The Hollow of Her Hand

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"And he is really devoted to her?"

"I fear so," said her hostess, with a faint sigh. The other sighed
also.

"My dear, it would be perfectly lovely. Why do you say that?"

"I suppose it's the way all mothers feel. Of course, I want to be
sure that he is to be very, very happy."

"That is perfectly natural. And he WILL be happy."

If either of them recalled the strenuous efforts Mrs. Wrandall
had made a couple of years before to get her only daughter married
off to a degenerate young English duke, the thought was submerged
in the present sea of sentimentality. It speaks well for Vivian's
character that she flatly refused to be given in marriage, although
it appeared to be the fashion at the time. It was the year of the
coronation.

"Miss Castleton is a most uncommon girl," said Mrs. Wrandall, again
apropos of nothing that had gone before.

"Most English girls are," agreed her friend, scenting something.

"I mean to say, she is so unlike the girls one sees in society. My
husband says she's level-headed. Sound as a rivet, he also says.
Nothing silly or flip about her, he adds when he is particularly
enthusiastic, and he knows I hate the word 'flip.' Of course he
means flippant. He is very much taken with her."

Mrs. Rowe-Martin pondered a moment before risking her next remark.

"I can't quite understand her taking up with Sara Gooch in this
fashion. You know what I mean. Sara is the last person in the world
you'd think a gently bred person would--" Here she pulled herself
up with a jerk. "I mean, of course, a gently bred girl. Naturally
she would appeal to men--and gently bred men, at that. But this
present intimacy--well, isn't it rather extraordinary?"

Mrs. Wrandall drained her cup, without taking her eyes from the
face of her friend.

"You must remember, my dear Harriet, that Miss Castleton looks upon
Sara as a Wrandall, not a Gooch. She was the wife of a Wrandall.
That covers everything so far as the girl is concerned. I dare say
she finds Sara amusing, interesting, and we all know she is kindness
itself. It doesn't surprise me that Miss Castleton admires her, or
that she loves her. Sara has improved in the last seven or eight
years." She said this somewhat loftily.

Mrs. Rowe-Martin was most amiable. "She has, indeed, thanks to
propinquity."

"And her own splendid intelligence," added Mrs. Wrandall.

"Isn't it wonderful how superior they are when it comes to
intelligence?" cried her friend, almost plaintively. "I've noticed
it in shop-girls and manicures, over and over again."

"Perhaps you got the effect by contrast," said Mrs. Wrandall,
pouring a little more tea into her friend's cup. Mrs. Rowe-Martin
was silent. "Sara deserves a lot of credit. She has made a position
for herself, a very decided position. We are all quite proud of
her."

Mrs. Rowe-Martin was on very intimate terms with the Wrandall family
skeleton. She could afford to be plain spoken.

"It is hard to reconcile your present attitude, my dear, to the
position you held a few years ago. Heaven knows you weren't proud
of her then. She was dirt beneath your feet."

"My dear Harriet," said Mrs. Wrandall, without so much as the
flutter of an eyelid, "I am not saying that I would select her as
a daughter-in-law, even to-day. Don't misunderstand me."

"I am not underestimating her splendid intelligence," said Mrs.
Rowe-Martin sharply, and her hostess was so long in working it out
that it was allowed to pass unresented. "I dare say she will marry
again," went on the speaker blandly.

Sara's mother-in-law was startled.

"It's rather early to suggest such a thing, isn't it?" she asked
reproachfully.

"Forgive me," cried Mrs. Rowe-Martin, but she did not attempt to
unsay the words. She meant them to sink in when she uttered them.
It was commonly predicted in society that Challis Wrandall's wife
would further elevate herself by wedding the most dependable nobleman
who came along, and without any appreciable consideration for the
feelings of her late husband's family.

"It is quite natural--and right--that she should marry," said Mrs.
Wrandall, after a moment's deliberation. "She is young and beautiful
and we sincerely hope she will find some one--But, my dear, aren't
we drifting? We were speaking of Leslie."

"And Miss Castleton. You are quite satisfied, then? You don't feel
that he would be making a mistake?"

Mrs. Wrandall touched her handkerchief to the corners of her eyes.

"We could not possibly raise any objection to Miss Castleton, if
that is what you mean, Harriet," she said.

"I am so glad you feel that way about it, my dear," said her friend,
touching her handkerchief to her lips. "It would grieve me more
than I can tell you if I thought you would have to go through with
another experience like that of--Forgive me! I won't distress you
by recalling those awful days. Poor, susceptible Challis!"

