FullReads

One day it did crash: the head-lines of the morning papers shouted the catastrophe at me:–“The Monster forced to disgorge–Warrant out against Vard–Bardwell the Boss’s Boomerang”–you know the kind of thing.

When I had read the papers I threw them down and went out. As it happened, Vard was to have given me a sitting that morning; but there would have been a certain irony in waiting for him. I wished I had finished the picture–I wished I’d never thought of painting it. I wanted to shake off the whole business, to put it out of my mind, if I could: I had the feeling–I don’t know if I can describe it–that there was a kind of disloyalty to the poor girl in my even acknowledging to myself that I knew what all the papers were howling from the housetops….

I had walked for an hour when it suddenly occurred to me that Miss Vard might, after all, come to the studio at the appointed hour. Why should she? I could conceive of no reason; but the mere thought of what, if she did come, my absence would imply to her, sent me bolting back to Twelfth Street. It was a presentiment, if you like, for she was there.

As she rose to meet me a newspaper slipped from her hand: I’d been fool enough, when I went out, to leave the damned things lying all over the place.

I muttered some apology for being late, and she said reassuringly:

“But my father’s not here yet.”

“Your father–?” I could have kicked myself for the way I bungled it!

“He went out very early this morning, and left word that he would meet me here at the usual hour.”

She faced me, with an eye full of bright courage, across the newspaper lying between us.

“He ought to be here in a moment now–he’s always so punctual. But my watch is a little fast, I think.”

She held it out to me almost gaily, and I was just pretending to compare it with mine, when there was a smart rap on the door and Vard stalked in. There was always a civic majesty in his gait, an air of having just stepped off his pedestal and of dissembling an oration in his umbrella; and that day he surpassed himself. Miss Vard had turned pale at the knock; but the mere sight of him replenished her veins, and if she now avoided my eye, it was in mere pity for my discomfiture.

I was in fact the only one of the three who didn’t instantly “play up”; but such virtuosity was inspiring, and by the time Vard had thrown off his coat and dropped into a senatorial pose, I was ready to pitch into my work. I swore I’d do his face then and there; do it as she saw it; she sat close to him, and I had only to glance at her while I painted–

Vard himself was masterly: his talk rattled through my hesitations and embarrassments like a brisk northwester sweeping the dry leaves from its path. Even his daughter showed the sudden brilliance of a lamp from which the shade has been removed. We were all surprisingly vivid–it felt, somehow, as though we were being photographed by flash-light…

It was the best sitting we’d ever had–but unfortunately it didn’t last more than ten minutes.

It was Vard’s secretary who interrupted us–a slinking chap called Cornley, who burst in, as white as sweetbread, with the face of a depositor who hears his bank has stopped payment. Miss Vard started up as he entered, but caught herself together and dropped back into her chair. Vard, who had taken out a cigarette, held the tip tranquilly to his fusée.

“You’re here, thank God!” Cornley cried. “There’s no time to be lost, Mr. Vard. I’ve got a carriage waiting round the corner in Thirteenth Street–“

Vard looked at the tip of his cigarette.

“A carriage in Thirteenth Street? My good fellow, my own brougham is at the door.”