Léonce Black noted6 his surprise and smiled. “You think there’s nothing doing nowadays? Don’t you believe it, Mr. Campton. Now that the big men have stopped painting, the collectors are all the keener to snap up what’s left in their portfolios7.” He placed the cheque in Campton’s hand, and drew back to study the effect of the sketch, which he had slipped into a frame against a velvet8 curtain. “Ah——” he said, as if he were tasting an old wine.
As Campton turned to go the dealer’s enthusiasm bubbled over. “Haven’t you got anything more? Remember me if you have.”
“I don’t sell my sketches,” said Campton. “This was exceptional—for a charity....”
“I know, I know. Well, you’re likely to have a good many more calls of the same sort before we get this 162war over,” the dealer remarked philosophically9. “Anyhow, remember I can place anything you’ll give me. When people want a Campton it’s to me they come. I’ve got standing10 orders from two clients ... both given before the war, and both good to-day.”
Campton paused in the doorway11, seized by his old fear of the painting’s passing into Anderson Brant’s possession.
“Look here: where is this one going?”
The dealer cocked his handsome grey head and glanced archly through plump eyelids12. “Violation of professional secrecy13? Well.... Well ... under constraint14 I’ll confess it’s to a young lady: great admirer, artist herself. Had her order by cable from New York a year ago. Been on the lookout15 ever since.”
“Oh, all right,” Campton answered, repocketing the money.
He set out at once for “The Friends of French Art,” and Léonce Black, bound for the Ministry16 of War, walked by his side, regaling him alternately with the gossip of the Ministry and with racy anecdotes17 of the dealers18’ world. In M. Black’s opinion the war was an inexcusable blunder, since Germany was getting to be the best market for the kind of freak painters out of whom the dealers who “know how to make a man ‘foam’” can make a big turn over. “I don’t know what on earth will become of all those poor devils now: Paris cared for them only because she knew Germany would 163give any money for their things. Personally, as you know, I’ve always preferred sounder goods: I’m a classic, my dear Campton, and I can feel only classic art,” said the dealer, swelling19 out his uniformed breast and stroking his Assyrian nose as though its handsome curve followed the pure Delphic line. “But, as long as things go on as they are at present in my department of the administration, the war’s not going to end in a hurry,” he continued. “And now we’re in for it, we’ve got to see the thing through.”
Campton found Boylston, as usual, in his melancholy20 cabinet particulier. He was listening to the tale of a young woman with streaming eyes and an extravagant21 hat. She was so absorbed in her trouble that she did not notice Campton’s entrance, and behind her back the painter made a sign to say that she was not to be interrupted.
He was as much interested in the suppliant’s tale as in watching Boylston’s way of listening. That modest and commonplace-looking young man was beginning to excite a lively curiosity in Campton. It was not only that he remembered George’s commendation, for he knew that the generous enthusiasms of youth may be inspired by trifles imperceptible to the older. It was Boylston himself who interested the painter. He knew no more of the young man than the scant22 details Miss Anthony could give. Boylston, it appeared, was the oldest hope of a well-to-do Connecticut family. On his 164leaving college a place had been reserved for him in the paternal23 business; but he had announced good-humouredly that he did not mean to spend his life in an office, and one day, after a ten minutes’ conversation with his father, as to which details were lacking, he had packed a suitcase and sailed for France. There he had lived ever since, in shabby rooms in the rue24 de Verneuil, on the scant allowance remitted25 by an irate26 parent: apparently27 never running into debt, yet always ready to help a friend.
All the American art-students in Paris knew Boylston; and though he was still in the early thirties, they all looked up to him. For Boylston had one quality which always impresses youth: Boylston knew everybody. Whether you went with him to a smart restaurant in the rue Royale, or to a wine-shop of the Left Bank, the patron welcomed him with the same cordiality, and sent the same emphatic28 instructions to the cook. The first fresh peas and the tenderest spring chicken were always for this quiet youth, who, when he was alone, dined cheerfully on veal29 and vin ordinaire. If you wanted to know where to get the best Burgundy, Boylston could tell you; he could also tell you where to buy an engagement ring for your girl, a Ford30 runabout going at half-price, or the papier timbré on which to address a summons to a recalcitrant31 laundress.
If you got into a row with your landlady32 you found that Boylston knew her, and that at sight of him she 165melted and withdrew her claim; or, failing this, he knew the solicitor33 in whose office her son was a clerk, or had other means of reducing her to reason. Boylston also knew a man who could make old clocks go, another who could clean flannels34 without their shrinking, and a third who could get you old picture-frames for a song; and, best of all, when any inexperienced American youth was caught in the dark Parisian cobweb (and the people at home were on no account to hear about it) Boylston was found to be the friend and familiar of certain occult authorities who, with a smile and a word of warning, could break the mesh35 and free the victim.