"No," said Mrs. Wrandall firmly; "Leslie is safe. We feel quite
sure of him."

The visitor was reflective. "I suppose there is no doubt that Miss
Castleton will accept him," she mused aloud.

"We are assuming, of course, that Leslie means to ask her," said
Leslie's mother, with infinite patience.

"I only mentioned it because it is barely possible she may have
other fish to fry."

"Fish?"

"A figure of speech, my dear."

And it set Mrs. Wrandall to thinking.

CHAPTER IX

HAWKRIGHT's MODEL

Brandon Booth took a small cottage on the upper road, half way
between the village and the home of Sara Wrandall, and not far from
the abhorred "back gate" that swung in the teeth of her connections
by marriage. He set up his establishment in half a day and, being
settled, betook himself off to dine with Sara and Hetty. All his
household cares, like the world, rested snugly on the shoulders of
an Atlas named Pat, than whom there was no more faithful servitor in
all the earth, nor in the heavens, for that matter, if we are to
accept his own estimate of himself. In any event, he was a treasure.
Booth's house was always in order. Try as he would, he couldn't
get it out of order. Pat's wife saw to that. She was the cook,
housekeeper, steward, seamstress, nurse and everything else except
the laundress, and she would have been that if Booth hadn't put
his foot down on it. He was rather finicky about his bosoms, it
seems--and his cuffs, as well.

Pat and Mary had been in the Booth family since the flood, so to
speak. As far back as Brandon could remember, the quaint Irishman
had been the same wrinkled, nut-brown, merry-eyed comedian that he
was to-day, and Mary the same serene, blarneying wife of the man.
They were not a day older than they were in the beginning. He
used to wonder if Methuselah knew them. When he set up bachelor
quarters for himself in New York, his mother bestowed these priceless
domestic treasures upon him. They journeyed up from Philadelphia
and complacently took charge of his destinies; no matter which
way they led or how diversified they may have been in conception,
Brandon's destinies always came safely around the circle to the
starting point with Pat and Mary atop of them, as chipper as you
please and none the worse for erosion.

They stoutly maintained that one never gets too old to learn, a
conclusion that Brandon sometimes resented.

He had been obliged to discharge three chauffeurs because Pat did
not get on well with them, and he had found it quite impossible
to keep a dog for the simple reason that Mary insisted on keeping
a cat--a most unamiable, belligerent cat at that. He would have
made home a hell for any well-connected dog.

As he swung jauntily down the tree-lined road that led to Sara's
portals, Booth was full of the joy of living. Dusk was falling.
A soft bronze glowed in the western sky. Over the earth lay the
tranquil purple of spent refulgence, the after-glow of a red day,
for the sun had shone hot since early morn through a queer, smoky
screen of haze. There was a deep stillness over everything. Indolent
Nature slept in the shadows, as if at rest after the weary day,
with scarcely a leaf stirring. And yet there was a subtle coolness
in the air, the feel of a storm that was yet unborn--the imperceptible
shudder of a tempest that was drawing its first breath.

Before the night was half gone, the storm would be upon them,
to revel for a while and then pass on, leaving behind it the dank
smell of a grateful earth.

But Booth had no thought for the thing that was afar off. He was
thinking of the quarter-of-an-hour that came next in the wheel of
time, whose minutes were to check off the results of a fortnight's
anticipation. He had not seen either of the ladies of Southlook
in the past two weeks, but he had been under the spell of them so
sharply that they were seldom out of his thoughts.

Sara was at the bottom of the terrace, moving among the flower
beds in the formal garden. He distinguished her from a distance: a
slender, graceful figure in black. A black scarf edged with maribou
covered her shoulders, the line of a white neck separating it from
the raven hue of her hair. He paused at the lower gate to look.
Then his gaze was drawn to the gleaming white figure at the top of
the terrace, outlined distinctly against the blue-black sky that
hung over the Sound. Hetty stood there, straight and motionless,
looking out over the water. So still was the evening wind that not
a flutter of her soft gown was noticeable. She was like a statue.

At the sound of his footsteps on the gravel, Sara looked up and
instantly smiled her welcome. When Sara smiled the heart of man
responded, long in advance of his lips. Hers was the inviting,
mysterious smile of the Orient, with the eyes half shaded by
drooping, languorous lids: dusky, shadowy eyes that looked at you
as through a veil, and yet were as clear as crystal once you lost
the illusion.

