He had been almost inclined, — in so morbid a condition were his nerves — to knock at the door before coming in, but a lucky after-thought had reminded him that such an action would have been scandalously inappropriate.
Assuming an air of boyish familiarity, which harmonized better perhaps with her leather-bound ankles than with her girlish figure, Gladys jumped down at once from the little stage and ran gaily to welcome him. She held out her hand, and then, raising both her arms to her head and smoothing back her bright hair beneath its circlet of bronze, she inquired of him, in a soft low murmur, whether he thought she looked “nice.”
Clavering was struck dumb. He had all those shivering sensations of trembling agitation which are described with such realistic emphasis in the fragmentary poem of Sappho. The playful girl, her fair cheeks flushed with excitement and a treacherous light in her blue eyes, swung herself upon the rough oak table that stood in the middle of the room, and sat there, smiling coyly at him, dangling her sandalled feet. She still held in her hand the strawberries she had picked; and as, with childish gusto, she put one after another of these between her lips, she looked at him with an indescribable air of mischievous, challenging defiance.
“So this is the pagan thing,” thought the poor priest, “that it is my duty to initiate into the religion of sacrifice!”
He could not prevent the passing through his brain of a grotesque and fantastic vision in which he saw himself, like a second hermit of the Thebaid, leading this equivocal modern Thais to the waters of Jordan. Certainly the association of such a mocking white-armed darling of errant gods with the ceremony of confirmation was an image somewhat difficult to embrace! The impatient artist, apologizing profusely to the embarrassed visitor, soon dragged off his model to her couch on the platform, and it fell to the lot of the infatuated priest to subside in paralyzed helplessness, on a modest seat at the back of the room. What thoughts, what wild unpermitted thoughts, chased one another in strange procession through his soul, as he stared at the beautiful heathen figure thus presented to his gaze!
The movements of the artist, the heavy stream of sunlight falling aslant the room, the sweet exotic smells borne in from the window opening on the conservatory, seemed all to float and waver about him, as though they were things felt by a deep-sea diver beneath a weight of humming waters. He gave himself up completely to what that moment brought.
Faith, piety, sacrifice, devotion, became for him mere words and phrases — broken, fragmentary, unmeaning — sounds heard in the shadow-land of sleep, vague and indistinct like the murmur of drowned bells under a brimming tide.
It may well be believed that the languorously reclining model was not in the least oblivious to the effect she produced. This was, indeed, one of Gladys’ supreme moments, and she let no single drop of its honeyed distillation pass undrained. She permitted her heavy-lidded blue eyes, suffused with a soft dreamy mist, to rest tenderly on her impassioned lover; and as if in response to the desperate longing in his look, a light-fluttering, half-wistful smile crossed her parted lips, like a ripple upon a shadowy stream.
The girl’s vivid consciousness of the ecstasy of power was indeed, in spite of her apparent lethargic passivity, never more insanely aroused. Lurking beneath the dreamy sweetness of the look with which she responded to Clavering’s magnetized gaze, were furtive depths of Circean remorselessness. Under her gentian-blue robe her youthful breast trembled with exultant pleasure, and she felt as though, with every delicious breath she drew, she were drinking to the dregs the very wine of the immortals.
“I must give Mr. Clavering some strawberries!” she suddenly cried, jumping to her feet, and breaking both the emotional and the aesthetic spell as if they were gossamer-threads. “He looks bored and tired.”
In vain the disconcerted artist uttered an imploring groan of dismay, as thus, at the critical moment, his model betrayed him. In vain the bewildered priest professed his complete innocence of any wish for strawberries.
The wayward girl clambered once more through the conservatory window, at the risk of spoiling her Olympian attire, and returning with a handful of fruit, tripped coquettishly up to both of them in turn and insisted on their dividing the spoil.
Had either of the two men been in a mood for classical reminiscences, the famous image of Circe feeding her transformed lovers might have been irresistibly evoked. They were all three thus occupied, — the girl in the highest spirits, and both men feeling a little sulky and embarrassed, when, to the general consternation, the door began slowly to open, and a withered female figure, clad in a ragged shawl and a still more dilapidated skirt made its entry into the room.
“Why, it’s Witch-Bessie!” cried Gladys, involuntarily clutching at Clavering’s arm. “Wicked old thing! She gave me quite a start. Well, Bessie, what do you want here? Don’t you know the way to the back door? You mustn’t come round to the front like this. What do you want?”
Each of the model’s companions made a characteristic movement. Dangelis began feeling in his pocket for some suitable coin, and Clavering raised his hand with an half-reproachful, half-conciliatory, and altogether pastoral gesture, as if at the same time threatening and welcoming a lost sheep of his flock.
But Witch-Bessie had only eyes for Gladys. She stared in petrified amazement at the gentian-blue robe and the boyish sandals.
“Send her away!” whispered the girl to Mr. Clavering. “Tell her to go to the back door. They’ll give her food and things there.”
The cadaverous stare of the old woman relaxed at last. Fixing her colourless eyes on the two men, and pointing at Gladys with her skinny hand, she cried, in a shrill, querulous voice, that rang unpleasantly through the studio, “What be she then, touzled up in like of this? What be she then, with her Jezebel face and her shameless looks? Round to back door, is it, ’ee ’d have me sent? I do know who you be, well enough, Master Clavering, and I do guess this gentleman be him as they say does bide here; but what be she, tricketed up in them outlandish clothes, like a Gypoo from Roger-town Fair? Be she Miss Gladys Romer, or baint she?”
“Come, Bessie,” said Clavering in propitiatory tone. “Do as the young lady says and go round to the back. I’ll go with you if you like. I expect they’ll have plenty of scraps for you in that big kitchen.”
He laid his hand on the old woman’s shoulder and tried to usher her out. But she turned on him angrily. “Scraps!” she cried. “Scraps thee own self! What does the like of a pair of gentlemen such as ye be, flitter-mousing and flandering round, with a hussy like she?”
She turned furiously upon Gladys, waving aside with a snort of contempt the silver coin which Dangelis, with a vague notion that “typical English beggars” should be cajoled with gifts, sought to press into her hand.