CHAPTER XXI.
Perched on its four stone mushrooms, the little granary stood two orthree feet above the grass of the green close. Beneath it there was aperpetual shade and a damp growth of long, luxuriant grasses. Here, inthe shadow, in the green dampness, a family of white ducks had soughtshelter from the afternoon sun. Some stood, preening themselves, somereposed with their long bellies pressed to the ground, as though thecool grass were water. Little social noises burst fitfully forth, andfrom time to time some pointed tail would execute a brilliant Lisztiantremolo. Suddenly their jovial repose was shattered. A prodigious thumpshook the wooden flooring above their heads; the whole granary trembled,little fragments of dirt and crumbled wood rained down among them.With a loud, continuous quacking the ducks rushed out from beneath thisnameless menace, and did not stay their flight till they were safely inthe farmyard.
"Don't lose your temper," Anne was saying. "Listen! You've frightenedthe ducks. Poor dears! no wonder." She was sitting sideways in a low,wooden chair. Her right elbow rested on the back of the chair and shesupported her cheek on her hand. Her long, slender body drooped intocurves of a lazy grace. She was smiling, and she looked at Gombauldthrough half-closed eyes.
"Damn you!" Gombauld repeated, and stamped his foot again. He glared ather round the half-finished portrait on the easel.
"Poor ducks!" Anne repeated. The sound of their quacking was faint inthe distance; it was inaudible.
"Can't you see you make me lose my time?" he asked. "I can't work withyou dangling about distractingly like this."
"You'd lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping your feet anddid a little painting for a change. After all, what am I dangling aboutfor, except to be painted?"
Gombauld made a noise like a growl. "You're awful," he said, withconviction. "Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Why do you tell meyou'd like me to paint your portrait?"
"For the simple reasons that I like you--at least, when you're in a goodtemper--and that I think you're a good painter."
"For the simple reason"--Gombauld mimicked her voice--"that you wantme to make love to you and, when I do, to have the amusement of runningaway."
Anne threw back her head and laughed. "So you think it amuses me to haveto evade your advances! So like a man! If you only knew how gross andawful and boring men are when they try to make love and you don't wantthem to make love! If you could only see yourselves through our eyes!"
Gombauld picked up his palette and brushes and attacked his canvas withthe ardour of irritation. "I suppose you'll be saying next that youdidn't start the game, that it was I who made the first advances, andthat you were the innocent victim who sat still and never did anythingthat could invite or allure me on."
"So like a man again!" said Anne. "It's always the same old story aboutthe woman tempting the man. The woman lures, fascinates, invites; andman--noble man, innocent man--falls a victim. My poor Gombauld! Surelyyou're not going to sing that old song again. It's so unintelligent, andI always thought you were a man of sense."
"Thanks," said Gombauld.
"Be a little objective," Anne went on. "Can't you see that you're simplyexternalising your own emotions? That's what you men are always doing;it's so barbarously naive. You feel one of your loose desires for somewoman, and because you desire her strongly you immediately accuse herof luring you on, of deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. Youhave the mentality of savages. You might just as well say that a plateof strawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. Inninety-nine cases out of a hundred women are as passive and innocent asthe strawberries and cream."
"Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case," saidGombauld, without looking up.
Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. "I'm at a loss toknow whether you're more silly or more rude."
After painting for a little time in silence Gombauld began to speakagain. "And then there's Denis," he said, renewing the conversation asthough it had only just been broken off. "You're playing the same gamewith him. Why can't you leave that wretched young man in peace?"
Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. "It's perfectlyuntrue about Denis," she said indignantly. "I never dreamt of playingwhat you beautifully call the same game with him." Recovering her calm,she added in her ordinary cooing voice and with her exacerbating smile,"You've become very protective towards poor Denis all of a sudden."
"I have," Gombauld replied, with a gravity that was somehow a little toosolemn. "I don't like to see a young man..."
"...being whirled along the road to ruin," said Anne, continuing hissentence for him. I admire your sentiments and, believe me, I sharethem."
She was curiously irritated at what Gombauld had said about Denis. Ithappened to be so completely untrue. Gombauld might have some slightground for his reproaches. But Denis--no, she had never flirted withDenis. Poor boy! He was very sweet. She became somewhat pensive.
Gombauld painted on with fury. The restlessness of an unsatisfieddesire, which, before, had distracted his mind, making work impossible,seemed now to have converted itself into a kind of feverish energy. Whenit was finished, he told himself, the portrait would be diabolic. He waspainting her in the pose she had naturally adopted at the first sitting.Seated sideways, her elbow on the back of the chair, her head andshoulders turned at an angle from the rest of her body, towards thefront, she had fallen into an attitude of indolent abandonment. He hademphasised the lazy curves of her body; the lines sagged as they crossedthe canvas, the grace of the painted figure seemed to be melting intoa kind of soft decay. The hand that lay along the knee was as limp asa glove. He was at work on the face now; it had begun to emerge on thecanvas, doll-like in its regularity and listlessness. It was Anne'sface--but her face as it would be, utterly unillumined by the inwardlights of thought and emotion. It was the lazy, expressionless maskwhich was sometimes her face. The portrait was terribly like; and at thesame time it was the most malicious of lies. Yes, it would be diabolicwhen it was finished, Gombauld decided; he wondered what she would thinkof it.