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Marion, the Story of an Artist's Model

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<h2>XXXII</h2> THERE was a rap on my door. I opened it, and there was Benevenuto. He had on a black suit. It looked like the suits the poor French Canadians dress their dead in. He had plastered his hair so sleekly that it shone like a piece of black satin, and oh! he did smell of barber’s soap and perfume. His big black eyes were shining and he was smiling all over his face. “Where is your mandolin?” I asked. “I have called to see you,” he answered. “Me, I am not musician to-night.” Then as he saw my evident disappointment, he said, “but if I am not welcome for myself, I can go.” I felt really sorry for him, as his smiling face had become so suddenly mournful and stormy-looking. So I said: “Oh, I’m really glad to see you,” and I tried to smile as if I were. He came up to me with a kind of rush and said excitedly: “Marion, I love-a you! I love-a you! I love-a you! Give me the smile again. That smile is like music to me. I love-a you!{193}” I was amazed and also alarmed. “Mr. Benevenuto,” I said, backing away from him, “please go away.” I thought of what Miss Darling had said, that Italian men were not to be played with. I had merely smiled at Benny, with what a volcanic result! He was coming nearer and nearer to me, and he kept talking all the time, in his soft, pleading way: “Marion, I have love-a you from the first day I have look at you. You look-a like my countrywomen, Marion. We will getta married. Soon I will make plenty money. We will have maybe little house and little bebby.” I could stand it no longer. He was only a boy after all, and somehow he made me think of the little beggar boy I had pinched when I gave him the bread and sugar. I pushed him away from me, and I said: “Don’t talk such foolishness. I am old enough to be your mother.” I think I was about three years older than he. “No matter, Marion,” he said, “no matter. I do not care if you are so old. I love-a you just same.” I was sidling round along the wall, and now I had reached the door. I ran down the stairs, and I did not stop till I reached the safety of Miss Darling’s room.{194} “What on earth is the matter?” she cried, as I burst in. Between laughter and tears I repeated the interview. She couldn’t help laughing at me, especially when I told about the part of “the little bebby.” Then she said: “Well, we’ll get him out now, but you must never, never flirt with an Italian. You’re apt to be killed if you do.” Later in the evening Jimmy came. He was very quiet and queer for Jimmy, and he sat down on my window sill, and held his head in his hands. When I told him about Benevenuto, he looked up and said: “The damn’ little rat. I’ll throw him out of the window.” After a moment he said: “Come over here, Marion, I want to tell you something.” I sat down on the opposite side of the window seat. “Say, Marion, there’s a hell of a row going on up at my house about you. Sis kicked up an awful fuss, and they’re all on to my coming to see you. Sis declared I insulted her friend, because I took you home instead, and mother is mad, too. They make me sick. Mother asked me where your folks lived, and what you were living alone like this for, and they insinuated <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_231_sml.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="460" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /> <div class="caption">He came to me with a kind of rush and said excitedly, “Marion, I love you! I love you! I love you!{195}” </div> </div> some nasty things. Lord! women have rotten minds. I told them that you were a hard little worker, and then they wanted to know what you did, and I told them you were a model, and that I was proud of it. But, gosh! you ought to have heard those women! When I told them that, they almost burst themselves mouthing about it. I turned on ’em and told them not one of them could be a model. They didn’t have the looks. But the long and short of it is that mother has telegraphed for dad, and she says she won’t give me another cent unless I promise to give you up. As I needed a ten-spot I said I would, but you better believe I’m not going to do it.” I stood up and put my hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. Somehow I felt older than Jimmy, though we were about of an age. He seemed such a boy, so wayward and reckless, and there was so much that was lovable about him, despite his “toughness.” “Jimmy dear,” I said, “I guess your mother’s right. You’d better give me up. It’ll only make trouble for you if you keep on coming to see me.” “Tell you what I’ll do,” said Jimmy. “I’ll quit college, and get a job of some sort. Then I’ll be independent, and I’ll come to see you all I damn’ please, and I’m going to marry you whether they want me to or not.” I thought of Jimmy’s happy-go-lucky nature{196} and his love of drink, and I determined the poor fellow should not lose the help of his family if I could avoid it. We took a little walk around the block, I urging Jimmy all the time to please do what his people wished, and I even told him that while I was fond of him I did not love him. He said savagely that he guessed I had left my heart in Montreal, and then he pulled his cap down over his eyes, and didn’t say anything for a long time. We just tramped around, and then Jimmy said suddenly: “Say, Marion, why doesn’t he come on here and marry you if he loves you? Is it lack of money prevents him?” I said: “I don’t want to marry him. That’s the reason why.” How I wished that was the truth! “Well, say, girlie, let’s you and I get married on the Q. T. Then I’ll go West, as they’re talking of shunting me out there, and as soon as I’ve made good you can join me. How’s that for a scheme?” “It sounds pretty nice, Jimmy, but I’d rather do the marrying after you’ve made good.” “Oh, it’ll be dead easy,” declared Jimmy. “I’ve an uncle out there with a ranch as big as a whole county. It’ll just be like dropping into a soft snap, don’t you see?” I sighed.{197} “‘Making good’ isn’t merely dropping into soft snaps, Jimmy,” I said sadly. Jimmy suddenly whistled under his breath, and I saw him looking at a couple of women who were coming toward us. He raised his hat as they passed us, but although the younger woman returned his bow, the older one stared at him indignantly, and then she gave me a very severe and condemning glance. All of a sudden I knew who that woman was. I recognized her by her hat. She was Jimmy’s mother! The following day, I had a letter from her. She said I was ruining her son’s future, and if I did not give him up he would soon be without a home. She said that he was in serious trouble with his father, and that the latter intended to send him out West, and that she hoped I would do nothing to prevent her son from going. Finally she said that if her son were to marry a model the family would never forgive him and that such a disgrace would break all of their hearts, besides ruining him. I did not answer her letter. I sat for a very long time thinking about my life. What was there wrong about being a model, then, that society should have cast the bar sinister upon it? Surely, there was no disgrace in one who had beauty having that beauty transferred to canvas. I had long ago ceased to despise the profession myself.{198} The more I posed, the more I felt even a sort of pride in my work, though I still thought one was “beyond the pale” when one posed completely nude. Miss Darling knocked at my door, and brought in a telegram. I thought at first it was from Reggie—that he was at last coming, as he had been threatening in all of his letters to do, and my hands were trembling when I broke the flap. But it was from poor Jimmy—Jimmy en route to Colorado, entreating me to write to him and assuring me that he never would forget his “own little Marion,” and that he would “make good” and I’d be proud of him yet. I sat down to write an impulsive answer to the boy, and then my eye fell upon his mother’s letter. No! I would not ruin her son’s life. Jimmy should have his opportunity, but I said to myself with a sob: “And if Jimmy ever does make good, they’ll have me to thank for it, even if I am an artist’s model!{199}” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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