The Hollow of Her Hand

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He came upon it at last. For a long time he sat there gazing at
the face of Hetty Castleton, a look of half-wonder, half-triumph
in his eyes. There could be no doubt as to the identity of the
subject. The face was hers, the lovely eyes were hers: the velvety,
dreamy, soulful eyes that had haunted him for years, as he now
believed. In no sense could the picture be described as a portrait.
It was a study, deliberately arranged and deliberately posed for in
the artist's studio. He was mystified. Why should she, the daughter
of Colonel Castleton, the grand-niece of an earl, be engaged in
posing for what evidently was meant to be a commercial product of
this whilom artist?

He remembered the painting itself as he had seen it in the
exhibition at the National Academy when this fellow--Hawkright was
his name--was at the top of his promise as a painter. He remembered
going back to it again and again and marvelling at the subtle,
delicate beauty of the thing. Now he knew that it was the face,
and not the art of the painter that had affected him so enduringly.
The fellow had shown other paintings, but he recalled that none
of them struck him save this one. After all, it WAS the face that
made the picture memorable.

Turning from this skilfully coloured full page reproduction,
he glanced at first casually over the dozen or more sketches and
studies on the succeeding pages. Many of them represented studies
of women's heads and figures, with little or no attempt to obtain
a likeness. Some were half-draped, showing in a sketchy way the
long graceful lines of the half-nude figure, of bare shoulders and
breasts, of gauze-like fabrics that but illy concealed impressive
charms. Suddenly his eyes narrowed and a sharp exclamation fell
from his lips. He bent closer to the pages and studied the drawings
with redoubled interest.

Then he whistled softly to himself, a token of simple amazement.
The head of each of these remarkable studies suggested in outline
the head and features of Hetty Castleton! She had been Hawkright's
model!

The next morning at ten he was at Southlook, arranging his easel
and canvas in the north end of the long living-room, where the light
from the tall French windows afforded abundant and well-distributed
light for the enterprise in hand. Hetty had not yet appeared. Sara,
attired in a loose morning gown, was watching him from a comfortable
chair in the corner, one shapely bare arm behind her head; the
free hand was gracefully employed in managing a cigarette. He was
conscious of the fact that her lazy, half-alert gaze was upon him
all the time, although she pretended to be entirely indifferent to
the preparations. Dimly he could see the faint smile of interest
on her lips.

"By Jove," he exclaimed with sudden fervour, "I wish I could get
you just as you are, Mrs. Wrandall. Do you mind if I sketch you
in--just to preserve the pose for the future--"

"Never!" she cried and forthwith changed her position. She laughed
at the look of disappointment in his face.

"You've no idea how--er--attractive--" he began confusedly, but
broke off with a laugh. "I beg your pardon. I couldn't help it."

"The potent appeal of a cigarette," she surmised shrewdly.

"Not at all," he said promptly. He was a bit red in the face as he
turned to busy himself with the tubes and brushes. When he glanced
at her again, he found that she had resumed her former attitude.

Hetty came in at that moment, calm, serene and lovelier than ever
in the clear morning light. She was wearing the simple white gown
he had chosen the day before. If she was conscious of the rather
intense scrutiny he bestowed upon her as she gave him her hand in
greeting, she did not appear to be in the least disturbed.

"You may go away, Sara," she said firmly. "I shall be too dreadfully
self-conscious if you are looking on."

Booth looked at her rather sharply. Sara indolently abandoned her
comfortable chair and left them alone in the room.

"Shall we try a few effects, Miss Castleton?" he inquired, after
a period of constraint that had its effect on both of them.

"I am in your hands," she said simply.

He made suggestions. She fell into the positions so easily, so
naturally, so effectively, that he put aside all previous doubts
and blurted out:

"You have posed before, Miss Castleton."

She smiled frankly. "But not for a really truly portrait," she
said. "Such as this is to be."

He hesitated an instant. "I think I recall a canvas by Maurice
Hawkright," he said, and at once experienced a curious sense of
perturbation. It was not unlike fear.

Instead of betraying the confusion or surprise he expected, Miss
Castleton merely raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

"What has that to do with me, Mr. Booth?" she asked.

He laughed awkwardly.

"Don't you know his work?" he inquired, with a slight twist of his
lip.

"I may have seen his pictures," she replied, puckering her brow as
if in reflection.

He stared for a second.

"Why do you look at me in that way, Mr. Booth?" she cried, with a
nervous little laugh.

