"Yes, but what of that, if she loved him?"

"But even in those days he may have been a troublemaker and revolutionist----"

"Does that matter if a girl is in love?"

In Dulcie's voice there was again that breathless tone through which something rang faintly--something curbed back, held in restraint.

"I suppose," he said, smiling, "that if one is in love nothing else matters."

"Nothing matters," she said, half to herself. And he looked askance at her, and looked again with increasing curiosity.

Westmore called across the room:

"Thessalie and I are going shopping! Any objections?"

A sudden and totally unexpected dart seemed to penetrate the heart region of Garret Barres. It was jealousy and it hurt.

"No objection at all," he said, wondering how the devil Westmore had become so familiar with her name in such a very brief encounter.

Thessalie rose and came over:

"Dulcie, will you come with us?" she asked gaily.

"That's a first rate idea," said Barres, cheering up. "Dulcie, tell her what things you have and she'll tell you what you need for Foreland Farms."

"Indeed I will," cried Thessalie. "We'll make her perfectly adorable in a most economical manner. Shall we, dear?"

And she held out her hand to Dulcie, and, smiling, turned her head and looked across the room at Westmore.

Which troubled Barres and left him rather silent there in the studio after they had gone away. For he had rather fancied himself as the romance in Thessalie's life, and, at times, was inclined to sentimentalise a little about her.

And now he permitted himself to wonder how much there really might be to that agreeable sentiment he entertained for, perhaps, the prettiest girl he had ever met in his life, and, possibly, the most delightful.

XVIII

THE BABBLER

The double apartment in Dragon Court, swept by such vagrant July breezes as wandered into the heated city, had become lively with preparations for departure.

Barres fussed about, collecting sketching paraphernalia, choosing brushes, colours, canvases, field kits, and costumes from his acc.u.mulated store, and boxing them for transportation to Foreland Farms, with the languid a.s.sistance of Aristocrates.

Westmore had only to ship a modelling stand, a handful of sculptors'

tools, and a ton or two of Plasteline, an evil-smelling composite clay, very useful to work with.

But the storm centre of preparation revolved around Dulcie. And Thessalie, enchanted with her new role as adviser, bargainer, and purchaser, and always attaching either Westmore or Barres to her skirts when she and Dulcie sallied forth, was selecting and acc.u.mulating a charming and useful little impedimenta. For the young girl had never before owned a single pretty thing, except those first unpremeditated gifts of Barres', and her happiness in these expeditions was alloyed with trepidation at Thessalie's extravagance, and deep misgivings concerning her ultimate ability to repay out of the salary allowed her as a private model.

Intoxicated by ownership, she watched Thessalie and Selinda laying away in her brand-new trunk the lovely things which had been selected. And one day, thrilled but bewildered, she went into the studio, where Barres sat opening his mail, and confessed her fear that only lifelong devotion in his service could ever liquidate her overwhelming financial obligations to him.

He had begun to laugh when she opened the subject:

"Thessa is managing it," he said. "It looks like a lot of expense, but it isn't. Don't worry about it, Sweetness."

"I _do_ worry----"

"Now, what a ridiculous thing to do!" he interrupted. "It's merely advanced salary--your own money. I told you to blow it; I'm responsible. And I shall arrange it so you won't notice that you are repaying the loan. All I want you to do is to have a good time about it."

"I am having a good time--when it doesn't scare me to spend so much for----"

"Can't you trust Thessa and me?"

The girl dropped to her knees beside his chair in a swift pa.s.sion of grat.i.tude:

"Oh, I trust you--I do----" But she could not utter another word, and only pressed her face against his arm in the tense silence of emotions which were too powerful to express, too deep and keen to comprehend or to endure.

And she sprang to her feet, flushed, confused, turning from him as he retained one hand and drew her back:

"Dear child," he said, in his pleasant voice, "this is really a very little thing I do for you, compared to the help you have given me by hard, unremitting, uncomplaining physical labour and endurance. There is no harder work than holding a pose for painter or sculptor--nothing more cruelly fatiguing. Add to that your cheerfulness, your willingness, your quiet, loyal, un.o.btrusive companionship--and the freshness and inspiration and interest ever new which you always awake in me--tell me, Sweetness, are you really in my debt, or am I in yours?"

"I am in yours. You made me."

"You always say that. It's foolish. You made yourself, Dulcie. You are making yourself all the while. Why, good heavens!--if you hadn't had it in you, somehow, to ignore your surroundings--take the school opportunities offered you--close your eyes and ears to the sights and sounds and habits of what was supposed to be your home----"

He checked himself, thinking of Soane, and his brogue, and his ignorance and his habits.

"How the devil you escaped it all I can't understand," he muttered to himself. "Even when I first knew you, there was nothing resembling your--your father about you--even if you were almost in rags!"

"I had been with the Sisters until I went to high school," she murmured. "It makes a difference in a child's mind what is said and thought by those around her."

"Of course. But, Dulcie, it is usually the unfortunate rule that the lower subtly contaminates the higher, even in casual a.s.sociation--that the weaker gradually undermines the stronger until it sinks to lesser levels. It has not been so with you. Your clear mind remained untarnished, your aspiration uncontaminated. Somewhere within you had been born the quality of recognition; and when your eyes opened on better things you recognised them and did not forget after they disappeared----"

Again he ceased speaking, aware, suddenly, that for the first time he was making the effort to a.n.a.lyse this girl for his own information.

Heretofore, he had accepted her, sometimes curious, sometimes amused, puzzled, doubtful, even uneasy as her mind revealed itself by degrees and her character glimmered through in little fitful gleams from that still hidden thing, herself.

He began to speak again, before he knew he was speaking--indeed, as though within him somewhere another man were using his lips and voice as vehicles:

"You know, Dulcie, it's not going to end--our companionship. Your real life is all ahead of you; it's already beginning--the life which is properly yours to shape and direct and make the most of.

"I don't know what kind of life yours is going to be; I know, merely, that your career doesn't lie down stairs in the superintendent's lodgings. And this life of ours here in the studio is only temporary, only a phase of your development toward clearer aims, higher aspiration, n.o.bler effort.

"Tranquillity, self-respect, intelligent responsibility, the happiness of personal independence are the prizes: the path on which you have started leads to the only pleasure man has ever really known--labour."

He looked down at her hand lying within his own, stroked the slender fingers thoughtfully, noticing the whiteness and fineness of them, now that they had rested for three months from their patient martyrdom in Soane's service.

"I'll talk to my mother and sister about it," he concluded. "All you need is a start in whatever you're going to do in life. And you bet you're going to get it, Sweetness!"