But the opportunity to break it came no later than the very next day.
Chancing to look out into Indiana Avenue, she saw Hubert scanning Number
Eleven from the other side of the street. He must indeed want to see
her, since he had taken this journey into the unknown.
Picking up a sunshade, she went out and spoke to him. He refused to come
in, but begged her to take a little walk.
"Jennie, what’s your game?" he asked, roughly, as they sauntered down
the avenue toward the edge of the cliff. "Why don’t you come to the
studio when I ask you? What are you afraid of?"
"I did come—the other day—but—"
"Why didn’t you stay? I thought you would. Brasshead wouldn’t have
minded it, and you could have seen how the thing is done."
"What’s the good of seeing how it’s done when—when you’ve got some one
else?"
"But, good Lord! Jennie, this is not the only picture of the kind I
shall ever paint! Even if I go on using Emma for this, I shall want you
for another one—and I’m not sure that I shall go on using Emma. Do you
see?"
She was so perturbed that she launched on a question without knowing
what she meant to ask.
"Isn’t she—"
"Oh, she’s all right as far as the figure goes. Features coarse. Not a
bit what I’m trying to get. Have to keep toning down and modifying to
give her the spiritual look that you’ve got, Jennie, to throw away. I
keep thinking of you all the time I’m doing it. Look here, if you’ll
come to-morrow, I’ll pay Brasshead off and you shall have the job."
By the time they reached Palisade Walk the business was settled on a
business basis. Not once did he depart from the professional side of the
affair, and not once did she allude to the scene in her dressing-room.
But what was understood was understood, not less certainly for its being
by passionate mental vibration, without a word, or a glance, or a
pressure of the hand.
But the next day, as Jennie was leaving the house to keep her
appointment, Josiah, who had gone out as usual to look for work, had
dragged himself home and fainted at the door.
"I’m all in," he mumbled, on his return to consciousness. "I don’t
suppose I shall ever get a chance to do a day’s work again."
Jennie was so much alarmed that she forgot to telephone her inability to
go to the studio till after her father had been put to bed and the
doctor had come and gone.
"Oh, it’s all right," Hubert had said, listlessly. "I didn’t expect you.
I knew that if it wasn’t one excuse, it would be another—"
"But I _will_ come," Jennie had interrupted, tearfully.
"Do just as you like about that. Emma’s here, and, as you’re so
uncertain, I’ve decided to go on and finish the picture without making a
change."
He put up the receiver on saying this, so that Jennie was left all in
the air with her love and her distress.
When Teddy appeared that evening, it was she who told him of their
father’s breakdown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account