But she was no child.
Was she a little and thirty? The fullness of the chin did not say “No,” nor the ripe glow of the lower lip. Her figure was well rounded with firm, luxuriant outlines accentuated by the dark blue dress, which fitted snugly as a riding-habit around her waist, arms, and bosom. A dull crimson silk kerchief lay in rich folds around her neck and over her shoulders, its ends tucked into the low pointed neck of her bodice. Carnations of the same color were fastened in her hair.
“I am afraid we interrupted a pleasant reading,” said Frithjof with a glance at the richly bound book.
“No, indeed—not in the least. We had been quarrelling for a full hour about what we read,” replied Mrs. Boye. “Mr. Refstrup is a great idealist in everything that has to do with art, while I think it’s dreadfully tiresome—all this about the crude reality that has to be purified and clarified and regenerated and whatnot until there is just pure nothingness left. Do me the favor of looking at that Bacchante of Mikkelsen’s—the one which deaf Traffelini over there is cutting in marble. If I were to enter her in a descriptive catalogue. … Good heavens! Number 77. A young lady in negligee is standing thoughtfully on both her feet and doesn’t know what to do with a bunch of grapes. She should crush those grapes if I had my way—crush them till the red juice ran down her breast—now shouldn’t she? Don’t you agree with me?” and she caught Frithjof by the sleeve, almost shaking him in her childlike eagerness.
“Yes,” Frithjof admitted; “yes, I do think there is something lacking—something of freshness—of spontaneity—”
“It’s simply naturalness that’s lacking, and good heavens! why can’t we be natural? Oh, I know perfectly well; it’s because we lack the courage. Neither the artists nor the poets are brave enough to own up to human nature as it is. Shakespeare was, though.”
“Well, you know,” came from Erik behind the figure he was modelling, “I never could get along very well with Shakespeare. It seems to me he does too much of it; he whirls you round till you don’t know where you are.”
“I shouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Frithjof demurred; “but on the other hand,” he added with an indulgent smile, “I cannot call the berserker ragings of the great English poet by the name of conscious and intelligent artistic courage.”
“Really? Gracious, how funny you are!” and she laughed long and heartily, laughed till she was tired. She had risen and was strolling about the studio, but suddenly she turned, held out her arms toward Frithjof, and cried, “God bless you!” and laughed again till she was almost bent double.
Frithjof was on the verge of getting offended, but it seemed too fussy to go away angry, especially as he knew himself to be in the right, and moreover the lady was very pretty. So he stayed and began to talk to Erik, all the while trying for Mrs. Boye’s benefit to infuse a tone of mature tolerance into his voice.
Meanwhile Mrs. Boye was roaming about at the other end of the studio, thoughtfully humming a tune, which sometimes rose in a few quick, laughing trills, then sank again into a slow, solemn recitative.
A head of the young Augustus was standing on a large packing-case. She began to dust it. Then she found some clay and made moustaches, a pointed beard, and finally earrings, which she fastened on it.
While she was busy with this, Niels managed to stroll in her direction under cover of examining the casts. She had not glanced toward him once, but she must have sensed that he was there, for, without turning, she held out her hand to him and asked him to bring Erik’s hat.
Niels put the hat into her outstretched hand, and she set it on the head of Augustus.
“Good old Shakespeareson,” she said, patting the cheek of the travestied bust, “stupid old fellow who didn’t know what he was doing! Did he just sit there and daub ink till he turned out a Hamlet head without thinking of it—did he?” She lifted the hat from the bust and passed her hand over the forehead in a motherly way as if she would push back its hair. “Lucky old chap, for all that! More than half lucky old poet boy!—For you must admit that he wasn’t at all bad as a writer, this Shakespeare?”
“I confess I have my own opinion of that man,” replied Niels, slightly vexed and blushing.
“Good gracious! Have you too got your own opinion about Shakespeare? Then what is your opinion? Are you for us or against us?” She struck an attitude by the side of the bust and stood there, smiling, with her arm resting on its neck.
“I am unable to say whether the opinion which you are astonished to learn I possess is so fortunate as to acquire significance from the fact of agreeing with your own, but I do think I may say that it is for you and your protégé. At any rate I hold the opinion that he knew what he was doing, weighed what he was doing, and dared it. Many a time he dared in doubt, and the doubt is still apparent. At other times he only half dared, and then he blurred over with new features that which he did not have courage to leave as he first had it.”
And he went on in this strain.
While he was speaking, Mrs. Boye grew more and more restless. She looked nervously first to one side, then to the other, and drummed impatiently with her fingers, while her face was clouded by
