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She rose and went to the farther side of
the room, the light falling rustily on her
golden head through the dirty skylight.
There it was, in its wrappings. She unfolded
them, unswathed it, and sat down
on the rough board floor to look at it.
"Has it been so long since I have seen
a picture?" That was what she murmured
to herself at last, to explain away
her tears. "Was I ever so lovely ? " came
the whisper. "Oh, no, I never was; it is
Leo, Leo. Nothing but his lost hand could
ever have made me so beautiful. Yet it's
I—not the shadow of a hope that it could
be taken for any one else.'' She shook the
tears from her eyes and bent nearer the
canvas.
She recalled, with a sudden, synthetic
mental gesture, all the history of its creation:
how strange it had seemed to her,
though used from infancy to models as
part of the business of life, to pose, herself;
how oddly impersonal Leo had been about
it, criticising each attitude (she had tried so
long before she got that listless droop of
the head as she gazed across the green turf
at the approaching swan); and yet how
sometimes he had broken off to come and
kiss her hand most gently, and beg her to
rest. He had accused her at first of being
Elsa rather than Leda; but even Leo could
find nothing Gothic—term of superlative
reproach !—in her beauty; and,in the end,
with her, not in spite of her, he had worked
out his idea. Loveliness caught in a doom
of which it is a little careless; passionless
acceptance of the passions of the most high
gods; passivity that will not compromise
itself by any fear, or flight, or lamentation
—he had flung the legend to the winds
for the sake of his symbol. She remembered
it all—all. It had never been hung-;
though in his old studio it had always been
at hand, like this, behind its wrappings,
enclosed in its sumptuous Venetian frame.
No one had ever seen it: there would never
be any critic to confirm or confute Leo's
judgment of it. It was hers—done for
her, with her, by her. Couldn't Leo see
what that meant to her? It had nothing
to do with his art—save that it insisted,
not without malice, on being a masterpiece.
Then she heard herself called by Mrs.
Bleeker's voice from below; and closing
and locking the door quickly, she ran
Leda and the Swan 229
down-stairs. The nurse awaited her on
the threshold—a stiff white creature for
whose services she prayed inwardly Mannheimer
would presently pay. Farrant had
waked; and Miss Dall wanted the doctor
sent for. Mrs. Farrant went down-stairs
to telephone; but the doctor was not in,
and she had to leave a message for him.
While Farrant dropped off again later into
a troubled sleep, she wrote to Mannheimer;
and then, with a docility born of long
discipline, ate her luncheon, which tasted
like nothing, and which she did not want.
By mid-afternoon the doctor came; and
this time it seemed to her that his firm tread
was more nervous. When he came out of
the bedroom and closed the door, after
whispering to Miss Dall on the threshold,
she faced him squarely.
"Well?"
The physician shrugged his shoulders
patiently. " Mrs. Farrant, I don't see any
real hope for him at all. It is kinder to
tell you. There is just one chance.'' He
studied her face. "Windisch—the biggest '
specialist in the world, you know, for this
sort of thing—is still in New York. He
came over to operate on James L. Gillenton's
daughter."
She nodded; she read the paper to Leo
every morning while he breakfasted.
"Well: there's just the hundredth
chance that Windisch, if he could see
your husband, could do something for
him. Of course, Windisch gets a bigger
fee than—" He smiled at her kindly and
ruefully.
"How much?"
"I don't know. He might be approached—if
there is time before he sails.
I could perhaps get at him through Doctor
Melcher, who knows him. But even
if he made it nominal, it would run into
the hundreds. And if Windisch thought
he could do anything, it would mean an
operation and a very long convalescence
in a hospital. I couldn't in the least say,
Mrs. Farrant."
"Thousands." She murmured it to herself.
"Before you got through with it, yes.
And of course, only a chance. I think,
all things considered, even Windisch probably
wouldn't operate." He seemed to
be trying to let her down easily.
Marie Farrant closed her eyes. Fan-