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Rh you up yet." He sought her lips.

"Cut it," cried Ivy, roused to anger at last. "I've said 'no' and that's all there is to it. It's your cue for a quick exit. Good night!" She drew her hands up between them and laid them on his shirt front, holding him away. "Let go! Let go, I say, Harvey. Don't be a fool. I can—" She pushed suddenly so that the starched shirt front wrinkled and crackled loudly. But the tenor was heavy. The push worked just contrary to her expectation. She slipped outward on the window sill, wildly reaching for a hold on something, anything. Her fingers caught his collar, pulled, broke it. And Ivy slipped suddenly downward."

The awning over the restaurant entrance broke her fall. She flapped down to the pavement on hands and knees enveloped in a swirl of canvas, but not even scratched.

The first thing she did was to laugh—a merry peal, muffled under the canvas. Almost immediately she was conscious of hands tearing excitedly at the chaos that covered her, and, in an instant, she was able to scramble up, the last fold falling away from her. There she stood, in the flare of light from one of Perreard's lower windows, a jaunty figure in tam-o'-shanter, smock and velveteen trousers, smiling happily and beating the dust from her clothes. Facing her, the full light on his lean face, was a tall, earnest-eyed young fellow, evidently the man who had extricated her from the wreckage. He was talking and holding her arm, demanding to know if she were hurt. Behind them, in the restaurant, people were rising to their feet, waiters were hurrying toward them. Ivy saw them and looked down at her costume. A vivid imagination showed her, in a flash, how they would crowd around, asking silly questions, and storing up information to spread all over the city. Off stage, she was seized with stage-fright.

"Quick!" whispered Ivy, and her happy-go-lucky feet turned of their own accord. "I've got to hide. Please,—just for a minute." As the door of the restaurant opened, Ivy slipped with her rescuer into the darkness, moving swiftly, running along the dark street until the young man drew her aside into a darkened store entrance.

"Far enough!" he breathed, and they both paused, a little breathless.

In the half light, Ivy could see her rescuer leaning against the plate glass window, tall and blonde, slender and boyish. He was very serious she could see vaguely.

"Why did we run?" he asked abruptly.

"We ran to—because—because they were coming,—the waiters,—the people. I didn't want to be seen—in these clothes." Though she had thought nothing of appearing before the cabaret crowd at Perreard's in the costume, Ivy blushed a little under his frank scrutiny.

"A hod carrier appears before all eyes in his overalls. Why should you not be seen in your working clothes?" The young man eyed her sententiously.

Ivy looked sharply at him, then down at the smock and trousers. "Working clothes?" Then, "Of course." Again she regarded him earnestly, puzzled. "But I've never


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42 worn these on the street before."

"You're not ashamed of them, though?" he interrogated. A moment he was silent, then sighed deeply. "It's the dream of my life—to be an artist. Please say you're not ashamed of your profession."

Only a second did Ivy puzzle over that before she answered. "No, not in the least." This was true whether he spoke of painters or actors. There was a suspicion in her mind, though, that he had made the mistake. Anyway, she never had been ashamed of her profession.

"I'm glad of that," he nodded. "For in God's world there are no nobler men than the artists."

Again she wondered whether he was speaking of artists in a large sense or particularly in reference to creators of pictures. And too, this time she was struck by the exclusive masculinity of his sentiment. She asked herself whether he could be making another mistake, a great big ludicrous mistake.

"There are women who paint, too," she said airily, in the tone of an impersonal observation. Then added in slight confusion, "I mean women artists, of course."

"Oh, certainly," he agreed, impatiently, she thought. "But I can't believe there is much sex rivalry in art. We give the women honor due. I mean we men do. Don't you think so?"

Ivy nodded sagely, exercising all her self-control. "Oh, we do. Indeed we do." She wanted to laugh immoderately. His mistake was so absurdly absurd. And yet she could not put him straight. She knew well that she could not face his serious regard and explain as kindly as he deserved to have it explained that she was an actress, a dancer instead of an inspired painter of pictures; that the trousers were a costume, not a habit.

