CHAPTER XXIV. THE ARTIST AND HIS ART
The private view of the paintings and drawings of the Brush and PencilClub on the evening of the fifteenth was a great success. Society sentits fairest women in frocks that were pictures in themselves. Artsent its severest critics and its most ardent devotees. The Press sentreporters that the World might know what Art and Society were doing, andhow they did it.
Before the canvases signed with Bertram Henshaw's name there was alwaysto be found an admiring group representing both Art and Society withthe Press on the outskirts to report. William Henshaw, coming unobservedupon one such group, paused a moment to smile at the various more orless disconnected comments.
"What a lovely blue!"
"Marvellous color sense!"
"Now those shadows are--"
"He gets his high lights so--"
"I declare, she looks just like Blanche Payton!"
"Every line there is full of meaning."
"I suppose it's very fine, but--"
"Now, I say, Henshaw is--"
"Is this by the man that's painting Margy Winthrop's portrait?"
"It's idealism, man, idealism!"
"I'm going to have a dress just that shade of blue."
"Isn't that just too sweet!"
"Now for realism, I consider Henshaw--"
"There aren't many with his sensitive, brilliant touch."
"Oh, what a pretty picture!"
William moved on then.
Billy was rapturously proud of Bertram that evening. He was, of course,the centre of congratulations and hearty praise. At his side, Billy,with sparkling eyes, welcomed each smiling congratulation and gloried inevery commendatory word she heard.
"Oh, Bertram, isn't it splendid! I'm so proud of you," she whisperedsoftly, when a moment's lull gave her opportunity.
"They're all words, words, idle words," he laughed; but his eyes shone.
"Just as if they weren't all true!" she bridled, turning to greetWilliam, who came up at that moment. "Isn't it fine, Uncle William?" shebeamed. "And aren't we proud of him?"
"We are, indeed," smiled the man. "But if you and Bertram want to getthe real opinion of this crowd, you should go and stand near one of hispictures five minutes. As a sort of crazy--quilt criticism it can't bebeat."
"I know," laughed Bertram. "I've done it, in days long gone."
"Bertram, not really?" cried Billy.
"Sure! As if every young artist at the first didn't don goggles or afalse mustache and study the pictures on either side of his own till hecould paint them with his eyes shut!"
"And what did you hear?" demanded the girl.
"What didn't I hear?" laughed her lover. "But I didn't do it but onceor twice. I lost my head one day and began to argue the question ofperspective with a couple of old codgers who were criticizing a bit offoreshortening that was my special pet. I forgot my goggles and sailedin. The game was up then, of course; and I never put them on again. Butit was worth a farm to see their faces when I stood 'discovered' as thestage-folk say."
"Serves you right, sir--listening like that," scolded Billy.
Bertram laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, it cured me, anyhow. I haven't done it since," he declared.
It was some time later, on the way home, that Bertram said:
"It was gratifying, of course, Billy, and I liked it. It would be absurdto say I didn't like the many pleasant words of apparently sincereappreciation I heard to-night. But I couldn't help thinking of the nexttime--always the next time."
"The next time?" Billy's eyes were slightly puzzled.
"That I exhibit, I mean. The Bohemian Ten hold their exhibition nextmonth, you know. I shall show just one picture--the portrait of MissWinthrop."
"Oh, Bertram!"
"It'll be 'Oh, Bertram!' then, dear, if it isn't a success," he sighed."I don't believe you realize yet what that thing is going to mean forme."
"Well, I should think I might," retorted Billy, a little tremulously,"after all I've heard about it. I should think _everybody_ knew you weredoing it, Bertram. Actually, I'm not sure Marie's scrub-lady won't askme some day how Mr. Bertram's picture is coming on!"
"That's the dickens of it, in a way," sighed Bertram, with a faintsmile. "I am amazed--and a little frightened, I'll admit--at theuniversality of the interest. You see, the Winthrops have been pleasedto spread it, for one reason or another, and of course many already knowof the failures of Anderson and Fullam. That's why, if I should fail--"
"But you aren't going to fail," interposed the girl, resolutely.
"No, I know I'm not. I only said 'if,'" fenced the man, his voice notquite steady.
"There isn't going to be any 'if,'" settled Billy. "Now tell me, when isthe exhibition?"
"March twentieth--the private view. Mr. Winthrop is not only willing,but anxious, that I show it. I wasn't sure that he'd want me to--inan exhibition. But it seems he does. His daughter says he has everyconfidence in the portrait and wants everybody to see it."
"That's where he shows his good sense," declared Billy. Then, withjust a touch of constraint, she asked: "And how is the new, latest posecoming on?"
"Very well, I think," answered Bertram, a little hesitatingly. "We'vehad so many, many interruptions, though, that it is surprising how slowit is moving. In the first place, Miss Winthrop is gone more than halfthe time (she goes again to-morrow for a week!), and in this portraitI'm not painting a stroke without my model before me. I mean to take nochances, you see; and Miss Winthrop is perfectly willing to give me allthe sittings I wish for. Of course, if she hadn't changed the pose andcostume so many times, it would have been done long ago--and she knowsit."
"Of course--she knows it," murmured Billy, a little faintly, but with apeculiar intonation in her voice.
"And so you see," sighed Bertram, "what the twentieth of March is goingto mean for me."
"It's going to mean a splendid triumph!" asserted Billy; and this timeher voice was not faint, and it carried only a ring of loyal confidence.
"You blessed comforter!" murmured Bertram, giving with his eyes thecaress that his lips would so much have preferred to give--under morepropitious circumstances.