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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32826-8.txt b/32826-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc31ddb --- /dev/null +++ b/32826-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13553 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairfax and His Pride, by Marie Van Vorst + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fairfax and His Pride + +Author: Marie Van Vorst + +Release Date: June 15, 2010 [EBook #32826] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE *** + + + + +Produced by KD Weeks, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, +and inconsistent spellings regularized. Please see the Transcriber's end +notes for details. + + + + + FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE + + _A NOVEL_ + + BY + + MARIE VAN VORST + + Author of "Big Tremaine," etc. + + + BOSTON + SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + Copyright, 1920, + BY SMALL, MAYNARD& COMPANY + (INCORPORATED) + + + + + TO + + B. VAN VORST + + IN MEMORY OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP + + + + +FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE + + + + +BOOK I + +THE KINSMEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +One bitter day in January in the year 1880, when New York was a tranquil +city, a young man stood at the South Ferry waiting for the up-town horse +car. With a few other passengers he had just left the packet which had +arrived in New York harbour that afternoon from New Orleans. + +Antony Fairfax was an utter stranger to the North. + +In his hand he carried a small hand-bag, and by his side on the snow +rested his single valise. Before him waited a red and yellow tram-car +drawn by lean horses, from whose backs the vapour rose on the frosty +air. Muffled to his ears, the driver beat together his hands in their +leather gloves; the conductor stamped his feet. The traveller climbed +into the car, lifting his big bag after him. + +The cold was even more terrible to him than to the conductor and driver. +He had come from the South, where he had left the roses and magnolias in +bloom, and the warmth of the country was in his blood. He dug his feet +into the straw covering the floor of the car, buttoned his coat tight +about his neck, pushed his hands deep in his pockets and sat wondering +at the numbing cold. + +This, then, was the North! + +He watched with interest the few other passengers board the little car: +two fruit vendors and after them were amiably lifted in great bunches of +bananas. Antony asked himself the question whether this new country +would be friendly to him, what would its spirit be toward him, and as +he asked this question of the cold winter air the city suddenly took +reality and formed for him out of his dreams. Would it be kind or cruel? +The coming days would answer: meanwhile he could wait. Some places, like +some people whom we meet, at once extend to us a hand; there are some +that even seem to offer an embrace. Through the car blew a sudden icy +blast and New York's welcome to Fairfax was keen as a blow. There was an +actual physical affront in this wind that struck him in the face. + +Suppose the elements were an indication of what the rest would be? But +no--that was ridiculous! There would be certainly warm interiors behind +the snow-fretted panes of the windows in the houses that lined the +streets on either side. There would be warm and cordial hearts to +welcome him somewhere. There would be understanding of heart, indulgence +for youth. He would find open doors for all his ambitions, spurs to his +integrity and effort. He would know how to make use of these ways and +means of progress. For years he had dreamed of the galleries of pictures +and of the museum. It was from this wonderful city whose wideness had +the intense outreach of the unknown that Fairfax had elected to step +into the world. + +New York was to be his threshold. There was no limit to what he intended +to do in his special field of work. From his boyhood he had told himself +that he would become great. He was too young to have discovered the +traitors that hide in the brain and the emptiness of the deepest tears. +He was a pioneer and had the faith of the pioneer. According to him +everything was real, the beauty of form was enchanting, all hearts were +true, and all roads led to fame. His short life focused now at this +hour. + +Life is a series of successive stages to which point of culmination a +man brings all he has of the past and all his hopes. All along the road +these blessed visions crowd, fulminate and form as it were torches, and +these lights mark the road for the traveller. Now all Antony's life came +to a point in this hour. He had longed to go to New York from the day +when in New Orleans he had completed his first bust. He had moulded from +the soft clay on the banks of the levees the head of a famous general, +who had later become president. He was only twelve years old then, but +his little work bore all the indications of genius. + +He was an artist from the ends of the slender hands to the centre of the +sensitive heart. The childlikeness, the beauty of his nature revealed it +in everything he did; and he was only twenty-two years old. + +As he sat in the horse car, his heart full of hope, his brain teeming +with the ideal, he was an interesting figure to watch, and a fine old +gentleman on his way up town was struck by the brilliancy, the aspect of +the fellow passenger. He studied the young fellow from behind his +evening paper, but the old gentleman could not make up his mind what the +young man was. Aside from the valise at his feet Antony had no other +worldly goods, and aside from the twenty-five dollars in his pocket, he +had no other money. There was nothing about him to suggest the artistic +type: broad-shouldered, muscular, he seemed built for battles and feats +of physical strength, but his face was thoughtful for one so young. His +eyes were clear. "He looks," mused the gentleman, "like a man who has +come home after a very successful journey. I suspect the young fellow is +returning with something resembling the story books' bag of gold." He +humorously fancied even that the treasure might be in the valise on the +straw of the car at the traveller's feet. + +The car tinkled slowly through the cold. After a long while, well above +a street marked Fiftieth, its road appeared to lie in the country. There +were vacant lots on either side; there were low-roofed, ramshackle +shanties; there were stray goats here and there among the rocks. Antony +said to the conductor in a pleasant, Southern voice: "You won't forget +to let me off at 70th Street." He rose at the conductor's signal and the +ringing of the bell. The old gentleman, who was a canon of the Church, +saw as the young man rose that he was lame, that he limped, that he wore +a high, double-soled boot. As Fairfax went out he lifted his hat with a +courteous "Good evening" to his only fellow passenger, for the others +had one by one left the car to go to their different destinations. "Too +bad," thought the canon to himself, "Lame, by Jove! With a smile like +that a man can win the world." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The little figure in the corner of the pink sofa had read away the hours +of the short winter afternoon curled up in a ball, her soft red dress, +her soft red cheeks, her soft red lips vivid bits of colour in the +lamplight. She had read through the twilight, until the lamps came to +help her pretty eyes, and like a scholar of old over some problem she +bent above her fairy tale. The volume was unwieldy, and she supported it +on her knees. Close to her side a little boy of six watched the absorbed +face, watched the lamp and the shadows of the lamp on the pink walls of +the room; watched his mother as she sat sewing, but most devotedly of +all he watched through his half-dreaming lids his sister as she read her +story. His sister charmed him very much and terrified him not a little; +she was so quick, so strong, so alive--she rushed him so. He loved his +sister, she was his illustrated library of fairy tales and wonderful +plays, she was his companion, his ruler, his dominator, and his best +friend. + +"Bella," he whispered at the second when she turned the page and he +thought he might venture to interrupt, "Bella, _wouldn't_ you read it to +me?" + +The absorbed child made an impatient gesture, bent her head lower and +snuggled down into her feast. She shook her mane of hair. + +"Gardiner," his mother noticed the appeal, "when will you learn to read +for yourself? You are a big boy." + +"Oh, I'm not so vewy big," his tone was indolent, "I'm not so big as +Bella. You said yesterday that you bought me five-year-old clothes." + +In the distance, above the noise of the wind, came the tinkle of the +car-bell. Gardiner silently wished, as he heard the not unmusical sound, +that the eternal, ugly little cars, with the overworked horses, could +be turned into fairy chariots and this one, as it came ringing and +tinkling along, would stop at the front door and fetch.... A loud ring +at the front door made the little boy spring up. + +His sister frowned and glanced up from her book. "It isn't father!" she +flashed out at him. "He's got his key. You needn't look scared yet, +Gardiner. It is a bundle or a beggar or something or other stupid. Don't +disturb." + +However, the three of them listened, and in another second the door of +the sitting-room was opened by a servant and, behind the maid, on the +bare wood floor of the stairs, there fell a heavy step and a light step, +a light step and a heavy step. Bella never forgot the first time she +heard those footfalls. + +The lady at the table put her sewing down, and at that moment, behind +the servant, a young man came in, a tall young man, holding out his hand +and smiling a wonderful and beautiful smile. + +"Aunt Caroline. I'm Antony Fairfax from New Orleans. I've just reached +New York, and I came, of course, at once to you." + + * * * * * + +Not very much later, as they all stood about the table talking, Bella +uncurled and once upon her feet, astonishingly tall for twelve years +old, stood by Fairfax's side, while Gardiner, an old-fashioned little +figure in queer home-made clothes, flushed, delicate and timid, leaned +on his mother. The older woman had stopped sewing. With her work in her +lap she was looking at the seventh son of her beautiful sister of whom +she had been gently, mildly envious all her life. + +Bella said brusquely: "You've got an awfully light smile, Cousin +Antony." + +He laughed. "I suppose that comes from an awfully light heart, little +cousin!" + +"Bella," her mother frowned, "don't be personal. You will learn not to +mind her, Antony; she is frightfully spoiled." + +The little girl threw back her hair. "And you've got one light step, +Cousin Antony, and one heavy step. No one ever came up our stairs like +that before. How do you do it?" + +The stranger's face clouded. He had been looking at her with keen +delight, and he was caught up short at her words. He put out his +deformed shoe. + +"This is the heavy step." + +Bella's cheeks had been flushed with excitement, but the dark red that +rose at Fairfax's words made her look like a little Indian. + +"Oh, I didn't know!" she stammered. "I didn't know." + +Her cousin comforted her cheerfully. "That's all right. I don't mind. I +fell from a cherry tree when I was a little chap and I've stumped about +ever since." + +His aunt's gentle voice, indifferent and soft, like Gardiner's +murmured-- + +"Oh, don't listen to her, Antony, she's a spoiled, inconsiderate little +girl." + +But Bella had drawn nearer the stranger. She leaned on the table close +to him and lifted her face in which her eyes shone like stars. She had +wounded him, and it didn't seem to her generous little heart that she +could quite let it go. And under her breath she whispered-- + +"But there's the _light_ step, isn't there, Cousin Antony? And the +smile--the awfully light smile?" + +Fairfax laughed and leaned forward as though he would catch her, but +she had escaped from under his hand like an elusive fairy, and when he +next saw her she was back in her corner with her book on her knees and +her dark hair covering her face. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +He talked with his aunt for a long while. Her grace and dignity +suggested his mother, but she was not so lovely as the other woman, +whose memory was always thrilling to him. Fairfax ran eagerly on, on +fire with his subject, finally stopping himself with a laugh. + +"I reckon I'm boring you to death, Aunt Caroline." + +"Oh, no," she breathed, "how can you say so? How proud she must be of +you!" + +Downstairs in the hall he had left his valise and his little hand +satchel, with the snow melting on them. He came from a household whose +hospitality was as large, as warm, as bright as the sun. He had made a +stormy passage by the packet _Nore_. His head was beginning to whirl. +From the sofa there was not a sign. Bella read ardently, her hand +pressing a lock of her dark hair across her burning cheek. Gardiner, his +eyes on his cousin, drank in, fascinated, the figure of the big, +handsome young man. + +"He's my relation," he said to himself. "He's one of our family. I know +he can tell stories, and he's a traveller. He came in the fairy cars." + +Mrs. Carew tapped her lip with her thimble. "So you will learn to model +here," she murmured. "Now I wonder who would be the best man?" + +And Fairfax responded quickly, "Cedersholm, auntie, he's the only man." + +"My husband," his aunt began to blush, "your uncle knows Mr. Cedersholm +in the Century Club, but I hardly think...." + +Antony threw up his bright head. "I have brought a letter from the +President to Cedersholm and several of the little figures I have +modelled." + +"Ah, that will be better," and his aunt breathed with relief. Mrs. +Carew's mention of her husband came to Antony like a sharp chill. +Nothing that had been told him of the New York banker who had married +his gentle aunt was calculated to inspire him with a sense of kinship. +It was as though a window had been opened into the bright room. A slight +noise at the door downstairs acted like a current of alarm upon the +family. The colour left his aunt's cheeks, and little Gardiner +exclaimed, "I hear father's key." The child came over to his mother's +side. It seemed discourteous to Antony to suggest going just as his +uncle arrived, so he waited a moment in the strange silence that fell +over the group. In a few seconds Mr. Carew came in and his wife +presented. "My dear, this is Antony Fairfax, my sister Bella's only +child, you know. You remember Bella, Henry." + +A wave of red, which must have been vigorous in order to sweep in and +under the ruddy colour already in Carew's cheeks, testified that he did +remember the beautiful Mrs. Fairfax. + +"I remember her very well," he returned; "is she as handsome as ever? +You have chosen a cold day to land in the North. I presume you came by +boat? We have been two hours coming up town. The cars are blocked by +snow. It's ten degrees below zero to-night. I wish you would see that +ashes are poured on the front steps, Caroline, at once." + +The guest put out his hand. "I must be going. Good night, Aunt +Caroline----good night, Gardiner. Good night, sir." + +Fairfax marked the ineffectuality in his aunt's face. It was neither +embarrassment nor shame, it was impotence. Her expression was not +appealing, but inadequate, and the slender hand that she gave him melted +in his like the snow. There was no grasp there, no stimulus to go on. He +turned to the red figure of the huddled child in the sofa corner. + +"Good night, little cousin." + +Bella dropped her book and sprang up. "Good night," she cried; "why, +you're not going, Cousin Antony?" + +And as the older woman had done she extended her hand. It was only a +small child's hand, but the essential was there. The same sex but with +a different hand. It did not melt in Antony's; it lay, it clasped, lost +in his big palm. He felt, nevertheless, the vital little grasp, its +warmth and sweetness against his hand. + +"Where are you going?" + +Mr. Carew had passed out now that he had successfully eliminated from +the mind of the guest any idea that hospitality was to be extended. Once +more the little group were by themselves. + +"There is the Buckingham Hotel," Mrs. Carew ventured. "It's an excellent +hotel; we get croquettes from there when Gardiner's appetite flags. The +children have their hair cut there as well." + +Tired as Fairfax was, rebuffed as he was, he could not but be cheered by +the bright look of the little girl who stood between him and her mother. +She nodded at her cousin. + +"Why, the Buckingham is six dollars a day," she said. "I asked the +barber when he cut Gardiner's hair." + +Fairfax smiled. "I reckon that is a little steep, Bella." + +"It's too far away, anyhow, Cousin Antony, it's a mile; twenty blocks is +a New York mile. There are the Whitcombs." And the child turned to the +less capable woman. + +Her mother exclaimed: "Why, of course, of course, there are the +Whitcombs! My dear Antony," said his aunt, "if you could only stay with +them you would be doing a real charity. They are dear little old maids +and self-supporting women. They sell their work in my women's exchange. +They have a nice little house." + +Bella interrupted. "A dear little red-brick house, Cousin Antony, two +stories, on the next block." + +She tucked her book under her arm as though it were a little trunk she +was tucking away to get ready to journey with him. + +"The Whitcombs would be perfectly enchanted, Antony," urged his aunt, +"they want a lodger badly. It's Number 700, Madison Avenue." + +"It looks like the house that Jack built," murmured Gardiner, dreamily; +"they have just wepainted it bwight wed with yellow doors...." + +Fairfax thanked them and went, his heavy and his light step echoing on +the hard stairway of his kinsmen's inhospitable house. Bella watched him +from the head of the stairs, her book under her arm, and below, at the +door, he shouldered his bag and went out into the whirling, whirling +snow. It met him softly, like a caress, but it was very cold. Bella had +said two blocks away to the left, and he started blindly. + +This was his welcome from his own people. + +His Southern home seemed a million miles away; but come what would, he +would never return to it empty-handed as he had left it. He had been +thrust from the door where he felt he had a right to enter. That +threshold he would never darken again--never. A pile of unshovelled snow +blocked his path. As he crossed the street to avoid it, he looked up at +the big, fine house. From an upper window the shade was lifted, and in +the square of yellow light stood the two children, the little boy's head +just visible, and Bella, her dark hair blotting against the light, waved +to him her friendly, cousinly little hand. He forged on through the snow +to "The House that Jack built." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +He was the seventh son, and his mother was tired of child-bearing when +Antony was born. The others, mediocre, fine fellows, left to their +father's control, had turned out as well as children are likely to turn +out when brought up by a man. One by one, during the interval of years +before Antony came, one by one they had died, and when Mr. Fairfax +himself passed away, he left his wife alone with Antony a baby in her +arms. She then gave herself up to her grief and the contemplation of her +beauty. Adored, spoiled, an indifferent house-keeper, Mrs. Fairfax was, +nevertheless, what is known as a charming creature, and a sincere +artist. She had her studio, her canvases, she wrote plays and songs, and +nothing, with the exception perhaps of realities, for she knew nothing +of them, nothing made less impression on her than did her only child, +until one day she suddenly remembered Antony when it was too late. + +He was like his mother, but she was unconscious of the fact. She only +knew him as a rowdy boy, fond of sports, an alarmingly rough fighter, +the chief in the neighbourhood scuffles, a vigorous, out-of-door boy, at +the head of a yelling, wild little band that made her nerves quiver. +Coloured servants and his Mammy soothed Antony's ills and washed his +bruises. With a feeling of shame he thrust aside his artistic +inclinations, lest his comrades should call him a milksop, but he drew +copiously in secret, when he was kept in at school or housed with a +cold. And from the distance at which she kept him, Antony worshipped his +mother. He admired her hauteur, the proud cold loveliness. His sunny +nature, incapable of morose or morbid brooding, felt no neglect. Late in +spring they too had gone north to a water cure popular with Louisiana +people, where a more vigorous growth of trees magnetized Antony, who +climbed like a squirrel and tore his clothes to his heart's content. He +had come in from a tramp and, scandalized by his rough and tumbled +appearance as she caught a glimpse of him swinging along, Mrs. Fairfax +summoned her little son. Rocking idly on the verandah she watched him +obey her call, and there was so much buoyant life in his running step, +such a boy's grace and brightness about him that he charmed her +beauty-loving eyes. + +"Go, wash your face and hands and bring your school books here. I do +hope you have brought your books with you." + +When he reappeared with the volumes of dog-eared school books, she +fingered them gingerly, fell on his drawing portfolio and opened it. + +"Who drew these for you, Tony?" + +"Mother, no one. I did them. They are rotten." + +Mrs. Fairfax exclaimed with excitement: "Why, they are quite +extraordinary! You must study with some one." + +Blushing, enraptured, Antony was tongue-tied, although a host of things +rushed to his lips that now he might be permitted to speak to her he +longed to tell everything that was on his heart. + +Neither of them forgot that day. The wistaria was purple in the vines, +and his mother, a shawl with trailing fringe over her shoulders, rocked +indolent and charming in her chair. She had made her husband and her +other sons her slaves, and she remembered now, with a sense of comfort, +that she had another servitor. + +"My shoe is unbuttoned"--she raised her small foot--"button it, Tony." + +The boy fell on his knees, eager to offer his first service to the +lovely woman, but his hands were awkward. He bungled and pinched the +delicate skin. The mother cried out, leaned over and smartly boxed his +ears. + +"Stupid boy, go; send me Emmeline." + +Poor Antony retired, and as Emmeline took his place he heard his mother +murmur-- + +"Aren't the cherries ripe yet, Emmy? I'm dying to taste some cherries, +they're so delicious in the North." + +Emmeline had fastened the shoe and lagged away with southern negligence, +leaving Antony's books as he had flung them on the porch, and though it +was an effort to lean over, Mrs. Fairfax did so, picked up the +drawing-book and studied it again. + +"Talented little monkey," she mused, "he has my gift, my looks too, I +think. How straight he walks! He has '_l'élégance d'un homme du +monde_.'" + +She called herself Creole and prided herself on her French and her +languor. + +She sat musing thus, the book on her knees, when half an hour later they +carried him in to her. He had fallen from a rotten branch on the highest +cherry tree in the grounds. + +He struck on