Contrary Mary

He knew that it was a small thing to say. He would not have said it to

any one but Delilah. She would not think him small. To her all things

would be fair for a lover.

Before he went, that afternoon, he had promised to go with Delilah to

the White House garden party.

Hence a week later there floated within the vision of the celebrities

and society folk, gathered together on the spacious lawn of the

executive mansion, a lovely lady in faint rose-white, with a touch of

heavenly blue in her wide hat, from which floated a veil which half hid

her down-drooped eyes.

People began at once to ask, "Who is she?"

When it was discovered that her name was Jeliffe, and that she was not

a distinguished personage, it did not matter greatly. There was about

her an air of distinction--a certain quiet atmosphere of withdrawal

from the common herd which had nothing in it of haughtiness, but which

seemed to set her apart.

Porter, following in her wake as she swept across the green, thought of

the girl in leopard skins, whose unconventionality had shocked him.

Surely in this woman was developed a sense of herself as the center of

a picture which was almost uncanny. He found himself contrasting

Mary's simplicity and lack of pose.

Mary's presence here to-day would have meant much to a few people who

knew and loved her; it would have meant nothing to the crowd who stared

at Delilah Jeliffe.

Colin Quale was there to enjoy the full triumph of the transformation.

He hovered at a little distance from Delilah, worshiping her for the

genius which met and matched his own.

"I shall paint her in that," he said to Porter. "It will be my

masterpiece. And if you could have seen her on the night I met her----"

"She told me." Porter was smiling.

"It was like one of the old masters daubed by a novice, or like a room

whitewashed over rare carvings--everything was hidden which should have

been shown, and everything was shown which should have been hidden. It

was monstrous.

"There are few women," he went on, "whom I could make over as I have

made her over. They have not the adaptability--the temperament. There

was one whom I could have transformed. But I was not allowed. She was

little and blonde and the wife of a clergyman; she looked like a

saint---and she should have worn straight things of clear green or red,

or blue. But she wore black. I've sometimes wondered if she was such

a saint as she looked. There was a divorce afterward, I believe, and

another man. And she died."