"Do you mean to say you--er--that is, you don't know Hawkright's
work?"

"Is that so very strange?" she inquired plaintively.

"By Jove," he muttered, quite taken aback. "I don't understand.
I'm flabbergasted."

"Please explain yourself," she said stiffly.

"You must have a double somewhere, Miss Castleton," said he, still
staring. "Some one who looks enough like you to be--"

"Oh," she cried, with a bright smile of understanding. "I see! Yes,
I have a double--a really remarkable double. Have you never seen
Hetty Glynn, the actress?"

"I am sure I have not," he said, taking a long breath. It was one
of relief, he remembered afterward. "If she is so like you as all
that, I COULDN'T have forgotten her."

"She is quite unknown, I believe," she went on, ignoring the implied
compliment. "A chorus-girl, or something like that. They say she
is wonderfully like me--or was, at least, a few years ago."

He was silent for a few minutes, studying her face and figure with
the critical eye of the artist. As he turned to the canvas with his
crayon point, he remarked, with an unmistakable note of relief in
his voice:

"That explains everything. It must have been Hetty Glynn who posed
for all those things of Hawkright's."

"I dare say," said she indifferently.

CHAPTER X

THE GHOST AT THE FEAST

The next day he appeared bright and early with his copy of the
Studio.

"There," he said, holding it before her eyes. She took it from his
hands and stared long and earnestly at the reproduction.

"Do you think it like me?" she inquired innocently.

"Amazingly like you," he declared with conviction.

She turned the page. He was watching her closely. As she looked upon
the sketches of the half-nude figure a warm blush covered her face
and neck. She did not speak for a full minute, and he was positive
that her fingers tightened their grasp on the magazine.

"The same model," he said quietly.

She nodded her head.

"Hetty Glynn, I am sure," she said, after a pause, without lifting
her eyes. Her voice was low, the words not very distinct.

He drew a long breath, and she looked up quickly. What he saw in
her honest blue eyes convicted her.

Sara Wrandall came into the room at that moment. Hetty hastily
closed the magazine and held it behind her. Booth had intended to
show the reproduction to Mrs. Wrandall, but the girl's behaviour
caused him to change his mind. He felt that he possessed a secret
that could not be shared with Sara Wrandall, then or afterward.
Moreover, he decided that he would not refer to the Hawkright
picture again unless the girl herself brought up the subject. All
this flashed through his mind as he stepped forward to greet the
newcomer.

When he turned again to Hetty, the magazine had disappeared. He
never saw it afterward, and, what is more to the point, he never
asked her to produce it.

There was a marked change in Hetty's manner after that when they
were left alone together. She seemed inert, distrait and at times
almost unfriendly. There were occasions, however, when she went to
the other extreme in trying to be at ease with him. These transitions
were singularly marked. He could not fail to notice them. As for
himself, he was uncomfortable, ill-at-ease. An obvious barrier had
sprung up between them.

When Sara was present, the girl seemed to be her old self, but at
no other time. Frequently during the sittings of the next few days
he caught her looking at him without apparently being aware of the
intensity of her gaze. He had the feeling that she was trying to
read his thoughts, but what impressed him more than anything else
was the increasing look of wonder and appeal that lurked in her
deep, questioning eyes. It seemed almost as if she were pleading
for mercy with them.

He thought hard over the situation. The obvious solution came to
him: she had been at one time reduced to the necessity of posing,
a circumstance evidently known to but few and least of all to Sara
Wrandall, from whom the girl plainly meant to keep the truth. This
conviction distressed him, but not in the way that might have been
expected. He had no scruples about sharing the secret or in keeping
it inviolate; his real distress lay in the fear that Mrs. Wrandall
might hear of all this from other and perhaps ungentle sources. As
for her posing for Hawkright, it meant little or nothing to him. In
his own experience, two girls of gentle birth had served as models
for pictures of his own making, and he fully appreciated the exigencies
that had driven them to it. One had posed in the "altogether." She
was a girl of absolutely irreproachable character, who afterwards
married a chap he knew very well, and who was fully aware of
that short phase in her life. That feature of the situation meant
nothing to him. He was in no doubt concerning Hetty. She was what
she appeared to be: a gentlewoman.