his hip. + +All night she sat by his side. The surgeons had told her that he would +be a cripple for life if he ever walked again. Toward morning he +regained his senses and saw her sitting there. Mrs. Fairfax remembered +Antony that day. She remembered him that day and that night, and his cry +of "Oh, mother, I was getting the cherries for you!" + + * * * * * + +Before they built him his big, awkward boot, when he walked again at +all, Antony went about on crutches, debarred from boyish games. In order +to forget his fellows and the school-yard and "the street" he modelled +in the soft delicious clay, making hosts of creatures, figures, heads +and arms and hands, and brought them in damp from the clay of the levee. +His own small room was a studio, peopled by his young art. No sooner, +however, was he strong again and his big shoe built up, than his +boy-self was built up as well, and Antony, lame, limping Antony, was out +again with his mates. He never again could run as they did, but he +contrived to fence and spar and box, and strangely enough, he grew tall +and strong. One day he came into his little room from a ball game, for +he was the pitcher of the nine, and found his mother handling his clayey +creatures. + +"Tony, when did you do these?" + +"Oh, they are nothing. Leave them alone, mother. I meant to fire them +all out." + +"But this is an excellent likeness of the General, Tony." + +He threw down his baseball mask and gloves and began to gather up +unceremoniously the little objects which had dried crisp and hard. + +"Don't destroy them," his mother said; "I want every one of them. And +you must stop being a rowdy and a ruffian, Antony--you are an artist." + +He was smoothing between his palms one of the small figures. + +"Professor Dufaucon could teach you something--not much, poor old +gentleman, but something elementary. To-morrow, after school, you must +go to take your first lesson." + +Mrs. Fairfax took the boy herself, with the bust of the famous General +in her hands, and afterwards sent the bust to Washington, to its subject +himself, who was pleased to commend the portrait made of him by the +little Southern boy from the clay of the New Orleans levee. + +Professor Dufaucon taught him all he knew of art and something of what +he knew of other things. In the small hall-room of the poor French +drawing-master, Antony talked French, learned the elements of the study +of beauty and listened to the sweet strains of the Professor's flute +when he played, "J'ai perdu ma tourterelle...." + +In everything that he modelled Antony tried to portray his mother's +face. As she had been indifferent to him before, so ardently Mrs. +Fairfax adored him now. She poured out her tenderness on this crippled +boy. He had been known to say to his Mammy that he was glad that he had +fallen from the cherry tree because his mother had never kissed him +before, and her tears and her love, he thought, were worth the price. +She was as selfish with him in her affection as she had been in her +indifference. She would not hear of college, and he learned what he +could in New Orleans. But the day came when his mistress, art, put in a +claim so seductive and so strong that it clouded everything else. +Professor Dufaucon died, and in the same year Antony sent a statuette to +the New York Academy of Design. It was accepted, and the wine of that +praise went to his head. + +Mrs. Fairfax, broken as no event in her life had been able to break +her, saw Antony leave for the North to seek his fortune and his fame. + +She owned her house in Charles Street, and lived on in it, and the +little income that she had barely sufficed for her needs. She showed +what race and what pride she had when she bade Antony good-bye, standing +under the jasmine vine. She never wore any other dress than a loose +morning robe of a white or a soft mauve material. Standing there, with a +smile of serene beauty, she waved her handkerchief to him as she saw him +go limping down the walk from the garden to the street and put of sight. +True to her type then, she fainted dead away, and Emmeline and Mammy +brought her to. + + * * * * * + +He thought of things in Miss Whitcomb's front room. There was nothing +fairylike about the red-brick dwelling, although at the corner of the +New York Avenue these two stories seemed diminutive and out of place. He +made with the timid maiden ladies his own timid arrangement. He was so +poor and they were so poor that the transaction was timorous--Antony on +his part was afraid that they might not take him in, they, on theirs, +were terrified lest the lodger would not come in. When at length they +left him alone, his first feeling was gratitude for a room of any kind +that represented shelter from the Northern cold, but when he had +divested himself of his coat, he realized that the little unheated room +was as cold as the outside. A meagre bed, a meagre bureau and washstand, +two unwelcoming chairs, these few inanimate objects were shut in with +Antony, and unattractive as they were, they were appealing in their +scant ugliness. Before the window slight white curtains hung, the same +colour as the snow without. They hung like little shrouds. Around the +windows of his Southern home the vine had laid its beauty, and the +furnishings had been comfortable and tasteful. The homelessness of this +interior, to the young man who had never passed a night from under his +own roof, struck with a chill, and he thought of the sitting-room in the +vast house of his kinsmen not a block away. His kinspeople had not even +asked him to break bread. Dressed as he was, he lay down exhausted on +his bed, and when a knock came and Miss Whitcomb's voice invited him to +supper, Fairfax sprang up and answered as out of a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +His fortune of twenty-five dollars he divided into five equal packets. +His weekly bill with the old ladies, to whom his aunt had begged Antony +to go _in charity_, was to be six dollars. There would of course be +extras, car-fare and so forth. With economy--it would last. Antony saw +everything on the bright side; youth and talent can only imagine that +the best will last for ever. Decidedly, before his money gave out he +would have found some suitable employment. + +With the summons for supper he flung on his coat, plunged downstairs and +into the dining-room, and shone upon his hostesses over their tea and +preserves. The new boarder chatted and planned and listened, jovial and +kindly, his soul's good-fellowship and sweet temper shedding a radiance +in the chill little room. Miss Eulalie Whitcomb was in the sixties, and +she fell in love with Antony in a motherly way. Miss Mitty was fifteen +years her junior, and she fell in love with Antony as a woman might. +Fairfax never knew the poignant ache he caused in that heart, virginal +only, cold only because of the prolonged winter of her maidenhood. + +That night he heard his aunt's praises sung, and listened, going back +with a pang to the picture the family group had made before his +home-loving eyes. + +Such a marvellous woman, Mr. Fairfax (she must call him Antony if he was +to live with them. Miss Mitty couldn't. She must. Well, Mr. Antony +then), such a brilliant and executive woman. Mrs. Carew had founded the +Women's Exchange for the work of indigent ladies, such a dignified, +needed charity. + +Miss Mitty knew a little old lady who made fifteen hundred dollars in +rag dolls alone. + +"Dear me," said Fairfax, "couldn't you pass me off for a niece, Miss +Whitcomb? I can make clay figures that will beat rag dolls to bits." + +Fifteen hundred dollars! He mused on his aunt's charity. + +"And another," murmured Miss Eulalie, "another friend of ours made +altogether ten thousand dollars in chicken pies." + +"Ah," exclaimed the lodger, "that's even easier to believe. And does my +uncle Carew make pies or dolls?" + +"He is a pillar of the Church," said his hostess gravely, "a very +distinguished gentleman, Mr. Antony. He bowed once to one of us in the +street. Which of us was it, sister?" + +Not Miss Mitty, at any rate, and she was inclined to think that Mr. +Carew had made a mistake, whichever way it had been! + +Their lodger listened with more interest when they spoke of the +children. The little creatures went to school near the Whitcomb house. +Gardiner was always ailing. Miss Mitty used to watch them from her +window. + +"Bella runs like a deer down the block, you never saw such nimble legs, +and her skirts are _so_ short! They _should_ come down, Mr. Antony, and +her hair is quite like a wild savage's." + +Miss Eulalie had called Bella in once to mend a hole in her stocking +"really too bad for school." + +"She should have gone into the Women's Exchange," suggested her cousin, +"and employed some one who was out of orders for chicken pies or dolls!" + + * * * * * + +That night, under the gas jet and its blue and ghastly light, Fairfax +tried to write to his mother, began his letter and left it as he began. +"My dearest Mother...." She had told him little of his kinspeople, the +sisters had never been friends. Nevertheless, he quite understood that, +whatever she might have thought of the eccentricities of his uncle, this +welcome to her boy would cut her cruelly. She had fully expected him to +be a guest at the Carews. + +"My dearest Mother...." He began to draw idly on the page. A spray of +jasmine uncurled its leaves beneath his hand. Across his shoulders he +felt the coldness of the room where he sat. A few more hurried strokes +and Fairfax had indicated on the page before him a child's head--an +upturned face. As he rounded the chin, Antony saw that the sketch would +be likely to charm him, and he was tired out and cold. He threw down his +pen, dragged out his valise, opened it, took out his things and prepared +for his first night's rest in the city of his unfriendly kinsmen. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +If it had been only spring, or any season less brutal than this winter, +whose severity met him at times with a fresh rebuff and a fresh +surprise--if it had been spring, Antony would have procrastinated, hung +back, unaccustomed as he was to taking quick, decisive action, but the +ugliness of the surroundings at Miss Whitcomb's and the bitter winter +weather forced him to a decision. In the three following days he visited +every one of the few studios that existed at that period in New York. +What were his plans? What were his ideas? But, when he came face to face +with the reality of the matter-of-fact question, he had no plans. +Idealistic, impractical, untried and unschooled, he faced the fact that +he had no plan or idea whatsoever of how to forge his life: he never had +had any and his mother had given him no advice. He wanted to work at +art, but how and where he did not know. Some of the studios could use +models--Fairfax burned at the thought. He could not study as a pupil and +live on air. No one wanted practical workmen. + +The man he most wanted to see was Gunner Cedersholm. He had fallen in +love with the works of the Swedish master as he had seen them in +photograph and plaster cast at the exposition in New Orleans. He had +read all the accounts in the papers he could find of the great Swede. +When he learned that Gunner Cedersholm was in Europe and that he should +not be able to see him until spring, poor Antony longed to stow himself +on a ship and follow the artist. + +Meanwhile, the insignificant fact that an insignificant piece of +modelling had been accepted by an inadvertent jury and placed in the New +York Academy, began to appear to him ridiculous. He had not ventured to +mention this to any one, and the fact that at his fingers' ends lay +undoubted talent began to seem to him a useless thing as well. The only +moment of balm he knew came to him one afternoon in the Metropolitan +Museum. This museum was at that period sparsely dowered. Fairfax stood +before a plaster figure of Rameses, and for the first time the young +artist saw around him the effigies of an art long perfect, long retained +and long dead. + +Turning down through the Egyptian room, his overcoat on his arm, for, +thank Heaven, the place was warmed, his beauty-loving eyes fell on the +silent objects whose presence was meed and balm. He took in the +nourishment of the food to his senses and the colour in his cheeks +brightened, the blue deepened in his eyes. He was repeating the line: +"Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time ..." when two living objects +caught his attention, in a room beyond devoted to a collection of +shells. Before a low case stood the figure of a very little boy in a +long awkward ulster and jockey cap, and by his side, in a conspicuously +short crimson skirt and a rough coat, was a little girl. Her slender +legs and her abundant hair that showered from beneath a crimson +tam-o'-shanter recalled Miss Mitty's description of Bella; but Antony +knew her for herself when she turned. + +"Cousin Antony!" She rushed at him. Childlike, the two made no reference +to the lapse of time between his first visit and this second meeting. +Gardiner took his hand and Antony thought the little boy clung to it, +seized it with singular appealing force, as though he made a refuge of +the strong clasp. Bella greeted him with her eager, brilliant look, then +she rapidly glanced round the room, deserted save for themselves. + +"Something perfectly fearful happened last week, Cousin Antony. Yes, +Gardiner, I will tell. Anyhow, it's all over now, thank the stars." (He +learned to hear her thank these silent heavenly guardians often.) "What +do you think? Last week we came here, Gardiner and me, we come often. We +play with the ancient Egyptians. I'm Cleopatra and Gardiner's' different +things, and there's a guardian here that we specially like because he +taught us things useful for school if you have a weak memory. This is +how you remember the poets-- + + Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Pope, + Go upstairs and get some soap. + +So you see we can't forget them like that. And Shakespeare's birth and +death I never could remember till he taught me-- + + Fifteen hundred and sixty-four + Shakespeare first was heard to roar. + Sixteen hundred and sixteen + Billy Shakespeare last was seen. + +When your memory's weak it's a great help, Cousin Antony. Then what do +you think Gardiner did?" + +Here Fairfax was more than ever sensible of the little boy's clinging +hand. He looked down at the sensitive, flushed face, and the fascinated +eyes of Gardiner were fixed on the vigorous, ardent little sister. + +"Well," said Antony, cordially, "I reckon it's not anything very bad, +little cousin." + +He led them to a bench under the calm serene chaperonage of Rameses who +kept sentinel over them. + +"Bad," whispered Bella, "why it was the worst thing you can possibly +imagine, Cousin Antony. He stole." + +The child's voice dropped solemnly and the silence that fell in the +museum was impressive, even though the situation was humorous. Gardiner, +whom Antony had lifted on his knee, raised his head and looked his +cousin mildly in the eyes. + +"It was a shell," he said slowly, "a blue and bwown shell. Nobody was +looking and I took it home." + +He confessed calmly and without shame, and his sister said-- + +"The guardian was cleaning the cases. I think they trusted us, Cousin +Antony, we were alone here, and it makes it much worse. When we got home +Gardiner showed it to me, and we have had to wait a week to come back +and restore it." + +"I westored it," repeated the boy, "Bella made me." + +With his diminutive hand he made a shell and discoursed regretfully-- + +"It was a perfectly lovely shell. It's over there in its place. Bella +made me put it back again." + +"The worst of it is," said the sister, "that he doesn't seem to care. He +doesn't mind being a thief." + +"Well," laughed Antony, "don't you trouble about it, Bella honey, you +have been a policeman and a judge and a benefactor all in one, and you +have brought the booty back. Come," said Fairfax, "there's the man that +shuts us out and the shells in, and we must go." And they were all three +at the park gate in the early twilight before the children asked him-- + +"Cousin Antony, where have you been all these days?" + + * * * * * + +He saw the children to their own door, and on the way little Gardiner +complained that his shoes were tight, so his cousin carried him, and +nearly carried Bella, who, linking her arm firmly in his, walked close +to him, and, unobserved by Antony, with sympathetic gallantry, copied +his limp all the way home. + +Their companionship had been of the most perfect. He learned where they +roller skated, and which were the cracks to avoid in the pavement, and +which were the treasure lots. He saw where, in dreary excavations, where +plantain and goatweed grew, Bella found stores of quartz and flints, and +where she herded the mangy goat when the Irish ragpickers were out +ragpicking. + +Under his burden of Gardiner Antony's heart had, nevertheless, grown +light, and before they had reached the house he had murmured to them, in +his rich singing voice, Spartacus' address to the gladiators, and where +it says: "Oh, Rome, Rome, thou hast been a tender nurse to me; thou hast +given to the humble shepherd boy muscles of iron and a heart of +steel,"--where these eloquent words occurred he was obliged to stand +still on Madison Avenue, with the little boy in his arms, to give the +lines their full impressiveness. + +Once deposited on the steps, where Fairfax looked to see rise the +effigies of the ashes his uncle had ordered scattered, Gardiner seemed +hardly able to crawl. + +Trevelyan encouraged him: "Brace up, Gardiner, be a man." + +And the child had mildly responded that "his bones were tired." His +sister supported him maternally and helped him up, nodding to Antony +that she would look after her little brother, and Antony heard the boy +say-- + +"Six and six are twelve, Bella, and you're both, and I'm only one of +them. How can you expect...?" + +Antony expected by this time nothing. + +And when that night the eager Miss Whitcombs handed him a letter from +his aunt, with the heading 780, Madison Avenue, in gold, he eagerly tore +it open. + +"My dear Antony," the letter ran, "the children should have drawing +lessons, Gardiner especially draws constantly; I think he has talent. +Will you come and teach them three times a week? I don't know about +remuneration for such things, except as the school bills indicate. Shall +we say twenty dollars a term--and I am not clear as to what a 'term' is! +In music lessons, for instance--" (She had evidently made some +calculations and scratched it out, and here the price was dropped for +ever and ever.) + +To an unpractical woman such a drop is always soothing, and to a +sensitive pauper probably no less so. The letter ended with the +suggestion to Antony that he meet them in their own pew on Sunday +morning at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, and that he return with +them for dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +He succeeded in keeping from the kind and curious interest of the +little ladies the state of his mind and his pocket, and his intentions. +It had not been easy, for when their courteous hints brought no +satisfaction, Miss Eulalie and Miss Mitty asked Fairfax out boldly what +he "was going to do"? Miss Mitty, on whom the task of doing up the hall +room had fallen, dreamed over the sketches she found (in his valise). +Spellbound, she held in her hand a small head of a dryad, and modestly +covered up with her handkerchief a tiny figure whose sweet nudity had +startled her. Antony parried questions. He had come to seek Fortune. So +far it rolled before him with the very devil in its tantalizing wheel, +but he did not say this to Miss Whitcomb. Miss Eulalie suggested to him +that his uncle "could make a place for him in the bank," but Fairfax's +short reply cooled her enthusiasm, and both ladies took their cue. In +the first week he had exhausted his own projects and faced the horrible +thought of disaster. + +His nature was not one to harbour anything but sweetness, and the next +day, Sunday, when the sunlight poured upon New York, he thought of the +little cousins and decided to accept his aunt's invitation. The sky was +cloudless and under its hard blue the city looked colder and whiter than +ever. It was a sky which in New Orleans would have made the birds sing. +The steeples sang, one slender tower rocking as its early ringing bells +sang out its Sunday music on the next corner of the street, and Antony +listened as he dressed, and recognized the melody. He found it beautiful +and sang in his young voice as he shaved and tied his cravat, and made +himself impeccable for the Presbyterian Church. His own people were High +Church Episcopalians, and from the tone and music of these bells he +believed that they rang in an Episcopal building. There was no +melancholy in the honied tone of the chime, and it gave him a glow that +went with him happily throughout the dreary day. + +He found himself between the children in the deep dark pew, where the +back of the seat was especially contrived to seize the sinner in a +sensitive point, and it clutched Antony and made him think of all the +crimes that he had ever committed. Fortunately it met Bella and Gardiner +at their heads. Antony's position between the children was not without +danger. He was to serve as a quieter for Bella's nerves, spirits and +perpetual motion, and to guard against Gardiner's somnolence. He +remained deaf to Bella's clear whispers, and settled Gardiner +comfortably and propped him up. Finally the little boy fell securely +against the cousinly arm. At the end of the pew, Mr. and Mrs. Carew were +absorbed, she in her emotional interest in the pastor, a brilliant +Irishman who thundered for an hour, and Mr. Carew in his own importance +and his position. Antony remembered Miss Mitty and that his uncle was a +pillar of the Church, and he watched the pillar support in grave +pomposity his part of the edifice. + +But neither time nor place nor things eternal nor things present +affected the little girl at Antony's side. Sunk in the deep pew, +unobserved and sheltered by Antony's figure, she lived what she called +her "Sunday pew life," lived it as ardently as she did everything. After +a short interval in which she pored over the open hymnbook, she +whispered to him ---- ---- + +"Cousin Antony, I have learned the whole hymn, ten verses in five +minutes. Hear me." + +He tried to ignore her, but he was obliged to hear her as with great +feeling and in a soft droning undertone she murmured the hymn through. + +"'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.' Isn't it perfectly beautiful, +Cousin Antony?" + +This done, she took off her yellow kid gloves carefully, finger by +finger, and blew them out into a shapely little hand like Zephyr's, to +the dangerous amusement of a child in the next pew. Antony confiscated +the gloves. By squeezing up her eyes and making a lorgnon of her pretty +bare hand, Bella scrutinized the solemn preacher. Antony severely +refused her pencils and paper and remained deaf to her soft questions, +and, thrown on her own resources, Bella extracted her father's huge +Bible from the rack and, to Fairfax's relief, with much turning of the +leaves she finally found a favourite chapter in Revelation and settled +down and immersed herself in the Apocalypse. She read with fervour, her +bonnet back on her rebellious hair, her legs crossed in defiance of +every rule of polite demeanour. Something of the sermon's eloquent, +passionate savagery was heard by Fairfax, and at the close, as the +preacher rose to his climax, Bella heard too. At the text, "There shall +be no more night there, neither candle nor light of the sun," she shut +her book. + +"He is preaching from my chapter, Cousin Antony," she whispered; "isn't +it perfectly beautiful?" + +Fairfax learned to wait for this phrase of hers, a ready approval of +sensuous and lovely and poetic things. He learned to wait for it as one +does for a word of praise from a sympathetic companion. Gardiner woke up +and yawned, and Fairfax got him on his feet; his tumbled blonde head +reached just to the hymnbook rail. He was a pretty picture with his +flushed soft cheeks, red as roses, and his sleepy eyes wide. So they +stood for the solemn benediction, "The love of God ... go with you ... +always." