Читать книгу The Iron Mistress - Paul Iselin Wellman - Страница 40

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Bowie heard the buzz of talk before he entered the de Bornay drawing room. When he and Narcisse went in, they saw a half-dozen young women, all pretty, and an equal number of young men, among them Cabanal and Lebain, chattering around Judalon, who sat beside a window while Audubon fussed at his easel.

“Odd,” Narcisse muttered. “Judalon’s never invited gentlemen before——”

Judalon saw them across the room and gave them a vivid smile. “Jim! Come stand by me. I need someone interesting to talk to—while this tiresome business is going on.”

He obeyed her. Audubon approached his subject to put her in position, with an anxious eye to the lighting. It took him some moments, and conversation lapsed as they watched him coax Judalon to tilt her head this way slightly, turn her body ever so little in that direction, compose her hands in a certain manner, arrange the draperies of her dress just so.

“Now we have the pose, mademoiselle,” he said at last. “Be thee comfortable?”

“How could I be, twisted like this?” she said tartly. But she kept the pose.

Bowie forgot the rest of the room in the picture she made. Hers was a complexion that bore daylight even better than candlelight, seeming to welcome the sharper glare as a means of revealing its perfection.

Rapidly, Audubon began working, sketching the figure, then the face. Behind him there were comments.

“He catches her attitude well.”

“The very way she holds her head.”

“It is hard to conceive how a man can create such an image on canvas.”

“Observe the highlights. Already the portrait is emerging.”

Judalon began to devote her entire attention to Bowie. She made him come around, so that she could look at him without turning her head from the way Audubon had tilted it, and chatted gaily.

Had he enjoyed himself at the ball? She must compliment his dancing. It was pleasing to have a partner who was built upon the proportions of a man—with a side gleam at the slight-statured young Creoles, in whom the shot seemed to rankle.

The sitting ended. They crowded about to compliment her on the progress made. She stood up and stretched herself prettily.

“You’re weary?” Bowie asked her.

“It’s more difficult than one thinks, to sit. The position becomes so cramping. I must move about. Come, Jim——”

All for him. He took her outstretched hand and put it in the bend of his arm. “Where?” he asked.

“The patio. The sun is so bright there.”

Not even a look at any of the others.

They walked toward the door which led outside, and Narcisse gazed after them as if puzzled and worried.