Biting her lips to keep from smiling, she turned from him and stole on tiptoe to the corner of the show window to peep cautiously around. In front of the restaurant was Perreard himself, his hands flitting all ways at arm's length, his feet stamping the hard pavement. Several waiters jabbered with him excitedly, and bystanders joined in the fun. "Oh, I must go back," she told the young man, turning to him. "I'm needed. I've got to go—in only a minute." But after two minutes she still lingered. He joined her at the window corner and together they watched the crowd.

"Look here," he began suddenly. "You don't want to appear before that crowd do you? And unless you do, you can't get back to your studio until the excitement is over. Meanwhile—if you could stay—I—I'd like to talk to you,—if you'd let me,—please." There was eagerness and earnestness in his face, a sort of boyish enthusiasm that made Ivy want to stay. She wavered for an instant. She was thinking of Perreard. But again she turned the way her feet wanted to go, giving a mental snap of her fingers in his direction.

They drew back into the entrance.

"You see, I've never talked to a real artist before," the boy explained. "And I'm madly interested in painting. To nurse a canvas from absolute bleakness to something real, almost

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Rh breathing, the counterpart of life itself, seems to me—But of course," he broke off shyly, "I am only an amateur. I haven't yet learned to know when I'm inspired and when I'm not. I've always felt that if I could just know an artist, talk to one, I could feel so much more confidence in myself and my work."

So serious was he that Ivy felt a little sorry for the deception. But she could not bring herself to confide. "Anything I can do for you,' she whispered, "I'll do gladly. 'Help one another' is almost an axiom among us. Besides,—you rescued me."

"Will you? Oh, will you?" the young man cried eagerly. "I knew you would. I prayed you would. You'll have the time. Wait while I get a taxi. Please don't think better of what you've promised. It means so much to me. Wait here." And he would have been off and away had not Ivy caught at his sleeve and clung in almost feminine fear.

"Wait a minute! Don't go! Please! Tell me first what you want."

"I'm afraid you won't do it. It's not much to ask. Please don't think of refusing."

"Yes, but what?"

The young man was quiet for a moment while the earnestness and pleading gathered in his eyes. "Only to look at my pictures. Tell me whether they're good or—or bad; whether I've got a chance. It means so much to me to know. Won't you come?"

Then, while Ivy was grasping the import of his request, the low-gear noises of a taxicab grated in the street, and from the direction of Perreard's came the vehicle gathering speed. The young man at her side darted forth, and in an instant too brief for reflection or consideration, too brief in fact for anything but a soft laugh over the mischief her feet were doing, she was in the machine.

There was no talk during the brief, swift ride. Ivy combed her memory for art phrases, professional-sounding words of vague meaning. Then she found herself waiting on the sidewalk in front of a dark, dingy building looming upward four stories or so. Her friend rejoined her.

"We could have walked," she suggested, nodding at the departing taxi. "Those things are expensive."

He smiled sadly. "Oh, I can afford it," he mourned. "ItIf [sic] I were a real artist it might have occurred to me to walk. But I'm tied to a job and a salary, and my father gives me studio and room rent free here. That's why I have to paint afternoons and Sundays and do my drawing by artificial light. You draw in the evening sometimes, don't you?"

"Saturday night," replied Ivy gravely, and with little fear that he would catch her meaning. "I've got a reputation for drawing, too. That's the reason they pay me what I ask."

They had entered the gloomy building with its unlighted halls and climbed three flights of steps. Along a passage, they groped until the boy paused, and she heard the clink of keys. She wavered for a moment, then, with a smile, stood waiting.

"I've been after Father to put electric lights in this old barn," he explained as he bent to the keyhole. "There's only gas; but I think we


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comply? - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:53, 2 November 2012 (UTC)