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +He decided not to be the one to shut doors against himself. If life as +it went on chose with backward fling to close portals behind him of its +own accord, he at least would not assist fate, and with both hands, +generously, as his heart was generous, Fairfax threw all gates wide. +Therefore with no _arričre pensée_ or any rankling thought, he went on +the appointed afternoon to teach his little cousins the rudiments of +drawing. + +The weather continued brutal, grew more severe rather, and smartly +whipped him up the avenue and hurled him into the house. He arrived +covered with snow, white as Santa Claus, and he heard by the voices at +the stair head that he was welcome. The three were alone, the upper +floor had been assigned to the drawing party. It was a big room full of +forgotten things, tons of books that people had ceased to want to read, +the linen chest, a capital hiding-place where a soft hand beneath the +lid might prevent a second Mistletoe Bough tragedy. There were old +trunks stored there, boxes which could not travel any more, one of which +had been on a wedding journey and still contained, amongst less poetic +objects, mother's wedding slippers. There was a dear disorder in the big +room whose windows overlooked Madison and Fifth Avenues, and the +distant, black wintry trees of Central Park. A child on either side of +him, Fairfax surveyed his workshop, and he thought to himself, "I could +model here, if I only had some clay." + +Bella had already installed herself. Their tables and their boards and a +prodigal outlay of pencils and paper were in themselves inspiring. + +"There is no chair high enough for Gardiner," Bella said, "but we can +build him one up out of books." + +"I'd wather sit on Cousin Antony's lap," said the little boy; "built-up +books shake me off so, Bella." + +Both children wore blue gingham play aprons. Fairfax told them they +looked like real workmen in a real studio, with which idea they were +much delighted. + +"Gardiner looks like a charity child," said his sister, "in that apron, +and his hair's too long. It ought to be cut, but I gave my solemn word +of honour that I wouldn't cut it again." + +"Why don't you go to your famous Buckingham barber?" asked the cousin. + +"It's too far for Gardiner to walk," she returned, "and we have lost our +last ten cents. Besides, it's thirty-five cents to get a hair-cut." + +Fairfax had placed the boy before his drawing board, and confiscated a +long piece of kitchen bread, telling Bella that less than a whole loaf +was enough for an eraser, extracted the rubber from Gardiner's mouth, +and sat down by the little boy's side. + +"There's not much money in this house, Cousin Antony," Bella informed +him when the séance opened. "Please let me use the soft pencils, will +you? They slide like delicious velvet." + +Fairfax made an equal division of the implements, avoiding a scene, and +made Bella a straight line across the page. + +"Draw a line under it." + +"But any one can draw a straight line," said Bella, scornfully, "and I +don't think they are very pretty." + +"Don't you?" he answered; "the horizon is pretty, don't you think? And +the horizon is a straight line." + +"Yes, it is," said Gardiner, "the howizon is where the street cars fall +over into the sunset." + +"Gardiner's only six," said Bella, apologetically, "you mustn't expect +much of him, Cousin Antony." + +She curled over the table and bent her head and broke her pencils one by +one, and Fairfax guided Gardiner's hand and watched the little girl. She +was lightly and finely made. From under her short red skirt the pretty +leg in its woollen stocking swung to and fro. There was a hole in the +stocking heel, visible above the tiny, tiny slipper. Through the crude +dark collar of the gingham apron came her dark head and its wild +torrent of curling hair, wonderful hair, tangled and unkempt, curling +roundly at the ends, and beneath the locks the curve of her cheek was +like ivory. She was a Southern beauty--her little red mouth twisted awry +over her drawing. + +"I thought dwawing was making pictures, Cousin Antony; if I'd have known +it was _lines_, I wouldn't have taken," said his youngest cousin. + +"You have to begin with those things, old man. I'll wipe your hands off +on my handkerchief." + +"Please do," said the little boy; "my hands leak awful easy." + +His sister laughed softly, and said to herself in an undertone-- + +"I've drawn my lines long--long--ago, and now I'm making...." + +"Don't make anything, Bella, until I tell you to," commanded her +teacher, and glanced over her page where she had covered the paper with +her big formless handwriting, "Dramatiss personi, first act." + +"Why, I had a lovely idea for a play, Cousin Antony, and I thought I'd +just jot it down. We're the company, Gardiner and I, and we give plays +here every now and then. You can play too, if you like, and say +'Spartacus.' Ah, say it now." + +Trevelyan felt the appealing little hand of the boy stealing into his. + +"Do, please," he urged; "I don't want ever to draw again, never, never." + +"Hush," said his sister severely, "you mustn't say that, Gardiner; +Cousin Antony is our drawing master." + +Gardiner's sensitive face flushed. "I thought he was only my cousin," +said the child, and continued timidly, "I'll dwaw a howizon now and then +if you want me to, but I'd wather not." + +They left their tables. Fairfax said, "I'm no good at teaching, Bella." +He stretched his arms. "I reckon you're not much good at learning +either. Gardiner's too young and you're not an artist." + +"Say about the 'timid shepherd boy,' Cousin Antony." + +He had taken his coat off in the furnace-heated room and stood in his +snowy shirt sleeves, glad to be released from the unwelcome task of +teaching restless children. He loved the ring and the thrill of the +words and declaimed the lines enthusiastically. + + * * * * * + +"You look like a gladiator, Cousin Antony," Bella cried; "you must have +a perfectly splendid muscle." + +He bared his right arm, carried away by his recitation and the picture +evoked. The children admired the sinews and the swelling biceps. +Gardiner touched it with his little fingers; the muscular firm arm, +ending in the vigorous wrist, held their fascinated gaze. The sculptor +himself looked up it with pardonable approval. + +"Feel mine," said Gardiner, crimson with the exertion of lifting his +tiny arm to the position of his cousin's. + +"Immense, Gardiner!" Fairfax complimented, "immense." + +"Feel mine," cried Bella, and the sculptor touched between his fingers +the fine little member. + +"Great, little cousin!" + +"I'll be the gladiator's wife and applaud him from the Coliseum and +throw flowers on him." + +Fairfax lingered with them another hour, laughing at his simplicity in +finding them such companions. With compunction, he endeavoured to take +up his lesson again with Bella, unwilling and recalcitrant. She drew a +few half-hearted circles, a page of wobbly lines, and at the suspicion +of tears Fairfax desisted, surprised to find how the idea of tears from +her touched him. Then in the window between them, he watched as the +children told him they always did, for "mother's car to come home." + +"She is sharping," exclaimed Gardiner, slowly; "she has to sharp very +hard, my mother does. She comes back in the cars, only she never comes," +he finished with patient fatality. + +"Silly," exclaimed his sister, "she always comes at dinner-time. And we +bet on the cars, Cousin Antony. Now let's say it will be the +seventy-first. We have to put it far away off," she explained, "'cause +we're beginning early." + +Fairfax left them, touched by their patience in watching for the mother +bird. He promised to return soon, soon, to go on with his wonderful +tales. As he went downstairs Bella called after him. + +"But you didn't say _which_ car you bet on, Cousin Antony." + +And Fairfax called back in his Southern drawl: "I reckon she'll come in +a pumpkin chariot." And he heard their delighted giggles as he limped +downstairs. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +He avoided his uncle, Mr. Carew, and made up his mind that if the master +of the house were brusque to him, he would not return, were the +threshold worn never so dear by little feet. Bella had the loveliest +little feet a fellow connoisseur of plastic beauty could wish to see, +could wish to watch twinkle in run-down slippers, in scuffled boots--in +boots where a button or two was always lacking--and once when she kicked +off her strap slipper at a lesson Fairfax saw, through a hole in the +stocking, one small perfect toe--a toe of Greek marble perfection, a +most charming, snowy, rosy bit of flesh, and he imagined how adorable +the little foot must be. + +To an audience, composed of a dreamy boy and an ardent, enthusiastic +little girl, Fairfax confessed his talent, spoke of his hopes, of his +art, even hinted at genius, and one day fetched his treasures, his bits +of moistened clay, to show the children. + +"Oh, they are perfectly _beautiful_, Cousin Antony. Wouldn't you do +Gardiner's head for mother?" + +On this day, with his overcoat and hat, Fairfax had laid by a paper +parcel. It was stormy, and around the upper windows the snow blew and +the winds cried. Propped up by pillows, Gardiner, in his red flannel +dressing-gown, nestled in the corner of the sofa. Antony regarded Bella, +red as a cardinal bird in her homely dress; he had seen her wear no +other dress and would have regretted the change. + +"Oh, I'll do Gardiner one of these days, but I reckon I'll make another +study to-day." + +"Me?" Bella shook back her mane. + +Her cousin considered her with an impersonal eye, whose expression she +did not understand to be the artist's gauge and measure. + +"Bella," he said shortly, "I'm going to make a cast of your foot." + +She was sitting on the sofa and drew her feet under her. + +"Only just my foot, Cousin Antony, not all of me?" + +"Come now," said the sculptor, "it won't take long. It's heaps of +sport." + +He unrolled the paper parcel he had brought, unfolding a mass of snowy, +delectable looking powder. + +"Ask old Ann to fetch us a couple of basins, deep ones, some water and a +little oil and salt." + +When after toilsome journeys up and down the stairs of the four-storied +house, the things had been fetched, Fairfax mixed his plaster, eagerly +watched by the children. Perched on the edge of the divan, Bella brooded +over the foaming, marvellous concoction, into whose milky bubbles she +saw art fall like a star--a genius blossom like a flower. She gazed at +Antony's hands as they plunged in and came out dripping; gazed as though +she expected him to bring forth some peerless image his touch had called +to life. His shirt sleeves rolled up over his fine arms, his close +high-cropped and sunny hair warm upon his brow, his eyes sparkling, he +bent an impassioned face over the milky plaster. + +"Now," Fairfax said, "hurry along, Bella, I'm ready!" + +She responded quietly. "I'm here. It's like a snow pie, Cousin Antony." + +"Take off your shoe and stocking." + +"Cousin Antony!" + +A painful flush of red, the drawing under her more closely of the little +legs, showed how far she had been from comprehending. + +"Casts are taken from life, Bella," informed her cousin practically, +"you'll see. I'm going to make a model from life, then watch what +happens. I reckon you're not afraid, honey?" + +Gardiner kicked his foot out from under the rugs. "Do mine." + +With the first timidity Antony had seen her display, Bella divested +herself of her shoe and drew off her dark stocking, and held him out the +little naked foot, a charming, graceful concession to art. + +"It's clean," she said simply. + +He took it in his big hand and it lay like a pearl and coral thing in +his palm. Bella did not hear his murmured artistic ecstasies. Fairfax +deftly oiled the foot, kneeling before it as at a shrine of beauty. He +placed it in one of the basins and poured the plaster slowly over it, +sternly bidding her to control her giggles and her "ouches" as it could +not harm. + +"Keep perfectly still. Do not budge till the plaster sets." + +"Oh, it's setting already," she told him, "_hard_! You won't break off +my foot, Cousin Antony?" + +"Nonsense." + +Whilst the cast set he recited for them "St. Agnes's Eve," a great +favourite with the children, beyond their comprehension, but their +hearts nevertheless stirred to the melody. As Fairfax leant down to +break the model Bella helped him bravely. + +"_Now_, might I put on my stocking, Cousin Antony?" + +He had been pouring the warm plaster into the mould and had forgotten +her, and was reproached. + +The twilight gathered and made friends with the storm as they waited for +the cast to harden. Old Ann came in and lighted the gas above the group +on the old divan. + +"Be the hivenly powers! Mr. Fairfax, ye've here a power of a dirt." + +Fairfax, who had taken a fancy to the patient old creature, who had' +known his mother and was really more a slave to the children than his +own black Mammy, bore the scolding peacefully. + +"Ye're the childest of the three, sor." + +Antony caught her arm. "Wait and see, old Ann," and he kneeled before +the cooled plaster and broke his model, released his work and held up +the cast. + +"For the love of hiven, Mr. Antony, it's Miss Bella's foot ye've got, +sor." + +She stared as at a miracle, then at her little lady as though she +expected to see a missing member. Bella danced around it, pleaded for +it, claimed it. Gardiner was allowed to feel how cold it was, and +Fairfax took it home in his overcoat pocket, anxious to get safely away +with it before his uncle came and smashed it, as he had the feeling +that Mr. Carew would some day smash everything for him. That night when +she undressed Bella regarded with favour the foot that had been +considered worthy of a cast and extracted sacredly a bit of plaster +which she found between the toes, and Antony Fairfax limped home to the +House that Jack Built, his heavy step lighter for the fairy foot, the +snow-white, perfect little foot he carried triumphantly in his pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He was too sincerely an artist not to make pictures of all he saw, and, +being sincere, he made his lines true, and then outlined the sketch, +softening, moulding, moulding.... His aunt's gentle inefficiency (she +was kind to him, affectionate, and called him "her dear boy") was to +Fairfax only charming, feminine softness, and he grew fond of Mrs. +Carew, indulgent to her faults, listened half convinced to her +arguments, admired her in her multitudinous toilettes, in all of which +she was original, found her lovely and graceful. Her eyes were +deer-like--not those of a startled fawn, but like a doe's who stands +gazing at a perfect park, whose bosks she takes to be real forests. Mrs. +Carew knew absolutely nothing of life. Fairfax at twenty-three, knew +less of it, and he could not criticize her vision. He saw his uncle +through Bella's eyes, but he never passed the master of the house in the +halls, taking good care to escape him. It was not easy to associate fear +with Bella; her father had not impressed her free mind with this +sentiment. + +"Father," she told Antony, "is the most important man in New York City, +the cook said so. He might be President, but he doesn't want to; he +likes his own work best. Father's work is making money, and he quite +understands how hard such a thing is. That is why there is so little in +the house, Cousin Antony. Even the cook hadn't a cent when I asked her +to lend me a penny. We used to have five cents a week, but now mother +has to be so careful that we're hard up. It's awful when there are +treats on, Cousin Antony, because you see, you ought to do your share. +That is why Gardiner and I always stick around together and say we don't +like children.... No," she said firmly, "I really _couldn't_ take five +cents, Cousin Antony; thank you ever so much. We're bound in honour not +to; we promised never to take from a stranger; yes, I know you're not a +stranger, and I forget to whom we promised, but I really couldn't, +Cousin Antony." + +Mrs. Carew could, however. One day, on her way to the magic car, as it +waited with its lean horses and jingle-jangle to take the lady +"sharping," that day she borrowed two dollars from Fairfax, who, being a +pauper, had always money in his pocket; having in reality nowhere else +to keep it--and having none to keep elsewhere. The two dollar bill went +to join ghostly company with the drawing lessons money, and fluttered +away to the country of unpaid bills, of forgotten obligations, of +benefits forgot, and it is to be wondered if souls are ever at peace +there. + +"Father," said Bella, "is the 'soul of honour.' When Ann comes to rub +Gardiner's feet at night (they are so often tired, Cousin Antony), she +told me about father's character. She's awfully Irish, you wouldn't +understand her. Father goes to 'board meetings' (I don't know what they +are, but they're very important) and they call him 'your honour,' and +Ann says it's all because of his soul. _He never breaks his word_, and +when the bills come in...." + +The drawing lessons went bravely and wearily on day after day. Because +his aunt wished it, Fairfax guided Gardiner's inert fingers across the +page and almost tied Bella to her chair. On drawing days he lunched with +the household, and honestly earned his food. Half fed, keen with a +healthy appetite, he ate gratefully. They had been pausing at the end of +a half-hour's torture when Bella took up her monologue on her father's +character. + +"When the bills come in he shuts himself in the library. I hear him walk +up and down; then he comes out with his face white, and once, long past +dinner-time, when mother didn't come in, he said to me, 'Where in +heaven's name is your mother? What can she find left in the shops to +buy?' just that, he asked me that, Cousin Antony. I felt awfully sorry. +I was just going to ask him for five cents, but I hadn't the heart." + +That she had heart for her father, this child of twelve, and at so +tender an age could see and comprehend, could pity, struck Fairfax, and +on his part he began to see many things, but being a man and chivalrous, +he pitied the woman as well. + +"My aunt is out of her element," he decided; "she cannot be in love with +her husband; no woman who loved anything on earth could gad about as she +does," and he wondered, and the deer in the park gazing at an artificial +wilderness became more and more of a symbol of her. + +Regarding the man they called "his honour" Fairfax had not made up his +mind. + + * * * * * + +Gardiner developed scarlet fever and lay, so Mrs. Carew assured Antony, +"at the door of death," and Bella had been sent away to the country. Mr. +Carew lived at the Club, and Antony made daily visits and did countless +errands for his aunt. One day, toward the end of the little boy's +convalescence, Fairfax came in late and heard the sound of a sweet voice +singing. He entered the drawing-room quietly and the song went on. Mrs. +Carew had a lovely voice, one of those natural born voices, +heart-touching, appealing; one of those voices that cause an ache and go +to the very marrow, that make the eyes fill. As though she knew Antony +was there, and liked the entertainment, she sang him song after song, +closing with "Oh, wert thou in the cold blast," then let her hands rest +on the keys. Fairfax went over to the piano. + +"Why didn't you tell me you sang like this, Aunt Caroline?" The emotion +her songs had kindled remained in his voice. + +"Oh, I never sing, my dear boy, your uncle doesn't like music." + +"Damn," said the young man sharply; "I beg your pardon. You've got the +family talent; your voice is divine." + +She was touched but shook her head. "I might have sung possibly, if your +uncle had ever cared for it. He'll be back to-morrow and I thought I'd +just run these things over." + +As she rose and left the piano he observed how young she was, how +graceful in her trailing dress. The forced housing of these weeks of +Gardiner's illness had quieted the restless spirit. Mrs. Carew was +womanly to him, feminine for the first time since his arrival. It was at +the end of his tongue to say, "Why did you ever marry that man?" He +thought with keen dislike of the husband whose appearance would close +the piano, silence the charming voice, and drive his aunt to find +occupation in the shops and in charities. He became too chivalrous. + +"Flow gently, sweet Afton," as sung by her, echoed thence afterwards in +his mind all his life. The melody was stored in the chambers of his +memory, and whenever, in later years, he tried not to recall 700 Madison +Avenue, and the inhospitable home, maddeningly and plaintively these +tunes would come: "Roll on, silver moon," that too. How that moon rolled +and hung in the pale sky of remembrance, whose colour and hue is more +enchanting than ever were Italian skies! + +Mrs. Carew had an audience composed of two people. Little Gardiner, up +and dressed in his flannel gown, and the big cousin fathering him with a +protecting arm, both in the sofa corner. Mrs. Carew's mellow voice on +those winter afternoons before Bella returned, before Mr. Carew came +back from the Club, flowed and quavered and echoed sweetly through the +room. In the twilight, before the gas came, with old-fashioned stars set +in the candelabra, the touching pathos of the ballads spoke to the +romantic Fairfax ... spoke to his twenty-three years and spoke +dangerously. He became more and more chivalrous and considered his aunt +a misunderstood and unloved woman. Long, long afterwards, a chord, a +note, was sufficient to bring before him the square drawing-room with +its columns, furnish with an agglomeration of gaudy, rich, fantastic +things expressive of her uncertain taste. He saw again the long dark +piano and the silhouette of the woman behind it, graceful, shadowy, and +felt the pressure against his arm of little Gardiner, as they two sat +sympathetically lifted to an emotional pitch, stirred as only the music +of a woman's voice in love-songs can stir a man's heart. + +Bella came back and there was an end of the concerts. A charm to keep +Bella silent had not yet been found, unless that charm were a book. "She +could not read when mother sang," she said, "and more than that, it +made her cry." And when Mr. Carew's latchkey scratched in the door, +Bella flew upstairs to the top story, Antony and Gardiner followed more +slowly; Mrs. Carew shut her piano, and took the cars again to forget her +restlessness in the purchase of silks and dry goods and house +decorations, and was far from guessing the emotion she had aroused in +the breast of her nephew--"Flow gently, sweet Afton." Nothing flowed +gently in Fairfax's impetuous breast. Nothing flowed gently on the tide +of events that drifted past slowly, leaving him unsuccessful, without +any opening into fame. