CHAPTER III-MY LADY OF MYSTERY

_Being a single autobiographical chapter from the life of Francis Sedgwick, with editorial comment by Professor Chester Kent._

Dear Kent: Here goes! I met her first on June 22, at three o'clock in the afternoon. Some wonderful cloud effects after a hard rain had brought me out into the open. I had pitched my easel in the hollow, on the Martindale Road, so as to get that clump of pine against the sky.

There I sat working away with a will, when I heard the drumming of hoofs, and a horse with a girl in the saddle came whizzing round the turn almost upon me. Just there the rain had made a puddle of thick sticky mud, the mud-pie variety. As the horse went by at full gallop, a fine, fat, mud pie rose, soared through the air, and landed in the middle of my painting. I fairly yelped.

To get it all off was hopeless. However, I went at it, and was cursing over the job when I heard the hoofs coming back, and the rider pulled up close to me.

"I heard you cry out," said a voice, very full and low. "Did I hurt you?

I hope not."

"No," I said without looking up. "Small thanks to you that you didn't!"

My tone silenced her for a moment. Somehow, though, I got the feeling that she was amused more than abashed at my resentment. And her voice was suspiciously meek when she presently spoke again.

"You're an artist, aren't you?"

"No," I said, busily sc.r.a.ping away at my copperplate. "I'm an archeologist, engaged in exhuming an ancient ruin from a square mile of mud."

She laughed; but in a moment became grave again. "I'm so sorry!" she said. "I know I shouldn't come plunging around turns in that reckless way. May I-I should like to-buy your picture?"

"You may not," I replied.

"That isn't quite fair, is it?" she asked. "If I have done damage, I should be allowed to repair it."

"Repair?" said I. "How do you propose to do it? I suppose that you think a picture that can be bought for a hundred-dollar bill can be painted with a hundred-dollar bill."

"No; I'm not altogether a Philistine," she said, and I looked up at her for the first time. Her face-(_Elision and Comment by Kent_: _I know her face from the sketches. Why could he not have described the horse?

However, there's one point clear: she is a woman of means._)

She said, "I don't wonder you're cross. And I'm truly sorry. Is it quite ruined?"

At that I recovered some decency of manner. "Forgive a hermit," I said, "who doesn't see enough people to keep him civilized. The daub doesn't matter."

She leaned over from the saddle to examine the picture. "Oh, but it isn't a daub!" she protested. "I-I know a little about pictures. It's very interesting and curious. But why do you paint it on copper?"

I explained.

"Oh!" she said. "I should so like to see your prints!"

"Nothing easier," said I. "My shack is just over the hill."

"And there is a Mrs.-" her eyes suggested that I fill the blank.

"Sedgwick?" I finished. "No. There is no one but my aged and highly respectable Chinaman to play propriety. But in the case of a studio, _les convenances_ are not so rigid but that one may look at pictures unchaperoned."

"I'm afraid it wouldn't do," she answered, smiling. "No, I'll have to wait until-" A shadow pa.s.sed over her face. "I'm afraid I'll have to give it up."

Chance settled that point then and there. As she finished, she was in my arms. The girth had loosened, and the saddle had turned with her. I had barely time to twist her foot from the stirrup when the brute of a horse bolted. As it was, her ankle got a bit of a wrench. She turned quite white, and cried out a little. In a moment she was herself again.

"King Cole has been acting badly all day," she said. "I shall have a time catching him." She limped forward a few steps.

"Here, that won't do!" said I. "Let me."

"You couldn't get near him-though, perhaps, if you had some salt-"

"I can get some at my place," said I, gathering up my things. "Your horse is headed that way. You'd better come along and rest there while Ching Lung and I round up your mount."

(_Comment by C. K._: _Here follows more talk, showing how young people imperceptibly and unconsciously cement an acquaintance; but not one word upon the vital point of how far the horse seemed to have come, whether he was ridden out, or fresh, etc._)

At the bungalow I called Ching, and we set out with a supply of salt.

King Cole (_Comment by C. K._: _Probably a dead-black horse_) was coy for a time, before he succ.u.mbed to temptation. On my return I found my visitor in the studio. She had said that she knew a little about pictures. She knew more than a little, a good deal, in fact, and talked most intelligently about them. I don't say this simply because she tried, before she went, to buy some of mine. When I declined to sell she seemed put out.

"But surely these prints of yours aren't the work of an amateur," she said. "You sell?"

"Oh, yes, I sell-when I can. But I don't sell without a good bit of bargaining; particularly when I suspect my purchaser of wishing to make amends by a purchase."

"It isn't that at all," she said earnestly. "I want the pictures for themselves."

"Call this a preliminary then, and come back when you have more time."

She shook her head, and there was a shadow over the brightness of her face. "I'm afraid not," she said. "But I have enjoyed talking again with some one who knows and loves the best in art. After all," she added with a note of determination, almost of defiance, "there is no reason why I shouldn't sometime."

"Then I may look for you again?" I asked.

She nodded as she moved out across the porch. "If you'll promise to sell me any print I may choose. Good-by. And thank you so much, Mr.

Sedgwick!"

She held out her hand. It was a hand for a sculptor to model, as beautiful and full of character as her face. (_Comment by C. K._: _Bosh!_) Afterward I remembered that never again in our friendship did I see it ungloved. (_Comment by C. K._: _"Bosh" retracted. Some observation in that!_)

"Au revoir, then," I said; "but you have the advantage of me, you see. I don't know what to call you at all."

She hesitated; then, with a little soft quiver of her eyelids, which I afterward learned to identify as an evidence of amus.e.m.e.nt, said, "Daw is a nice name, don't you think?" (_Comment by C. K._: _False name, of course; but highly probable first name is Marjorie._) "By the way, what time is it?"

"Quarter to five, Miss Daw."

She smiled at the name. "King Cole will have to do his best, if I am to be back for dinner. Good-by." (_Comment by C. K._: _Good! The place where she is staying is a good way off, a.s.suming a seven-thirty dinner-hour; say twelve to fifteen miles._)

That was the first of many visits, of days that grew in radiance for me.

It isn't necessary for me to tell you, Kent, how in our talks I came to divine in her a spirit as wistful and pure as her face. You do not want a love story from me; yet that is what it was for me almost from the first. Not openly, though. There was that about her which held me at arms' length: the mystery of her, her quickly-given trust in me, a certain strained look that came into her face, like the startled attention of a wild thing poised for flight, whenever I touched upon the personal note. Not that I ever questioned her. That was the understanding between us: that I should leave to her her _incognita_ without effort to penetrate it.

While I talked, I sketched her and studied her. Young as she seemed, she had been much about the world, knew her Europe, had met and talked with men of many pursuits, and had taken from all sources tribute for her mind and color for her imagination. She had read widely, too, and had an individual habit of thought. Combined with all her cosmopolitanism was a quaint and profound purity of standards. I remember her saying once-it was one of her rare flashes of self-revelation-"I am an anomaly and an anachronism, a Puritan in modern society." After her first visit she did not ride on her horse; but came across lots and through the side hedge, swinging down the hillside yonder with her light dipping stride that always recalled to me the swoop of a swallow, her gloved hands usually holding a slender stick.

All those sketches that you saw were but studies for a more serious attempt to catch and fix her personality. (_Comment by C. K._: _Couldn't he have given me in two words her height and approximate weight?_) I did it in pastel, and, if I missed something of her tender and changeful coloring, I at least caught the ineffable wistfulness of her expression, the look of one hoping against hope for an unconfessed happiness.

Probably I had put more of myself into it than I had meant. A man is likely to when he paints with his heart as well as his brain and hand.