He began to experience a queer sense of pity for her. Her eyes
haunted him when they were separated; they dogged him when they
were together. More than once he was moved to rush over and take
her in his arms, and implore her to tell him all, to trust him with
everything. At such times the thought of holding the slim, warm,
ineffably feminine body in his arms was most distracting. He rather
feared for himself. If such a thing were to happen,--and it might
happen if the impulse seized him at the psychological moment of
least resistance,--the result in all probability would be disastrous.
She would turn on him like an injured animal and rend him! Alas,
for that leveller called reason! It spoils many good intentions.

He admitted to himself that he was under the spell of her. It was
not love, he was able to contend; but it was a mysterious appeal
to something within him that had never revealed itself before. He
couldn't quite explain what it was.

In his solitary hours at the cottage on the upper road, he was wont
to take his friend Leslie Wrandall into consideration. As a friend,
was it not his duty to go to him with his sordid little tale? Was
it right to let Wrandall go on with his wooing when there existed
that which might make all the difference in the world to him? He
invariably brought these deliberations to a close by relaxing into
a grim smile of amusement, as much as to say: "Serve him right,
anyway. Trust him to sift her antecedents thoroughly. He's already
done it, and he is quite satisfied with the result. Serve them all
right, for that matter."

But then there was Hetty Glynn. What of her? Hetty Glynn, real or
mythical, was a disturbing factor in his deductions. If there was
a real Hetty Glynn and she was Hetty Castleton's double, what then?

On the fifth day of a series of rather prolonged and tedious
sittings, he was obliged to confine his work to an hour and a half
in the forenoon. Mrs. Wrandall was having a few friends in for
auction-bridge immediately after luncheon. She asked him to stay
over and take a hand, but he declined. He did not play bridge.

Leslie was coming out on an evening train. Booth, in commenting
on this, again remarked a sharp change in Hetty's manner. They had
been conversing somewhat buoyantly up to the moment he mentioned
Leslie's impending visit. In a flash her manner changed. A quick
but unmistakable frown succeeded her smiles, and for some reason
she suddenly relapsed into a state of reserve that was little short
of sullen. He was puzzled, as he had been before.

The day was hot. Sara volunteered to take him home in the motor.
An errand in the village was the excuse she gave for riding over
with him. Heretofore she had sent him over alone with the chauffeur.

She looked very handsome, very tempting, as she came down to the
car.

"By Jove," he said to himself, "she is wonderful!"

He handed her into the car with the grace of a courtier, and she
smiled upon him serenely, as a princess might have smiled in the
days when knighthood was in flower.

When she sat him down at his little garden gate, he put the
question that had been seething in his mind all the way down the
shady stretch they had traversed.

"Have you ever seen Hetty Glynn, the English actress?"

Sara was always prepared. She knew the question would come when
least expected.

"Oh, yes," she replied, with interest. "Have you noticed the resemblance?
They are as like as two peas in a pod. Isn't it extraordinary?"

He was a bit staggered. "I have never seen Hetty Glynn," he replied.

"Oh? You have seen photographs of her?" she inquired casually.

"What has become of her?" he asked, ignoring her question. "Is she
still on the stage?"

"Heaven knows," she replied lightly. "Miss Castleton and I were
speaking of her last night. We were together the last time I saw
her. Who knows? She may have married into the nobility by this
time. She was a very poor actress, but the loveliest thing in the
world--excepting OUR Hetty, of course."

If he could have seen the troubled look in her eyes as she was whirled
off to the village, he might not have gone about the cottage with
such a blithesome air. He was happier than he had been in days,
and all because of Hetty Glynn!

Leslie Wrandall did not arrive by the evening train. He telephoned
late in the afternoon, not to Hetty but to Sara, to say that he was
unavoidably detained and would not leave New York until the next
morning.

Something in his voice, in his manner of speaking, disturbed her.
She went to bed that night with two sources of uneasiness threatening
her peace of mind. She scented peril.

The motor met him at the station and Sara was waiting for him in the
cool, awning-covered verandah as he drove up. There was a sullen,
dissatisfied look in his face. She was stretched out comfortably,
lazily, in a great chaise-longue, her black little slippers peeping
out at him with perfect abandonment.

"Hello," he said shortly. She gave him her hand. "Sorry I couldn't
get out last night." He shook her hand rather ungraciously.

"We missed you," she said. "Pull up a chair. I was never so lazy
as now. Dear me, I am afraid I'll get stout and gross."

"Spring fever," he announced. He was plainly out of sorts. "I'll
stand, if you don't mind. Beastly tiresome, sitting in a hot, stuffy
train."