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Cedersholm returned to New York and Fairfax presented himself again at +the studio, getting as far as the workroom of the great Swede who had +started in life the son of a tinsmith in Copenhagen. The smell of the +clay, the sight of the figures swathed in damp cloths, the shaded light, +struck Fairfax deliciously as he waited for an audience with Cedersholm. +Fairfax drew his breath deep as though he were once again in his +element. Cedersholm was out, and with no other encouragement than the +sight of the interior of the four walls, Antony was turned away. His +mother had added to his fast melting funds by a birthday gift, and +Fairfax was nearly at the end of this. + +Walking up from Cedersholm's to his uncle's house, a tramp of three +miles, he limped into the children's room, on his usually bright face +the first shadow they had seen. Bella was already seated at her table. +Her six weeks in the country had sent her back, longer, slimmer, her +skirt let down at the hem an inch, and some pretence to order in her +hair. The dark mass of her hair was lifted back, held by a round comb; +Bella was much transformed. + +"Hello, honey," cried her cousin, "what have you been changing into?" + +"What do you think of my back comb, Cousin Antony? It's the fourth. I've +broken three. All cheap, luckily, not the best quality." + +Bella took the comb from her hair and handed it to Antony, and, +unprisoned, her locks fell triumphantly around her face. + +"I like you better that way, little cousin," said Fairfax, "and," +continued the drawing master, "you've a wonderful new pair of shoes, +Bella!" + +The little leg was encased in a light blue silk stocking, and the +perfect little foot, whose rosy curves and lines Fairfax knew, was +housed in a new blue kid shoe with shining white buttons, entirely out +of keeping with the dear old red dress which, to Fairfax, seemed part of +Bella Carew. + +"Dancing school," she said briefly; "mother promised us we might go ages +ago, long before you came, Cousin Antony." + +"About ten years ago, I fink," said Gardiner helpfully. + +"Nonsense," corrected his sister sharply, "but long enough ago for +_these_ to grow too small." She held up her pretty foot. "We got as far +as the shoes and stockings (real silk, Cousin Antony, feel). Aren't they +perfectly _beautiful_? We didn't _dare_, because of the bills, get the +dress, you know, so I guess mother's been waiting for better times. But +just as soon as I came back from the country and they let out the hem +and bought the comb, I said to Gardiner, 'There, my dancing shoes will +be too small.'" She leant down and pinched the toes. "They _do_ +squeeze." She crinkled up her eyes and pursed up the little red mouth. +"They pinch awfully, but I'm going to wear them to drawing lessons, if I +can't to dancing lessons. See," she smoothed out her drawing board and +pointed to her queer lines, "I have drawn some old things for you, a +couple of squares and a triangle." + +Fairfax listened, amused; the problems of his life were vital, she could +not distract him. He took the rubber, erasing her careless work, sat +down by her and began to give her real instruction. Little Gardiner, +excused from all study, amused himself after his own fashion in a corner +of the sofa, and after a few moments of silence, Fairfax's pupil +whispered to him in a low tone-- + +"I can't draw anything, Cousin Antony, when you've got that look on." + +Fairfax continued his work. + +"It's no use, you've got the heavy look like the heavy step. Are you +angry with me?" + +Not her words, but her voice made her cousin stop his drawing. In it was +a hint of the tears she hated to shed. Bella leant her elbow on the +table, rested her head in her hand and searched Fairfax's face with her +eloquent eyes. They were not like her mother's, doe-like and patient; +Bella's were dark eyes, superb and shadowy. They held something of the +Spanish mystery, caught from the strain that ran through the Carew +family from the Middle Ages, when the Carez were nobles in Andalusia. + +"I am angry with myself, Bella; I am a fool." + +"Oh no, you're _not_," she breathed devotedly, "you're a genius." + +The tension of Fairfax's heart relaxed. The highest praise that any +woman could have found, this child, in her naďveté, gave him. + +"Why don't you make some figures and sell them, Cousin Antony? Are you +worried about money troubles?" She had heard these terms often. + +"Yes," he said shortly, "just that." + +He had gone on to sketch a head on the drawing-board, touching it +absently, and over his shoulder Bella murmured-- + +"Cousin Antony, it's just like me. You just draw wonderfully." + +He deepened the shadows in the hair and rounded the ear, held it some +way off and looked at it. + +"I wish I had some clay," he murmured. + +He had brought the cast of the foot back to show it to his aunt when an +occasion should offer. It stood now in the little cabinet where Bella +and Gardiner kept their treasures. + +"I went to see Mr. Cedersholm to-day," Fairfax continued, for lack of +other confidant taking the dark-eyed child; "now, if Cedersholm would +only take me up, and give me the chance to work under him, I'd soon show +him." + +Bella agreed warmly. "Yes, indeed, you soon would." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The odours of strange meats and sauces were wafted throughout the house. +Little troublesome feet pattered up and down the dingy back stairs, and +whenever Bella and Gardiner were laid hold upon they were banished. They +were inoculated with excitement and their nostrils pricked with the +delicious smells of flowers and smilax and feast meats. + +Mr. Carew annually gave a banquet to some twenty New Yorkers, who he was +so generous as to think were nearly as great as himself. The household +was not constructed or run on a hospitable basis and nothing was in tune +for entertaining. Sympathetic Bella, thrilling with liveliest interest, +assisted at the preparations, and to her bright cheeks and eyes her +mother bewailed-- + +"Only _twenty_ glasses, Bella, of the fine engraved deer and pheasant +pattern, and we shall be twenty-four." + +"Mother, give me one in a paper and I'll take it down town and match +it." + +Her mother laughed. "Match it, why they were made by hand years ago, and +are worth ten dollars apiece." + +"Oh, dear," breathed the little girl, and multiplied: "Two hundred +dollars for twenty. _Mother!_" + +The child stole silently out from the glistening array. Ten dollars +apiece. And she and Gardiner at their last nursery tea-party.... Through +the door, as she slipped away, she looked back at her mother, standing +thoughtful over the rows of crystal. In the great mahogany cage which, +like a small dark château, surmounted the pedestal of carved wood, the +blackbird Jetty huddled on his perch. He was a superb specimen, black as +jet, whence his name, a free woodland spirit, with a yellow bill like a +crocus flower, and piercing eyes. Bella passed under the cage and +called up to him, "Sing, Jetty, sing." + + Piped a blackbird from a beechwood spray, + "Little maid, slow wandering this way, + What's your name?" said he. + + Little Bell had wandered through the glade, + She looked up between the beechwood's shade, + "Little Bell," said she.... + +The child crooned to the bird her schoolroom poem. In return, Jetty sang +a short, brilliant little roulade, his one trained tune, which Bella had +vainly tried to pick out on the piano. She never heard half so sweet a +song from any bird. + +"Jetty is my _favourite_ singer," she had said to Antony. But as she +lingered now under his cage in order to lengthen out the time, which, +because of her aching conscience, was hanging heavy, Jetty blinked down +at her as she stood with her hands behind her back, her face uplifted; +he peered at her like a weird familiar spirit. "Listen, Jetty. Gardiner +and I took those perfectly beautiful, expensive glasses for our tea +party. He smashed all three of them. There was a glass for Gardiner, a +glass for me and one for the uninvited guest--no, I mean the unexpected +guest. Gardiner sat down on the glasses where I had put them out to wash +them. He would have been awfully cut only he had father's overcoat on +(one of father's old coats, we got it out of the camphor chest)." She +ceased, for Jetty, in the midst of the confession, hopped down to take a +valetudinarian peck at his yellow seeds. + +"Now," murmured Bella, "the question is, _shall_ I tell mother on an +exciting day like this when she is worried and nervous, and, if I do +tell her, wouldn't it be carrying tales on poor little Gardiner?" + +Jetty, by his food cup, disheartened and discouraged and apparently in a +profound melancholy, depressed Bella; she left him, turned and fled. + +Bella picked a forbidden way up the freshly oiled stairs and joined her +little brother. There she listened to tales, danced on tiptoe to peer +through the stair rails, and hung with Gardiner over the balustrade and +watched and listened. The children flew to the window to see the cabs +and carriages drive up, fascinated by the clicking of the doors, finding +magic in the awning and the carpeting that stretched down the stoop to +the curb; found music in the voices below in the hallway as the guests +arrived. Bella could hardly eat the flat and unpalatable supper prepared +for her on the tray, and, finally, she seized her little brother. + +"Come, let's go down and see the party, Gardiner." + +She dragged him after her, half-reluctant and wholly timid. On the +middle of the stairway she paused. The house below was transformed, hot +and perfumed with flowers, the very atmosphere was strange. Along the +balustrade, their hands touched smilax garlands. The blaze of light +dazzled them, the sweet odours, the gaiety and the spirit of cheer and +life and good-fellowship came up on fragrant wings. The little brother +and sister stood entranced. The sound of laughter and men's agreeable +voices came soaring in, the gaiety of guests at a feast, and, over all +rose a sound most heavenly, a low, thrilling, thrilling sound. + +Jetty was singing. + +The children knew the blackbird's idyl well, but it was different this +night. They heard the first notes rise softly, half stifled in his +throat, where Jetty caressed his tune, soothed it, crooned with it, and +then, preluded by a burst all his own of a few adorable silver notes, +the trained melody came forth. + +"Oh, _Gardiner_," breathed the little girl, "hear Jetty. Isn't it +perfectly beautiful?" + +They stepped softly on downstairs, hand in hand, into the lower rooms, +over to the dining-room where the thick red curtains hung before the +doorway. Gardiner wore his play apron and his worsted bed slippers. +Bella--neither the little brother nor the old nurse had observed that +Bella had made herself a toilette. The dark hair carefully brushed and +combed, was tied back with a crimson ribbon, and below her short dress +shone out her dancing school blue stockings and her tight blue shoes. +Peering through the curtains, the children could see the dinner company +to their hearts' content. Bella viewed the great New Yorkers, murmuring +under her breath the names and wondering to whom they belonged. Judge +Noah Davis, famous for the breaking of the Tweed ring--him, Bella knew, +he was a frequent caller. There was a prelate of the Church and there +was some one whom Bella wanted especially to see--Cedersholm, Mr. +Cedersholm--which could he be? Which might he be? Little Gardiner's hand +was hot in hers. He whispered beseechingly-- + +"Come, Bella, come, I'm afwaid." + +"Hear Jetty, Gardiner, be quiet." + +And the bird's voice nearly drowned the murmur and the clamour of the +dining-room. Mr. Carew, resplendent in evening clothes, displayed upon +his shirt front the badge of the Spanish Society (a golden medal hung by +a silken band). It was formed and founded by the banker and he was proud +of his creation. + +"Who would ever suppose that father didn't like company? Whoever would +think that you could be afraid of father!" + +Suave, eloquent, Carew beamed upon his guests, and his little daughter +admired him extravagantly. His hair and beard were beautiful. Touching +the medal on his breast, Carew said-- + +"Carez is the old name, Cedersholm." + +Cedersholm! Bella stared and listened. + +"Yes, Carez, Andalusian, I believe, to be turned later in England into +Carew; and the bas-relief is an excellent bit of sculpturing." + +Mr. Carew undid the medal and handed it to the guest on his right. + +"Here, Cedersholm, what do you think of the bas-relief?" + +Cedersholm, already famous in New York, faced Bella Carew and she saw +him plainly. This was the sculptor who could give Cousin Antony his +start, "his fair chance." He did not look a great man, as Bella thought +geniuses should look; not one of the guests looked as great and +beautiful as Cousin Antony. Why didn't they have him to the dinner, she +wondered loyally. Hasn't he got money enough? Perhaps because he was +lame. + +Jetty was lame. He had broken his leg in the bars once upon a time. How +he sang! From his throat poured one ecstatic roulade after another, one +cascade after another of liquid delicious sweetness. Fields, woods, +copses, and dells; sunlight, moonlight, seas and streams, all, all were +in Jetty's passion of song. + +Gardiner had left his sister's side and stood under the bird-cage gazing +up with an enraptured face. He made a pretty, quaint figure in the +deserted room, in his gingham apron and his untidy blonde hair. + +Bella heard some one say, "What wonderful singing, Mrs. Carew." And she +looked at her mother for the first time. The lady was all in white with +a bit of old black point crossed at her breast and a red camellia +fastened there. Her soft fine hair was unpretentiously drawn away +neatly, and her doe-like eyes rested amiably on her guests. She seemed +to enjoy her unwonted entertainment. + +Still Bella clung to her hiding-place, fascinated by the subdued noise +of the service, the clinking of the glasses, listening intelligently to +a clever raconteur when he told his anecdote, and clapping her hand on +her mouth to keep from joining aloud in the praise that followed, and +the bead of excitement mounted to her head like the wine that filled the +glasses, the engraved deer and pheasant glasses, three of which had been +massacred upstairs. The dinner had nearly reached its end when the +children slipped down, and the scraping of chairs and a lull made Bella +realize where she was, and when she escaped she found that Gardiner had +made his little journey upstairs without her guardianship. Bella's mind +was working rapidly, for her heart was on fire with a scheme. In her +bright dress she leaned close to the dark wainscoting of the stairway +and heard Jetty sing. How he sang! _That_ was music! + +"Why do people sing when there are birds!" Bella thought. Low and sweet, +high and fine, the running of little country brooks, unattainable as a +weather vane in the sun. + +Bella was at a pitch of sensitive emotion and she felt her heart swell +and her eyes fill. She would have wept ignominiously, but instead shot +upstairs, a red bird herself, and rushed to the cabinet where her +childish treasures were stored away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The sculptor Cedersholm had come from Sweden himself a poor boy. He had +worked his way into recognition and fame, but his experience in life had +embittered rather than softened him. He early discovered that there is +nothing but example that we can learn from the poor or take from the +poor, and he avoided everything that did not add to his fame and +everything that did not bring in immediate aids. It was only during the +late years that he had made his name known in New York. He had been +working in Rome, and during the past three years his expositions had +made him enormously talked of. He would not have dined at the Carews' +without a reason. Henry Carew was something of a figure in the Century +Club. His pretence to dilettantism was not small. But Cedersholm had not +foreseen what a wretched dinner he would be called on to eat. Cooked by +a woman hired in for the day, half cold and wholly poor, Mr. Carew's +banquet was far from being the magnificent feast it seemed in Bella's +eyes. Somewhat cheered by his cigar and liqueur, Cedersholm found a seat +in a small reception room out of earshot of his host and hostess, and, +in company with Canon Prynne of Albany, managed to pass an agreeable +half hour. + +The Canon agreed with the Swede--he had never heard a bird sing so +divinely. + +"I told Mrs. Carew she should throw a scarf over the cage. The blackbird +will sing his heart out." + +The sculptor took up his conversation with his friend where he had left +it in the dining-room. He had been speaking of a recent commission given +him by the city for an important piece of work to be done for Central +Park. + +"You know, Canon, we have succeeded in bringing to the port of New York +the Abydos Sphinx--a marvellous, gigantic creature. It is to be placed +in Central Park, in the Mall." + +This, Canon Prynne had heard. "The base pedestal and fixtures are to be +yours, Cedersholm?" + +The sculptor nodded. "Yes, and manual labour such as this is tremendous. +If I were in France, now, or in Italy, I could find chaps to help me. As +it is, I work alone." After a pause, he said, "However, I like the sole +responsibility." + +"Now, I am not sure," returned his companion, "whether it is well to +like too sole a responsibility. As far as _I_ am concerned, no sooner do +I think myself important than I discover half a dozen persons in my +environment to whom I am doing a wrong, if I do not invite them to share +my glory." + +There was no one in the small room to which the gentlemen had withdrawn, +and their chat was suddenly interrupted by a small, clear voice asking, +"Is this Mr. Cedersholm?" Neither guest had seen steal into the room and +slip from the shadow to where they sat, a little girl, slender, +overgrown, in a ridiculously short dress, ridiculous shoes and +stockings, her arms full of treasures, her dark hair falling around her +glowing cheeks, in terror of being caught and banished and punished; but +ardent and determined, she had nevertheless braved her father's +displeasure. Bella fixed her eyes on the sculptor and said rapidly-- + +"Excuse me for coming to father's party, but I am in a great hurry. I +want to speak to you about my Cousin Antony. He is a great genius," she +informed earnestly, "a sculptor, just like you, only he can't get any +work. If he had a chance he'd make _perfectly beautiful_ things." + +The other gentleman put out his hand and drew the child to him. Unused +to fatherly caress, Bella held back, but was soon drawn within the +Canon's arm. She held out her treasures: "He did these," and she +presented to Cedersholm the white cast of her own foot. + +"Cousin Antony explained that it is only a cast, and that anybody could +do it, but it _is_ awfully natural, isn't it? only so deadly white." + +She held out a sheet of paper Fairfax had left at the last lesson. It +bore a sketch of Bella's head and several decorative studies. Cedersholm +regarded the cast and the paper. + +"Who is Cousin Antony, my child?" asked the Canon. + +"Mother's sister's son, from New Orleans--Antony Fairfax." + +Cedersholm exclaimed, "Fairfax; but yes, I have a letter from a Mr. +Fairfax. It came while I was in France." + +The drawing and the cast in Cedersholm's possession seemed to have found +their home. Bella felt all was well for Cousin Antony. + +"Oh, listen!" she exclaimed, eagerly, "listen to our blackbird. Isn't it +perfectly beautiful?" + +"Divine indeed," replied the clergyman. "Are you Carew's little +daughter?" + +"Bella Carew. And I must go now, sir. Arabella is my real name." + +She slipped from under the detaining arm. "Nobody knows I'm up. I'll +lend you those," she offered her treasures to Cedersholm, "but I am very +fond of the foot." + +It lay in Cedersholm's hand without filling it. He said kindly-- + +"I quite understand that. Will you tell your Cousin Antony that I shall +be glad to see him?" + +"Oh, thank you," she nodded. "And he'll be _very_ glad to see you." + +Cedersholm, smiling, put the cast and the bit of paper back in her +hands. + +"I won't rob you of these, Miss Bella. Your cousin shall make me +others." + +As the little girl ran quickly out it seemed to the guests as if the +blackbird's song went with her, for in a little while Jetty stopped +singing. + +"What a quaint, old-fashioned little creature," Cedersholm mused. + +"Charming," murmured Canon Prynne, "perfectly charming. Now, my dear +Cedersholm, there's your fellow for the Central Park pedestal." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The month was nearly at its end, and his money with it. Some time since, +he had given up riding in the cars, and walked everywhere. This exercise +was the one thing that tired him, because of his unequal stride. +Nevertheless, he strode, and though it seemed impossible that a chap +like himself could come to want, he finally reached his last "picayune," +and at the same time owed the week's board and washing. The excitement +of his new life thus far had stimulated him, but the time came when this +stimulus was dead, and as he went up the steps of his uncle's house to +be greeted on the stoop by a beggar woman, huddling by her basket under +her old shawl, the sculptor looked sadly down at her greasy palm which +she hopefully extended. Then, with a brilliant smile, he exclaimed-- + +"I wonder, old lady, _just_ how poor you are?" + +"Wurra," replied the woman, "if the wurrld was for sale for a cint, I +couldn't buy it." + +Beneath his breath he murmured, "Nor could I," and thought of his watch. +Curiously enough, it had not occurred to him that he might pawn his +father's watch. + +He now looked forward with pleasure to the tri-weekly drawing lessons, +for the friendly fires of his little cousins' hearts warmed his own. But +on this afternoon they failed to meet him in the hall or to cry to him +over the stairs or rush upon him like catapults from unexpected corners. +As he went through the silent house its unusual quiet struck him +forcibly, and he thought: "_What_ a tomb it would be without the +children!" + +No one responded to his "Hello you," and at the entrance of the common +play and study room Fairfax paused, to see Bella and Gardiner in their +play aprons, their backs to the door, motionless before the table, one +dark head and one light one bent over an object apparently demanding +tender, reverent care. + +At Fairfax's "Hello _you_ all!" they turned, and the big cousin never +forgot it as long as he lived--never forgot the Bella that turned, that +called out in what the French call "a torn voice"--_une voix dechirée_. +Afterwards it struck him that she called him "Antony" _tout court_, like +a grown person as she rushed to him. He never forgot how the little +thing flung herself at him, threw herself against his breast. For an +answer to her appeal with a quick comprehension of grief, Antony bent +and took her hand. + +"Cousin Antony, Cousin Antony----" + +"Why, Bella, Bella, little cousin, what's the matter?" + +And above the sobs that he felt tremble through him, he asked of +Gardiner--who, young as he was, stifled his tears back and gulped his +own grief like a man-- + +"What's the row, old chap?" + +But Bella told him passionately. "Jetty, _Jetty's dead_!" + +Soothed by her cousin's hand on her head, she calmed, buried her face in +the cool handkerchief with which he wiped her tears. In the circle of +his arms Bella stood, tearful, sobbing, nothing but a child, and yet she +appealed to Fairfax in her tears as she had not done before, and her +abandon went to the core of his being and smote a bell which from +thenceforth rang like her name--"Bella"--and he used to think that it +was from that moment.... Well, her tears at any rate stirred him as +never did any tears in the world. + +She wiped her eyes. "Jetty died last night; he sang himself to death. +You should have heard him sing! This morning when they came to give him +water and feed him, Jetty was dead." + +Gardiner pointed to the table. "See, we've made him a coffin. We're +going to his funewal now." + +A discarded cigar box lined with cotton was the only coffin the children +had found for the wild wood creature whose life had gone out in song. + +"We don't know where to buwy him, Cousin Antony." + +"I tried," Bella murmured, touching the blackbird's breast with gentle +fingers, "I tried to write him a poem, an epitaph; but I cried so I +couldn't." + +She held Antony's handkerchief to her tear-stained cheek. + +"May I keep your handkerchief for just this afternoon? It smells so +delicious. You could make a cast of him, couldn't you?