The Restless Sex

"Good-bye," she whispered.

"You know I love you. You know I shall never love another woman?"

"Try to – forget me, Jim."

"I can't."

"I can't forget you, either… I'm sorry, dear. I wish you had me… I'd give you anything, Jim – anything. Don't you know it?"

"Yes."

She laid her head on his breast, rested a moment, then lifted it, not looking at him, and turned slowly back into her room.

It was dark when he arrived in New York. The flaring streets of the city seemed horrible to him.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Washington Square seemed to him a little cooler than the streets to the northward; the white arch, the trees, the splash of water made a difference. But beyond, southward, narrow streets and lanes were heavy with the close, hot odours of the slums – a sickening smell of over-ripe fruit piled on push-carts, the reek of raw fish, of sour malt from saloons – a subtler taint of opium from blind alleys where Chinese signs hung from rusting iron balconies.

Through cracks between drawn curtains behind the window of Grismer's basement studio, light glimmered; and when Cleland pulled the bell-wire in the area he could hear the crazy, cracked bell jangling inside.

Grismer came.

For a second he hesitated behind the iron area gate, then recognizing her visitor opened for him.

They shook hands with a pleasant, commonplace word or two of civility, and walked together through the dark, hot passageway into the lighted basement.

"It's devilish hot," said Grismer. "There's probably a storm brewing over Staten Island."

He looked colourless and worn. There was a dew of perspiration on his forehead, which dampened the thick amber-gold hair. He wore only a gauze undershirt, trousers and slippers, under which his supple, graceful figure was apparent.

"Grismer," said Cleland uneasily, "this cellar is hell in July. Why won't you come up to Runner's Rest for the hot period? You can't do anything here. You can't stand it."

Grismer fished a siphon out of his ice-box and looked around with a questioning smile. "I've some orange juice. Would you like some?"

Cleland nodded and walked over to a revolving table on which the wax model of his fountain stood. Grismer presently came up beside him with both glasses, and he took his with an absent nod, but continued to examine the model in silence.

"Probably you don't care for it," suggested Grismer.

Cleland said slowly:

"You gave me a different idea. I didn't know you were going to do anything like this."

"I'm afraid you are disappointed."

"No… It's beautiful, Grismer. I hadn't thought that a figure would be possible, considering the character of the place and the very simple and primitive surroundings. But this is in perfect taste and amazingly in accord with everything."

He looked at the slim, naked, sinuous figure – an Indian girl of fifteen drinking out of cupped hands. Wild strawberry vines in full fruit bound her hair, which fell in two clubbed braids to her shoulders. A narrow breadth of faun-skin fell from a wampum girdle to her knees. And, from the thin metal forehead-fillet, the head of a snake reared, displaying every fang.

"It's the Lake-Serpent, isn't it? – the young Oneida girl of the Iroquois legend?" inquired Cleland.

Grismer nodded.

"That's your country," he said. "The Iroquois war-trail passed through your valley and down the river to Charlemont and Old Deerfield. I read up on it. The story of the Lake-Serpent and the Eight Thunders fascinated me. I thought the thing might be done."

"You've done it. It's stunning."

"The water," explained Grismer, "flows out of her hollowed hands, out of the serpent's throat and down each braid of hair, dripping on her shoulders. Her entire body will appear to be all glimmering with a thin skin of running water. I shall use the 'serpent spot' on her forehead like a caste-mark, I think. And what I want to get is an effect from a fine cloud of spray which will steam up from the basin at her feet like the 'cloud on the water' which the legend speaks of. I can get it by an arrangement of very minute orifices through which spray will rush and hang over the water in a sort of rainbow mist. Do you think that would be all right?"

"Of course. It's a masterpiece, Grismer," said the other quietly.

Into Grismer's pale face a slow colour came and spread.

"That's worth living for," he said.

"What?"

"I said that I'm glad I have lived to hear you speak that way of anything I have done," said Grismer with a smile.

"I don't understand why you should care about my opinion," returned Cleland, turning an amused and questioning gaze on the sculptor. "I'm no critic, you know."

"I know," nodded Grismer, with his odd smile. "But your approval means more than any critic has to offer me… There's an arm-chair over there, if you care to be seated."

Cleland took his glass of iced orange juice with him. Grismer set his on the floor and dropped onto the ragged couch.

"Anybody can point it up now," he said. "It ought to be cast in silver-grey bronze, not burnished – a trifle over life-size."

"You must have worked like the devil to have finished this in such a brief period."

"Oh, I work that way – when I do work… I've been anxious – worried over what you might think… I'm satisfied now."

He filled and lighted his pipe, leaned back clasping his well-made arms behind his head.

"Cleland," he said, "it's a strange sensation to feel power within one's self – be conscious of it, certain of it, and deliberately choose not to use it… And the very liberty of choice is an added power."

Cleland looked up, perplexed. Grismer smiled, and his smile seemed singularly care-free and tranquil:

"Just think," he said, "what the gods could have done if they had taken the trouble to bestir themselves! What they did do makes volumes of mythology: what they refrained from doing would continue in the telling through all eternity. What they did betrayed their power," he added, with a whimsical gesture toward his fountain; "but what they refrained from doing interests me, Cleland – fascinates me, arouses my curiosity, my respect, my awe, and my gratitude that they were godlike enough to disdain display – that they were decent enough to leave to the world material to feed its imagination."

Cleland smiled sombrely at Grismer's whimsical humour, but his features settled again into grave, care-worn lines, and his absent gaze rested on nothing. And Grismer's golden eyes studied him.

"It must be pleasant out there in the country," he said casually.

"It's cool. You must go there, Grismer. This place is unendurable. Do go up while Phil Grayson is there."

"Is there anybody else?"

"Helen – and Stephanie," he said, using her name with an effort. "The Belters were there for a week. No doubt Stephanie will ask other people during the summer."