"It is so nice to see you again," she said, giving him her hand.

"'My heart's in the highlands,'" he quoted, waving a vague tribute
to the heavens. "And it's nice of you to see me," he added gracefully.
Then he pointed up the terrace. "Isn't she a picture? 'Gad, it's
lovely--the whole effect. That picture against the sky--"

He stopped short, and the sentence was never finished, although
she waited for him to complete it before remarking:

"Her heart is not in the highlands."

"You mean--something's gone wrong--"

"Oh, no," she said, still smiling; "nothing like that. Her heart
is in the lowlands. You would consider Washington Square to be in
the lowlands, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, I see," he said slowly. "You mean she's thinking of Leslie."

"Who knows? It was a venture on my part, that's all. She may be
thinking of you, Mr. Booth."

"Or some chap in old England, that's more like it," he retorted.
"She can't be thinking of me, you know. No one ever thinks of me
when I'm out of view. Out of sight, out of mind. No; she's thinking
of something a long way off--or some one, if you choose to have it
that way."

"In that case, it isn't good for her to be thinking of things so
remote. Shall we shout 'halloa the house'?"

He shot a glance at her and responded gallantly: "If she isn't
thinking of us, why should we be thinking of her? Is it too near the
dinner hour for you to let me sit here and rest before attempting
to climb all those steps? And will you sit beside me, as the good
Omar might have said?" He was fanning himself with his straw hat.

She searched his face for a second, a smiling but inscrutable
expression in her eyes, and then sat down on the rustic bench at
the foot of the terrace.

"Why didn't you let me send the motor for you?" she asked, as he
took his place beside her.

"I mean to have an appetite in the country," he said, taking a
deep, full breath. "Motors don't aid the appetite. Aeroplanes are
better. I had a flight with a friend up in Westchester last week.
I was very hungry when I came down."

[Illustration: Hetty stood there, straight and motionless, looking
out over the water]

"We'll all be flying before we really know it," said she. "Hetty
tried it in France this spring. Have you seen Leslie this week?"

"I've been in Philadelphia for a few days. Is he coming out on
Friday?"

"Oh, yes. He comes so often nowadays that we call him a commuter."

"Attractive spot, this," said he, with a significant glance up the
terrace.

"So it would appear."

"He's really keen about her?"

She did not reply, but her smile meant more than words.

"I am eager to get at the portrait," said he, after a moment.

"Leslie tells me that you want to do me also," said she carelessly.

He flushed. "Confound him! I suppose it annoys you, Mrs. Wrandall.
He shouldn't carry tales."

"But do you?"

"I should say I do," he cried warmly. "For my own pleasure and
satisfaction, you understand. There's nothing I'd like better."

"We'll see how successfully you flatter Hetty," said she. "If it
is possible to make her prettier than she really is, you may paint
me. I shall be the first to fall at your feet and implore you to
make me beautiful."

His eyes gleamed. "If I fail in that," said he warmly, "it will be
because I am without integrity."

Again she smiled upon him with half-closed, shadowy eyes, and shook
her head. Then she arose.

"Let us go in. Hetty is eager to see you again."

They started up the terrace. His face clouded.

"I have had a feeling all along that she'd rather not have this
portrait painted, Mrs. Wrandall. A queer sort of feeling that she
doesn't just like the idea of being put on canvas."

"Nonsense," she said, without looking at him.

"Of course, I could understand her not caring to give up the time
to it. It's a nuisance, I know. But it isn't that sort of feeling
I have about her attitude. There's something else. Doesn't she like
me?"

"Of course she does," she exclaimed. "How ridiculous. She will love
it, once the picture is under way. It is the beginning of it that
disturbs her. Isn't that always the way?"

"I am afraid you don't know women," said he banteringly.

"By the way, have you been able to recall where you first saw her,
or is your memory still a blank?" she asked suddenly.

"I can't think where it was or when," said he, "but I am absolutely
positive I've seen her before. Her face is not the kind one forgets,
you know."

"It may come to you unexpectedly."

"It's maddening, not to be able to remember."

The dusk of night hid the look of relief that came into her eyes.

Hetty met them at the top of the steps. The electric porch lights
had just been turned on by the butler. The girl stood in the path
of the light. Booth was never to forget the loveliness of her in
that moment. He carried the image with him on the long walk home
through the black night. (He declined Sara's offer to send him
over in the car for the very reason that he wanted the half-hour of
solitude in which to concentrate all the impressions she had made
on his fancy.)