--like the +death-mask of great men in father's books?" + +Fairfax dissuaded them from the funeral, at which Gardiner was to say, +"Now I lay me," and Fairfax had been elected to read the Lord's Prayer. +He rolled the bird up in another handkerchief (he appeared to be rich in +them) and put it reverently in his overcoat pocket, promising faithfully +to see that Jetty should be buried in Miss Whitcomb's back yard, under +the snow, and, moreover, to mark the place with a stick, so that the +children could find it when spring came. + +Then Bella, tear-stained but resigned, suggested that they should play +"going to Siberia." + +"I _can't_ work to-day, Cousin Antony! Don't make me. It would seem like +sewing on Sunday." + +Without comment, Fairfax accepted the feminine inconsistency, and +himself entered, with what spirit he might, into the children's game. +"Going to Siberia" laid siege to all the rooms in the upper story. It +was a mad rush on Fairfax's part, little Gardiner held in his arms, +pursued by Bella as a wolf. It was a tear over beds and chairs, around +tables,--a wild, screaming, excited journey, ending at last in the +farthest room in the middle of the children's bed, where, one after +another, they were thrown by the big cousin. The game was enriched by +Fairfax's description of Russia and the steppes and the plains. But on +this day Bella insisted that Gardiner, draped in a hearthrug, be the +wolf, and that Fairfax carry her "because her heart ached." And if +Gardiner's growls and baying failed to give the usual zest to the sport, +the carrying by Fairfax of Bella was a new emotion! The twining round +his neck of soft arms, the confusion of dark hair against his face, the +flower-like breath on his cheeks, Bella's excitement of sighs and cries +and giggles gave the game, for one player at least, fresh charm. Chased +by Ann back into the studio, the play-mates fell on the sofa, worn out +and happy; but, in the momentary calm, a little cousin on either side of +him, the poor young man felt the cruel return of his own miseries and +his own crisis. + +"Misther Fairfax," said the Irish woman, "did the childhren give ye the +letter what come to-day? I thawt Miss Bella'd not mind it, what wid +funnerals and tearin' like a mad thing over the house!" (Ann's reproof +was for Fairfax.) "Yez'll be the using up of little Gardiner, sir, the +both of ye. The letther's forbye the clock. I putt it there m'self." + +Fairfax, to whom no news could be but welcome, limped over to the +mantel, where, by the clock, he perceived a letter addressed to him on +big paper in a small, distinguished hand. He tore it open, Ann lit the +gas, and he read-- + + "DEAR MR. FAIRFAX, + + "I have not answered your letter because I was so unfortunate as to + have lost your address. Learning last night that you are a nephew + of Mr. Carew, and sure of a response if I send this to his care, I + write to ask that you will come in to see me to-day at three + o'clock. + + "Yours sincerely, + "GUNNER CEDERSHOLM." + +Fairfax gave an exclamation that was almost a cry, and looked at the +clock. It was past four! + +"When did this letter come?" His nerves were on end, his cheeks pale. + +Bella sat forward on the sofa. "Why, Mother gave it me to give to you +when you should come to-day, Cousin Antony." + +In the strain to his patience, Fairfax was sharp. He bit his lip, +snatched up his coat and hat. + +"You should have given it me at once." His blue eyes flashed. "You don't +know what you may have done. This may ruin my career! I've missed my +appointment with Cedersholm. It's too late now." + +He couldn't trust himself further, and, before Bella could regain +countenance, he was gone. + +Cut to the heart with remorse, crimson with astonishment, but more +deeply wounded in her pride, the child sat immovable on the sofa. + +"Bella," whispered her little brother, "I don't like Cousin Antony, do +you?" + +She looked at her brother, touched by Gardiner's chivalry. + +"I fink he's a mean man, Bella." + +"He's dreadful," she cried, incensed; "he's just too horrid for +anything. Anyhow, it was me made Cedersholm write that letter for him, +and he didn't _even_ say he was obliged." + +She ran to the window to watch Antony go, as he always did, on the other +side of the road, in order that the children might see him. She hoped +for a reconcilement, or a soothing wave of his hand; but Antony did not +pass, the window was icy cold, and she turned, discomfited. At her +foot--for as Antony had snatched up his coat he had wantonly desecrated +a last resting-place--at her foot lay the blackbird. With a murmured +word Bella lifted Jetty in both hands to her cheek, and on the cold +breast and toneless throat the tears fell--Bella's first real tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Fairfax went into the studio of the first sculptor in the United States +with set determination to find work. Cedersholm was cool and absorbed, +occupied and preoccupied, overburdened with orders, all of which meant +money and fame, but required time. Fairfax was an hour and a half late, +and, in spite of the refusal of the manservant, came limping in, and +found the master taking a glass of hot milk and a biscuit. Cedersholm +reposed on a divan in the corner of a vast studio giving on a less +magnificent workroom. The studio was in semi-darkness, and a table near +the sofa bore a lamp whose light lit the sculptor's face. To Fairfax, +Cedersholm was a lion and wore a mane. In reality, he was a small, +insignificant man who might have been a banker. The Southerner +introduced himself, and when he was seated by the sculptor's side, began +to expose his projects, to dream aloud. He could have talked for ever, +but the sum of what he said was that he wanted to enter Cedersholm's +studio. + +"The old Italians took subordinates, sir," he pleaded. + +"There are classes at Cooper Union," Cedersholm began. + +But Fairfax, his clear eyes on the artist, said, "But I want to work +under a genius." + +The other, complimented, pushed his milk aside and wiped his lips. + +"Well, of course, there _is_ plenty of hard work to be done right here +in this studio." He spoke cautiously and in a measured tone. "I have +workmen with me, but no artists." + +Fairfax patiently waited. He was as verdant as the young jasmine leaves, +as inexperienced and guileless as a child. + +"I had not thought of taking such an assistant as you represent, Mr. +Fairfax." The older man fixed him with clever eyes. "A man must have no +end of courage in him, no end of patience, no end of humility, to do +what you _say_ you want to do." + +The young man bowed his head. "Courage, patience, and humility are the +attributes of genius, sir." + +"Yes," admitted Cedersholm, "they are, but ordinary talent will do very +well in my workshop, and it is all that I need in a subordinate." + +Fairfax smiled lightly. "I think I may say I am a good worker, Mr. +Cedersholm. Any hod-carrier may say that without vanity, and if you turn +me out, I'll take a mason's place at two dollars a day." + +Cedersholm smiled. "You don't look like a mason," he said hesitatingly, +"though you do appear muscular. What would be your suggestion with +regard to our relations?" + +(Fairfax's eager heart was saying, "Oh, teach me, Master, all you know; +let me come and play with the clay, finger it, handle it; set me loose +in that big, cool, silent room beyond there; let me wander where I can +see the shadow of that cast and the white draped figure from where I +sit.") + +"You are a fairly good draftsman?" Cedersholm asked. "Have you any taste +for decoration and applied design?" + +"I think I have." + +The Master rose. "Come to-morrow morning at ten and I'll give you +something to do. I have just accepted a contract for interior +decoration, a new house on Fifth Avenue. I might possibly make you +useful there." + + * * * * * + +Fairfax walked home on air. He walked from Ninth Street, where the +studio was, to his boarding-house, in the cold, still winter night--a +long tramp. In spite of his limp he swung along, his coat open, his hat +on the back of his head, his cheeks bright, his lips smiling. As he +passed under the gas lamps they shone like Oriental stars. He no longer +shivered at the cold and, warm with faith and confidence, his heart +could have melted a storm. He fairly floated up Madison Avenue, and by +his side the spirits of his ideals kept him company. Oh, he would do +beautiful things for New York city. He would become great here. He would +garland the metropolis with laurel, leave statues on its places, that +should bear his name. At ten o'clock on the following day, he was to +begin his apprenticeship, and he would soon show his power to +Cedersholm. He felt that power now in him like wine, like nectar, and in +his veins the spirit of creation, the impulse to art, rose like a +draught. His aunt should be proud of him, his uncle should cease to +despise him, and the children--they would not understand--but they would +be glad. + +When he reached his boarding-house, Miss Eulalie opened the door and +cried out at the sight of his face-- + +"Oh, Mr. Antony; you've had good news, sir." + +He put both hands on the thin shoulders, he kissed her roundly on both +cheeks. The cold fresh air was on his cool fresh lips, and the kiss was +as chaste as an Alpine breeze. + +He cried: "_Good_ news; well, I reckon I have! The great Mr. Cedersholm +has given me a place in his studio." + +He laughed aloud as she hung up his coat. Miss Eulalie's glasses were +pushed up on her forehead--she might have been his grandmother. + +"The Lord be praised!" she breathed. "I have been praying for you night +and day." + +"I shall go to Cedersholm to-morrow. I have not spoken about terms, but +that will be all right, and if you ladies will be so good as to wait +until Saturday----" + +Of course they would wait. If it had not been that their means were so +cruelly limited, they would never have spoken. Didn't he think?... He +knew! he thought they were the best, dearest friends a young fortune +hunter could have. Wait, wait till they could see his name in the +papers--Antony Fairfax, the rising sculptor! Wait until they could go +with him to the unveiling of his work in Central Park! + +Supper was already on the table, and Antony talked to them both until +they _could_ hardly wait for the wonders! + +"When you're great you'll not forget us, Mr. Antony?" + +"Forget them----!" + +Over the cold mutton and the potato salad, Fairfax held out a hand to +each, and the little old ladies each laid a fluttering hand in his. But +it was at Miss Eulalie he looked, and the remembrance of his happy kiss +on this first day of his good fortune, made her more maternal than she +had ever hoped to be in her life. + +There was a note for him on the table upstairs, a note in a big envelope +with the business stamp of Mr. Carew's bank in the corner. It was +addressed to him in red ink. He didn't know the handwriting, but +guessed, and laughed, and drew the letter out. + + + "DEAR COUSIN ANTONY, + + "I feel perfectly dreadful. How _could_ I do such a selfish thing? + I hope you will forgive me and come again. I drew two whole pages + of parlel lines after you went away, some are nearly strait. I did + it for punishment. You forgot the blackbird. + + "Your little BELLA." + +What a cad he had been! He had forgotten the dead bird and been a brute +to the little living cousin. As the remembrance of how she had flown to +him in her tears came to him, a softer look crossed his face, fell like +a veil over his eyes that had been dazzled by the visions of his art. He +smiled at the childish signature, "_Your little Bella._" "Honey child!" +he murmured, and as he fell asleep that night the figure of the little +cousin mourning for her blackbird moved before him down the halls of +fame. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Before Fairfax became dead to the world he wrote his mother a letter +that made her cry, reading it on her veranda in the gentle sunlight. Her +son wrote her only good news, and when the truth was too black he +disguised it. But after his interview with Cedersholm, with these first +good tidings he had to send, he broke forth into ecstasy, and his +mother, as she read, saw her boy successful by one turn of the wheel. +Mrs. Fairfax laughed and cried over the letter. + +"Emmy, Master Tony's doing wonders, wonders! He is working under a great +genius in the North, but it is easy to see that Tony is the spirit of +the studio. He is at work from nine in the morning till dark, poor honey +boy! and he is making all the drawings and designs and sketches for a +millionaire's palace on Fifth Avenue." + +"Fo' de Lawd, Mis' Bella." + +"Think of it, we shall soon see his name in the papers--heaven knows +where he'll stop. How proud I am of my darling, darling boy." + +And she dreamed over the pages of Antony's closely-written letter, +seeing his youth and his talent burn there like flame. She sent +him--selling her watch and her drop earrings to do so--a hundred +dollars, all she could get for her jewels. And the sum of money came +like manna into his famished state. His mother's gift gave him courage +to rise early and to work late, and the silver sang in his waistcoat +pockets again, and he paid his little ladies, thanking them graciously +for their patience; he sent his aunt a bunch of flowers, bought an image +of the Virgin for old Ann, a box of colours for Gardiner, and a book for +Bella. + +Then Antony, passing over the threshold of the workshop, was swallowed +up by art. + +And he paid for his salt! + +How valuable he was to Cedersholm those days he discovered some ten +years later. Perched on his high stool at the drawing-table, his +materials before him, he drew in freehand what his ideas suggested. The +third day he went with Cedersholm to the palace of Rudolph Field on +Fifth Avenue to inspect the rooms to be decorated. Fairfax went into the +"Castle of the Chinking Guineas" (as he called it in writing to his +mother), as buoyantly as though he had not a leaking boot on one foot +and a bill for a cheap suit of clothes in his pocket. He mentally ranged +his visions on the frieze he was to consider, and as he thought, his own +stature seemed to rise gigantic in the vast salon. He was alone with +Cedersholm. The Fields were in Europe, not to return until the palace +had been made beautiful. + +Cedersholm planned out his scheme rather vaguely, discoursing on a +commonplace theme, indicating ceilings and walls, and Fairfax heard him +through his own meditations. He impulsively caught the Master's arm, and +himself pointing, "Just there," he said, "why not...." And when he had +finished, Cedersholm accepted, but without warmth. + +"Perfectly. You have caught my suggestions, Mr. Fairfax," and poor +Antony shut his lips over his next flight. + +In the same week Cedersholm left for Florida, and Fairfax, in the +deserted studio, sketched and modelled _ŕ sa faim_, as the French say, +as old Professor Dufaucon used to say, and as the English say, less +materially, "to his soul's content." February went by in this fashion, +and Fairfax was only conscious of it when the day came round that he +must pay his board and had nothing to do it with. Cedersholm was to +return in a few days, and he would surely be reimbursed--to what extent +he had no notion. His excitement rose high as he took an inventory of +his work, of his essays and drawings and bas-reliefs, his projects for +the ceiling of the music room. At one time his labour seemed of the best +quality, and then again so poor, so abortive, that the young fellow had +more than half a mind to destroy the lot before the return of the +Master. During the last week he had a comrade, a great, soft-eyed, +curly-locked Italian, who didn't speak a word of English, who arrived +gentle as an ox to put himself under the yoke of labour. Antony, thanks +to his keenness and his gift for languages, and his knowledge of French, +made out something of what he was and from where. He had been born in +Carrara and was a worker in marble in his own land, and had come to work +on the fountain for the music room in the Field palace. + +"The fountain!" Fairfax tumbled over his sketches and showed one to his +brown-eyed friend, who told him rapidly that it was "divinely +beautiful," and asked to see the clay model. + +None had been made. + +The same night, Fairfax wrote to Cedersholm that he had begun a model of +the fountain, and in the following days was up to his ears and eyes in +clay. + + * * * * * + +The block of marble arrived from Italy, and Fairfax superintended its +difficult entry by derrick through the studio window. He restrained +"Benvenuto Cellini," as he called his comrade, from cutting into the +marble, and the Italian used to come and sit idle, for he had no work to +do, and waited Cedersholm's orders. He used to come and sit and stare at +his block of marble and sing pleasantly-- + + "Aria pura + Cielo azuro + Mia Maddelena," + +and jealously watch Fairfax who _could_ work. Fairfax could and did, in +a long blouse made for him by Miss Mitty, after his directions. With a +twenty-five cent book of phrases, Fairfax in no time mastered enough +Italian to talk with his companion, and his own baritone was sweet +enough to blend with Benvenuto Cellini's "Mia Maddelena," and other +songs of the same character, and he exulted in the companionship of the +young man, and talked at him and over him, and dreamed aloud to him, and +Benvenuto, who had only the dimmest idea of what the frenzy meant--not +so dim, possibly, for he knew it was the ravings of art--supplied the +"bellisimos" and "grandiosos," and felt the spirit of the moment, and +was young with Fairfax, if not as much of a soul or a talent. + +The model for the fountain was completed before Cedersholm's return. +After a month's rest under the palms of Florida, the sculptor lounged +into the studio, much as he might have strolled up a Paris boulevard and +ordered a liqueur at a round table before some favourite _café_. +Cedersholm had hot milk and biscuits in a corner instead, and Fairfax +drew off the wet covering from his clay. Cedersholm enjoyed his light +repast, considering the model which nearly filled the corner of the +room. He fitted in an eyeglass, and in a distinguished manner regarded +the modelling. Fairfax, who had been cold with excitement, felt his +blood run tepid in his veins. + +"And your sketches, Fairfax?" asked the Master, and held out his hand. + +Fairfax carried him over a goodly pile from the table. Cedersholm turned +them over for a long time, and finally held one out, and said-- + +"This seems to be in the scale of the measurements of the library +ceiling?" + +Fairfax's voice sounded childish to himself as he responded-- + +"I think it's correct, sir, to working scale." + +"It might do with a few alterations," said Cedersholm. "If you care to +try it, Fairfax, it might do. I will order the scaffolding placed +to-morrow, and you can sketch it in, in charcoal. It can always come +out, you know. You might begin the day after to-morrow." + +The Master rose leisurely and looked about him. "Jove," he murmured, +"it's good to be back again to the lares and penates." + +Fairfax left the Master among the lares and penates, left him amongst +the treasures of his own first youth, the first-fruits of his ardent +young labour, and he went out, not conscious of how he quivered until he +was on his way up-town. What an ass he was! No doubt the stuff was +rubbish! What could he hope to attain without study and long +apprenticeship? Why, he was nothing more than a boy. Cedersholm had been +decent not to laugh in his face--Cedersholm's had been at once the +kindest and the cruelest criticism. He called himself a thousand times a +fool. He had no talent, he was marked for failure. He would sweep the +streets, however, and lay bricks, before he went back to his mother in +New Orleans unsuccessful. His letters home, his excitement and +enthusiasm, how ridiculous they seemed, how fatuous his boastings before +the old ladies and little Bella! + +Fairfax passed his boarding-house and walked on, and as he walked he +recalled what Cedersholm had said the day he engaged him: "Courage, +patience, humility." These words had cooled his anger as nothing else +could have done, and laid their salutary touch on his flushed face. + +"These qualities are the attributes of genius. Mediocrity is incapable +of possessing them." He would have them _all_, every one, every one! +Courage, he was full of it. Patience he didn't know by sight. Humility +he had despised--the poor fellow did not know that its hand touched him +as he strode. + +"I ought to be thankful that he didn't kick me out," he thought. "I +daresay he was laughing in his sleeve at my abortions!" + +Then he remembered his design for the ceiling, and at the Carews' +doorstep he paused. Cedersholm had told him to draw it on the Field +ceiling. This meant that he had another chance. + +"It's perfectly ripping of the old boy," he thought, enthusiastically, +as he rang the door-bell. "I'll begin to-morrow." + +Bella opened the door to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The following year--in January--lying on his back on the scaffolding, +Fairfax drew in his designs for the millionaire's ceiling, freely, +boldly, convincingly, and it is doubtful if the eye of the +proprietor--he was a fat, practical, easy-going millionaire, who had +made money out of hog's lard--it is doubtful that Mr. Field's eyes, when +gazing upward, saw the things that Fairfax thought he drew. + +Fairfax whistled softly and drew and drew, and his cramped position was +painful to his left leg and thigh. Benvenuto Cellini came below and sang +up at him-- + + "Cielo azuro, + Giornata splendida + Ah, Maddelena," + +and told him in Italian about his own affairs, and Fairfax half heard +and less than half understood. Cedersholm came once, bade him draw on, +always comforting one of them at least, with the assurance that the work +could be taken out. + +During the following weeks, Fairfax never went back to the studio, and +one day he swung himself down when Cedersholm came in, and said-- + +"I'm a little short of money, sir." + +Cedersholm put his hand in his pocket and gave Antony a bill with the +air of a man to whom money is as disagreeable and dangerous as a +contagious disease. The bill was for fifty dollars, and seemed a great +deal to Antony; then a great deal too little, and, in comparison with +his debts, it seemed nothing at all. Cedersholm had followed up his +payment with an invitation to Antony to come to Ninth Street the +following day. + +"I am sketching out my idea for the pedestal in Central Park. Would you +care to see it? It might interest you as a student." + +The ceiling in Rudolph Field's house is not all the work of Antony +Fairfax. Half-way across the ceiling he stopped. It is easy enough to +see where the painting is carried on by another hand. He finished the +bas-reliefs at the end of March, and the fine frieze running round the +little music-room. Mr. Field liked music little and had his room in +proportion. + +Antony stood with Cedersholm in the studio where he had made his scheme +for the fountain and his first sketches. Cedersholm's design for the +base of the pedestal, designed to support the winged victory, was placed +against the wall. It was admirable, harmonious, noble. + +Fairfax had seen Cedersholm work. The sculptor wore no apron, no blouse. +He dressed with his usual fastidiousness; his eyeglass adjusted, he +worked as neatly as a little old lady at her knitting, but his work had +not the quality of wool. + +"What do you think of it, Fairfax?" + +Fairfax started from his meditation. "It's immense," he murmured. + +"You think it does not express what is intended?" Cedersholm's clever +eyes were directed at Fairfax. "What's the matter with it?" + +Without reply, the young man took up a sheet of paper and a piece of +charcoal and drew steadily for a few seconds and held out the sheet. + +"Something like this ... under the four corners ... wouldn't it give an +idea ... of life? The Sphinx is winged. Doesn't it seem as if its body +should rest on life?" + +If Cedersholm had in mind to say, "You have quite caught my suggestion," +he controlled this remark, covered his mouth with his hand, and +considered--he considered for a day or two. He then went to Washington +to talk with the architects of the new State Museum. And Fairfax once +more found the four walls of the quiet studio shutting him in ... found +himself inhabiting with the friendly silence and with the long days as +spring began to come. + + * * * * * + +He finished the modelling of his four curious, original creatures, +beasts intended to be the supports of the Sphinx. He finished his work +in Easter week, and wrote to Cedersholm begging for his directions and +authority to have them cast in bronze. