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Page 14
As ever, the thing withheld, Kenny ardently desired. That thing was
Brian's presence. Any Irishman, he decided fiercely, would understand
his terrified clinging to the things of the heart that belonged to him
by birth. It was part of his race and creed. He hated to be alone.
And Brian was all he had. How lightly he had prized that one
possession until it became a thing denied, Kenny, sentimentalizing his
need, forgot.
Studio gossip, having concerned itself with Brian's going, almost to
the disruption of the Holbein Club, took up in perturbed detail the
glaring problem of Kenny's tantrums. He was keeping everyone excited.
"Of course," mused Garry, "you could earn your living as a moving
picture actor--"
"Adams owes me five thousand dollars for his wife's portrait,"
sputtered Kenny. "But I can't get it. He's been sick for weeks.
Typhoid."
"And in the meantime?"
The shaft went home. Kenny sent for a model--and sent her home.
"She was too ornamental and decidedly sympathetic," he explained
gloomily to Garry. "I'm just in the mood to make a colossal fool of
myself. She was the sort of girl you'd invite to tea to meet your
brother's wife."
"Kenny!"
"She was!" insisted Kenny.
"Any number of models are and you know it. And that girl is Jan's
cousin."
"I make a point of never losing my head over a model," declared Kenny
with an air. "It's a hindrance to work. You concentrate on a type and
every picture you do advertises your devotion. Suppose I married her!"
"Heaven help her!" snapped Garry, and went out, slamming the door.
Kenny offended, followed him home. He felt aggrieved and talkative.
If Kenny had succeeded in propelling himself into one of his nervous
ecstasies of inspiration, thereby normalizing his existence to some
extent, if Reynolds had not appeared and simplified the painter's
credit to a point where he made no further search for unsympathetic
models. Fate, weaving the destiny of two O'Neills, would have changed
her loom. As it was, sick with brooding and pity for himself, Kenny
abandoned all pretense of labor and rushed on blindly to his fate. The
spring was in his blood. What form of midsummer madness lay ahead of
him depended now upon the hairtrigger of impulse. A wind, a sketch,
the perfume of a flower, and he would be off wherever the reminiscence
called him. He whistled constantly. That, as Jan pointed out, was
always a bad sign with Kenny. It meant that he felt perilously
transient and would rocket up in the air when a spark came that pleased
him. He had been much the same, Fahr remembered, the summer he
embarked for Syria upon a tramp steamer--to the captain's frantic
regret.
In the end, feeling absurdly sorry for him, Garry unwittingly sent the
spark in by Pietro.
It was a letter from Brian.
"Tavern of Stars
Open Country
God's Green World of Spring
"Dear Garry:
"The purpose of this letter is primarily a favor. Therefore without
pretense I'll have done with it at once. You'll find in the studio a
scrapbook of clippings which represent my ebullitions in print.
Whitaker wants them, I believe, for purposes of conference. It will
save him running through his files.
"I've been on the road for weeks, tramping myself into blessed
weariness at night. More often than not I sleep in the open. I'm
writing this with the aid of a pocket searchlight. Mine host, old
Gaffer Moon, smiles down upon the ashes of my camp fire, full-faced and
silver. An excellent host! Never once has he grumbled about light or
pay and he grants me a roof without question. Ah! it's a blessed old
Tavern of Stars, Garry! Ramshackle enough in all faith, for there are
gaps in the tree-walls and Dame Wind's a-sweeping night and day, but
luckily I've a blanket I carry by day and need by night.
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