only evidence he had shown of the possession of the artistic
temperament had been the joyous carelessness of his extravagance. In
that only had he been the artist. It shocked him to think how little
honest work he had done during the past two years. He had lived in a
golden haze into which work had not entered.
He was to be shocked still more very soon.
Stung to action by his thoughts, he embarked upon a sweeping attack on
the stronghold of those who exchange cash for artists' dreams. He
ransacked the studio and set out on his mission in a cab bulging with
large, small, and medium-sized canvases. Like a wave receding from a
breakwater he returned late in the day, a branded failure.
The dealers had eyed his canvases, large, small, and medium-sized, and,
in direct contravention of their professed object in life, had refused
to deal. Only one of them, a man with grimy hands but a moderately
golden heart, after passing a sepia thumb over some of the more
ambitious works, had offered him fifteen dollars for a little sketch
which he had made in an energetic moment of William Bannister crawling
on the floor. This, the dealer asserted, was the sort of 'darned mushy
stuff' the public fell for, and he held it to be worth the fifteen, but
not a cent more. Kirk, humble by now, accepted three battered-looking
bills and departed.
He had a long talk with Ruth that night, and rose from it in the frame
of mind which in some men is induced by prayer. Ruth was quite
marvellously sensible and sympathetic.
'I wanted you,' she said in answer to his self-reproaches, 'and here we
are, together. It's simply nonsense to talk about ruining my life and
dragging me down. What does it matter about this money? We have
got plenty left.'
'We've got about as much left as you used to spend on hats in the old
days.'
'Well, we can easily make it do. I've thought for some time that we
were growing too extravagant. And talking of hats, I had no right to
have that last one you bought me. It was wickedly expensive. We can
economize there, at any rate. We can get along splendidly on what you
have now. Besides, directly you settle down and start to paint, we
shall be quite rich again.'
Kirk laughed grimly.
'I wish you were a dealer,' he said. 'Fifteen dollars is what I have
managed to extract from them so far. One of the Great Unwashed on Sixth
Avenue gave me that for that sketch I did of Bill on the floor.'
'Which took you about three minutes to do,' Ruth pointed out
triumphantly. 'You see! You're bound to make a fortune if you stick to
it.'
Kirk put his arm round her and gave her a silent hug of gratitude. He
had dreaded this talk, and lo! it was putting new life into him.
They sat for a few moments in silence.
'I don't deserve it,' said Kirk at last. 'Instead of comforting me like
this, and making me think I'm rather a fine sort of a fellow, you ought
to be lashing me with scorpions. I don't suppose any man has ever made
such a criminal idiot of himself in this city before.'