The mystery was, how and why all these people did what Boylston wanted; but the reason began to dawn on Campton as he watched the young woman in the foolish hat deliver herself of her grievance36. Boylston was simply a perfect listener—and most of his life was spent in listening. Everything about him listened: his round forehead and peering screwed-up eyes, his lips twitching37 responsively under the close-clipped moustache, and every crease38 and dimple of his sagacious and humorous young countenance39; even the attitude of his short fat body, with elbows comfortably bedded in heaped up papers, and fingers plunged40 into his crinkled hair. There was never a hint of hurry or impatience41 about him: having once asserted his right to do what he liked with his life, he was apparently content 166to let all his friends prey42 on it. You never caught his eye on the clock, or his lips shaping an answer before you had turned the last corner of your story. Yet when the story was told, and he had surveyed it in all its bearings, you could be sure he would do what he could for you, and do it before the day was over.
“Very well, Mademoiselle,” he said, when the young woman had finished. “I promise you I’ll see Mme. Beausite, and try to get her to recognize your claim.”
“Mind you, I don’t ask charity—I won’t take charity from your committee!” the young lady hissed43, gathering44 up a tawdry hand-bag.
“Oh, we’re not forcing it on any one,” smiled Boylston, opening the door for her.
When he turned back to Campton his face was flushed and frowning. “Poor thing! She’s a nuisance, but I’ll fight to the last ditch for her. The chap she lives with was Beausite’s secretary and understudy, and devilled for him before the war. The poor fellow has come back from the front a complete wreck45, and can’t even collect the salary Beausite owes him for the last three months before the war. Beausite’s plea is that he’s too poor, and that the war lets him out of paying. Of course he counts on our doing it for him.”
“And you’re not going to?”
“Well,” said Boylston humorously, “I shouldn’t wonder if he beat us in the long run. But I’ll have a try first; and anyhow the poor girl needn’t know. She 167used to earn a little money doing fashion-articles, but of course there’s no market for that now, and I don’t see how the pair can live. They have a little boy, and there’s an infirm mother, and they’re waiting to get married till the girl can find a job.”
“Good Lord!” Campton groaned46, with a sudden vision of the countless47 little trades and traffics arrested by the war, and all the industrious48 thousands reduced to querulous pauperism49 or slow death.
“How do they live—all these people?”
“They don’t—always. I could tell you——”
“Don’t, for God’s sake; I can’t stand it.” Campton drew out the cheque. “Here: this is what I’ve got for the Davrils.”
“Good Lord!” said Boylston, staring with round eyes.
“It will pull them through, anyhow, won’t it?” Campton triumphed.
“Well——” said Boylston. “It will if you’ll endorse50 it,” he added, smiling. Campton laughed and took up a pen.
A day or two later Campton, returning home one afternoon, overtook a small black-veiled figure with a limp like his own. He guessed at once that it was the lame51 Davril girl, come to thank him; and his dislike of such ceremonies caused him to glance about for a way of escape. But as he did so the girl turned with a smile 168that put him to shame. He remembered Adele Anthony’s saying, one day when he had found her in her refugee office patiently undergoing a like ordeal52: “We’ve no right to refuse the only coin they can repay us in.”
The Davril girl was a plain likeness53 of her brother, with the same hungry flame in her eyes. She wore the nondescript black that Campton had remarked at the funeral; and knowing the importance which the French attach to every detail of conventional mourning, he wondered that mother and daughter had not laid out part of his gift in crape. But doubtless the equally strong instinct of thrift54 had caused Mme. Davril to put away the whole sum.
Mlle. Davril greeted Campton pleasantly, and assured him that she had not found the long way from Villejuif to Montmartre too difficult.
“I would have gone to you,” the painter protested; but she answered that she wanted to see with her own eyes where her brother’s friend lived.
In the studio she looked about her with a quick searching glance, said “Oh, a piano——” as if the fact were connected with the object of her errand—and then, settling herself in an armchair, unclasped her shabby hand-bag.
“Monsieur, there has been a misunderstanding; this money is not ours.” She laid Campton’s cheque on the table.
A flush of annoyance55 rose to the painter’s face. What 169on earth had Boylston let him in for? If the Davrils were as proud as all that it was not worth while to have sold a sketch it had cost him such a pang
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