He took a couple of turns across the porch, his eyes shifting in
the eager, annoyed manner of one who seeks for something that, in
the correct order of things, ought to be plainly visible.

"Please sit down, Leslie. You make me nervous, tramping about like
that. We can't go in for half an hour or more."

"Can't go in?" he demanded, stopping before her. He began to pull
at his little moustache.

"No. Hetty's posing. They won't permit even me to disturb them."

He glared. With a final, almost dramatic twist he gave over jerking
at his moustache, and grabbed up a chair, which he put down beside
her with a vehemence that spoke plainer than words.

"I say," he began, scowling in the direction of the doorway, "how
long is he going to be at this silly job?"

"Silly job? Why, it is to be a masterpiece," she cried.

"I asked you how long?"

"Oh, how can I tell? Weeks, perhaps. One can't prod a genius."

"It's all tommy-rot," he growled. "I suppose I'd better take the
next train back to town."

"Don't you like talking with me?" she inquired, with a pout.

"Of course I do," he made haste to say. "But do you mean to say
they won't let anybody in where--Oh, I say! This is rich!"

"Spectators upset the muse, or words to that effect."

He stared gloomily at his cigarette case for a moment. Then he
carefully selected a cigarette and tapped it on the back of his
hand.

"See here, Sara, I'm going to get this off my chest," he said
bluntly. "I've been thinking it over all week. I don't like this
portrait painting nonsense."

"Dear me! Didn't you suggest it?" she inquired innocently, but all
the time her heart was beating violent time to the song of triumph.

He was jealous. It was what she wanted, what she had hoped for all
along. Her purpose now was to encourage the ugly flame that tortured
him, to fan it into fury, to make it unendurable. She knew him
well: his supreme egoism could not withstand an attack upon its
complacency. Like all the Wrandalls, he had the habit of thinking
too well of himself. He possessed a clearly-defined sense of
humour, but it did not begin to include self-sacrifice among its
endowments. He had never been able to laugh at himself for the
excellent reason that some things were truly sacred to him.

She realised this, and promptly laughed at him. He stiffened.

"Don't snicker, Sara," he growled. He took time to light his cigarette,
and at the same time to consider his answer to her question. "In
a way, yes. I suggested a sort of portrait, of course. A sketchy
thing, something like that, you know. But not an all-summer
operation."

"But she doesn't mind," explained Sara. "In fact, she is enjoying
it. She and Mr. Booth get on famously together."

"She likes him, eh?"

"Certainly. Why shouldn't she like him? He is adorable."

He threw his cigarette over the railing. "Comes here every day, I
suppose?"

"My dear Leslie, he is to do me as soon as he has finished with
her. I don't like your manner."

"Oh," he said in a dull sort of wonder. No one had ever cut him
short in just that way before. "What's up, Sara? Have I done anything
out of the way?"

"You are very touchy, it seems to me."

"I'm sore about this confounded portrait monopoly."

"I'm sorry, Leslie. I suppose you will have to give in, however.
We are three to one against you,--Hetty, Mr. Booth and I."

"I see," he said, rather blankly. Then he drew his chair closer.
"See here, Sara, you know I'm terribly keen about her. I think about
her, I dream about her, I--oh, well, here it is in a nutshell: I'm
in love with her. Now do you understand?"

"I don't see how you could help being in love with her," she said
calmly. "I believe it is a habit men have where she is concerned."

"You're not surprised?" he cried, himself surprised.

"Not in the least."

"I mean to ask her to marry me," he announced with finality. This
was intended to bowl her over completely.

She looked at him for an instant, and then shook her head. "I'd
like to be able to wish you good luck."

He stared. "You don't mean to say she'd be fool enough--" he began
incredulously, but caught himself up in time. "Of course, I'd have
to take my chances," he concluded, with more humility than she had
ever seen him display. "Do you know of any one else?"

"No," she said seriously. "She doesn't confide in me to that extent,
I fear. I've never asked."

"Do you think there was any one back there in England?" He put it
in the past tense, so to speak, as if there could be no question
about the present.

"Oh, I dare say."

He was regaining his complacency. "That's neither here nor there,"
he declared. "The thing I want you to do, Sara, is to rush this
confounded portrait. I don't like the idea, not a little bit."

"I don't blame you for being afraid of the attractive Mr. Booth,"
she said, with a significant lifting of her eyebrows.