The three of them stood there for a few minutes, awaiting the
butler's announcement. Sara's arm was about Hetty's shoulders. He
was so taken up with the picture they presented that he scarcely
heard their light chatter. They were types of loveliness so full of
contrast that he marvelled at the power of Nature to create women
in the same mould and yet to model so differently.

They were as near alike in height, figure and carriage as two
women could be, and yet there was a subtle distinction that left
him conscious of the fact that two vastly different strains of
blood ran through their veins. Apart, he would not have perceived
this marked difference in them. Hetty represented the violet, Sara
the pansy. The distinction may be subtile. However, it was the
estimate he formed in that moment of comparison.

The English girl's soft white gown was cut low in the neck, her
shapely arms were bare. Sara's black covered her arms and shoulders,
even to the slender throat. The hair of both was black and rich
and alive with the gloss of health. The eyes of one were blue and
velvety, even in the glare of light that fell from above; those of
the other were black, Oriental, mysterious.

As they entered the vestibule, a servant came up with the word that
Miss Castleton was wanted at the telephone, "long distance from
New York."

The girl stopped in her tracks. Booth looked at her in mild surprise,
a condition which gave way an instant later to perplexity. The
look of annoyance in her eyes could not be disguised or mistaken.

"Ask him to call me up later, Watson," she said quietly.

"This is the third time he has called, Miss Castleton," said the
man. "You were dressing, if you please, ma'am, the first time--"

"I will come," she interrupted sharply, with a curious glance at
Sara, who for some reason avoided meeting Booth's gaze.

"Tell him we shall expect him on Friday," said Mrs. Wrandall.

"By George!" thought Booth, as she left them. "I wonder if it can
be Leslie. If it IS--well, he wouldn't be flattered if he could
have seen the look in her eyes."

Later on, he had no trouble in gathering that it WAS Leslie Wrandall
who called, but he was very much in the dark as to the meaning of
that expressive look. He only knew that she was in the telephone
room for ten minutes or longer, and that all trace of emotion was
gone from her face when she rejoined them with a brief apology for
keeping them waiting.

He left at ten-thirty, saying good-night to them on the terrace.
Sara walked to the steps with him.

"Don't you think her voice is lovely?" she asked. Hetty had sung
for them.

"I dare say," he responded absently. "Give you my word, though, I
wasn't thinking of her voice. SHE is lovely."

He walked home as if in a dream. The spell was on him.

Far in the night, he started up from the easy chair in which he
had been smoking and dreaming and racking his brain by turns.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed aloud. "I remember! I've got it! And
to-morrow I'll prove it."

Then he went to bed, with the storm from the sea pounding about
the house, and slept serenely until Pat and Mary wondered whether
he meant to get up at all.

"Pat," said he at breakfast, "I want you to go to the city this
morning and fetch out all of the STUDIOS you can find about the
place. The old ones are in that Italian hall seat and the late ones
are in the studio. Bring all of them."

"There's a divvil of a bunch of thim," said Pat ruefully.

He was not to begin sketching the figure until the following day.
After luncheon, however, he had an appointment to inspect Hetty's
wardrobe, ostensibly for the purpose of picking out a gown for the
picture. As a matter of fact, he had decided the point to his own
satisfaction the night before. She should pose for him in the dainty
white dress she had worn on that occasion.

While they were going over the extensive assortment of gowns,
with Sara as the judge from whom there seemed to be no appeal, he
casually inquired if she had ever posed before.

Two ladies' maids were engaged in flinging the costly garments
about as if they represented so much rubbish. The floor was littered
with silks and satins and laces. He was accustomed to this ruthless
handling of exquisite fabrics by eager ladies of wealth: it was
one way these pampered women had of showing their contempt for
possession. Gowns came from everywhere by the armload; from closets,
presses and trunks, ultimately landing in a conglomerate heap on
the floor when cast aside as undesirable by the artist, the model
and the censor.

He watched her closely as he put the question. She was holding up
a beautiful point lace creation for his inspection, and there was
a pleading smile on her lips. It must have been her favourite gown.
The smile faded away. The hand that dangled the garment before
his eyes suddenly became motionless, as if paralysed. In the next
instant, she recovered herself, and, giving the lace a quick fillip
that sent its odour of sachet leaping to his nostrils, responded
with perfect composure.

"Isn't there a distinction between posing for an artist, and sitting
for one's portrait?" she asked.

