The Common Law

He flourished his mahl-stick, neatly punctured the air, and cried "Hah!" very fiercely.

Then he said:

"I've concluded to let Hélène know about it this afternoon."

"About what?—you monkey?"

"About our marriage. Won't it surprise her though! Oh, no! But I think I'll let her into the secret before some suspicious gink gets wind of it and tells her himself."

Neville looked at the boy, perplexed, undecided, until he caught his eye. And over Sam's countenance stole a vivid and beauteous blush.

"Sam! I—upon my word I believe you mean it!"

"Sure I do!"

Neville grasped his hand:

"My dear fellow!" he said cordially, "I was slow, not unsympathetic. I'm frightfully glad—I'm perfectly delighted. She's a charming and sincere woman. Go in and win and God bless you both!"

Ogilvy wrung his hand, then, to relieve his feelings, ran all over the floor like a spider and was pretending to spin a huge web in a corner when Harry Annan and Rita Tevis came in and discovered him.

"Hah!" he exclaimed, "flies! Two nice, silly, appetising flies. Pretend to fall into my web, Rita, and begin to buzz like mad!"

Rita's dainty nose went up into the air, but Annan succumbed to the alluring suggestion, and presently he was buzzing frantically in a corner while Sam spun an imaginary web all over him.

Rita and Neville looked on for a while.

"Sam never will grow up," she said disdainfully.

"He's fortunate," observed Neville.

"You don't think so."

"I wish I knew what I did think, Rita. How is John?"

"I came to tell you. He has gone to Dartford."

"To see Dr. Ogilvy? Good! I'm glad, Rita. Billy Ogilvy usually makes people do what he tells them to do."

The girl stood silent, eyes lowered. After a while she looked up at him; and in her unfaltering but sorrowful gaze he read the tragedy which he had long since suspected.

Neither spoke for a moment; he held out both hands; she laid hers in them, and her gaze became remote.

After a while she said in a low voice:

"Let me be with you now and then while he's away; will you, Kelly?"

"Yes. Would you like to pose for me? I haven't anything pressing on hand. You might begin now if it suits you."

"May I?" she asked gratefully.

"Of course, child…. Let me think—" He looked again into her dark blue eyes, absently, then suddenly his attention became riveted upon something which he seemed to be reading in her face.

Long before Sam and Harry had ended their puppy-like scuffling and had retired to woo their respective deputy-muses, Rita was seated on the model-stand, and Neville had already begun that strange and sombre picture afterward so famous, and about which one of the finest of our modern poets wrote:

"Her gold hair, fallen about her face
Made light within that shadowy place,
But on her garments lay the dust
Of many a vanished race.

"Her deep eyes, gazing straight ahead,
Saw years and days and hours long dead,
While strange gems glittered at her feet,
Yellow, and green, and red.

"And ever from the shadows came
Voices to pierce her heart like flame,
The great bats fanned her with their wings,
The voices called her name.

"But yet her look turned not aside
From the black deep where dreams abide,
Where worlds and pageantries lay dead
Beneath that viewless tide.

"Her elbow on her knee was set,
Her strong hand propt her chin, and yet
No man might name that look she wore,
Nor any man forget."

All day long in the pleasant June weather they worked together over the picture; and if he really knew what he was about, it is uncertain, for his thoughts were of Valerie; and he painted as in a dream, and with a shadowy splendour that seemed even to him unreal.

They scarcely spoke; now and then Rita came silently on sandalled feet to stand behind him and look at what he had done.

The first time she thought to herself, "Querida!" But the second time she remained mute; and when the daylight was waning to a golden gloom in the room she came a third time and stood with one hand on his arm, her eyes fixed upon the dawning mystery on the canvas—spellbound under the sombre magnificence already vaguely shadowed forth from infinite depth of shade.

Gladys came and rubbed and purred around his legs; the most recent progeny toddled after her, ratty tails erect; sportive, casual little optimists frisking unsteadily on wavering legs among the fading sunbeams on the floor.

The sunbeams died out on wall and ceiling; high through the glass roof above, a shoal of rosy clouds paled to saffron, then to a cinder gray. And the first night-hawk, like a huge, erratic swallow, sailed into view, soaring, tumbling aloft, while its short raucous cry sounded incessantly above the roofs and chimneys.

Neville was still seated before his canvas, palette flat across his left arm, the sheaf of wet brushes held loosely.

"I suppose you are dining with Valerie," he said.

"No."

He turned and looked at her, inquiringly.

"Valerie has gone away."