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Why, Cap'n, that ain't no word t' tack ont' Janet. Modils ain't moral or decint. I learned that in th' city from a painter-chap as use t' come in t' the shop an' eat isters when he could afford it." Billy's face lengthened. "'T is 'mong friends I speak?" Billy dropped his voice. Both men nodded. "Well, Janet is a modil t' some of them dirty-aproned women painters!
"There isn't much difference," said Thornly, rising courteously. "I'm Cap'n Billy Morgan!" This statement appeared to interest Thornly immensely. "I'm glad to meet you," he answered. "Are ye a painter-man?" asked Billy. "I've been dubbed that occasionally." Thornly laughed. "What can I do for you?" "Did you ever have a modil?"
Jo G. was adjusting her memorial pin, a dreary piece of jewelry, composed of the hair from the heads of several dead and gone relatives; "but Janet wasn't after his kind. She was a modil!" The woman whispered this information, glancing hurriedly at the small children whom Maud was now getting into their clothes. "What's that?" whispered the girl in return.
"No," Billy shook his head; "I ain't blind, gal, ye ain't what most folks would call a modil, I'm thinkin'!" "Well, the artists think I am!" "The artists? Them womin in bonnets and smutchy pinafores? Gosh!" For a moment Janet's truth-loving soul shrank from deceiving Billy, but her promise to Thornly held her.
"Spell it!" pleaded Maud, shaking her younger sister into a sobful semi-silence. "F-i-g-g-e-r!" spelled Mrs. Jo G. in an ominous murmur. Maud Grace's flat, expressionless face took on a really imbecile blankness. "Figger!" she repeated over and over. "Figger! That's worse t' understand than modil. I don't see why you can't talk plain talk, Ma!" "'Cause I told you.
She stopped her merry dance and came again beside him, clasping the hard hand tenderly within her own. "What do they think ye a modil of?" asked the man, and his face had lightened visibly. "Oh! just what their silly fancy tells them. Only don't you see, Daddy, dear, they don't want any one to know until the pictures are done.
The moonlight streaming upon the girl showed her beauty in a witchlike brightness. It stirred Billy in an uneasy, anxious fashion. "There ain't no call t' tell any one," he said, "you an' me is enough t' know. Us an' them what pays ye!" "Cap'n Daddy; I'm a model!" "A modil what?" Janet's laugh rose above the lapping water's sound. "Why, Daddy! Don't you think I'm a model everything?"
If she has been a modil an' 'twere you as said that she's been one to a man!" The horror on Billy's face was pitiful. "Can you locate him?" he asked in trembling tones. Mark nodded. "Come on, then!" In silence the two departed. Pa hardly noticed them; the burning fat claimed his entire attention.
Billy after a long but significant silence sat back in his chair and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, "Mark, I'm goin' t' ask ye t' jine me in a rather shady job. Do ye happen t' know the particular women painters as is usin' Janet fur a modil?" Mark strangled over a kernel of corn and stared, teary-eyed, at Billy. "Modil?" he finally gasped, "modil?
"She ain't no modil, Cap'n, don't say that!" he finally managed to get out; "that's jest scandalous gossip." "She told me herself!" Billy brought his tilted chair to the floor; "an' I got t' keep this visit secret. But, since the gal ain't got no mother, I've got t' do double duty. Knowin' how up in city ways ye are, Mark, I thought maybe ye'd pilot me on this trip.
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