"_I have learned!_" She flung it at him. "I don't mind living in this simple way, except when a man like you comes along and tries, deliberately tries, to make me conscious of it."

He leaned toward her with a sudden, pa.s.sionate gesture. "Charlotte, forgive me! It is because I long so to take you away from it, to give you the sort of home you have known in the old days. It fits you so well--that sort of home. You were a princess in the old home; you would be a queen in a new one."

"Oh, don't!"

"All right, I won't."

There was silence between them for some time after this. Brant sat with his hands clenched and resting upon his knees, his head bent a little.

Charlotte had turned and laid one bended arm upon the high back of the old bench--her head rested against it. She was the first to speak, in the light tone with which her s.e.x is accustomed to let a situation down from the heights of strong emotion to a more normal level.

"What do you do with a sitter who won't let you bring out her best points, but insists on making herself into the stiffest sort of a lay figure?"

"Chloroform her and relax the tension." Brant's tone was grim. Then, suddenly, he looked up. "Will you let me go in and make a flashlight of you by a new method I've worked out? I promise you you'll find it a trick worth knowing."

"I shall be delighted. You've taught me half I know, and I'm more grateful than I seem."

"I hope that's true," he said, still in the grim tone, as they went up the garden path toward the house.

Inside the house he became the exponent of the art of which he was past master. His study was to him only a diversion, but he had become distinguished in it as an amateur who played at being a professional for the interest of it, and who possessed a collection of photographic portraits of half the celebrities in the world. With eager interest Charlotte watched him manipulate improvised screens and devices for casting light and shadow, and when he posed her understood the result he meant to produce.

"Oh, that will give a new effect!" she said, delightedly. "I should never have thought of it in the world."

"It will almost absolutely overcome the flatness of the flashlight, as you will see when we develop it--if you will let me stay so long. Now--"

The flash flared and died. Brant smiled with gratification. If he knew what he was doing he had a new portrait of Charlotte Ruston which would surpa.s.s anything he had yet made of her. It seemed to him that during these last weeks she had grown even more desirable than he had ever known her. There had always been a spirit and enchantment about her personality which had been his undoing, but there was now a quality in it which was well nigh his despair--the quality born of self-sacrifice and endeavour, those invisible but potent agencies in the creating of the highest type of womanly charm.

The pair went into the dark-room together. Here, at least, Mr. Brant was able to give sincere approval. Although the place was cramped no necessary detail was lacking. Charlotte had not spared expense in transporting material or in fitting the spot with the requisite conveniences for swift and sure work. In a very few minutes Brant was showing his pupil the negative, which her trained eye was fully able to appreciate.

"Oh, that will make a perfect print," she exclaimed, everything else forgotten in the joy of the artist over the overcoming of difficulties.

"You certainly have conquered almost the last obstacle to the making of flashlight portraits. That will be soft as daylight. I will make the print to-morrow and let you know."

"You don't mean to send me merely a report of its appearance, I hope."

She laughed. "Of course I'll make a print for you, if you want it.

Perhaps you'll admit, when you see the setting, that the old room isn't such an inartistic choice for a photographer."

"The old room is delightful--as a background. But when your feet are freezing on its cold floor, in the dead of next winter--Never mind, we won't go back to that. I admit it's a September night, and there's no use in my borrowing trouble. Besides, I suppose I must be off in half an hour. Let's make the most of it."

They sat in the room in question and talked of developers and fixing-baths, of processes and results, and Charlotte found such interest in these technical topics that she glowed and sparkled as another woman might have done at talk of quite different things. She knew well enough that n.o.body could give her greater aid or inspiration in her work than Eugene Brant, whose signature upon any portrait meant approval in the large world where he was known.

In spite of his over-heaviness of outline he was not an uninteresting figure as he sat there. His face had not taken on superfluous flesh as his body had acquired weight, and its lines were good to the eye of the artist. His eye was clear, his smile full and not lacking in a certain winning quality which spoke of sympathy and understanding. One who had never before seen him would not doubt that here was a man worth acquaintance, in spite of the fact that his only labour was in the pursuit of a fancy rather than in the making of a living.

The hour came for his reluctant departure. Standing on Charlotte's shaky little porch he looked up at her as she stood on the threshold above him.

Against the light in the room behind her the outlines of her lithe young figure were to him adorable. He took her hand and held it for a minute with a strong pressure which spoke for him of his longing to keep it in his permanent possession.

"Will you send me off with the a.s.surance that at least my friendship is still something to you?" he asked her. "You can be as independent as you like, but you need friends. Or, if that has small weight with you, let me appeal to your generosity. I need your friendship even more than you need mine."

"Unhappy Mr. Brant." She was smiling. "So few friends, so few pleasures, he needs poor Charlotte Ruston's support!"

"Poor Charlotte Ruston is a greater inspiration to Eugene Brant's good work than any dozen of his fashionable patrons."

