savages; and, behind these more salient types, the usual filling in of those who are seen everywhere because they have learned to catch the social eye.
Such a company was one to flatter the artist as much his sitter, so completely did it represent that unamity of opinion which constitutes social strength. Not one the number was troubled by any personal theory of art: all they asked of a portrait was that the costume should be sufficiently “life-like,” and the face not too much so; and a long experience in idealizing flesh and realizing dress-fabrics had enabled Mr. Popple to meet both demands.
“Hang it,” Peter Van Degen pronounced, standing before the easel in an attitude of inspired interpretation, “the great thing in a man’s portrait is to catch the likeness—we all know that; but with a woman’s it’s different—a woman’s picture has got to be pleasing. Who wants it about if it isn’t? Those big chaps who blow about what they call realism—how do THEIR portraits look in a drawing-room? Do you suppose they ever ask themselves that? THEY don’t care—they’re not going to live with the things! And what do they know of drawing-rooms, anyhow? Lots of them haven’t even got a dress-suit. There’s where old Popp has the pull over ‘em—HE knows how we live and what we want.”
This was received by the artist with a deprecating murmur, and by his public with warm expressions of approval.
“Happily in this case,” Popple began (“as in that of so many of my sitters,” he hastily put in), “there has been no need to idealize-nature herself has outdone the artist’s dream.”
Undine, radiantly challenging comparison with her portrait, glanced up at it with a smile of conscious merit, which deepened as young Jim Driscoll declared:
“By Jove, Mamie, you must be done exactly like that for the new music-room.”
His wife turned a cautious eye upon the picture.
“How big is it? For our house it would have to be a good deal bigger,” she objected; and Popple, fired by the thought of such a dimensional opportunity, rejoined that it would be the chance of all others to. “work in” a marble portico and a court-train: he had just done Mrs. Lycurgus Ambler in a court-train and feathers, and as THAT was for Buffalo of course the pictures needn’t clash.
“Well, it would have to be a good deal bigger than Mrs. Ambler’s,” Mrs. Driscoll insisted; and on Popple’s suggestion that in that case he might “work in” Driscoll, in court-dress also—(“You’ve been presented? Well, you WILL be,—you’ll HAVE to, if I do the picture—which will make a lovely memento”)—Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine: “Pure bluff, you know—Jim couldn’t pay for a photograph. Old Driscoll’s high and dry since the Ararat investigation.”
She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue.
“You mean they’ve lost their money? Won’t they give their fancy ball, then?”
Van Degen shrugged. “Nobody knows how it’s coming out That queer chap Elmer Moffatt threatens to give old Driscoll a fancy ball—says he’s going to dress him in stripes! It seems he knows too much about the Apex street- railways.”
Undine paled a little. Though she had already tried on her costume for the Driscoll ball her disappointment at Van Degen’s announcement was effaced by the mention of Moffatt’s name. She had not had the curiosity to follow the reports of the “Ararat Trust Investigation,” but once or twice lately, in the snatches of smoking-room talk, she had been surprised by a vague allusion to Elmer Moffatt, as to an erratic financial influence, half ridiculed, yet already half redoubtable. Was it possible that the redoubtable element had prevailed? That the time had come when Elmer Moffatt—the Elmer Moffatt of Apex!—could, even for a moment, cause consternation in the Driscoll camp? He had always said he “saw things big”; but no one had ever believed he was destined to carry them out on the same scale. Yet apparently in those idle Apex days, while he seemed to be “loafing and fooling,” as her father called it, he had really been sharpening his weapons of aggression; there had been something, after all, in the effect of loose-drifting power she had always felt in him. Her heart beat faster, and she longed to question Van Degen; but she was afraid of betraying herself, and turned back to the group about the picture. Mrs. Driscoll was still presenting objections in a tone of small mild obstinacy. “Oh, it’s a LIKENESS, of course—I can see that; but there’s one thing I must say, Mr. Popple. It looks like a last year’s dress.”
The attention of the ladies instantly rallied to the picture, and the artist paled at the challenge.
“It doesn’t look like a last year’s face, anyhow—that’s what makes them all wild,” Van Degen murmured. Undine gave him back a quick smile. She had already forgotten about Moffatt. Any triumph in which she shared left a glow in her veins, and the success of the picture obscured all other impressions. She saw herself throning in a central panel at the spring exhibition, with the crowd pushing about the picture, repeating her name; and she decided to stop on the way home and telephone her press-agent to do a paragraph about Popple’s tea.
But in the hall, as she drew on her cloak, her thoughts reverted to the Driscoll fancy ball. What a blow if it were given up after she had taken so much trouble about her dress! She was to go as the Empress Josephine, after the Prudhon portrait in the Louvre. The dress was already fitted and partly embroidered, and she foresaw the difficulty of persuading the dressmaker to take it back.
“Why so pale and sad, fair cousin? What’s up?” Van Degen asked, as they emerged from the lift in which they had descended alone from the studio.
“I don’t know—I’m tired of posing. And it was so frightfully hot.”
“Yes. Popple always keeps his place at low-neck temperature, as if the portraits might catch cold.” Van Degen glanced at his watch. “Where are you off to?”
“West End Avenue, of course—if I can find a cab to take me there.”
It was not the least of Undine’s grievances that she was still living in the house which represented Mr. Spragg’s first real-estate venture in New York. It had been understood, at the time of her marriage, that the young couple were to be established within the sacred precincts of fashion; but on their return from the honeymoon the still untenanted house in West End Avenue had been placed at their disposal, and in view of Mr. Spragg’s financial embarrassment even Undine had seen the folly of refusing it. That first winter, moreover, she had not regretted her exile: while she awaited her boy’s birth she was glad to be out of sight of Fifth Avenue, and to take her hateful compulsory exercise where no familiar eye could fall on her. And the next year of course her father would give them a better house.
But the next year rents had risen in the Fifth Avenue quarter, and meanwhile little Paul Marvell, from his beautiful pink cradle, was already interfering with his mother’s plans. Ralph, alarmed by the fresh rush of expenses, sided with his father-in-law in urging Undine to resign herself to West End Avenue; and thus after three years she was still submitting to the incessant pin-pricks inflicted by the incongruity between her social and geographical
