A Hazard Of New Fortunes. William Dean Howells
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“Mr. Wetmore doesn't think he's very much of an artist. He thinks he talks too well. They believe that if a man can express himself clearly he can't paint.”
“And what do you believe?”
“Oh, I can express myself, too.”
The mother seemed to be satisfied with this evasion. After a while she said, “I presume he will call when he gets settled.”
The girl made no answer to this. “One of the girls says that old model is an educated man. He was in the war, and lost a hand. Doesn't it seem a pity for such a man to have to sit to a class of affected geese like us as a model? I declare it makes me sick. And we shall keep him a week, and pay him six or seven dollars for the use of his grand old head, and then what will he do? The last time he was regularly employed was when Mr. Mace was working at his Damascus Massacre. Then he wanted so many Arab sheiks and Christian elders that he kept old Mr. Lindau steadily employed for six months. Now he has to pick up odd jobs where he can.”
“I suppose he has his pension,” said Mrs. Leighton.
“No; one of the girls”—that was the way Alma always described her fellow-students—“says he has no pension. He didn't apply for it for a long time, and then there was a hitch about it, and it was somethinged—vetoed, I believe she said.”
“Who vetoed it?” asked Mrs. Leighton, with some curiosity about the process, which she held in reserve.
“I don't know—whoever vetoes things. I wonder what Mr. Wetmore does think of us—his class. We must seem perfectly crazy. There isn't one of us really knows what she's doing it for, or what she expects to happen when she's done it. I suppose every one thinks she has genius. I know the Nebraska widow does, for she says that unless you have genius it isn't the least use. Everybody's puzzled to know what she does with her baby when she's at work—whether she gives it soothing syrup. I wonder how Mr. Wetmore can keep from laughing in our faces. I know he does behind our backs.”
Mrs. Leighton's mind wandered back to another point. “Then if he says Mr. Beaton can't paint, I presume he doesn't respect him very much.”
“Oh, he never said he couldn't paint. But I know he thinks so. He says he's an excellent critic.”
“Alma,” her mother said, with the effect of breaking off, “what do you suppose is the reason he hasn't been near us?”
“Why, I don't know, mamma, except that it would have been natural for another person to come, and he's an artist at least, artist enough for that.”
“That doesn't account for it altogether. He was very nice at St. Barnaby, and seemed so interested in you—your work.”
“Plenty of people were nice at St. Barnaby. That rich Mrs. Horn couldn't contain her joy when she heard we were coming to New York, but she hasn't poured in upon us a great deal since we got here.”
“But that's different. She's very fashionable, and she's taken up with her own set. But Mr. Beaton's one of our kind.”
“Thank you. Papa wasn't quite a tombstone-cutter, mamma.”
“That makes it all the harder to bear. He can't be ashamed of us. Perhaps he doesn't know where we are.”
“Do you wish to send him your card, mamma?” The girl flushed and towered in scorn of the idea.
“Why, no, Alma,” returned her mother.
“Well, then,” said Alma.
But Mrs. Leighton was not so easily quelled. She had got her mind on Mr. Beaton, and she could not detach it at once. Besides, she was one of those women (they are commoner than the same sort of men) whom it does not pain to take out their most intimate thoughts and examine them in the light of other people's opinions. “But I don't see how he can behave so. He must know that—”
“That what, mamma?” demanded the girl.
“That he influenced us a great deal in coming—”
“He didn't. If he dared to presume to think such a thing—”
“Now, Alma,” said her mother, with the clinging persistence of such natures, “you know he did. And it's no use for you to pretend that we didn't count upon him in—in every way. You may not have noticed his attentions, and I don't say you did, but others certainly did; and I must say that I didn't expect he would drop us so.”
“Drop us!” cried Alma, in a fury. “Oh!”
“Yes, drop us, Alma. He must know where we are. Of course, Mr. Wetmore's spoken to him about you, and it's a shame that he hasn't been near us. I should have thought common gratitude, common decency, would have brought him after—after all we did for him.”
“We did nothing for him—nothing! He paid his board, and that ended it.”
“No, it didn't, Alma. You know what he used to say—about its being like home, and all that; and I must say that after his attentions to you, and all the things you told me he said, I expected something very dif—”
A sharp peal of the door-bell thrilled through the house, and as if the pull of the bell-wire had twitched her to her feet, Mrs. Leighton sprang up and grappled with her daughter in their common terror.
They both glared at the clock and made sure that it was five minutes after nine. Then they abandoned themselves some moments to the unrestricted play of their apprehensions.
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