"I am honoured--truly. And, of course, we are friends, the best of friends. I will send you the print soon. Thank you for coming. You have helped me very much."

With which he was obliged to be content.

CHAPTER XVI

IN FEBRUARY

One cold December morning Charlotte Ruston, sweeping up her hearth after making her fire for the day, preparatory to bringing little Madam Chase downstairs, heard the knock upon her door which heralded Mrs. Redfield Pepper Burns. It was a peculiar knock, reminiscent of the days at boarding-school when certain signals conveyed deep meaning. This particular triple tattoo meant "I have something to tell you."

Charlotte opened the door, smiling at sight of her friend. "You are worth looking at, in those beautiful furs, with the frost on your cheeks," she said, drawing Ellen in to the fire, and pa.s.sing a caressing hand over the rich softness of her sleeve. "Furry hat and furry gloves--and furry boots, too, probably--let me see? I thought so," as she examined Ellen's footgear. "You could start on a trip to Greenland, this minute, and not freeze so much as the tip of your nose, behind that wonderful m.u.f.f."

"It will be Greenland on the Atlantic liner next week," said Ellen, drawing off the enveloping coat at Charlotte's motion, and seating herself in Granny's winged chair. "The trip to Germany is on foot, at last. Red has had to put it off so many times I began to think we shouldn't get away this year at all. But he's taken our pa.s.sage now, and vows that nothing shall hinder. So I'm packing in rather a hurry, for we mean to be off on Sat.u.r.day, though we shall not sail until Tuesday. One can always use a day or two in New York."

"Lucky mortals. I wish I were going with you." Charlotte said it gayly, but her eyes were suddenly wistful. "How long shall you stay? I shall miss you horribly."

"I wish you were going, dear. Nothing could make me happier. We should be a great party then, for Dr. Leaver goes with us. It's a sudden decision on his part. Red wrote him of certain work he wanted to do in the clinics and urged him to go along, thinking it would be just the thing for him now, after plunging into work again with such a will. You know they spent a year there together, ten years ago, and Dr. Leaver wrote that the thought of going over the old scenes with Red tempted him beyond resistance. He's been across twice since, but only for a special purpose of study. Of course both will do more or less observing in clinics now, but I imagine they will get in a bit of merrymaking together. If I only had you to go about with me while they were busy I should ask nothing better."

"Shall you be gone all winter?"

"Oh, no; only two months in all. Neither Red nor 'Jack'--as he always calls him--feel that they can spare longer than that, this time. So by the first of March you will see us returning to our own fireside, and probably glad enough to get back to it. German fires, as I remember them, are by no means as hot as American ones. And that brings me to my plan for you and Granny. I want you to come over and live in the house in our absence. There'll be only Cynthia there, for Bob is to stay with Martha.

He will be happier over there with her boys than with Cynthia. So you will have the whole house to yourselves and can be as snug as possible all through the heaviest part of the winter."

She smiled confidently at Charlotte, seeing no possible reason why her friend should object to a plan so obviously for the comfort of all concerned. But to her surprise Charlotte slowly shook her head.

"It's a beautiful, kind plan, and exactly like you, but I couldn't think of accepting it."

"My dearest girl, will you tell me why? You would be doing me all kinds of a favour."

"No favour at all. Cynthia doesn't need us to help her take care of the house. We shall be perfectly comfortable here, and--my business is here."

"Charlotte, I'm afraid you won't be perfectly comfortable. This room isn't really warm this morning, and it's not an extremely cold morning.

Through midwinter we're likely to have very heavy weather, as you don't know, not having spent a winter here."

"Have you? Isn't this your first winter North? You're just as much of a Southerner as I am. You don't a bit know about Northern winters. You just imagine they must be dreadful."

"I've heard about the snowdrifts over the fences, the terrific winds, and the intense cold. The storms will beat upon this little old house, and I shall think about it away off in Germany--and be anxious. Please, Charlotte, don't be unreasonable. Why in the world shouldn't you do me a favour like this? Red wants it just as much as I do, particularly on the grandmother's account. Think how comfortable she would be in my living-room, and in my guest-room. And I should so love to have her there."

"I suppose I'm an ungrateful person, but I truly don't want to do it, Len. Of course you know I wouldn't persist in a course that I thought would do Granny harm, but I don't see how this can. She stays in bed in the morning, as warm as toast, until I bring her down here, and I don't bring her until the room is thoroughly warm. I give her her breakfast here, and keep her perfectly comfortable all day, as she can tell you. At night I take her up to a nest as cosy as a kitten's, and she has her hot milk the last thing to send her off. Not a breath of discomfort touches her beloved head."

The two looked at each other, Charlotte's expression proudly sweet, Ellen's charmingly beseeching.

"I can see it's of no use," admitted Mrs. Burns, disappointedly, "but I'm very sorry. Will you promise me this? If at any time it seems to you that my plan is, after all, a better one for you than your own, you'll be good and come straight over?"