From the beginning he told the tale, the I--I--I's flashing through the records
as telegraph-poles fly past the traveller. Maisie listened and nodded her head.
The histories of strife and privation did not move her a hair's-breadth. At the
end of each canto he would conclude, "And that gave me some notion of handling
colour," or light, or whatever it might be that he had set out to pursue and
understand. He led her breathless across half the world, speaking as he had
never spoken in his life before.
And in the flood-tide of his exaltation there came upon him a great desire to
pick up this maiden who nodded her head and said, "I understand. Go on,"--to
pick her up and carry her away with him, because she was Maisie, and because
she understood, and because she was his right, and a woman to be desired above
all women.
Then he checked himself abruptly. "And so I took all I wanted," he said, "and I
had to fight for it. Now you tell."
Maisie's tale was almost as gray as her dress. It covered years of patient toil
backed by savage pride that would not be broken though dealers laughed, and
fogs delayed work, and Kami was unkind and even sarcastic, and girls in other
studios were painfully polite. It had a few bright spots, in pictures accepted
at provincial exhibitions, but it wound up with the oft repeated wail, "And so
you see, Dick, I had no success, though I worked so hard.
Pages:
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920