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The four beasts were of heroic size. They came out of the moulds like +creatures of a prehistoric age. Benvenuto Cellini, who was to have met +his friend Antony at the foundry on the day Fairfax's first plaster cast +was carried down, failed to put in an appearance, and Fairfax had the +lonely joy, the melancholy, lonely joy, of assisting at the birth of one +of his big creatures. All four of them were ultimately cast, but they +were to remain in the foundry until Cedersholm's return. + +His plans for the future took dignity, and importance, from the fact of +his success, and he reviewed with joy the hard labour of the winter, for +which in all he had been paid one hundred dollars. He was in need of +everything new, from shoes up. He was a great dandy, or would have liked +to have afforded to be. As for a spring overcoat--well, he couldn't bear +to read the tempting advertisements, and even Gardiner's microscopic +coat, chosen by Bella, caused his big cousin a twinge of envy. Bella's +new outfit was complete, a deeper colour glowed on the robin-red dress +she wore, and Fairfax felt shabby between them as he limped along into +the Park under the budding trees, a child's hand on either arm. + +"Cousin Antony, why are there such _de_licious smells to-day?" + +Bella sniffed them. The spring was at work under the turf, the grass was +as fragrant as a bouquet. + +"Breathe it in, Cousin Antony! It makes you wish to do _heaps_ of things +you oughtn't to!" + +On the pond the little craft of the school children flew about like +butterflies, the sun on the miniature sails. + +"What kind of things does the grass cutter, shearing off a few miserable +dandelions, make you want to do, Bella? You should smell the jasmine +and the oleanders of New Orleans. These are nothing but weeds." + +"How can you say so?" she exclaimed; "besides, most of the things I want +to do are wicked, anyhow." + +"Jove!" exclaimed Fairfax. "That _is_ a confession." + +She corrected. "You ought not to say 'Jove' like that, Cousin Antony. +You can cut it and make it sound like 'Jovah,' it sounds just like it." + +"What wicked things do you want to do, Bella?" + +She pointed to the merry-go-rounds, where the giraffes, elephants, and +horses raced madly round to the plaintive tune of "Annie Laurie," ground +out by a hurdy-gurdy. + +"I'd _love_ to go on." + +Fairfax put his hand in his pocket, but she pulled it back. + +"No, Cousin Antony, please. It's not the money that keeps me back, +though I haven't any. It's Sunday, you know." + +"Oh," her cousin accepted dismally. + +And Bella indicated a small boy carrying a tray of sweets who had +advanced towards the three with a hopeful grin. + +"I'd perfectly _love_ to have some of those _lossingers_, but mother +says 'street candy isn't pure.' Besides, it's Sunday." + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Fairfax. "Do you mean to say that out here in +God's free air you are going to preach me a sermon?" + +He beckoned the boy. + +"Oh," cried Gardiner, "can't we _choose_, Cousin Antony?" + +The little cousins bent above the tray and slowly and passionately +selected, and their absorption in the essence of wintergreen, sassafras, +and peppermint showed him how much this pleasure meant to these rich +children. Their pockets full, they linked their arms in his again. + +"I have never had such fun in all my life as I do with you, Cousin +Antony," Bella told him. + +"Then come along," he suggested, recklessly. "You must ride once on the +merry-go-round." And before the little Puritans realized the extent of +their impiety, Fairfax had lifted Bella on a horse and Gardiner on an +elephant, paid their fare and started them away. He watched Bella, her +hat caught by its elastic, fallen off her head on the first round, her +cheeks flushed and her eyes like stars, and bravely her straight little +arm stretched out to catch the ring. There was triumph in her cry, "Oh, +Cousin _Antony_, Cousin Antony, I've won the ring!" + +Such flash and sparkle as there was about her, with her teeth like +grains of corn and her eyes dancing as she nodded and smiled at him! +Poor little Gardiner! Antony paid for him again and patted him on the +back. There was a pathos about the mild, sweet little face and in the +timid, ineffectual arm, too short and too weak to snap the iron ring on +to his sword. Bella rode till "Annie Laurie" changed to "Way down upon +de Swanee river," and Fairfax's heart beat for Louisiana, and he had +come to the end of his nickels. He lifted the children down. + +Bella now wound both arms firmly in her cousin's, and clung to him. + +"Think of it, I never rode before, never! All the children on the block +have, though. Isn't it perfectly delightful, Cousin Antony? I _wish_ +your legs weren't so long." + +"Cousin Antony," asked little Gardiner, "couldn't we go over to the +animals and see the seals fall off and dwown themselves?" + +They saw the lion in his lair and the "tiger, tiger burning bright," and +the shining, slippery seals, and they made an absorbed group at the +nettings where Antony discoursed about the animals as he discoursed +about art, and Spartacus talked to them about the wild beast show in +Cćsar's arena. His audience shivered at his side. + +They walked up the big driveway, and Fairfax saw for the first time the +Mall, and observed that the earth was turned up round a square some +twelve feet by twelve. He half heard the children at his side; his eyes +were fastened on the excavation for the pedestal of the Sphinx; the +stone base would soon be raised there, and then his beasts would be +poised. + +"Let's walk over to the Mall, children." + +Along the walk the small goat carriages were drawn up with their teams; +little landaus, fairy-like for small folk to drive in. Fairfax stood +before the cavity in the earth and the scaffolding left by the workmen. +He was conscious of his little friends at length by the dragging on his +arms of their too affectionate weight. "Cousin Antony." + +Fairfax waved to the vacant spot. "Oh, Egypt, Egypt," he began, in his +"recitation voice," a voice that promised treats at home, but that +palled in the sunny open, with goat rides in the fore-ground. + + "Out of the soft, smooth coral of thy sands, + Out of thy Nilus tide, out of thy heart, + Such dreams have come, such mighty splendours----" + +"Bella, do you see that harmonious square?" + +"Yes," she answered casually, with a lack lustre. "And do you see the +_goats_?" + +"Goats, Bella! I see a pedestal some ten feet high, and on it at its +four corners, before they poise the Sphinx--what do you think I see, +Bella?" + +"... Cousin Antony, that boy there has the _sweetest goats_. They're +_almost_ clean! Too dear for anything! With such cunning noses!" + +He dropped his arm and put his hand on the little girl's shoulder and +turned her round. + +"I'm disappointed in you for the first time, honey," he said. + +"Oh, Cousin _Antony_." + +"Little cousin, this is where my creatures, my beautiful bronze +creatures, are to be eternally set--there, there before your eyes." He +pointed to the blue May air. + +"Cousin Antony," said Gardiner's slow voice, "the only thing I'm not too +tired to do is to wide in a goat carwage." + +Fairfax lifted the little boy in his arms. "If I lift you, Gardiner, +like this, high in my arms, you could just about see the top of the +pedestal. Wait till it's unveiled, my hearties! Wait--wait!" + +He put Gardiner down with a laugh and a happy sigh, and then he saw the +goats. + +"Do you want a ride, children?" + +"_Did_ they!" + +He ran his hands through the pockets that had been wantonly emptied. + +"Not a picayune, honey. Your poor old cousin is dead broke." + +"Then," said Bella, practically, "let's go right away from here, Cousin +Antony. I can't bear to look at those goats another minute. It hurts." + +Fairfax regarded her thoughtfully. "Bella the Desirous," he murmured. +"What are you going to be when you grow up, little cousin?" + +They started slowly away from temptation, away from the vision of the +pedestal and the shadowy creatures, and the apparition of the Sphinx +seemed to brood over them as they went, and nothing but a Sphinx's +wisdom could have answered the question Fairfax put: "What are you going +to be when you grow up, little Bella?" + +Fairfax soon carried the little boy, and Bella in a whisper said-- + +"He is almost too small for our parties, Cousin Antony." + +"Not a bit," said the limping cousin, stoically. "We couldn't get on +without him, could we, old chap?" + +But the old chap didn't answer, for he had fallen asleep as soon as his +head touched his cousin's shoulder. + +When Fairfax left them at their door, he was surprised at Bella's +melancholy. She held out to him the sticky remnant of the roll of +lozenges. + +"Please take it. I shouldn't be allowed to eat it." + +"But what on earth's the matter?" he asked. + +"Never mind," she said heroically, "you don't have to bear it. You're +Episcopalian; but _I've got to tell_!" She sighed heavily. "I don't care; +it was worth it!" + +As the door clicked behind the children, Fairfax laughed. + +"What a little trump she is! She thinks the game is worth the candle!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +That miserable foot of his gave him pain. The unusual strain of standing +long at his work, the tramps he took to save car-fare, wearied him, and +he was finally laid up for ten days. No one missed him, apparently, and +the long, painful hours dragged, and he saw no one but his little +landladies. His mother, as if she knew, sent him extra money and +wonderful letters breathing pride in him and confidence in his success. +When he was finally up and setting forth again to the studio, a visitor +was announced. Fairfax thought of Benvenuto--(he would have been +welcome)--he thought of Bella, and not of his Aunt Caroline. + +"My dear boy, why didn't you let us know you had been ill?" + +There is something exquisite to a man in the presence of a woman in his +sick-room, be she lovely or homely, old or young. + +"This is awfully, awfully good of you, Auntie. I've had a mighty bad +time with this foot of mine." + +Mrs. Carew in her street dress, ready for an all-day's shopping, came +airily in and laid her hand on her nephew's shoulder. Fairfax thought he +saw a look of Bella, a look of his mother. He eagerly leaned forward and +kissed his visitor. + +"It's mighty good of you, Auntie." + +"No, my dear boy, it isn't! I really didn't know you were ill. We would +have sent you things from the Buckingham. Our own cook is so poor." + +She couldn't sit down, she had just run in on her way to shop. She had +something to say to him.... + +"What's wrong, Aunt Caroline?" + +His aunt took a seat beside him on the bed. Her dove-like eyes wandered +about his room, bare save for the drawings on the walls and on a chair +in the corner, a cast covered by a wet cloth. Mrs. Carew's hands clasped +over her silk bead purse hanging empty between the rings. + +"I have come to ask a great favour of you, Antony." + +He repeated, in astonishment, "Of _me_--why, Auntie, anything that I can +do...." + +Mrs. Carew's slender figure undulated, the sculptor thought. She made +him think of a swan--of a lily. Her pale, ineffectual features had an +old-fashioned loveliness. He put his hand over his aunt's. He murmured +devotedly-- + +"You must let me do anything there is to do." + +"I am in debt, Tony," she murmured, tremulously. "Your uncle gives me +_so_ little money--it's impossible to run the establishment." + +He exclaimed hotly, "It's a _shame_, Aunt Caroline." + +"Henry thinks we spend a great deal of money, but I like to dress the +children well." + +Her nephew recalled Bella's wardrobe. Mrs. Carew, as though she +confessed a readily-forgiven fault, whispered-- + +"I am so fond of bric-ŕ-brac, Antony." + +He could not help smiling. + +"Down in Maiden Lane last week I bought a beautiful lamp for the front +hall. I intended paying for it by instalments; but I've not been able to +save enough--the men are waiting at the house. I _can't_ tell your +uncle, I really _can't_. He would turn me out of doors." + +Over Fairfax's mind flashed the picture of the "Soul of honour" +confronted by a debt to a Jew ironmonger. His aunt's daily pilgrimage +began to assume a picturesqueness and complexity that were puzzling. + +"Carew's a brute," he said, shortly. "I can't see why you married him." + +Mrs. Carew, absorbed in the picture of the men waiting in the front hall +and the iron lamp waiting as well, did not reply. + +"How much do you need, Auntie?" + +"Only fifty dollars, my dear boy. I can give it back next week when +Henry pays me my allowance." + +He exclaimed: "I am lucky to have it to help you out, Auntie. I've got +it right here." + +The sense of security transformed Mrs. Carew. She laughed gently, put +her hand on her nephew's shoulder again, exclaiming-- + +"How _fortunate_! Tony, how _glad_ I am I thought of you!" + +He gave her all of his mother's gift but ten dollars, and as she +bestowed it carefully away she murmured-- + +"It _is_ a superb lamp, and a _great_ bargain. You shall see it lit +to-night." + +"I'm afraid not to-night, Aunt Caroline. I'm off to see Cedersholm now, +and I shan't be up to much, I reckon, when I get back." + +His visitor rose, and Fairfax discovered that he did not wish to detain +her as he had thought to do before she had mentioned her errand. She +seemed to have entirely escaped him. She was as intangible as air, as +unreal. + +As he opened the door for her, considering her, he said-- + +"Bella looks very much like my mother, doesn't she, Aunt Caroline?" + +Mrs. Carew thought that Bella resembled her father. + +As Fairfax took his car to go down to Ninth Street, he said to himself-- + +"If _this_ is the first sentimental history on which I am to embark, it +lacks romance from the start." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +At the studio he was informed by Cedersholm's man, Charley, that his +master was absent on a long voyage. + +"He has left me a letter, Charley, a note?" + +"Posted it, no doubt, sir." + +Charley asked Mr. Fairfax if he had been ill. Charley was thoroughly +sympathetic with the Southerner, but he was as well an excellent +servant, notwithstanding that he served a master whom he did not +understand. + +"I should like to get my traps in the studio, Charley." + +"Yes, Mr. Fairfax." But Charley did not ask him in. + +"I'll come back again to-morrow.... I'll find a note at home." + +"Sure to, Mr. Fairfax." + +"Benvenuto been around?" + +The Italian had sailed home to Italy on the last week's steamer. +Fairfax, too troubled and dazed to pursue the matter further, did not +comprehend how strange it all was. The doors of the studio were +henceforth shut against him, and Charley obeyed the mysterious orders +given him. There reigned profound mystery at the foundry. The young man +was sensible of a reticence among the men, who lacked Charley's +kindliness. Every one waited for Cedersholm's orders. + +The _Beasts_ were cast. + +"Look out how you treat those moulds," he fiercely ordered the men. +"Those colossi belong to me. What's the damage for casting them?" + +At the man's response, Fairfax winced and thrust his hands into his +empty pockets. + +Under his breath he said: "Damn Cedersholm for a cold-blooded brute! My +youth and my courage have gone into these weeks here." + +As he left the foundry he repeated his injunction about the care of the +moulds, and his personal tenderness for the bronze creatures was so keen +that he did not appreciate the significant fact that he was treated with +scant respect. He stepped in at the Field palace on the way up-town, and +a man in an official cap at the door asked him for his card of +admission. + +"Card of admission? Why, I'm one of the decorators here.... I reckon +you're new, my boy. I only quit working a fortnight ago." + +He was nervous and pale; his clothes were shabby. + +"Sorry," returned the man, "my orders are strict from Mr. Cedersholm +himself. _Nobody_ comes in without his card." + +The sculptor ground his heel on the cruel stones. + +He had been shut away by his concentrated work in Cedersholm's studio +from outside interests. He had no friends in New York but the children. +No friend but his aunt, who had borrowed of him nearly all he possessed, +no sympathizers but the little old ladies, no consolations but his +visions. In the May evenings, now warm, he sat on a bench in Central +Park, listlessly watching the wind in the young trees and the voices of +happy children on their way to the lake with their boats. He began to +have a proper conception of his own single-handed struggle. He began to +know what it is, without protection or home or any capital, to grapple +with life first-hand. + +"Why, _art is the longest way in the world_," he thought. "It's the +rudest and steepest, and to climb it successfully needs colossal +_genius_, as well as the other things, and it needs money." + +He went slowly back to his lodging and his hall room. Along the wall his +array of boots, all in bad condition--his unequal boots and his +deformity struck him and his failure. A mist rose before his eyes. Over +by the mirror he had pinned the sketch he liked the best. + + * * * * * + +On Sunday afternoon, in his desire to see the children, he forgot his +distaste of meeting the master of the house, and rang the bell at an +hour when Carew was likely to be at home. He had, too, for the first +time, a wish to see the man who had made a success of his own life. +Whatever his home and family were--_Carew_ was a success. Fairfax often +noted his uncle's name mentioned at directors' meetings and functions +where his presence indicated that the banker was an authority on +finance. Ever since Mrs. Carew had borrowed money of him, Fairfax had +been inclined to think better of his uncle. As the door opened before +him now he heard singing, and though the music was a hymn, it rolled out +so roundly, so fully, so whole-heartedly, that he knew his uncle must +be out. + +The three were alone at the piano, and the young man's face brightened +at the sight of the children. On either side of their mother Bella and +Gardiner were singing with delight the little boy's favorite hymn. + + "No parting yonder, + All light and song, + The while I ponder + And say 'how long + Shall time me sunder + From that glad throng?'" + +Curious how syllables and tones and inflections can contain and hold our +feelings, and how their memory makes a winding-sheet. + +Fairfax came in quietly, and the singers finished their hymn. Then the +children fell upon him and, as Gardiner said, "Cousin Antony _always +did_," he "gobbled them up." + +"You might have _told_ us you were ill," Bella reproved him. "When I +heard I made some wine jelly for you, but it wobbled away, and Gardiner +drank it." + +"It wasn't _weal_ wine," said the little boy, "or _weal_ jelly...." + +Fairfax glanced toward his aunt, unconsciously looking to her for +comfort on this trying day. + +Mrs. Carew was truly embarrassed at the sight of her creditor, but she +continued to play lightly among the hymns, and gave him up to the +children. But Fairfax was too desperate to be set aside. If there was +any comfort anywhere he was going to have it. He said to his aunt in a +voice deepened by feeling-- + +"Aunt Caroline, I'm a little down on my luck." + +The lady turned her doe-like eyes on her nephew. "My dear Tony...." + +He clenched his vigorous hands to keep down his emotion. + +"Yes. Cedersholm has turned his back on me, as far as I can see." + +With a short laugh he threw off his intense mood, thoroughly ashamed of +his weakness. + +"_Our_ branch of the family, Aunt Caroline, are unlucky all round, I +reckon." + +There was one thought uppermost in his aunt's mind. _She had no money +with which to pay her debt to him._ When there weren't lamps to buy +there were rugs and figures of _biscuit_ Venuses bending over _biscuit_ +streams. She had confessed her vice; she "adored bric-ŕ-brac." The +jumble in her mind made her eyes more vague than ever. + +"Will you go back South?" she wondered. + +He started, spread out his empty hands. "Go back to mother like this? +Auntie!" + +As ineffectual as she had been on the night of his arrival, so now Mrs. +Carew sat ineffectual before his crisis. She breathed, "My poor boy!" +and her fingers strayed amongst the keys and found the melody of the +song he loved so much. + +The young traveller at her side was too much of a man, even in his state +of despair, to have expected a woman to lift his burden. If she did, he +did not think of the money she owed him. What he wanted was a soothing +touch to be laid on his heart, and the song in which, not six weeks +before, he had nearly loved his aunt, did what she did not. + +The children had gone upstairs. Mrs. Carew sang through the first verse +of the song. As far as she was concerned nothing could have been a +greater relief. The sympathy she did not know how to give, the debt she +had never discharged, the affection she had for Antony, and her own +self-pity, Mrs. Carew threw into her voice, and it shook its tremulo +through him. + +He breathed devotedly: "Thank you, _dear_," and raised one of his aunt's +hands to his lips. + +Mr. Carew had let himself in with his latchkey, and was within a few +feet of them as his wife finished her song. