The visiting ladies from Keokuk came out with a grim air of having done their duty. “Well, we kept our word,” one consoled the other. “It’s sure hard on your feet though, isn’t it?”
The art student was the last one of all to leave. The notations in her little blank book now stood: black — 15; blond — 2; red — 0; intermediate — 1. Out of a total of eighteen portrait heads he had displayed, one conclusion was possible: the artist had a penchant for dark-haired subjects.
At any rate, she alone of all the visitors had an air of having put in a thoroughly satisfactory afternoon, of having accomplished just what she had set out to do.
She buttoned her shabby coat close up under her chin and trudged up the darkening street, back into the anonymity from which she had emerged.
II
Ferguson
Ferguson had just finished arranging his easel and canvas when the knock on the door came. “Be right with you,” he said, and started laying out his oil tubes.
He didn’t look like a painter. Maybe because they don’t any more. He didn’t have a beard, or a beret, or a smock, or velvet pants. He knocked down a thousand a magazine cover. But in between he liked to do serious stuff, “for himself,” as he put it. One whole side of the studio was glass — the essential northern light. But that side didn’t rise up straight like the other three walls; it slanted in at an angle, so that it was a cross between an upright wall and a skylight.
He went over to the door and opened it. “You the new model?” he said. “Come over here by the light and let me look at you. I don’t know whether I can use you or not. I told the agency I wanted a—”
He stopped faultfinding and held his breath. He had her over in the full glare of the skylight wall by now. “Sa-ay,” he exhaled finally, between a long-drawn whistle and a reverent hiss. “Where have you been keeping yourself? Turn around a little, that’s it. Maybe you don^ fit the specifications for the ginger-ale spread, but, baby, I’m using you all right! You’re just what I had in mind for that Diana-the-huntress thing, for myself. I think I’ll begin that, now that you’ve here, and the commercial can wait.”
She was raven haired, creamy skinned, and her eyes seemed violet behind the imperceptible shadow line she had drawn around them.
“Who’d you work for last?”
“Terry Kaufmann.”
“What’s he trying to do, hog you all to himself?”
“Do you know him?” she asked.
“Sure I know the bum,” he said jocularly.
She dropped her eyes momentarily, caught her lip between her teeth. Then she looked up at him with renewed confidence.
He was rubbing his hands exuberantly, overjoyed at this unexpected find. “Now, there could be only one possible catch. How’s the figure?”
“O.K. I guess,” she said demurely.
“Y’better let me see for myself. You can go in the dressing room there and hang up your things. You’ll find the stuff I want you to put on all laid out in there. The gold bangle goes on the left arm, and hook the leopard-skin kilt so that the opening’s at the side; your thigh shows through.”
She moistened her lips. One hand went helplessly up toward her shoulder. “Is that all?”
“That’s all; it’s a semi-nude. Why? You’ve posed before, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, face impassive, and went unhesitatingly into the dressing room.
She came out again, as unhesitatingly, but with her face held rigidly half-averted, in about five minutes’ time. Her bare feet made no sound on the floor.
“Beautiful!” he said fervently. “Too bad those things don’t last. In two years it’ll be gone, as soon as they start dragging you around to cocktail parties. What’s your name?”
“Christine Bell,” she said.
“All right, now get up there and I’ll show you how I want you. It’s going to be a very tough pose to hold, but we’ll take it in easy shifts. Crouch forward now, dead center toward the canvas, one leg out behind you. I want her to seem to be coming right out of the frame at them when they look at the picture. Right arm bent out in front of you, grasping something, like this. Left arm drawn back, past your shoulder. That’s it. Freeze. Steady, now, steady. You’re supposed to be stalking something, about to let fly an arrow at it. I’ll put the bow in later; you obviously couldn’t pose for any length of time holding it stretched taut, the strain would be unendurable.”
He didn’t speak any more once he had begun to work. At the end of thirty minutes she moaned slightly. “All right, let’s knock off for five minutes,” he said casually. He picked up a crumpled package of cigarettes, took one out, tossed the package lightly over to her on the stand.
She let it fall to the floor. Her face was white with anguish when he turned to look at her. His eyes narrowed speculatively. “Are you as experienced as you say?”
“Oh, yes, I—”
Before she could go ahead there was a sudden knock at the door. “Busy working, come back later,” he called. The knock repeated itself. The girl on the stand made a supplicating gesture, said hurriedly, “Mr. Ferguson, I need the money so bad; give me a chance, won’t you? That’s probably the model from the agency—”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I was hanging around there trying to get taken on, but they won’t take you on, they’ve got a waiting list this long, and I heard them telephoning to her to report over here to you, so I went downstairs and called her back from a public booth and let her think it was still the agency. I told her it was an error, she wasn’t wanted after all, and I came over in her place; but I guess she’s found out since. Won’t you try me at last, won’t I do?” The pleading look on her face would have melted a heart of stone, much less an artist’s susceptible one, always touched by beauty.
“Tell you better in a minute.” He seemed to be having a hard time keeping a straight face. “Get back out of sight,” he whispered conspiratorially. “We’ll give it the old Judgment of Paris workout.”
He went to the door, held it open narrowly, staring intently outside with critical appraisal. Once he turned his head and glanced over at the first candidate, cowering against the wall, arms crossed over her bosom with unconscious — or was it unconscious — artistry. Then he reached into his pocket, took out a crumpled bill, handed it through the door. “Here’s your carfare, kid; I won’t need you,” he said gruffly.
He went back to the easel with a suppressed grin struggling to free itself at the corners of his mouth. “There’s even muscling-in in this racket,” he chuckled. The grin overspread his features unhampered. “Okay, Diana, up and at ’em!”
He poised his brush again.
Corey, highball glass in hand, paused before the easel in the course of his aimless wandering about the studio, fingered the burlap carelessly flung over it. “What’s this, the latest masterpiece? Mind if I take a look?”
“No, stay away from that. I don’t like anyone to see my pieces before they’re finished,” Ferguson answered above the hiss of the seltzer water.
“You don’t have to be bashful with me, I’m not a competitor. What I don’t know about art would—” The sacking had gone up and he was standing there rooted to the spot.
Ferguson turned his head at the continuing silence. “Well, if it takes your breath away like that before it’s even finished,” he said hopefully, “imagine what it’ll do after the fixative’s gone on.”
Corey shook his head vaguely. “No, I’m trying to think. There’s something vaguely familiar about that girl’s face.”