Neith Boyce

“ Martin went back and picked up his tools, and stood a moment contemplating the canvas. His eyes gleamed. He said to himself that it was good—the best thing he had ever done. One or two more days would finish it. And it should be seen in the world!
Then his face changed again and darkened. He was realizing anew his limitations. With years of hard work he might attain technical excellence of a sort, though never technical mastery. He might become a clever painter—he would never be a great artist. The creative impulse remained with him only an impulse—uncertain, fitful. ”

“ Molly yielded the kiss, rather frightened, and went. And Martin, lying full-length on the pine-needles, and thinking of her, basked lazily in the prospect of getting, once more, his own way, and doing something that all his respectable friends—they were not so many as formerly—would disapprove. With all his heart the young man hated what he called the respectable. ”

“ Martin pulled himself up suddenly.
"That depends," he said. "Now, Molly, of course you understand that is my secret. And you belong to me, so it's your secret, too. You're a sensible girl. Even if you wanted you couldn't do anything against me. And, of course, if you repeat a word of what I've just told you, you put my life in danger. You know that as well as I do."
"Yes," said Molly, mournfully. She knew Steve Purdy rather better than Martin did. She sat for some moments in a stunned silence, and then rose. "It's getting late. ”

“ I don't care about the people, though. We're engaged now, you know."
For answer Molly smiled again. Martin had never found her talkative, but her soft eyes were eloquent of all sorts of delightful things.
They climbed hand-in-hand up through the woods behind the inn. Molly took the lead, making her way unhesitatingly through an apparently trackless maze. As they ascended it grew lighter. The sunset glow lingered in the west above the mountain-tops, and trickled down through the trees in little rivulets of primrose light. ”

“ Where a stronger talent would have exulted, finding in such achievement not only a step attained but a stepping-stone to something better, Martin recognized only that he had exceeded his own uncertain level, and that his next work would probably be infinitely bad. ”

“ Her head was tilted slightly back, the eyes raised and fixed softly.
"Turn the right hand a little more—eyes not quite so high. No, more to the right—there," dictated Martin, squeezing out color on his palette. He moved his easel slightly and then stood for a long five minutes looking critically from the canvas to the model and back again. Then he began to paint.
For twenty minutes he worked silently. At first his face brightened, his steel-colored eyes became suddenly alive, alert. But the artistic impulse was not strong enough to overcome his mental disturbance. ”

“ The inn of San Jacinto, a primitive edifice of unpainted pine, built in the Spanish style around a small courtyard, was already wide-awake. Breakfast was over, and the twenty boarders, an unfashionable clan, were scattered along the veranda. A party of half a dozen men was starting on a deer-stalking expedition up the peak, others were going down the mountain in search of a bear which had been sighted the day before in that direction. ”

“ Martin smiled faintly at the thought of this interview. But the image of whiskey-bibbing old Julius O'Flynn did not trouble him in the least. Once in Paris Molly and he would shrug their shoulders at all relatives. He began to talk to her of Paris, and the heavenly life they would lead there.
"I'm going to work hard and do something great, sweetheart. We'll go back to the old studio in the Quartier Latin, and all the fellows will come and look at you and adore you, and want to paint you. You'll get on with them famously, Molly. They're the best fellows in the world, and the best company. ”

“ The two men remaining were consumptives, come to try, as a last resort, the famous mountain air. Wrapped in over coats and shawls, they sat in the sun and watched the noisy departure of the hunters with a bitter indifference. ”

“ The things that you can't understand don't matter a confounded pin! Just remember that, Molly. You women are the best there is. ... Unless it's being able to paint, really. Well, I don't know——"
He sighed, and turned to throw his arm along the rock and lay his head down on it.
Molly was silent—she generally was—and for long minutes the soft rush of the wind in the trees made a wide peace about them. Then Martin looked up, to find her eyes bent gravely upon him. ”

“ He would work and he would succeed. He must. He would live for Art—and Molly—and let the rest go.
He took the picture back to the inn and set it in his room with its face to the wall. Then he lounged about the veranda until dinner-time, consuming a cigarette or two and a novel of de Maupassant. After the meal the only two young ladies in the place made a desperate attack upon him. But Martin, with the nonchalance of an old campaigner, evaded their suggestion of "a climb," and presently went off by him self into the woods. ”