Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/96

 of a serious utterance. She was bad-mannered and dull. She was boy-crazy. There wasn't a thing to be said in her favor, but I loved her desperately. I planned the day when we would be married. She gave me every cause to think that she would become my wife. But another chap came along. He was ten years older than I and already had attained an important position in the financial world. Without a moment's hesitation she cast me aside. I meant no more to her than a worn out glove or a last year's coat. There were thousands of other women warmer and more beautiful, with softer, more yielding bodies and sweeter lips. I, however, wanted that one. When I knew that she was engaged, something snapped within me. I have never quite got over losing her despite the fact that now in my mature years I can see clearly how worthless she was. I explain her away with logic but the old ache remains. She was small and selfish when we parted for the last time. I asked her to kiss me good-bye just once. It would have meant much to me, something lovely to remember. She refused. I dare say had I been willing to pay for it she would have obliged. My life has been a cruel one. I was born with the face of a gargoyle and the heart of a poet. Christ, if you only knew how sensitive I am about my appearance!"

Louella thought a great deal of Ivan whom she laughingly called "Ivan, the Terrible." To her he wasn't repulsive. He wasn't ugly. There was something fine about him, something of the strength and power of a mountain or a great oak tree.

He would talk for hours to her about art, his likes and dislikes, his hatreds and enthusiasms. He was famous for his portraits and he continually had a waiting list of prominent people who imagined themselves sufficiently important to be immortalized on canvas. Few of the world's great men are ever painted, for most of them are never known.

"The cubists, impressionists, vorticists and their ilk," he told Louella, "while seeking new modes of expression have actually gone back thousands of years to prehistoric days when man was first beginning to experiment with art pictorially. He drew his designs on the walls of caves and on huge rocks among the hills. Sometimes he drew his pictures in the sand by the sea and the waves crashed up and erased them. But ever he drew the