He was silent. The fact that he did not respond seemed to disturb
her after a moment or two. She made the common mistake of pressing
the question.

"Why do you ask?" was her inquiry. When it was too late she wished
she had not uttered the words. He had caught the somewhat anxious
note in her voice.

"We always ask that, I think," he said. "It's a habit."

"Oh," she said doubtfully.

"And by the way, you haven't answered."

She was busy with the gown for a time. At last she looked him full
in the face.

"That's true," she agreed; "I haven't answered, have I? No, Mr.
Booth, I've never posed for a portrait. It is a new experience for
me. You will have to contend with a great deal of stupidity on my
part. But I shall try to be plastic."

He uttered a polite protest, and pursued the question no farther.
Her answer had been so palpably evasive that it struck him as bald,
even awkward.

Pat, disgruntled and irritable to the point of profanity,--he was
a privileged character and might have sworn if he felt like it
without receiving notice,--came shambling up the cottage walk late
that afternoon, bearing two large, shoulder-sagging bundles. He
had walked from the station,--a matter of half-a-mile,--and it was
hot. His employer sat in the shady porch, viewing his approach.

"Have you got them?" he inquired.

Pat dropped the bundles on the lower step and stared, speechless.
Then he mopped his drenched, turkey-red face with his handkerchief.
He got his breath after a spell of contemptuous snorting.

"Have I got what?" he demanded sarcastically. "The measles?"

"The STUDIOS, Patrick," said Booth reprovingly.

"No, sor," said Pat; "I came absolutely empty-handed, as you may
have seen, sor."

"I knew I couldn't be mistaken. I was confident I saw nothing in
your hands."

"I kept thim closed, sor, so's you couldn't see what was r'ally
in thim. I've been wid you long enough, sor, to know how you hate
the sight av blisthers."

"They must be quite a novelty to you, Patrick. I should think you'd
be proud of them."

"Where am I to put them, sor?"

"The blisters?"

"Yis, sor."

"On this table, if you please. And you might cut the strings while
you're about it."

Pat put the bundles on the wicker table and cut the heavy twine
in dignified silence. Carefully rolling it up in a neat ball, he
stuck it in his pocket. Then he faced his employer.

"Is there annyt'ing else, sor?"

"I think not, at present."

"Not aven a cup av tea, sor?"

"No, thanks."

"Thin, if you will excuse me, I'll go about me work. I've had a
pleasant day off, sor, thanks to ye. It's hard to go back to work
afther such a splindid spell of idleness. Heigho! I'd like to be
a gintleman av leisure all the time, that I would, sor. The touch
I've had av it to-day may be the sp'iling av me. If you're a smart
man, Mr. Brandon Booth, ye'll not be letting me off for a holiday
like this again very soon."

Booth laughed outright. Pat's face wrinkled into a slow, forgiving
grin.

"I love you, Pat," cried the painter, "in spite of the way you bark
at me."

"It's a poor dog that don't know his own master," said Pat
magnanimously. "Whin you're t'rough wid the magazines, I'll carry
thim down to the cellar, sor."

"What's the matter with the attic?"

"Nothing at all, at all. I was only finking they'd be handier
for you to get at in the cellar. And it's a dom sight cooler down
there."

With that he departed, blinking slyly.

The young man drew a chair up to the table and began the task
of working out the puzzle that now seemed more or less near to
solution. He had a pretty clear idea as to the period he wanted to
investigate. To the best of his recollection, the Studios published
three or four years back held the key. He selected the numbers and
began to run through them. One after another they were cast aside
without result. In any other cause he would have tired of the quest,
but in this his curiosity was so commanding that he stuck to the
task without complaint. He was positive in his mind that what he
desired was to be found inside the covers of one of these magazines.
He was searching for a vaguely remembered article on one of the
iesser-known English painters who had given great promise at the
time it was published but who dropped completely out of notice soon
afterward because of a mistaken notion of his own importance. If
Booth's memory served him right, the fellow came a cropper, so to
speak, in trying to ride rough shod over public opinion, and went
to the dogs. He had been painting sensibly up to that time, but
suddenly went in for the most violent style of impressionism. That
was the end of him.

There had been reproductions of his principal canvases, with sketches
and studies in charcoal. One of these pictures had made a lasting
impression on Booth: the figure of a young woman in deep meditation
standing in the shadow of a window casement from which she looked
out upon the world apparently without a thought of it. A slender young
woman in vague reds and browns, whose shadowy face was positively
illuminated by a pair of wonderful blue eyes.

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