The Restless Sex. Chambers Robert William
wonder we feel so friendly," exclaimed Grismer.
"Why? Do you paint?"
"No, but I'm to be a sculptor."
"How wonderful! I'm simply mad to do something, too! Don't you love the atmosphere of Bohemia, Mr. Grismer?"
He said that he did with a mischievous smile straight into her grey eyes.
"It is my dream," she went on, slightly confused, "to have a studio – not a bit fixed up, you know, and not frilly – but with just one or two wonderful old objects of art here and there and the rest a fascinating confusion of artistic things."
"Great!" he assented. "Please ask me to tea!"
"Wouldn't it be wonderful? And of course I'd work like fury until five o'clock every day, and then just have tea ready for the brilliant and interesting people who are likely to drop in to discuss the most wonderful things! Just think of it, Mr. Grismer! Think what a heavenly privilege it must be to live such a life, surrounded by inspiration and – and atmosphere and – and such things – and listening to the conversation of celebrated people telling each other all about art and how they became famous! What a lofty, exalted life! What a magnificent incentive to self-cultivation, attainment, and creative accomplishment! And yet, how charmingly informal and free from artificiality!"
Grismer also had looked forward to a professional career in Bohemia, with a lively appreciation of its agreeable informalities. And the irresponsibility and liberty – perhaps license – of such a life had appealed to him only in a lesser degree than the desire to satisfy his artistic proclivities with a block of marble or a fistful of clay.
"Yes," he repeated, "that is undoubtedly the life, Miss Quest. And it certainly seems as though you and I were cut out for it."
Stephanie sighed, lost in iridescent dreams of higher things – vague visions of spiritual and artistic levels from which, if attained, genius might stoop to regenerate the world.
But Grismer's amber eyes were brilliant with slumbering mischief.
"What do you think of Grismer, Steve?" inquired Jim Cleland, as they drove back to Boston that night, where his father, at the hotel, awaited them both.
"I really don't exactly know, Jim. Do you like him?"
"Sometimes. He's crew, Dicky, Hasty Pudding. He's a curious chap. You've got to hand him that, anyway."
"Cleverness?"
"Oh, more than that, I think. He's an artist through and through."
"Really!"
"Oh, yes. He's a bird on the box, too."
"What!"
"On the piano, Steve. He's the real thing. He sings charmingly. He draws better than Harry Beltran. He's done things in clay and wax – really wonderful things. You saw him in theatricals."
"Did I? Which was he?"
"Why, the Duke of Brooklyn, of course. He was practically the whole show!"
"I didn't know it," she murmured. "I did not recognize him. How clever he really is!"
"You hadn't met him then," remarked Jim.
"But I had seen him, once," she answered in a low, dreamy voice.
Jim Cleland glanced around at her. Again it struck him that Stephanie was growing up very rapidly into an amazingly ornamental girl – a sister to be proud of.
"Did you have a good time, Steve?" he asked.
"Wonderful," she sighed; smiling back at him out of sleepy eyes.
The car sped on toward Boston.
CHAPTER IX
Stephanie Quest was introduced to society when she was eighteen, and was not a success. She had every chance at her debut to prove popular, but she remained passive, charmingly indifferent to social success, not inclined to step upon the treadmill, unwilling to endure the exactions, formalities, sacrifices, and stupid routine which alone make social position possible. There was too much chaff for the few grains of wheat to interest her.
She wanted a career, and she wanted to waste no time about it, and she was delightfully certain that the path to it lay through some dramatic or art school to the stage or studio.
Jim laughed at her and teased her; but his father worried a great deal, and when Stephanie realized that he was worrying she became reasonable about the matter and said that the next best thing would be college.
"Dad," she said, "I adore dancing and gay dinner parties, but there is nothing else to them but mere dancing and eating. The trouble seems to be with the people – nice people, of course – but – "
"Brainless," remarked Jim, looking over his evening paper.
"No; but they all think and do the same things. They all have the same opinions, the same outlook. They all read the same books when they read at all, go to see the same plays, visit the same people. It's jolly to do it two or three times; but after a little while you realize that all these people are restless and don't know what to do with themselves; and it makes me restless – not for that reason – but because I do know what to do with myself – only you, darling – " slipping one arm around John Cleland's neck, " – don't approve."
"Yours is a restless sex, Steve," remarked Jim, still studying the evening paper. "You've all got the fidgets."
"A libel, my patronizing friend. Or rather a tribute," she added gaily, "because only a restless mind matures and accomplishes."
"Accomplishes what? Suffrage? Sex equality? You'll all perish with boredom when you get it, because there'll be nothing more to fidget about."
"He's just a bumptious boy yet, isn't he, Dad?"
Jim laughed and laid aside his paper:
"You're a sweet, pretty girl, Steve – "
"I'll slay you if you call me that!"
"Why not be what you look? Why not have a good time with all your might, marry when you wish, and become a perfectly – "
"Oh, Jim, you are annoying! Dad, is there anything more irritating than a freshly hatched college graduate? Or more maddeningly complacent? Look at your self-satisfied son! There he sits, after having spent the entire day in enjoyment of his profession, and argues that I ought to be satisfied with an idle day in which I have accomplished absolutely nothing! I'm afraid your son is a pig."
Jim laughed lazily:
"The restless sex is setting the world by the ears," he said tormentingly. "All this femininist business, this intrusion into man's affairs, this fidgety dissatisfaction with a perfectly good civilization, is spoiling you all."
"Is that the sort of thing you're putting into your wonderful novel?" she inquired.
"No, it's too unimportant – "
"Dad! Let's ignore him! Now, dear, if you feel as you do about a career for me at present, I really think I had better go to college. I do love pleasure, but somehow the sort of pleasure I'm supposed to enjoy doesn't last; and it's the people, I think, that tire one very quickly. It does make a difference in dancing, doesn't it? – not to hear an idea uttered during an entire evening – not to find anybody thinking for themselves – "
"Oh, Steve!" laughed Jim, "you're not expected to think at your age! All that society expects of you is that you chatter incessantly during dinner and the opera and do your thinking in a ballroom with your feet!"
She was laughing, but an unwonted colour brightened her cheeks as she turned on him from the padded arm of John Cleland's chair, where she had been sitting:
"If I really thought you meant that, Jim, I'd spend the remainder of my life in proving to you that I have a mind."
"Never mind him, Steve," said John Cleland. "If you wish to go to college, you shall."
"How about looking after us?" inquired Jim, alarmed.
"Dad, if my being here is going to make you more comfortable,"