Oliver turned the picture-dealer's letter over, peered into the envelope as if he expected to find some trace of the good news tucked away in its corners, lifted the tray holding his frugal breakfast, and laid it on the floor outside his door ready for the janitor's morning round. Then, picking up his hat, he locked his door, hung an "out card" on the knob, and, strolling downstairs, stepped into the fresh morning air. He knew the dealer well. He had placed two of old Mr. Crocker's pictures with him--one of which had been sold.
When he reached Snedecor's gallery he found the big window surrounded with a crowd gazing intently at an upright portrait in a glittering gold frame, to which was affixed an imposing-looking name-plate bearing the inscription:
"THE WOMAN IN BLACK, BY OLIVER HORN" So this was Snedecor's good news!
Oliver made his way through the crowd and into the open door of the shop--the shop was, in front, the gallery in the rear--and found the proprietor leaning over a case filled with artists' supplies.
"Has she had it FRAMED, Snedecor?" asked Oliver, with a light laugh.
"Not to any alarming extent! I made that frame for Mr. Peter Fish. She sent it here for sale, and Fish bought it. He's wild about it. Says it's the best thing since Sully. He wants you to paint his daughter; that's what I wanted to see you about. Great card for you, Mr. Horn. I congratulate you!"
Oliver gave a low whistle. His own good fortune was for the moment forgotten in his surprise at the woman's audacity. Selling a sketch painted by one of the club! one which had virtually been GIVEN to her.
"Poor Bianchi! He does pick up the queerest people.
I wonder if she was out of stockings," he said half-aloud.
"Oh, you needn't worry about the Madame; she won't suffer for clothes as long as she's got that pair of eyes in her head. You just ought to have seen her handle old Fish. It was beautiful. But, see here now, you don't want to make old Peter a present of this portrait of his daughter. He's good for a thousand, I tell you. She got a cracking price for that one," and he pointed to the picture.
Again Oliver laughed.
"A cracking price? She must have needed the money bad." The more he thought of it the funnier it seemed.
Snedecor looked surprised. He was thinking of Fish's order and the amount of his commission. Most of Oliver's remarks were unintelligible to him--especially his reference to the stockings.
"What shall I say to him?" Snedecor asked at last.
"Oh, nothing in particular. Just send him to my studio. I'll be in all to-morrow morning."
"Well, but don't you think you'd better go and see him yourself now? He's too big a bug to run after people. That kind of thing don't come every day, you know; you might lose it. Why, he lives right near you in that swell house across the Square."
"Oh, I know him very well," said Oliver, nodding his head. "No, let him come to-morrow to me; it won't hurt him to walk up three flights of stairs. I'm busy to-day. Now I think of it, there's one thing, though, you CAN tell him, and please be particular about it--there will be no advance over my regular price. I don't care to compete with her ladyship."
Without waiting to hear the dealer's protest he stepped outside the shop and joined the crowd about the window, elbowing each other for a better view of the portrait. No one recognized him. He was too obscure for that. They might after this, he thought with an exultant throb, and a flush of pride crossed his face.
As he walked down Broadway a sense of the humor of the whole situation came over him. Here for years he had been working day and night; running the gauntlet of successive juries and hanging committees, with his best things rejected or skied until his Tam-o'-Shanter girl made a hit; worrying, hoping against hope, racking his brain as to how and when and where he would find the path which would lead him to commercial success--a difficult task for one too proud to beg for favors and too independent to seek another's aid--and here, out of the clear sky, had come this audacious Bohemienne, the pet of foyer and studio--a woman who presented the greatest number of contrasts to the things he held most dear in womankind--and with a single stroke had cleared the way to success for him. And this, too, not from any love of him, nor his work, nor his future, but simply to settle a board-bill or pay for a bonnet.
Again Oliver laughed, this time so loudly that the man in front turned and looked at him.
"A cracking price," he kept repeating to himself, "a cracking price, eh? and out of old Peter Fish!
Went fishing for minnows and hooked a whale, and another little fish for me! I wonder what she baited her hook with. That woman's a genius."
Suddenly he caught sight of the sign of a Long Island florist set up in an apothecary's window between the big green and red glass globes that lined its sides.
Turning on his heel he entered the door.
"Pick me out a dozen red japonicas," he said to the boy behind the counter.
Oliver waited until each short-stemmed blossom was carefully selected, laid on its bed of raw cotton, blanketed with the same covering, and packed in a paper box. Then, taking a card from his pocket, he wrote upon its back: "Most grateful thanks for my share of the catch," slipped it into an envelope, addressed it to "The fair Fisher, The Countess Kovalski," and, with a grim smile on his face, kept on down Broadway toward the dingy hotel, the resort of all the Southerners of the time, to arrange for rooms for his father and Nathan Gill.
