The Restless Sex

"She's out just now. Will you come in and wait?"

He went in, aware of clay studies on revolving stands, academic studies in unframed canvases, charcoal drawings from the nude, thumb-tacked to the wall – the usual mess of dusty draperies, decrepit and nondescript furniture, soiled rugs and cherished objects of art. A cloying smell of plasticine pervaded the place. A large yellow cat, dozing on a sofa, opened one golden eye a little way, then closed it indifferently.

The girl who had admitted him indicated a chair and stepped before a revolving table on which was the roughly-modelled sketch of a horse and rider.

She picked up a lump of waxy material, and, kneading it in one hand, glanced absently at the sketch, then looked over her shoulder at Cleland with a friendly, enquiring air:

"Miss Quest went out to see about her costume. I suppose she'll be back shortly."

"What costume?" he asked.

"Oh, didn't you know? It's for the Caricaturists' Ball in aid of the Artists' Fund. It's the Ball of the Gods – the great event of the season and the last. Evidently you don't live in New York."

"I haven't, recently."

"I see. Will you have a cigarette?" She pointed at a box on a tea tray; he thanked her and lighted one. As he continued to remain standing, she asked him again to be seated, and he complied.

She continued to pinch off little lumps of waxy, pliable composition and stick them on the horse. Still fussing with the sketch, he saw a smile curve her cheek in profile; and presently she said without turning:

"Why did you speak of Stephanie Quest as Mrs. Grismer? We don't, you know."

"Why not? Isn't she?"

The girl looked at him over her shoulder; she was startlingly pretty, fresh and smooth-skinned as a child.

"Who are you?" she asked, with that same little hint of friendly curiosity in her brown eyes; – "I'm Helen Davis, Stephanie's chum. You seem to know a good deal about her."

"I'm James Cleland," he said quietly, " – her brother."

At that the girl's brown eyes flew wide open:

"Good Heavens!" she said; "did Steve expect you? She never said a word to me! I thought you were a fixture in Europe!"

He sat biting the end of his cigarette, not looking at her:

"She didn't expect me," he said, flinging the half-burned cigarette into the silver slop-dish of the tea service. "I didn't notify her that I was coming."

Helen Davis dropped one elbow on the modelling table, rested her rounded chin in her palm, and bent her eyes on Cleland. Smoke from the cigarette between her fingers mounted in a straight, thin band to the ceiling.

"So you are Steve's Jim," she mused aloud. "I recognize you now, from your photographs, only you're older and thinner – and you wear a moustache… You've been away a long while, haven't you?"

"Too long," he said, casting a sombre look at her.

"Oh, do you feel that way? How odd it will seem to you to see Steve again. She's such a darling! Quite wonderful, Mr. Cleland. The artists' colony in New York raves over her."

"Does it?" he said drily.

"Everybody does. She's so amusing, so clever, so full of talent and animation – like a beautiful and mischievous thoroughbred on tip-toes with vitality and the sheer joy of living. She never is in low spirits or depressed. That's what fascinates everybody – her gaiety and energy and high spirits. I knew her in college and she wasn't quite that way then. Perhaps because she hated college. But she could be a perfect little devil if she wanted to. She can be that still."

Cleland nodded almost absently; his preoccupied gaze travelled over the disordered studio and concentrated scowlingly on the yellow cat. He kept twisting the head of his walking stick between his hands and staring at the animal in silence while Helen Davis watched him. Presently, and without any excuse, she walked slowly away and vanished into some inner room. When she returned, she had discarded her working smock, and her smooth hands were slightly rosy from a recent toilet.

"I'm going to give you some tea," she said, striking a match and lighting the lamp under the kettle at his elbow.

"Thanks, no," he said with an effort.

"Yes, you shall have some," she insisted, smiling in her gay little friendly way. "Come, Mr. Cleland, you are man of the world enough to waive formality. I'm going to sit here and make tea and talk to you. Look at me! Wouldn't you like to be friends with me? Most men would."

He looked up, and his slightly drawn features relaxed.

"Yes," he said with a smile, "of course I would."

"That's very human of you," she laughed. "Shall we talk about Steve? What did you think of that cablegram? Did you ever hear of such a crazy thing?"

He flushed with anger but said nothing. The girl looked at him intently over the steaming kettle, then went on measuring out tea.

"Shall I tell you about it, or would you rather that Steve told you?" she asked carelessly, busy with her preparations.

"She is actually married to – Grismer – then?"

"Well – I suppose so. You know him, of course."

"Yes."

"He is fascinating – in that unusual way of his – poor fellow. Women like him better than men do. One meets him everywhere in artistic circles; but do you know, Mr. Cleland, I've always seemed to be conscious of a curious sort of latent hostility to Oswald Grismer, even among people he frequents – among men, particularly. However, he has no intimates."

"If they are actually married," he said with an effort, "why does Stephanie live here with you?"

"Oh, that was the ridiculous understanding. I myself don't know why she married him. The whole affair was a crazy, feather-brained performance – " She poured his tea and offered him a sugar biscuit, which he declined.

"You see," she continued, curling up into the depths of her rickety velvet arm-chair and taking her cup and a heap of sugar biscuits into her lap, "Oswald Grismer has been Steve's shadow – at her heels always – and I know well enough that Stephanie was not insensible to the curious fascination of the man. You know how devotion impresses a girl – and he is clever and good looking.

"And that was all very well, and I don't think it would have amounted to anything serious as long as Oswald was the amusing, good-looking, lazy and rich amateur of sculpture, with plenty of leisure to saunter through life and be charmingly attentive, and play with his profession when the whim suited him."

She sipped her tea and looked at Cleland meditatively.

"Did you know he'd lost all his money?"

"No," said Cleland.

"Oh, yes. He lost it a year ago. He has scarcely anything, I believe. He had a beautiful studio and apartment, wonderful treasures of antique furniture; he had about everything a rich young man fancies. It all went."

"What was the matter?"

"Nobody knows. He took a horrid little stable studio in Bleecker Street, and he lives there. And that's why Steve did that crazy, impulsive thing, I suppose."

"You mean she was sorry for him?"

"I think it must have been that – and the general fascination he had for her – and his persistency and devotion. Really, I don't know, myself, how she came to do it. She did it on one of her ill-considered, generous, headlong impulses. Ask her. All she ever told me was that she had married Oswald and didn't know how it was going to turn out, but had decided to keep her own name for the present and continue to live with me."