especially the flesh; don’t you think so, Fleur?”
“Yes; only I should have liked that shadow down the side a little deeper.”
“Yes?” murmured the painter: “Perhaps!”
“You’ve caught the spirit,” said Michael. “But I tell you what, old man, you’re for it–the thing’s got meaning. I don’t know what the critics will do to you.”
Aubrey Greene smiled. “That was the worst of her. She led me on. To get an idea’s fatal.”
“Personally, I don’t agree to that; do you, Fleur?”
“Of course not; only one doesn’t say so.”
“Time we did, instead of kow-towing to the Cafe C’rillon. I say, the hair’s all right, and so are the toes–they curl as you look at ’em.”
“And it IS a relief not to get legs painted in streaky cubes. The asphodels rather remind one of the flowers in Leonardo’s ‘Virgin of the Rocks,’ Aubrey.”
“The whole thing’s just a bit Leonardoish, old man. You’ll have to live that down.”
“Oh! Aubrey, my father’s seen it. I believe he’s biting. Something you said impressed him–about our white monkey, d’you remember?”
Aubrey Greene threw up his hands. “Ah! That white monkey–to have painted that! Eat the fruit and chuck the rinds around, and ask with your eyes what it’s all about.”
“A moral!” said Michael: “Take care, old man! Well! Our taxi’s running up. Come along, Fleur; we’ll leave Aubrey to his conscience.”
Once more in the cab, he took her arm. “That poor little snipe, Bicket! Suppose I’d come on YOU as he’ll come on his wife!”
“I shouldn’t have looked so nice.”
“Oh! yes; much nicer; though she looks nice enough, I must say.”
“Then why should Bicket mind, in these days of emancipation?”
“Why? Good Lord, ducky! You don’t suppose Bicket–! I mean, we emancipated people have got into the habit of thinking we’re the world–well! we aren’t; we’re an excrescence, small, and noisy. We talk as if all the old values and prejudices had gone; but they’ve no more gone, really, you know, than the rows of villas and little grey houses.”
“Why this outburst, Michael?”
“Well, darling, I’m a bit fed-up with the attitude of our crowd. If emancipation were true, one could stick it; but it’s not. There isn’t ten per cent. difference between now and thirty years ago.”
“How do you know? You weren’t alive.”
“No; but I read the papers, and talk to the man in the street, and look at people’s faces. Our lot think they’re the tablecloth, but they’re only the fringe. D’you know, only one hundred and fifty thousand people in this country have ever heard a Beethoven Symphony? How many, do you suppose, think old B. a back number? Five thousand, perhaps, out of forty-two millions. How’s that for emancipation?”
He stopped, observing that her eyelids had drooped.
“I was thinking, Michael, that I should like to change my bedroom curtains to blue. I saw the exact colour yesterday at Harton’s. They say blue has an effect on the mind–the present curtains really are too jazzy.”
The eleventh baronet!
“Anything you like, darling. Have a blue ceiling if it helps.”
“Oh, no! But I think I’ll change the carpet, too; there’s a lovely powder blue at Harton’s.”
“Then get it. Would you like to go there now? I can take the Tube back to the office.”
“Yes, I think I’d better. I might miss it.”
Michael put his head out of the window. “Harton’s, please!” And, replacing his hat, he looked at her. Emancipated! Phew!
Chapter IV.
AFTERNOON OF A BICKET
Just about that moment Bicket re-entered his sitting-room and deposited his tray. All the morning under the shadow of St. Paul’s he had re-lived Bank Holiday. Exceptionally tired in feet and legs, he was also itching mentally. He had promised himself a refreshing look from time to time at what was almost like a photo of Vic herself. And he had lost the picture! Yet he had taken nothing out of his pockets–just hung his coat up. Had it joggled out in the crush at the station, or had he missed his pocket opening and dropped it in the carriage? And he had wanted to see the original, too. He remembered that the Gallery began with a ‘D,’ and at lunch-time squandered a penny-halfpenny to look up the names. Foreign, he was sure–the picture being naked. ‘Dumetrius?’ Ah!
Back at his post, he had a bit of luck. ‘That alderman,’ whom he had not seen for months, came by. Intuition made him say at once: “Hope I see you well sir. Never forgotten your kindness.”
The ‘alderman,’ who had been staring up as if he saw a magpie on the dome of St. Paul’s, stopped as though attacked by cramp.
“Kindness?” he said; “what kindness? Oh! balloons! They were no good to me!”
“No, sir, I’m sure,” said Bicket humbly.
“Well, here you are!” muttered the ‘alderman’; “don’t expect it again.”
