went again to the window that looked on the concierge's garden. The robins were still singing:

"Seize hold of love! It is a rose--a white rose. Take it--take it--take it now!"

CHAPTER VIII

CHIEFLY CONCERNING STRAWBERRIES

Theft in its simplicity--however sharp and rude, yet if frankly done, and bravely--does not corrupt men's souls; and they can, in a foolish, but quite vital and faithful way, keep the feast of the Virgin Mary in the midst of it.--Ruskin: _Fors Clavigera_.

It was quite true that he had resolved to be careful of the money that old Fourget had paid him for the pot-boiler. He still meant to be careful of it. But he was to be a guest at _dejeuner_ next morning, and a man must not breakfast with a Princess and wear a costume that is really shockingly shabby. Cartaret therefore set about devising some means of bettering his wardrobe.

His impulse was to buy a new suit of clothes, as Seraphin had done when he sold his picture. Seraphin, however, had received a good deal more money than Cartaret, and Cartaret was really in earnest about his economies: when he had spent half the afternoon in the shops, and found that most of the ready-made suits there exposed for sale would cost him the bulk of his new capital, he decided to sponge his present suit, sew on a few b.u.t.tons and then sleep with it under his mattress by way of pressing it. A new necktie was, nevertheless, imperative: he had been absent-mindedly wiping his brushes on the old, and it would not do to smell more of turpentine than the exigencies of his suit made necessary; the scent of turpentine is not appetizing.

If you have never been in love, you may suppose that the selection of so small a thing as a necktie is trivial; otherwise, you will know that there are occasions when it is no light matter, and you will then understand why Cartaret found it positively portentous. The first score of neckties that he looked at were impossible; so were the second. In the third he found one that would perhaps just do, and this he had laid aside for him while he went on to another shop. He went to several other shops. Whereas he had at first found too few possibilities, he was now embarra.s.sed by too many. There was a flowing marine-blue affair with white _fleur-de-lys_ that he thought would do well for Seraphin and that he considered for a moment on his own account. He went back to the first shop and so through the lot again.

In the end, his American fear of anything bright conquered, and he bought a gray "four-in-hand" that might have been made in Philadelphia.

On his return he went to the window to see how his strawberries were doing. He remembered the anecdote about the good cleric, who said that doubtless G.o.d could have made a better berry, but that doubtless G.o.d never did. Cartaret wondered if it would be an impertinence to offer his strawberries to the Lady of the Rose.

They were gone.

He went down the stairs in two jumps. He thrust his head into the concierge's cavern.

"Who's been to my room?" he shouted. He was still weak, but anger lent him strength.

Refrogne growled.