It was a charming existence for a little while. Eugene suggested that they should have Smite and MacHugh to dinner first of all, these being his closest friends. Angela agreed heartily for she was only too anxious to meet the people he knew. She wanted to show him she knew how to receive and entertain as well as anyone. She made great preparations for the Wednesday evening following—the night fixed for the dinner—and when it came was on the qui vive to see what his friends were like and what they would think of her.
The occasion passed off smoothly enough and was the occasion of considerable jollity. These two cheerful worthies were greatly impressed with the studio. They were quick to praise it before Angela, and to congratulate him on his good fortune in having married her. Angela, in the same dress in which she had appeared at dinner in Buffalo, was impressive. Her mass of yellow hair fascinated the gaze of both Smite and MacHugh.
“Gee, what hair!” Smite observed secretly to MacHugh when neither Angela nor Eugene were within hearing distance.
“You’re right,” returned MacHugh. “She’s not at all bad looking, is she?”
“I should say not,” returned Smite who admired Angela’s simple, good-natured western manners. A little later, more subtly, they expressed their admiration to her, and she was greatly pleased.
Marietta, who had arrived late that afternoon, had not made her appearance yet. She was in the one available studio bedroom making her toilet. Angela, in spite of her fine raiment, was busy superintending the cooking, for although through the janitor she had managed to negotiate the loan of a girl to serve, she could not get anyone to cook. A soup, a fish, a chicken and a salad, were the order of procedure. Marietta finally appeared, ravishing in pink silk. Both Smite and MacHugh sat up and Marietta proceeded to bewitch them. Marietta knew no order or distinctions in men. They were all slaves to her—victims to be stuck on the spit of her beauty and broiled in their amorous uncertainties at her leisure. In after years Eugene learned to speak of Marietta’s smile as “the dagger.” The moment she appeared smiling he would say, “Ah, we have it out again, have we? Who gets the blade this evening? Poor victim!”
Being her brother-in-law now, he was free to slip his arm about her waist and she took this family connection as license to kiss him. There was something about Eugene which held her always. During these very first days she gratified her desire to be in his arms, but always with a sense of reserve which kept him in check. She wondered secretly how much he liked her.
Smite and MacHugh, when she appeared, both rose to do her service. MacHugh offered her his chair by the fire. Smite bestirred himself in an aimless fashion.
“I’ve just had such a dandy week up at West Point,” began Marietta cheerfully, “dancing, seeing dress parades, walking with the soldier boys.”
“I warn you two, here and now,” began Eugene, who had already learned to tease Marietta, “that you’re not safe. This woman here is dangerous. As artists in good standing you had better look out for yourselves.”
“Oh, Eugene, how you talk,” laughed Marietta, her teeth showing effectively. “Mr. Smite, I leave it to you. Isn’t that a mean way to introduce a sister-in-law? I’m here for just a few days too, and have so little time. I think it cruel!”
“It’s a shame!” said Smite, who was plainly a willing victim. “You ought to have another kind of brother-in-law. If you had some people I know now—”
“It’s an outrage,” commented MacHugh. “There’s one thing though. You may not require so very much time.”
“Now I think that’s ungallant,” Marietta laughed. “I see I’m all alone here except for Mr. Smite. Never mind. You all will be sorry when I’m gone.”
“I believe that,” replied MacHugh, feelingly.
Smite simply stared. He was lost in admiration of her cream and peach complexion, her fluffy, silky brown hair, her bright blue eyes and plump rounded arms. Such radiant good nature would be heavenly to live with. He wondered what sort of a family this was that Eugene had become connected with. Angela, Marietta, a brother at West Point. They must be nice, conservative, well-to-do western people. Marietta went to help her sister, and Smite, in the absence of Eugene, said: “Say, he’s in right, isn’t he? She’s a peach. She’s got it a little on her sister.”
