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A Question Of Art
by
“Of course, I don’t make much of ideals in art and all that,” replied his cousin, “but I will put this through for you, as Harry says. You must promise me only one thing: no flirting with Harriet and Mary. Henry has been foolish and lost money, as you know, and I cannot have another beggar on my hands!”
II
By the end of July Clayton had found out two things definitely; he was standing in his little workshop, pulling at his mustache and looking sometimes at a half-completed sketch, and sometimes at the blue stretch of water below the cliff. The conclusions were that he certainly should not become interested in Harriet and Mary, and, secondly, that Mount Desert made him paint rather than model.
“It’s no place,” he muttered, “except for color and for a poet. A man would have to shut himself up in a cellar to escape those glorious hills and the bay, if he wanted to work at that putty.” He cast a contemptuous glance at a rough bust of his Cousin Della, the only thing he had attempted. As a solution of his hopeless problem he picked up a pipe and was hunting for some tobacco, preparatory to a stroll up Newport, when someone sounded timidly at the show knocker of the front door.
“Is that you, Miss Marston?” Clayton remarked, in a disappointed tone, as a middle-aged woman entered.
“The servants were all away,” she replied, “and Della thought you might like some lunch to recuperate you from your labors.” This was said a little maliciously, as she looked about and found nothing noteworthy going on.
“I was just thinking of knocking off for this morning and taking a walk. Won’t you come? It’s such glorious weather and no fog,” he added, parenthetically, as if in justification of his idleness.
“Why do you happen to ask me?” Miss Marston exclaimed, impetuously. “You have hitherto never paid any more attention to my existence than if I had been Jane, the woman who usually brings your lunch.” She gasped at her own boldness. This was not coquettishness, and was evidently unusual.
“Why! I really wish you would come,” said the young man, helplessly. “Then I’ll have a chance to know you better.”
“Well! I will.” She seemed to have taken a desperate step. Miss Jane Marston, Della’s sister-in-law, had always been the superfluous member of her family. Such unenviable tasks as amusing or teaching the younger children, sewing, or making up whist sets, had, as is usual with the odd members in a family, fallen to her share. All this Miss Marston hated in a slow, rebellious manner. From always having just too little money to live independently, she had been forced to accept invitations for long visits in uninteresting places. As a girl and a young woman, she had shown a delicate, retiring beauty that might have been made much of, and in spite of gray hair, thirty-five years, and a somewhat drawn look, arising from her discontent, one might discover sufficient traces of this fading beauty to idealize her. All this summer she had watched the wayward young artist with a keen interest in the fresh life he brought among her flat surroundings. His buoyancy cheered her habitual depression; his eagerness and love of life made her blood flow more quickly, out of sympathy; and his intellectual alertness bewildered and fascinated her. She was still shy at thirty-five, and really very timid and apologetic for her commonplaceness; but at times the rebellious bitterness at the bottom of her heart would leap forth in a brusque or bold speech. She was still capable of affording surprise.
“Won’t I spoil the inspiration?” she ventured, after a long silence.
“Bother the inspiration!” groaned Clayton. “I wish I were a blacksmith, or a sailor, or something honest. I feel like a hypocrite. I have started out at a pace that I can’t keep up!”
Miss Marston felt complimented by this apparent confidence. If she had had experience in that kind of nature, she would have understood how indifferent Clayton was to her personally. He would have made the same confession to the birds, if they had happened to produce the same irritation in his mind.