The Fortunes of Oliver Horn [165]
was the way in which the younger man settled down to work, his brow knit, his lips tightly closed, the members widening out to give them room, Oliver and Nathan cheering the loudest of them all as Richard's foil flashed in the air, parrying, receiving, now up, now down, his right foot edging closer, his dear old head bent low, his deep eyes fixed on his young antagonist, until, with a quick thrust of his arm and a sudden upward twist of his hand, he wrenched Munson's foil from his grasp and sent it flying across the room.
Best of all was the joyful yet apologetic way with which Richard sprang forward and held out his hand to Munson, crying out:
"A fluke, my dear Mr. Munson; quite a fluke, I assure you. Pray forgive me. A mere lucky accident. My old fencing master, Martini, taught me that trick. I thought I had quite forgotten it. Just think! it is forty years since I have had a foil in my hands," and, laughing like a boy he crossed the room, picked up the foil, and, bowing low, handed it to the crestfallen man with the air of a gallant.
Half the club, costumed as they were--it was now after midnight, and there were but few people in the streets--escorted the two old men back to their hotel. Munson walked beside Richard; Waller, his flowing skirts tucked up inside his overcoat, stepped on the right of Nathan; Oliver, Fred, and the others followed behind, the hubbub of their talk filling the night: even when they reached the side door of the hotel and rang up the night porter, they must still stand on the sidewalk listening to Richard's account of the way the young gallants were brought up in his day; of the bouts with the foils; and of the duels which were fought before they were willing to take their leave.
When the last good-byes had been given, and Oliver had waved his rapier from the doorstep as a final farewell to his fellow-members before he saw his father upstairs to bed, and the delighted escort had turned on their heels to retrace their steps up Broadway, Waller slipped his arm into Munson's, and said, in his most thoughtful tone, one entirely free from cynicism or badinage:
"What a lovely pair of old duffers. We talk about Bohemia, Munson, and think we've got it, but we haven't. Our kind is a cheap veneer glued to commonplace pine. Their kind is old mahogany, solid all the way through--fine grain, high polish and no knots. I only wish they lived here."
CHAPTER XXIV
IN THE TWILIGHT
Each day Margaret's heart warmed more and more to Richard. He not only called out in her a tenderness and veneration for his age and attainments which her own father had never permitted her to express, but his personality realized for her an ideal which, until she knew him, she had despaired of ever finding. While his courtesy, his old-time manners, his quaintness of speech and dress captivated her imagination, his perfect and unfailing sympathy and constant kindness completely won her heart. There was, too, now and then, a peculiar tone in his voice which would bring the tears to her eyes without her knowing why, until her mind would recall some blunt, outspoken speech of her dead father's in answer to the very sentiments she was then expressing to Richard, who received them as a matter of course--a remembrance which always caused a tightening about her heart.
Sometimes the inventor would sit for her while she sketched his head in different lights, he watching her work, interested in every stroke, every bit of composition. She loved to have him beside her easel criticising her work. No one, she told Oliver, had ever been so interested before with the little niceties of her technique--in the amount of oil used, in the way the paints were mixed; in the value of a palette knife as a brush or of an old cotton rag as a blender, nor had any one of her sitters ever been so enthusiastic over her results.
There was one half-hour sketch which more than all the others astonished and delighted him--one in which Margaret in her finishing touches had eschewed brushes, palette-knife and rag, and
Best of all was the joyful yet apologetic way with which Richard sprang forward and held out his hand to Munson, crying out:
"A fluke, my dear Mr. Munson; quite a fluke, I assure you. Pray forgive me. A mere lucky accident. My old fencing master, Martini, taught me that trick. I thought I had quite forgotten it. Just think! it is forty years since I have had a foil in my hands," and, laughing like a boy he crossed the room, picked up the foil, and, bowing low, handed it to the crestfallen man with the air of a gallant.
Half the club, costumed as they were--it was now after midnight, and there were but few people in the streets--escorted the two old men back to their hotel. Munson walked beside Richard; Waller, his flowing skirts tucked up inside his overcoat, stepped on the right of Nathan; Oliver, Fred, and the others followed behind, the hubbub of their talk filling the night: even when they reached the side door of the hotel and rang up the night porter, they must still stand on the sidewalk listening to Richard's account of the way the young gallants were brought up in his day; of the bouts with the foils; and of the duels which were fought before they were willing to take their leave.
When the last good-byes had been given, and Oliver had waved his rapier from the doorstep as a final farewell to his fellow-members before he saw his father upstairs to bed, and the delighted escort had turned on their heels to retrace their steps up Broadway, Waller slipped his arm into Munson's, and said, in his most thoughtful tone, one entirely free from cynicism or badinage:
"What a lovely pair of old duffers. We talk about Bohemia, Munson, and think we've got it, but we haven't. Our kind is a cheap veneer glued to commonplace pine. Their kind is old mahogany, solid all the way through--fine grain, high polish and no knots. I only wish they lived here."
CHAPTER XXIV
IN THE TWILIGHT
Each day Margaret's heart warmed more and more to Richard. He not only called out in her a tenderness and veneration for his age and attainments which her own father had never permitted her to express, but his personality realized for her an ideal which, until she knew him, she had despaired of ever finding. While his courtesy, his old-time manners, his quaintness of speech and dress captivated her imagination, his perfect and unfailing sympathy and constant kindness completely won her heart. There was, too, now and then, a peculiar tone in his voice which would bring the tears to her eyes without her knowing why, until her mind would recall some blunt, outspoken speech of her dead father's in answer to the very sentiments she was then expressing to Richard, who received them as a matter of course--a remembrance which always caused a tightening about her heart.
Sometimes the inventor would sit for her while she sketched his head in different lights, he watching her work, interested in every stroke, every bit of composition. She loved to have him beside her easel criticising her work. No one, she told Oliver, had ever been so interested before with the little niceties of her technique--in the amount of oil used, in the way the paints were mixed; in the value of a palette knife as a brush or of an old cotton rag as a blender, nor had any one of her sitters ever been so enthusiastic over her results.
There was one half-hour sketch which more than all the others astonished and delighted him--one in which Margaret in her finishing touches had eschewed brushes, palette-knife and rag, and