don’t ask me round. I sell pictures, I don’t theorize about them. Ven you vant to sell, gome to me with what my gustomers vant. You can do it—you’re smart enough. You can do most anything. Vere’s dat bortrait of Gladys Glyde dat you showed at the Fake Club last autumn? Dat little thing in de Romney sdyle? Dat vas a little shem, now,” exclaimed Mr. Shepson, whose pronunciation became increasingly Semitic in moments of excitement.
Stanwell stared. Called upon a few months previously to contribute to an exhibition of skits on well-known artists, he had used the photograph of a favourite music-hall “star” as the basis of a picture in the pseudo-historical style affected by the popular portrait-painters of the day.
“That thing?” he said contemptuously. “How on earth did you happen to see it?”
“I see everything,” returned the dealer with an oracular smile. “If you’ve got it here let me look at it, please.”
It cost Stanwell a few minutes’ search to unearth his skit—a clever blending of dash and sentimentality, in just the right proportion to create the impression of a powerful brush subdued to mildness by the charms of the sitter. Stanwell had thrown it off in a burst of imitative frenzy, beginning for the mere joy of the satire, but gradually fascinated by the problem of producing the requisite mingling of attributes. He was surprised now to see how well he had caught the note, and Shepson’s face reflected his approval.
“By George! Dat’s something like,” the dealer ejaculated.
“Like what? Like Mungold?” Stanwell laughed.
“Like business! Like a big order for a bortrait, Mr. Sdanwell—dat’s what it’s like!” cried Shepson, swinging round on him.
Stanwell’s stare widened. “An order for me?”
“Vy not? Accidents
Shepson waited to observe the result of this overwhelming announcement, and Stanwell, after a momentary halt of surprise, brought out laughingly: “But this
“Shoost exactly,” said Shepson, with unexpected acuteness. “That’s vat dey all want—something different from what all deir friends have got, but shoost like it all de same. Dat’s de public all over! Mrs. Millington don’t want a Mungold, because everybody’s got a Mungold, but she wants a picture that’s in the same sdyle, because dat’s
Stanwell was listening with real enjoyment. “Ah, you know your public,” he murmured.
“Vell, you do, too, or you couldn’t have painted dat,” the dealer retorted. “And I don’t say dey’re wrong—mind dat. I like a bretty picture myself. And I understand the way dey feel. Dey’re villing to let Sargent take liberties vid them, because it’s like being punched in de ribs by a King; but if anybody else baints them, they vant to look as sweet as an obituary.” He turned earnestly to Stanwell. “The thing is to attract their notice. Vonce you got it they von’t gif you dime to sleep. And dat’s why I’m here to-day—you’ve attracted Mrs. Millington’s notice, and vonce you’re hung in dat new ballroom—dat’s vere she vants you, in a big gold panel—vonce you’re dere, vy, you’ll be like the Pianola—no home gompleat without you. And I ain’t going to charge you any commission on the first job!”
He stood before the painter, exuding a mixture of deference and patronage in which either element might predominate as events developed; but Stanwell could see in the incident only the stuff for a good story.
“My dear Shepson,” he said, “what are you talking about? This is no picture of mine. Why don’t you ask me to do you a Corot at once? I hear there’s a great demand for them still in the West. Or an Arthur Schracker—I can do Schracker as well as Mungold,” he added, turning around a small canvas at which a paint-pot seemed to have been hurled with violence from a considerable distance.
Shepson ignored the allusion to Corot, but screwed his eyes at the picture. “Ah, Schracker—vell, the Schracker sdyle would take first rate if you were a foreigner—but, for goodness sake, don’t try it on Mrs. Millington!”
Stanwell pushed the two skits aside. “Oh, you can trust me,” he cried humorously. “The pearls and the eyes very large—the extremities very small. Isn’t that about the size of it?”
“Dat’s it—dat’s it. And the cheque as big as you vant to make it! Mrs. Millington vants the picture finished in time for her first barty in the new ballroom, and if you rush the job she won’t sdickle at an extra thousand. Vill you come along with me now and arrange for your first sitting?”
He stood before the young man, urgent, paternal, and so imbued with the importance of his mission that his face stretched to a ludicrous length of dismay when Stanwell, administering a good-humoured push to his shoulder, cried gaily: “My dear fellow, it will make my price rise still higher when the lady hears I’m too busy to take any orders at present—and that I’m actually obliged to turn you out now because I’m expecting a sitter!”
It was part of Shepson’s business to have a quick ear for the note of finality, and he offered no resistance to Stanwell’s friendly impulsion; but on the threshold he paused to murmur, with a regretful glance at the denuded studio: “You could haf done it, Mr. Sdanwell—you could haf done it!”
II
KATE ARRAN was Stanwell’s sitter; but the janitor had hardly filled the stove when she came in to say that she could not sit. Caspar had had a bad night: he was depressed and feverish, and in spite of his protests she had resolved to fetch the doctor. Care sat on her usually tranquil features, and Stanwell, as he offered to go for the doctor, wished he could have caught in his picture the wide gloom of her brow. There was always a kind of Biblical breadth in the expression of her emotions, and today she suggested a text from Isaiah.
“But you’re not busy?” she hesitated; in the full voice which seemed tuned to a solemn rhetoric.
“I meant to be—with you. But since that’s off I’m quite unemployed.”
She smiled interrogatively. “I thought perhaps you had an order. I met Mr. Shepson rubbing his hands on the landing.”
“Was he rubbing his hands? Well, it was not over me. He says that from the style of my pictures he doesn’t suppose I want to sell.”
