CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXIV

Valancy had two wonderful moments that spring.

One day, coming home through the woods, with her arms full of trailing

arbutus and creeping spruce, she met a man who she knew must be Allan

Tierney. Allan Tierney, the celebrated painter of beautiful women. He

lived in New York in winter, but he owned an island cottage at the

northern end of Mistawis to which he always came the minute the ice was

out of the lake. He was reputed to be a lonely, eccentric man. He never

flattered his sitters. There was no need to, for he would not paint any

one who required flattery. To be painted by Allan Tierney was all the

_cachet_ of beauty a woman could desire. Valancy had heard so much

about him that she couldn’t help turning her head back over her

shoulder for another shy, curious look at him. A shaft of pale spring

sunlight fell through a great pine athwart her bare black head and her

slanted eyes. She wore a pale green sweater and had bound a fillet of

linnæa vine about her hair. The feathery fountain of trailing spruce

overflowed her arms and fell around her. Allan Tierney’s eyes lighted

up.

“I’ve had a caller,” said Barney the next afternoon, when Valancy had

returned from another flower quest.

“Who?” Valancy was surprised but indifferent. She began filling a

basket with arbutus.

“Allan Tierney. He wants to paint you, Moonlight.”

“Me!” Valancy dropped her basket and her arbutus. “You’re laughing at

me, Barney.”

“I’m not. That’s what Tierney came for. To ask my permission to paint

my wife—as the Spirit of Muskoka, or something like that.”

“But—but—” stammered Valancy, “Allan Tierney never paints any but—any

but——”

“Beautiful women,” finished Barney. “Conceded. Q. E. D., Mistress

Barney Snaith is a beautiful woman.”

“Nonsense,” said Valancy, stooping to retrieve her arbutus. “You _know_

that’s nonsense, Barney. I know I’m a heap better-looking than I was a

year ago, but I’m not beautiful.”

“Allan Tierney never makes a mistake,” said Barney. “You forget,

Moonlight, that there are different kinds of beauty. Your imagination

is obsessed by the very obvious type of your cousin Olive. Oh, I’ve

seen her—she’s a stunner—but you’d never catch Allan Tierney wanting to

paint her. In the horrible but expressive slang phrase, she keeps all

her goods in the shop-window. But in your subconscious mind you have a

conviction that nobody can be beautiful who doesn’t look like Olive.

Also, you remember your face as it was in the days when your soul was

not allowed to shine through it. Tierney said something about the curve

of your cheek as you looked back over your shoulder. You know I’ve

often told you it was distracting. And he’s quite batty about your

eyes. If I wasn’t absolutely sure it was solely professional—he’s

really a crabbed old bachelor, you know—I’d be jealous.”

“Well, I don’t want to be painted,” said Valancy. “I hope you told him

that.”

“I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t know what _you_ wanted. But I told

him _I_ didn’t want my wife painted—hung up in a salon for the mob to

stare at. Belonging to another man. For of course I couldn’t buy the

picture. So even if you had wanted to be painted, Moonlight, your

tyrannous husband would not have permitted it. Tierney was a bit

squiffy. He isn’t used to being turned down like that. His requests are

almost like royalty’s.”

“But we are outlaws,” laughed Valancy. “We bow to no decrees—we

acknowledge no sovereignty.”

In her heart she thought unashamedly:

“I wish Olive could know that Allan Tierney wanted to paint me. _Me!_

Little-old-maid-Valancy-Stirling-that-was.”

Her second wonder-moment came one evening in May. She realised that

Barney actually liked her. She had always hoped he did, but sometimes

she had a little, disagreeable, haunting dread that he was just kind

and nice and chummy out of pity; knowing that she hadn’t long to live

and determined she should have a good time as long as she did live; but

away back in his mind rather looking forward to freedom again, with no

intrusive woman creature in his island fastness and no chattering thing

beside him in his woodland prowls. She knew he could never love her.

She did not even want him to. If he loved her he would be unhappy when

she died—Valancy never flinched from the plain word. No “passing away”

for her. And she did not want him to be the least unhappy. But neither

did she want him to be glad—or relieved. She wanted him to like her and

miss her as a good chum. But she had never been sure until this night

that he did.

They had walked over the hills in the sunset. They had the delight of

discovering a virgin spring in a ferny hollow and had drunk together

from it out of a birch-bark cup; they had come to an old tumble-down

rail fence and sat on it for a long time. They didn’t talk much, but

Valancy had a curious sense of _oneness_. She knew that she couldn’t

have felt that if he hadn’t liked her.

“You nice little thing,” said Barney suddenly. “Oh, you nice little

thing! Sometimes I feel you’re too nice to be real—that I’m just

dreaming you.”

“Why can’t I die now—this very minute—when I am so happy!” thought

Valancy.

Well, it couldn’t be so very long now. Somehow, Valancy had always felt

she would live out the year Dr. Trent had allotted. She had not been

careful—she had never tried to be. But, somehow, she had always counted

on living out her year. She had not let herself think about it at all.

But now, sitting here beside Barney, with her hand in his, a sudden

realisation came to her. She had not had a heart attack for a long

while—two months at least. The last one she had had was two or three

nights before Barney was out in the storm. Since then she had not

remembered she had a heart. Well, no doubt, it betokened the nearness

of the end. Nature had given up the struggle. There would be no more

pain.

“I’m afraid heaven will be very dull after this past year,” thought

Valancy. “But perhaps one will not remember. Would that be—nice? No,

no. I don’t want to forget Barney. I’d rather be miserable in heaven

remembering him than happy forgetting him. And I’ll always remember

through all eternity—that he really, _really_ liked me.”