Half-a-crown! A whole half-crown! Bicket’s eyes pursued the hastening form. “Good-luck!” he said softly to himself, and began putting up his tray. “I’ll go home and rest my feet, and tyke Vic to see that picture. It’ll be funny lookin’ at it together.”
But she was not in. He sat down and smoked a fag. He felt aggrieved that she was out, this the first afternoon he had taken off. Of course she couldn’t stay in all day!
Still–! He waited twenty minutes, then put on Michael’s suit and shoes.
‘I’ll go and see it alone,’ he thought. ‘It’ll cost half as much. They charge you sixpence, I expect.’
They charged him a shilling–a shilling! One fourth of his day’s earnings, to see a picture! He entered bashfully. There were ladies who smelled of scent and had drawling voices but not a patch on Vic for looks. One of them, behind him, said:
“See! There’s Aubrey Greene himself! And that’s the picture they’re talking of–‘Afternoon of a Dryad.’”
They passed him and moved on. Bicket followed. At the end of the room, between their draperies and catalogues, he glimpsed the picture. A slight sweat broke out on his forehead. Almost life-size, among the flowers and spiky grasses, the face smiled round at him–very image of Vic! Could some one in the world be as like her as all that? The thought offended him, as a collector is offended finding the duplicate of an unique possession.
“It’s a wonderful picture, Mr. Greene. What a type!”
A young man without hat, and fair hair sliding back, answered:
“A find, wasn’t she?”
“Oh! perfect! the very spirit of a wood nymph; so mysterious!”
The word that belonged to Vic! It was unholy. There she lay for all to look at, just because some beastly woman was made like her! A kind of rage invaded Bicket’s throat, caused his checks to burn; and with it came a queer physical jealousy. That painter! What business had he to paint a woman so like Vic as that–a woman that didn’t mind lyin’ like that! They and their talk about cahryscuro and paganism, and a bloke called Leneardo! Blast their drawling and their tricks! He tried to move away, and could not, fascinated by that effigy, so uncannily resembling what he had thought belonged to himself alone. Silly to feel so bad over a ‘coincidence,’ but he felt like smashing the glass and cutting the body up into little bits. The ladies and the painter passed on, leaving him alone before the picture. Alone, he did not mind so much. The face was mournful-like, and lonely, and–and teasing, with its smile. It sort of haunted you–it did! ‘Well!’ thought Bicket, ‘I’ll get home to Vic. Glad I didn’t bring her, after all, to see herself-like. If I was an alderman, I’d buy the blinkin’ thing, and burn it!’
And there, in the entrance-lobby, talking to a ‘dago,’ stood–his very own ‘alderman!’ Bicket paused in sheer amazement.
“It’s a rithing name, Mr. Forthyte,” he heard the Dago say: “hith prithes are going up.”
“That’s all very well, Dumetrius, but it’s not everybody’s money in these days–too highly-finished, altogether!”
“Well, Mr. Forthyte, to YOU I take off ten per thent.”
“Take off twenty and I’ll buy it.”
That Dago’s shoulders mounted above his hairy ears–they did; and what a smile!
“Mithter Forthyte! Fifteen, thir!”
“Well, you’re doing me; but send it round to my daughter’s in South Square–you know the number. When do you close?”
“Day after tomorrow, thir.”
So! The counterfeit of Vic had gone to that ‘alderman,’ had it? Bicket uttered a savage little sound, and slunk out.
He walked with a queer feeling. Had he got unnecessary wind up? After all, it wasn’t her. But to know that another woman could smile that way, have frizzy-ended short black hair, and be all curved the same! And at every woman’s passing face he looked–so different, so utterly unlike Vic’s!
When he reached home she was standing in the middle of the room, with her lips to a balloon. All around her, on the floor, chairs, table, mantelpiece, were the blown-out shapes of his stock; one by one they had floated from her lips and selected their own resting-places: puce, green, orange, purple, blue, enlivening with their colour the dingy little space. All his balloons blown up! And there, in her best clothes, she stood, smiling, queer, excited.
“What in thunder!” said Bicket.
Raising her dress, she took some crackling notes from the top of her stocking, and held them out to him.
“See! Sixty-four pounds, Tony! I’ve got it all. We can go.”
“WHAT!”
“I had a brain wave–went to that Mr. Mont who gave us the clothes, and he’s advanced it. We can pay it back, some day. Isn’t it a marvel?”
Bicket’s eyes, startled like a rabbit’s, took in her smile, her excited flush, and a strange feeling shot through all his body, as if THEY were taking HIM in!
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