"I'm going to have it over with before I go up to town, my dear
girl," he announced, in a matter-of-fact way. "I've given the whole
situation a deuce of a lot of thought, and I've made up my mind to
do it. I'm not the sort, you know, to delay matters once my mind's
made up. By Jove, Sara, YOU ought to be pleased. I'm not such a
rotten catch, if I do say it who shouldn't."

She was perfectly still for a long time, so still that she did
not appear to be breathing. Her eyes grew darker, more mysterious.
If he had taken the pains to notice, he would have seen that her
fingers were rigid.

"I AM pleased," she said, very softly, even gently.

She could have shrieked the words.

He showed no elation. Why should he? He took it as a matter of
course. Settling back in his chair, he lit another cigarette, first
offering the case to her, but she shook her head. Then he lapsed
into a satisfied discussion of the situation as it appeared to him.
All the while she was regarding him with a thoroughly aroused light
in her dark eyes. She was breathing quickly again, and there were
moments when she felt a shudder rush through her veins, as of
exquisite excitement.

How she hated all these smug Wrandalls!

"I came to the decision yesterday," he went on, tapping the arm of
the chair with his finger tips, as if timing his words with care
and precision. "Spoke to dad about it at lunch. I was for coming
out on the five o'clock, as I'd planned, but he seemed to think
I'd better talk it over with the mater first. Not that she would
be likely to kick up a row, you know, but--well, for policy's sake.
See what I mean? Decent thing to do, you know. She never quite got
over the way you and Chal stole a march on her. God knows I'm not
like Chal."

Her eyes narrowed again. "No," she said, "you are not like your
brother."

"Chal was all right, mind you, in what he did," he added hastily,
noting the look. "I would do the same, 'pon my soul I would, if there
were any senseless objections raised in my case. But, of course,
it WAS right for me to talk it over with her, just the same. So
I stayed in and gave them all the chance to say what they thought
of me--and, incidentally, of Hetty. Quite the decent thing, don't
you think? A fellow's mother is his mother, after all. See what I
mean?"

"And she was appeased?" she said, in a dangerously satirical tone.

"Hardly the word, old girl, but we'll let it stand. She WAS appeased.
Wanted to be sure, of course, if I knew my own mind, and all that.
Just as if I didn't! Ha! Ha! I was considerate enough to ask her
if she was satisfied I wasn't marrying beneath the family dignity.
'Gad, she got off a rather neat one at that. Said I might marry under
the family tree if I felt like it. Rather good, eh, for mother? I
said I preferred a church. Nothing al fresco for me."

"She is quite satisfied, then, that you are not throwing yourself
away on Miss Castleton," said Sara, with a deep breath, which he
mistook for a sigh.

"Oh, trust mother to nose into things. She knows Miss Castleton's
pedigree from the ground up. There's Debrett, you see. What's more,
you can't fool her in a pinch. She knows blood when she sees it.
Father hasn't the same sense of proportion, however. He says you
never can tell."

Sara was startled. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, it's nothing to speak of; only a way he has of grinding mother
once in a while. He uses you as an example to prove that you never
can tell, and mother has to admit that he's right. You have upset
every one of her pet theories. She sees it now, but--whew! She
couldn't see it inthe old days, could she?"

"I fear not," said she in a low voice. Her eyes smouldered. "It
is quite natural that she should not want you to make the mistake
your brother made."

"Oh, please don't put it that way, Sara. You make me feel like a
confounded prig, because that's what it comes to, with them, don't
you know. And yet my attitude has always been clear to them where
you're concerned. I was strong for you from the beginning. All that
silly rot about--"

"Please, please!" she burst out, quivering all over.

"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "You--you know how I mean it,
dear girl."

"Please leave me out of it, Leslie," she said, collecting herself.
After a moment she went on calmly: "And so you are going to marry
my poor little Hetty, and they are all pleased with the arrangement."

"If she'll have me," he said with a wink, as if to say there wasn't
any use doubting it. "They're tickled to death."

"Vivian?"

"Viv's a snob. She says Hetty's much too good for me, blood and bone.
What business, says she, has a Wrandall aspiring to the descendant
of Henry the Eighth."

"What!"

"The Murgatroyds go back to old Henry, straight as a plummet.
'Gad, what Vivvy doesn't know about British aristocracy isn't worth
knowing. She looked it up the time they tried to convince her she
ought to marry the duke. But she's fond of Hetty. She says she's
a darling. She's right: Hetty is too good for me."

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