The Fortunes of Oliver Horn [143]
uniting the flesh tones and the bodice; and, more than all, the ringing note of red sung by the japonica tucked in her hair and which found its only echo in the red of her lips--red as a slashed pomegranate with the white seed-teeth showing through. The other side of her beautiful self--the side that lay hidden under her soft lashes and velvet touch, the side that could blaze and scorch and burn to cinders--that side Oliver had never once seen nor thought of.
This may have been because, while his fingers worked on, his thoughts were somewhere else, and that he saw another face as he mixed his colors, and not that of the siren before him. Or it may have been that, as he looked into the eyes of the Countess, he saw too deeply into the whirlpool of passion and pain which made up the undercurrent in this beautiful woman's strange life.
Not so the others. Many of whom were the most serious-minded of men where women were concerned. Crug--who, to quote Waller, had drifted into a state of mind bordering on lunacy--was so completely taken off his feet that he again led her ladyship by her finger-tips to the piano, and, with his hand on his heart, and his eyes upraised, begged her to sing for him some of the songs of her native land and in the tongue of her own people; the Countess complying so graciously and singing with such consummate taste and skill, throwing her soul into every line, that the men soon broke out in rounds of applause, crowding about her with the eagerness of bees around a hive--all except Waller and Oliver, who sat apart, quietly watching her out of the corners of their eyes.
The portrait was forgotten now; so were the sketches and tiles, and the work of the evening. So was everything else but the woman who dominated the room. She kept her seat on the piano-stool, the centre of the group, as a queen of the ballet sits on a painted throne, flashing her eyes from one to the other, wheeling about to dash off an air from some unknown opera--unknown to those who listened-- laying her lighted cigarette on the music-rack as she played, and whirling back again to tell some anecdote of the composer who wrote it, or some incident connected with its production in Vienna or Warsaw or St. Petersburg--the club echoing her every whim.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the staid and sober-minded Stone Mugs, under these conditions, completely lost their heads, and that when Oliver picked up an empty beer-mug, the symbol of the club used in all ceremonies, and began filling it with the names of the members which he had written on slips of paper, preparatory to the drawing of the lottery for the picture which he had just finished--every meeting-night a lottery was drawn, the lucky winner possessing the picture of the evening--Crug and Munson should have simultaneously sprung to their feet, and, waving their hands over their heads, have proposed, in one and the same breath, that "Our distinguished visitor" should have the privilege of adding her own name to those in Oliver's mug--the picture to be her own individual property should her patronymic be the first to be drawn from its open mouth.
Waller started to his feet to object, and the words of protest were half out of his mouth when Oliver stopped him. A woman was always a woman to Oliver, no matter what her past or present station in life might be. It was her sex that kept him loyal when any discourtesy was involved.
"Keep still, old man," he whispered. "They've gone crazy, but we can't help it. Get on your feet and vote."
When the sound of the "ayes" adopting Crug and Munson's motion had died away, Oliver inscribed her initials upon a small piece of paper, dropped it in the mug, held it high above the lady's head, and asked her to reach up her dainty fingers and pick out the name of the lucky possessor of "The Woman in Black," as the picture had now been christened. The white arm went up, the jewelled fingers felt about nervously among the little ballots, and then the Countess held up a twisted bit of paper.
A burst of applause filled
This may have been because, while his fingers worked on, his thoughts were somewhere else, and that he saw another face as he mixed his colors, and not that of the siren before him. Or it may have been that, as he looked into the eyes of the Countess, he saw too deeply into the whirlpool of passion and pain which made up the undercurrent in this beautiful woman's strange life.
Not so the others. Many of whom were the most serious-minded of men where women were concerned. Crug--who, to quote Waller, had drifted into a state of mind bordering on lunacy--was so completely taken off his feet that he again led her ladyship by her finger-tips to the piano, and, with his hand on his heart, and his eyes upraised, begged her to sing for him some of the songs of her native land and in the tongue of her own people; the Countess complying so graciously and singing with such consummate taste and skill, throwing her soul into every line, that the men soon broke out in rounds of applause, crowding about her with the eagerness of bees around a hive--all except Waller and Oliver, who sat apart, quietly watching her out of the corners of their eyes.
The portrait was forgotten now; so were the sketches and tiles, and the work of the evening. So was everything else but the woman who dominated the room. She kept her seat on the piano-stool, the centre of the group, as a queen of the ballet sits on a painted throne, flashing her eyes from one to the other, wheeling about to dash off an air from some unknown opera--unknown to those who listened-- laying her lighted cigarette on the music-rack as she played, and whirling back again to tell some anecdote of the composer who wrote it, or some incident connected with its production in Vienna or Warsaw or St. Petersburg--the club echoing her every whim.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the staid and sober-minded Stone Mugs, under these conditions, completely lost their heads, and that when Oliver picked up an empty beer-mug, the symbol of the club used in all ceremonies, and began filling it with the names of the members which he had written on slips of paper, preparatory to the drawing of the lottery for the picture which he had just finished--every meeting-night a lottery was drawn, the lucky winner possessing the picture of the evening--Crug and Munson should have simultaneously sprung to their feet, and, waving their hands over their heads, have proposed, in one and the same breath, that "Our distinguished visitor" should have the privilege of adding her own name to those in Oliver's mug--the picture to be her own individual property should her patronymic be the first to be drawn from its open mouth.
Waller started to his feet to object, and the words of protest were half out of his mouth when Oliver stopped him. A woman was always a woman to Oliver, no matter what her past or present station in life might be. It was her sex that kept him loyal when any discourtesy was involved.
"Keep still, old man," he whispered. "They've gone crazy, but we can't help it. Get on your feet and vote."
When the sound of the "ayes" adopting Crug and Munson's motion had died away, Oliver inscribed her initials upon a small piece of paper, dropped it in the mug, held it high above the lady's head, and asked her to reach up her dainty fingers and pick out the name of the lucky possessor of "The Woman in Black," as the picture had now been christened. The white arm went up, the jewelled fingers felt about nervously among the little ballots, and then the Countess held up a twisted bit of paper.
A burst of applause filled