MacHugh merely stared at the room. He was taken with the complexion and arrangement of things generally. The old furniture, the rugs, the hangings, the pictures, Eugene’s borrowed maid servant in a white apron and cap, Angela, Marietta, the bright table set with colored china and an arrangement of silver candlesticks—Eugene had certainly changed the tenor of his life radically within the last ten days. Why he was marvellously fortunate. This studio was a wonderful piece of luck. Some people—and he shook his head meditatively.
“Well,” said Eugene, coming back after some final touches to his appearance, “what do you think of it, Peter?”
“You’re certainly moving along, Eugene. I never expected to see it. You ought to praise God. You’re plain lucky.”
Eugene smiled enigmatically. He was wondering whether he was. Neither Smite nor MacHugh nor anyone could dream of the conditions under which this came about. What a sham the world was anyhow. It’s surface appearances so ridiculously deceptive! If anyone had known of the apparent necessity when he first started to look for an apartment, of his own mood toward it!
Marietta came back, and Angela. The latter had taken kindly to both these men, or boys as she already considered them. Eugene had a talent for reducing everybody to “simply folks,” as he called them. So these two capable and talented men were mere country boys like himself—and Angela caught his attitude.
“I’d like to have you let me make a sketch of you some day, Mrs. Witla,” MacHugh said to Angela when she came back to the fire. He was essaying portraiture as a side line and he was anxious for good opportunities to practice.
Angela thrilled at the invitation, and the use of her new name, Mrs. Witla, by Eugene’s old friends.
“I’d be delighted,” she replied, flushing.
“My word, you look nice, Angel-Face,” exclaimed Marietta, catching her about the waist. “You paint her with her hair down in braids, Mr. MacHugh. She makes a stunning Gretchen.”
Angela flushed anew.
“I’ve been reserving that for myself, Peter,” said Eugene, “but you try your hand at it. I’m not much in portraiture anyhow.”
Smite smiled at Marietta. He wished he could paint her, but he was poor at figure work except as incidental characters in sea scenes. He could do men better than he could women.
“If you were an old sea captain now, Miss Blue,” he said to Marietta gallantly, “I could make a striking thing out of you.”
“I’ll try to be, if you want to paint me,” she replied gaily. “I’d look fine in a big pair of boots and a raincoat, wouldn’t I, Eugene?”
“You certainly would, if I’m any judge,” replied Smite. “Come over to the studio and I’ll rig you out. I have all those things on hand.”
“I will,” she replied, laughing. “You just say the word.”
MacHugh felt as if Smite were stealing a march on him. He wanted to be nice to Marietta, to have her take an interest in him.
“Now, looky, Joseph,” he protested. “I was going to suggest making a study of Miss Blue myself.”
“Well, you’re too late,” replied Smite. “You didn’t speak quick enough.”
Marietta was greatly impressed with this atmosphere in which Angela and Eugene were living. She expected to see something artistic, but nothing so nice as this particular studio. Angela explained to her that Eugene did not own it, but that made small difference in Marietta’s estimate of its significance. Eugene had it. His art and social connections brought it about. They were beginning excellently well. If she could have as nice a home when she started on her married career she would be satisfied.
They sat down about the round teak table which was one of Dexter’s prized possessions, and were served by Angela’s borrowed maid. The conversation was light and for the most part pointless, serving only to familiarize these people with each other. Both Angela and Marietta were taken with the two artists because they felt in them a note of homely conservatism. These men spoke easily and naturally of the trials and triumphs of art life, and the difficulty of making a good living, and seemed to be at home with personages of repute in one world and another, its greatest reward.
During the dinner Smite narrated experiences in his sea-faring life, and MacHugh of his mountain camping experiences in the West. Marietta described experiences with her beaux in Wisconsin and characteristics of her yokel neighbors at Blackwood, Angela joining in. Finally MacHugh drew a pencil sketch of Marietta followed by a long train of admiring yokels, her eyes turned up in a very shy, deceptive manner.
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