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Neither Antony nor Mrs. Carew had the presence of mind to stir. Mrs. +Fairfax said of her brother-in-law that he was a "vain creature whose +pomposity stood in place of dignity." Carew, at all events, came upon a +scene which he had never supposed would confront his eyes. Before him in +his own drawing-room, a whipper-snapper from the South was kissing his +wife's hands. To Carew the South was the heart of sedition, bad morals, +lackadaisical indolence. What the South could not do for him in arousing +his distaste, the word "artist" completed. He said to his wife-- + +"Is _this_ the way you pass your Sabbath afternoons, Mrs. Carew?" + +And before she could murmur, "My _dear_ Henry--" he turned on Fairfax. + +"Can't _you_ find anything better to do in New York, sir?" He could not +finish. + +Fairfax rose. "Don't say anything you will regret, sir. I kissed my +aunt's hand as I would have kissed my mother's. Not that I need to make +excuse." + +Mr. Carew's idea of his own importance, of the importance of everything +that belonged to him, was colossal, and it would have taken more than +this spectacle, unpleasant as it was, to make him fancy his wife +harboured a sentiment for her jackanapes of a nephew. If the tableau he +had had time to observe on his way across the dining-room floor had +aroused his jealousy, that sentiment was less strong that was his anger +and his dislike. Young Fairfax had been a thorn in his side for several +weeks. + +"You are wise to make no excuses," he said coldly. "I could not +understand your sentiments. I have my own ideas of how a young man +should employ his time and carve out his existence. Your romantic ideas +are as unsympathetic to me as was this exhibition." + +Mrs. Carew, who had never been so terrified in her life, thought she +should faint, but had presence of mind sufficient to realize that +unconsciousness would be prejudicial to her, and by bending over the +keys she kept her balance. + +She murmured, "My dear, you are very hard on Antony." + +Carew paid no attention to her. "Your career, sir, your manner of life, +are no affair of mine. I am concerned in you as you fetch your point of +view" (Carew was celebrated for his extempore speaking), "your customs +and your morals into my house." + +"Believe me," said Mrs. Fairfax's son, in a choked voice, "I shall take +them out of it for ever." + +Carew bowed. "You are at liberty to do so, Fairfax. You have not asked +my advice nor my opinions. You have ingratiated yourself with my +friends, to my regret and theirs." + +Antony exclaimed violently, "Now, what do you mean by _that_, sir?" + +"I am in no way obliged to explain myself to you, Fairfax." + +"But you are!" fairly shouted the young man. "With whom have I +ingratiated myself to your regret?" + +"I speak of Cedersholm, the sculptor." + +"Well, what does _he_ say of me?" pursued the poor young man. + +"It seems you have had the liberty of his workshop for months--" + +"Yes,"--Antony calmed his voice by great effort,--"I have, and I have +slaved in it like a nigger--like a slave in the sugar-cane. What of +that?" + +The fact of the matter was that Cedersholm in the Century Club had +spoken to Carew lightly of Fairfax, and slightingly. He had given the +young sculptor scant praise, and had wounded and cut Carew's pride in a +possession even so remote as an undesirable nephew by marriage. He could +not remember what Cedersholm had really said, but it had been +unfortunate. + +"I don't know what Cedersholm has said to you," cried Antony Fairfax, +"nor do I care. He has sapped my life's blood. He has taken the talent +of me for three long months. He is keeping my drawings and my designs, +and, by God--" + +"Stop!" said Mr. Carew, sharply. "How _dare_ you use such language in my +house, before my wife?" + +Antony laughed shortly. He fixed his ardent blue eyes on the older man, +and as he did so the sense of his own youth came to him. He was twenty +years this man's junior. Youth was his, if he was poor and unlucky. The +desire to say to the banker, "If I should tell you what I thought of +_you_ as a husband and a father," he checked, and instead cried hotly-- + +"God's here, at all events, sir, and perhaps my way of calling on Him is +as good as another." + +He extended his hand. It did not tremble. "Good-bye, Aunt Caroline." + +Hers, cold as ice, just touched his. "_Henry_," she gasped, "he's +Arabella's son." + +Again the scarlet Antony had seen, touched the banker's face. Fairfax +limped out of the room. His clothes were so shabby (as he had said a few +moments before, he had worked in them like a nigger), that, warm as it +was, he wore his overcoat to cover his suit. The coat lay in the hall. +Bella and Gardiner had been busy during his visit on their own affairs. +They had broken open their bank. Bella's keen ears had heard Antony's +remark to her mother about being down on his luck, and her tender heart +had recognized the heavy note in his voice. The children's bank had been +their greatest treasure for a year or two. It represented all the +"serious" money, as Bella called it, that had ever been given them. The +children had been so long breaking it open that they had not heard the +scene below in the drawing-room. + +As Fairfax lifted his coat quickly it jingled. He got into it, thrust +his hands in the pockets. They were full of coin. His sorrow, anger and +horror were so keen that he was guilty of the unkindest act of his life. + +"What's this!" he cried, and emptied out his pockets on the floor. The +precious coins fell and rolled on every side. Bella and her little +brother, who had hid on the stairs in order to watch the effect of their +surprise, saw the disaster, and heard the beloved cousin's voice in +anger. The little girl flew down. + +"Cousin _Antony_, how _could_ you? It was for _you_! Gardiner and I +broke our bank for you. There were ten dollars there and fifty-nine +cents." + +There was nothing gracious in Fairfax's face as it bent on the excited +child. + +"Pick up your money," he said harshly, his hand on the door. "Good-bye." + +"Oh," cried the child, "I didn't know you were proud like _that_. I +didn't know." + +"Proud," he breathed deeply. "I'd rather starve in the gutter than touch +a penny in this house." + +He saw the flaming cheeks and averted eyes, and was conscious of +Gardiner's little steps running down the stairs, and he heard Bella call +"Cousin _Antony_," in a heart-rent voice, as he opened the door, banged +it furiously, and strode out into the street. + + + + +BOOK II + +THE OPEN DOOR + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +He had slept all night in a strained position between a barrel of tallow +candles and a bag of potatoes. In spite of the hardness of the potatoes +on which he lay and the odour of the candles, he lost consciousness for +a part of the night, and when he awoke, bruised and weary, he found the +car stationary. As he listened he could not hear a sound, and crawling +out from between the sacks in the car, he saw the dim light of early +dawn through a crack in the door. Pushing open the sliding door he +discovered that the car had stopped on a siding in an immense +railroad-yard and that he was the only soul in sight. He climbed out +stiffly. On all sides of him ran innumerable lines of gleaming rails. +The signal house up high was alight and the green and yellow and white +signal lamps at the switches shone bright as stars. Further on he could +see the engine-house, where in lines, their cow-catchers at the +threshold, a row of engines waited, sombre, inert horses of iron and +steel, superb in their repose. Fairfax reckoned that it must be nearly +four-thirty, and as he stood, heard a switch click, saw a light change +from green to red, and with a rattle and commotion a train rolled +in--along and away. On the other side of the tracks in front of him were +barrack-like workshops, and over the closed station ran a name in black +letters, but it did not inform Fairfax as to his whereabouts except that +he was at "West Junction." He made his way across the tracks towards the +workshops, every inch of him sore from his cramped ride. + +He always thought that on that day he was as mentally unhinged as a +healthy young man can be. Unbalanced by hunger, despair and rage, his +kindly face was drawn and bore the pallor of death. He was dirty and +unshaven, his heavy boot weighed on his foot like lead. Without any +special direction he limped across the tracks and once, as he stopped to +look up and down the rails on which the daylight was beginning to +glimmer, in his eyes was the morbidness of despair. A signalman from his +box could see him over the yards, and Fairfax reflected that if he +lingered he might be arrested, and he limped away. + +"Rome, Rome," he muttered under his breath, "thou hast been a tender +nurse to me! Thou hast given to the timid shepherd-boy muscles of iron +and a heart of steel." + +The night before he had rushed headlong from his uncle's house, smarting +under injustice, and had walked blindly until he came to the +Forty-second Street station. His faint and wretched spirit longed for +nothing but escape from the brutal city where he had squandered his +talent, crushed his spirit and made a poor apprenticeship to +ingratitude. A baggage car on the main line, with an open door, was the +only means of transportation of which Fairfax could avail himself, and +he had crept into it undiscovered, stowed himself away, hoping that the +train's direction was westward and expecting to be thrown out at any +moment. Thus far his journey had been made undiscovered. He didn't +wonder where he was--he didn't care. Any place was good enough to be +penniless in and to jump off from! His one idea at the moment was food. + +"God!" he thought to himself, "to be hungry like this and not be a +beggar or a criminal, just a duffer of a gentleman of no account!" + +He reached the engine-house and passed before the line of iron +locomotives, silent and vigorous in their quiescent might, and full of +inert power. He set his teeth, for the locomotives made him think of his +beloved beasts. A choking sensation came in his throat and tears to his +blue eyes. He thrust his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and went +on. In front of him a city street came down to the tracks, and sharp +across it cut the swinging gates which fell as Fairfax approached. +Behind him the switches snapped; another train, this time a fast +express, rushed past him. He watched it mutely; the flinging up of the +dust around the wheels, the siss and roar and wind of its passing smote +through him. It was gone. + +He limped on. The street leading down to the tracks was filthy with mud +and with the effects of the late rain. It was to Fairfax an avenue into +an empty and unknown town. Small, vile, cobbled with great stones, the +alley ran between lines of two-storied frame buildings, tenement houses +which were the home of the railroad employes. The shutters were all +closed, there was not a sign of life. Fairfax came up with the +signal-box by the swinging gate, and a man with a rolled red flag stood +in the doorway. He looked at Fairfax with little curiosity and the young +man decided not to ask him any questions for fear that his stolen ride +should be discovered. As he passed on and went into the empty street, he +mused-- + +"It is curious how we are all taking pains to escape consequences to +which we say we are indifferent. What matter is it if he _does_ arrest +me? I should at least have a cup of coffee at the station house." + +On either side of the alley through which Fairfax now walked there was +not a friendly door open, or a shutter flung back from a window. At the +head of the street Fairfax stopped and looked back upon the yards and +the tracks of the workshops. The ugly scene lay in the mist of very +early morning and the increasing daylight made its crudeness each moment +more apparent. As he stood alone in Nut Street, on either side of him +hundreds of sleeping workmen, the sun rose over the yards, filling the +dreary, unlovely outlook with a pure glory. To Fairfax's senses it +brought no consolation but the sharp suffering that any beauty brings to +the poet and the seer. It was a new day--he was too young to be crushed +out of life because he had an empty pocket, and faint as he was, hungry +as he was, the visions began to rise again in his brain. The crimson +glory, as it swam over the railroad yards, over the bridge, over the +unsightly buildings, was peopled by his ideals--his breath came fast and +his heart beat. The clouds from which the sun emerged took winged +shapes and soared; the power of the iron creatures in the shed seemed to +invigorate him. Fairfax drew a deep breath and murmured: "Art has made +many victims. I won't sacrifice my life to it." And he seemed a coward +to himself to be beaten so early in the race. + +"Muscles of iron and a heart of steel," he murmured again, "_a heart of +steel_." + +He turned on his feet and limped on, and as he walked he saw a light in +an opposite window with the early opening of a cheap restaurant. The +shutters on either side of Nut Street were flung back. He heard the +clattering of feet, doors were pushed open and the workers began to +drift out into the day. Antony made for the light in the coffee house; +it was extinguished before he arrived and the growing daylight took its +place. A man from a lodging-house passed in at the restaurant door. + +Fairfax's hands were deep in the pockets of his overcoat, his fingers +touched a loose button. He turned it, but it did not feel like a button. +He drew it out; it was twenty-five cents. He had not shaken out quite +all the children's coins on the hall floor. This bit of silver had +caught between the lining and the cloth and resisted his angry fling. As +the young man looked at it, his face softened. He went into the +eating-house with the other man and said to himself as he crossed the +door-sill-- + +"Little cousin! you don't know what 'serious' money this is!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +A girl who he judged by her frowzled hair and her heavy eyes had just +been aroused from sleep, stood behind the counter pouring hot and +steaming coffee into thick china cups. The smell to the hungry man was +divine. Fairfax's mouth watered. From the one pot the coffee came out +with milk added, and from another the liquid poured clear. Fairfax asked +for coffee with milk and a sandwich, and as the girl pushed the plate +with hunks of bread and ham towards him, he asked, "How much, please?" +The girl raised her heavy lids. Her gray eyes could have sparkled if she +had been less sleepy. She glanced at him and responded in a soft +brogue-- + +"Two cints a cup. Sandwiches two cints apiece." + +He took his breakfast over to the table where a customer was already +seated before a huge breakfast. After watching Fairfax for a few +moments, this man said to him-- + +"Got a rattling good appetite, Mister." + +"I have, indeed," Fairfax returned, "and I'm going to begin over again." + +The man wore a red shirt under his coat, his battered bowler was a-cock +on his head. Antony often recalled Sanders as he looked that morning. +His face from his neck up was clean. He exuded water and brown soap; he +had a bright healthy colour; he was a good-looking workman, but his +hands! Fairfax thought them appalling--grimed with coal. They could +never be washed clean, Fairfax reflected, and one finger on the left +hand was missing. + +"Stranger?" the man asked him. "Just going through?" + +And as Fairfax replied, he thought to himself, "He doesn't dream _how_ +strange I am and that I don't even know the name of the town." + +He asked the man, "Much going on here?" + +"Yards. Up here in West Albany it's nothing but yards and railroading." + +"Ah," nodded Fairfax, and to himself: "This is the capital of New York +State--_Albany_--that's where I am." + +And it was not far enough away to please him. + +The man's breakfast, which had been fed into him by his knife, was +disposed of, and he went on-- + +"Good steady employment; they're decent to you. Have to be, good men are +scarce." + +A tall, well-set-up engineer came to the coffee counter, and Fairfax's +companion called out to him-- + +"Got your new fireman yet, Joe?" + +And the other, with a cheerful string of oaths, responded that he had +not got him, and that he didn't want anybody, either, who wasn't going +to stay more than five minutes in his cab. + +"They've got a sign out at the yards," he finished, "advertising for +hands, and when I run in at noon I'll call up and see what's doing." + +Fairfax digested his meal and watched the entrance and exit of the +railroad hands. Nearly all took their breakfast standing at the counter +jollying the girl; only a few brakemen and conductors gave themselves +the luxury of sitting down at the table. Antony went and paid what he +owed at the counter, and found that the waitress had waked up, and, in +spite of the fact that she had doled out coffee and food to some fifty +customers, she had found time to glance at "the new one." + +"Was it all right?" she asked. + +She handed him the change out of his quarter. He had had a dime's worth +of food. + +"Excellent," Fairfax assured her; "first-rate." + +Her sleeves came only to the elbow, her fore-arm was firm and white as +milk. Her hands were coarse and red; she was pretty and her cheerfulness +touched him. + +He wanted to ask for a wash-up, but he was timid. + +"I'll be back at lunchtime," he said to her, nodding, and the girl, +charmed by his smile, asked hesitatingly-- + +"Workin' here?" + +And as Fairfax said "No" rather quickly, she flashed scarlet. + +"Excuse me," she murmured. + +He was as keen to get out of the restaurant now as he had been to cross +its threshold. The room grew small around him, and he felt himself too +closely confined with these common workmen, with whom for some reason or +other he began to feel a curious fraternity. Once outside the house, +instead of taking his way into the more important part of West Albany, +he retraced his steps down Nut Street, now filled with men and women. +Opposite the gateman's house at the foot of the hill, he saw a sign +hanging in a window, "New York Central Railroad," and under this was a +poster which read, "Men wanted. Apply here between nine and twelve." + +Fairfax read the sign over once or twice, and found that it fascinated +him. This brief notice was the only call he had heard for labour, it was +the only invitation given him to make his livelihood since he had come +North. "Men wanted." + +He touched the muscles of his right arm, and repeated "Muscles of iron +and a heart of steel." There was nothing said on the sign about +sculptors and artists and men of talent, and poets who saw visions, and +young ardent fellows of good family, who thought the world was at their +feet; but it did say, "Men wanted." Well, he was a man, at any rate. He +accosted a fellow who passed him whistling. + +"Can you tell me where a chap can get a shave in this neighbourhood? Any +barbers hereabouts?" + +The other grinned. "Every feller is his own razor in Nut Street, +partner! You can find barber shops uptown." + +"I want to get a wash-up," Fairfax said, smiling on him his light smile. +"I want to get hold of a towel and some soap." + +The workman pointed across the street. "There's a hotel. They'll fix you +up." + +Fairfax followed the man's indication, and he saw the second sign that +hung in Nut Street. It gave the modest information, "Rooms and board +three dollars a week. Room one dollar a week. All at Kenny's first-class +hotel. Gents only." Of the proprietor who stood in the doorway, and +whose morning toilet had gone as far as shirt and trousers, Antony +asked-- + +"How much will it cost me to wash-up? I'd like soap and a towel and to +lie down on a bed for a couple of hours." + +The Irish hotel-keeper looked at him. Fairfax took off his hat, and he +didn't explain himself further. + +"Well," said Patrick Kenny, "yez don't look very dirthy. Charge fifteen +cents. Pay in advance." + +"Show me up," accepted Fairfax, and put the last of Bella's charity into +the man's hand. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +That was May. Five months later, when the Hudson flowed between flaming +October shores, and the mists of autumn hung like a golden grail on the +air, Fairfax leaned out of the window of the engine-cab and cried to +another man, in another cab on the opposite track-- + +"Hello, Sanders; how's your health?" + +It was the slang greeting of the time. The engineer responded that he +was fine as silk, and rang his bell and passed on his rolling way. + +Fairfax wore a red shirt, his trousers were thick with oil and grease. +His collar, open at the neck, showed how finely his head was set upon +his shoulders, and left free the magnificent column of his throat. Down +to his neck came his crisp fair hair, just curling at the ends; his +sleeves were up to his elbows and his bare arms were dirty, vigorous and +powerful, with the muscles standing out like cords. He never looked at +his hands any more, his clever sensitive hands. He had been Joe Mead's +fireman for five months, a record ticket for Joe Mead's cab. Fairfax had +borne cursing and raging from his chief, borne them with equanimity, +feeding into the belly of his engine whatever disgust he felt. Thrown +together with these strange men of a different class, he learned new +things of life, and at first he was as amused as a child at play. He +made two dollars a day. This amply fed him and kept him, and he put by, +with a miserliness that was out of all keeping with his temperament, +every cent he could spare from the necessities of life. + +Not that Fairfax had any plans. + +From the first opening of his eyes on West Albany, when he had crawled +out of the baggage car in the dawn, he shut out his past from himself. +He crushed back even his own identity. He earned his bread by the sweat +of his brow in the real sense of the word, and for what reason he saved +his money he could not have told. He had become a day labourer, a +fireman on the New York Central road, and he was a first-rate hand. His +figure in the rude, dirty clothes, his bowler always worn on the back of +his blonde head, his limp (that big boot had gone hard with him on the +day that he applied for a job at the boss's office), all were familiar +in Nut Street by this. His voice, his smile, his rare good heart, made +him a popular companion, and he was, too, popular with the women. + +His miserable reception in New York, the bruises inflicted upon him by +Cedersholm and his uncle, had embittered Tony Fairfax to an extent of +which his humble Nut Street friends were ignorant. He didn't do them any +harm, however. If any harm were done at all--and there is a question +even regarding that--it was done to himself, for he crushed down his +ambitions, he thrust them out of his heart, and he bit the dust with a +feeling of vengeance. He had been a gentleman with talent, and his own +world had not wanted him; so he went down to the people. All that his +mother knew was that he had gone on to the north of the State, to +perfect certain branches of his art, and that it was better for him to +be in Albany. Reclining under the vines, she read his letters, smiling, +fanning herself with a languid hand. + +"Emmy, Master Tony's getting on, getting on." + +"Yas'm, Mis' Bella, I do speck he is." + +"Listen, Emmy." And Mrs. Fairfax would read aloud to the devoted negro +the letters planned, concocted, by her son in his miserable lodgings, +letters which cost him the keenest pangs of his life, kind and tender +lines; things he would have done if he could; things he had hoped for +and knew would never come true; joys he meant to bring her and that he +knew she would grow old and never see; success and fame, whose very +sound to him now was like the knell of fate. At the end of the letter he +said-- + +"I am studying mechanics. I reckon you'll laugh at me, mother, but they +are useful to a sculptor." + +And she had not laughed in the way he meant as she kissed his letter and +wet it with her tears. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +No Sunday duties took him to the yards, and washed and dressed, shaved +and brushed, he became a beautiful man of the world, in a new overcoat +and a new sleek hat, and over his hands thick doeskin gloves. He could +afford to pay for his clothes, and like this he left Nut Street every +Sunday at nine o'clock, not to see West Albany again till midnight. On +the seventh day of the week he was a mystery to his chums and his +landlady, and if any one in Nut Street had had time to be suspicious and +curious they might have given themselves the trouble of following +Fairfax. There were not many idlers, however, and no saloons. Drunkards +were unwelcome, and Sunday was a day of rest for decent hard workers. +When Antony, in his elegance, came out he used to pass between fathers +of families in their shirt sleeves, if it were warm weather, and between +complacent couples, and many of the hands slept all day. The most +curious eyes were those of Molly Shannon, the girl at the restaurant, +and her eyes were more than curious. + +Fairfax had been courteous to her, bidding her good-morning in a way +that made her feel as though she were a lady. He had been there for his +breakfast and lunch several months until finally Molly Shannon drove him +away. This she did not do by her boldness, for she was not bold, but by +her comeliness and her sex and her smile. Fairfax fed his Pride in his +savage immolation before the monster of iron and steel; by his slavery +to work he revenged himself upon his class. His Pride grew; he stood up +against Fate, and he thought he was doing a very fine thing, when his +Pride also stood up in the restaurant when he took his cup of coffee +from the red-handed girl of the people, pretty Molly Shannon from +Killarney. Fairfax went farther up the street. He found another eating +house, and later ate his sandwich on his knees at noon in the cab of his +engine. + +When Molly Shannon found that he was not coming there for his coffee any +more, she grew listless, and doled out food to the other men with a lack +of science and interest that won her sharp reproofs and coarse jokes. +From her window over the restaurant she watched Mister Fairfax as every +Sunday he went limping up the street. Molly watched him, her breast +palpitating under the common shirtwaist, and the freckles on the milky +white skin died out under the red that rose. + +"He's got a girl," she reflected; "sure, he's got a girl." + +One Sunday in October, a day of yellow sunlight and autumn air, when Nut +Street and the yards and West Albany fringed the country like the hem of +an ugly garment, Molly came down and out into the street, and at a +distance she followed Fairfax. Fairfax cut down a couple of blocks +further on to the main station. He went in and bought a ticket for +Albany. He boarded the cars, and Molly followed. + +She tracked him at a safe distance up Market Street to Eagle, and the +young man walked so slowly that it was easy to keep him in sight. The +man pursued by the Irish girl suggested nothing less than a New York +Central fireman. He looked like any other well-set-up, well-made young +gentleman out on a Sunday morning. In his fashionable coat, his +fashionable hat, Molly saw him go through the doors of a stone church +whose bells rang solemnly on the October air. + +The girl was very much surprised. + +She felt him safe even within the walls of the heathen church, and she +went directly back to Nut Street, her holiday hanging heavy on her +hands, and she went in and helped her patron wash the dishes, and +upstairs that night she stopped in her simple preparations for bed and +reddened. + +"Sure, ain't I a silly! He's went to church to _meet_ his girl!" + +Her morning's outing, the tramp and the excitement, were an unusual +strain to Molly, not to speak of her emotions, and she cried herself to +sleep. + +Fairfax sat every Sunday in the same pew. The seat was to the left of +the altar, and he sang with an ardour and a mellowness that was lost +neither on the people near him nor on the choir-master. All arts were +sympathetic to him: his ear was good and his voice agreeable. His youth, +his sacrifice, his dying art he put into his church singing, and once +the choir-master, who had taken pains to mark him, stopped him in the +vestibule and spoke to him. + +"No," Fairfax said, "I am not a musician. Don't know one note from +another, and can't learn. Only sing by ear, and not very sure at that!" + +He listened indifferently. As the gentleman spoke of art and success, +over Antony's handsome mouth there flitted a smile that had something of +iron in it. + +"I don't care for any of those things, sir," he replied. "I reckon I'm a +barbarian, a rudimentary sort of man." + +He took a certain pride and glory in his station as he talked. There was +a fascination in puzzling this mild, charming man, one of his own class, +whose very voice and accent were a relief after the conversations he +heard daily. + +"You see," he said, "I happen to be a fireman in the New York Central +yards down at West Albany." + +The quiet choir-master stared at him. "Oh, come, come!" he smiled. + +Fairfax thrust his cane under his arm, drew off his glove, and held out +his hand, looking into the other man's eyes. The musician's hand closed +over Fairfax's. + +"My dear young fellow," he said gravely, "you are a terrible loss to +art. You would make your way in the musical world." + +Fairfax laughed outright, and the choir-master watched him as others did +as he limped away, his broad, fine back, his straight figure, and +Fairfax's voice swelling out in the processional came to the musician's +mind. + +"There is a mystery about that chap," he thought. "He is a gentleman. +The Bishop would be interested." + +By contrast Sundays were delightful to Antony. Amusements possible to a +workingman with the tastes of a gentleman were difficult to obtain. +Church in the morning, a lazy stroll through the town, an excellent +dinner at the Delavan House, set Fairfax up for the week. The coloured +waiter thought his new patron was a Southerner, and suspected him of +being a millionaire. + +"Yass, sar, Mr. Kunnell Fairfax, sar." + +Antony, in a moment of heart hunger for the South, had told George +Washington his name. George Washington kept the same place for him every +Sunday, and polished the stone china plates till they glistened, +displayed for Antony all his dazzling teeth, bowed himself double, his +napkin under his arm, and addressed Antony as "Kunnell"; and Antony over +his dessert laughed in his sleeve (he took great pains to keep his hands +out of sight). After luncheon he smoked and read the papers in the +lobby, lounged about, wrote a Sunday letter to his mother, and then +loitered about through old Albany. On Sunday afternoons when it was +fine, he would choose School Street and the Cathedral close, and now, +under the falling of the yellow leaves there was a beauty in the day's +end that thrilled him hour by hour. He made these pilgrimages to keep +himself from thinking, from dreaming, from suffering; to keep his hands +from pencil and design; to keep his artist soul from crying out aloud; +to keep his talent from demanding, like a starving thing, bread that he +had no means to give. Sometimes, however,--sometimes, when the stimulus +of an excellent dinner, and a restful morning, when the cheer of George +Washington's droll devotion had died, then the young man's step would +lag in the streets of Albany, and with his hands behind his back and his +bright head bowed, he would creep musing, half-seeing where he went. + +Taking advantage of his lassitude, like peris whose wings had been +folded against Paradise, and whose forms had been leaning hard against +the gate, his ideals, his visions, would rush in upon him, and he would +nearly sink under the beating of their wings--under their voluptuous +appeal, under their imperious demand. + +On these occasions Fairfax would go home oppressed, and content himself +with a glass of milk and light food at the restaurant, and dressed as he +was even to the hat on his head, he would sink by the table in his +little room and bury his face in his hands. Then he would count up his +money. Working from May until October, he had saved only fifty dollars. +After his calculations there was no magnitude in the sum to inspire him +to new plans or to tempt him to make a fresh venture for art. He often +thought, in looking back on those days, that it was nothing but his +pride and his obstinacy that kept him there. The memory of his winter's +creations, of his work in the studio, and his beasts with their powerful +bodies and their bronze beauty, came upon him always with such cruel +resentment and made him feel so impotent against the injustice of the +great, that if drink had tempted Fairfax he would have gone to the +nearest saloon and made a beast of himself. + +The working hours were long and his employment physically exhausting, +but he embraced his duties and fell in love with the great steel and +iron creature which it was his work to feed and clean and oil. And when +he left his engine silent in the shed, the roar and the motion absent, +tranquil, breathless, and yet superb, Antony left his machine with +regret, the regret of a lover for his mistress. He was fireman to a +wild-cat engineer. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Fairfax, used to the Southern climate, found no fault with the heat of +summer, bone-racking and blood-boiling though it was; but, remembering +his past experience of winds and snow in January, he wondered how winter +would seem in the yards, endured in the cab of the engine, but his toil +had now toughened him, roughened him, and strengthened his heart of +steel. November, with its Indian summer smoothness, with its fine, +glorious light that glowed over West Albany, passed, and the year went +out in beauty and December followed, still windless and mild. But that +was the last touch of mercy. January rushed down upon them, fierce, +tempestuous, and up and down the yards, from his window, Fairfax watched +the whirling shrouds of snow sweep over the ground, cover the tracks, +and through the veil the lights flickered like candles that the snuffers +of the storm were vainly trying to extinguish. He put on an extra +flannel shirt under his red shirt; he buttoned his vest high, got into +his coat, jammed his hat on fiercely and shook himself like a reluctant +dog before going to his work. Under his window he could hear the +soughing of the wind and it sucked under the door; he was sure that he +would never be warm here again. + +"Jove!" he thought, "there will be two inches of snow inside my window +when I get back at midnight." He drove his razor into the crack to +stiffen the casement, and took an old flannel shirt and laid it along +the ledge. As he did so the storm blew a whirl of snow across the pane. + +"Siberia," he muttered to himself; "don't talk to me about Russia. This +is far enough North for me!" + +He could not have said why the thought of the children came, but its +spirit came back to him. For months he had fiercely thrust out every +memory of the children, but to-night, as the wind struck him, he thought +of their games and the last time they had played that romping sport +together. Like a warm garment to shield him against the cold he was just +going to fight, he seemed to feel Bella's arms around his neck as they +had clung whilst he rushed with her through the hall. It was just a year +ago that he had arrived in the unfriendly city of his kinsmen, and as he +thought of them, going down the narrow dark stairs of the shanty hotel, +strangely enough it was not the icy welcome that he remembered, but +Bella--Bella in her corner with her book, Bella with her bright red +dress, Bella with her dancing eyes and her eager face. + +"You've got an awfully light smile, Cousin Antony." + +The door of the hotel eating-room was open and dimly lighted. Kenny and +his wife were talking before the stove. They heard their lodger's +step--a unique step in the house--and the woman, who would have gone +down on her knees and blacked his big boot and the smaller boot, called +out to him-- + +"Ah, don't yez go out unless ye have a cup of hot coffee, Misther +Fairfax. It's biting cold. Come on in now." + +Kenny's was a temperance hotel, obliged to be by the railroad. There +were two others in the room besides the landlady and Kenny: Sanders and +Molly Shannon. They sat together by the stove. As Fairfax came in Molly +drew her chair away from the engineer. Fairfax accepted gratefully Mrs. +Kenny's suggestion of hot coffee, and while she busied herself in +getting it for him, he sat down. + +"Running out at eight, Sanders?" + +"You bet," said the other shortly. "New York Central don't change its +schedule for the weather." + +Sanders was suspicious regarding Fairfax and the girl, not that the +fireman paid the least attention to Molly Shannon, but she had changed +in her attitude to all her old friends since the new-comer first drank a +cup of coffee in Sheedy's. Sanders had asked Molly to marry him every +Sunday since spring, and he firmly believed that if he had begun his +demands the Sunday before Fairfax appeared, the girl would be Mrs. +Sanders now. + +Molly wore a red merino dress. According to the fashion of the time it +fitted her closely like a glove. Its lines revealed every curve of her +young, shapely figure, and the red dress stopped short at the dazzling +whiteness of her neck. Her skin and colouring were Irish, coral-like and +pure. Her hair was auburn and the vivid tint of her costume was an +unfortunate contrast; but her grey eyes with black flecks in them and +long black lashes, her piquant nose and dimples, brought back the +artistic mistake, as the French say. She was too girlish, too young, too +pretty not to score high above her dreadful dress. + +Fairfax, who knew why he did not eat at the coffee-house any more, +looked at the reason, and the artist in him and the man simultaneously +regarded the Irish girl. + +"Somebody's got on a new frock," he said. "Did you make it, Miss Molly?" + +"Sure," she answered, without lifting her eyes, and went all red from +her dress to her hair. + +Fairfax drank the hot coffee and felt the warmth at his heart. He heard +Sanders say under his breath-- + +"Why, I bet you could make anything, Molly, you're so smart. Now I have +a rip in my coat here; if Mrs. Kenny has a needle will you be a good +girl and mend it?" + +And Fairfax heard her say, "Sanders, leave me be." + +Since Sanders had cooled to him, Fairfax took special pains to be +friendly, for his pride shrank against having any jars here in these +quarters. He could not bear the idea of a disagreement with these people +with whom he was playing a false part. He took out a couple of excellent +cigars from his waistcoat and gave one to Kenny, who stood picking his +teeth in the doorway. + +"Thank you, Mister Fairfax. For a felly who don't smoke, ye smoke the +best cigars." + +Sanders refused shortly, and as the whistle of an engine was heard above +the fierce cry of the storm, he rose. He took the eight o'clock express +from Albany to New York. He left all his work to his fireman, jumping on +his locomotive at the last moment, always hanging round Molly Shannon +till she shook him off like a burr. Fairfax put the discarded cigar +back in his pocket. He was not due for some twenty minutes at the +engine-house, and Sanders, gloomily considering his rival, was certain +that Fairfax intended remaining behind with the girl. Indeed, Antony's +impulse to do just this thing was strong. He was tempted to take +Sanders' chair and sit down by Molly. She remained quietly, her eyes +downcast, twisting her handkerchief, which she rolled and unrolled. Mrs. +Kenny cleared away the dishes, her husband lit his cigar and beamed. +Sanders got his hat off the hook, put on his coat slowly, the cloud +black on his face. Fairfax wanted to make the girl lift her eyes to him, +he wanted to look into those grey eyes with the little black flecks +along the iris. As the language of the street went, Molly was crazy +about him. He wanted to feel the sensation that her lifted lashes and +her Irish eyes would bring. Temptations are all of one kind; there are +no different kinds. What they are and where they lead depends upon the +person to whom they come. + +"Good-night," said Sanders, shortly. "Give up the door, Kenny, will you? +You're not a ghost." + +"I'm going with you, Sanders," Fairfax said; "hold on a bit." + +Sanders' heart bounded and his whole expression changed. He growled-- + +"What are you going for? You're not due. It's cold as hell down in the +yards." + +Fairfax was looking at Molly and instinctively she raised her head and +her eyes. + +"Better give this cigar to your fireman, Sandy," Fairfax said to him as +the two men buttoned up their coats and bent against the January wind. + +"All right," muttered the other graciously, "give it over here. Ain't +this the deuce of a night?" + +The wind went down Sandy's throat and neither man spoke again. They +parted at the yards, and Sanders went across the track where his fireman +waited for him on his engine, and Fairfax went to the engine-house and +found his legitimate mistress, his steel and iron friend, with whom he +was not forbidden by common-sense to play. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +By the time he reached the engine-house he was white with snow, and wet +and warm. There was no heating in the sheds where the locomotives waited +for their firemen, and the snow and wind beat in, and on the +cow-catchers of the two in line was a fringe of white like the +embroidery on a woman's dress. The gas lamps lit the big place +insufficiently, and the storm whistled through the thin wooden shed. + +Number Ten at the side of Antony's engine was the midnight express +locomotive, to be hitched at West Albany to the Far West Limited. His +own, Number Forty-one, was smaller, less powerful, more slender, +graceful, more feminine, and Antony kept it shining and gleaming and +lustreful. It was his pride to regard it as a living thing. Love was +essential to any work he did; he did not understand toil without it, and +he cared for his locomotive with enthusiasm. + +He did not draw out for half an hour. His machine was in perfect order; +the fire had already been started by one of the shed firemen, and +Fairfax shook down the coals and prepared to get up steam. They were +scheduled to leave West Albany at nine and carry a freight train into +the State as far as Utica. He would be in the train till dawn. It was +his first night's work in several weeks, and the first ever in a +temperature like this. Since morning the thermometer had fallen twenty +points. + +His thoughts kindled as his fire kindled--a red dress flashed before his +eyes. Sometimes it was vivid scarlet, too vivid and too violent, then it +changed to a warm crimson, and Bella's head was dark above it. But the +vision of the child was too young to hold Antony, now desirous and +gloomy. His point of view had changed and his face set as he worked +about in the cab and his adjustable lamp cast its light upon a face that +was grave and stern. + +He hummed under his breath the different things as they came to him. + +"_J'ai perdu ma tourterelle._" + +Dear old Professor Dufaucon, with his yellow goatee and his broken +English. And the magnolias were blooming in the yard, for the professor +lived on the veranda and liked the open air, and in the spring there +were the nightingales. + +"_J'ai perdu ma tourterelle._" + +"First catch your hare," Antony said. "I have never had a turtle-dove, +never had a sweetheart since I fell from the cherry-tree." + +Sounds that were now familiar to him came from outside, the ringing of +the bells as the locomotives drew through the storm, the high scream of +the whistles, the roll and rumble of the wheels and the calling of the +employer to the railroad hands as they passed to their duties outside +the shed. Fairfax left Louisiana and stopped singing. He threw open the +door of his furnace, and the water hissed and bubbled in the boiler. He +opened the cock and the escaping steam filled the engine-house and mixed +with the damp air. + +Looking through the window of the cab, Fairfax saw a figure pass in +under the shed. It was a woman with a shawl over her head. He climbed +down out of the cab; the woman threw the shawl back, he saw the head and +dress. + +"Why, Miss Molly!" he exclaimed. He thought she had come for Sanders. + +She held out a yellow envelope, but even though she knew she brought him +news and that he would not think of her, her big eyes fastened on him +were eloquent. Fairfax did not answer their appeal. He tore open the +telegram. + +"I brought it myself," she murmured. "I hope it ain't bad news." + +He tore it open with hands stained with grease and oil. He read it in +the light of his cab lamp, read it twice, and a man who was hanging +around for a job felt the fireman of Number Forty-one grasp his arm. + +"Tell Joe Mead to take you to-night to fire for him--tell him I've got +bad news. I'm going to New York." + +"It's too bad," said the other cheerfully. "I'll tell him." + +Fairfax had gone flying on his well foot and his lame foot like a +jackdaw. He was out of the shed without a word to Molly Shannon. + +"Your felly's got bad news," said the man, and, keenly delighted with +his sudden luck, climbed agilely into the cab of Number Forty-one, and, +leaning out of the window, looked down on Molly. + +"He ain't my felly," she responded heavily, "he boards to Kenny's. I +just brought him the despatch, but I think it's bad news, sure enough." + +And wrapping the shawl closer over her head, she passed out into the +storm whose fringe was deepening on the cow-catchers of Number Ten and +Number Forty-one. + + * * * * * + +Sanders' big locomotive ran in from the side to the main track as +smoothly as oil, and backed up the line to the cars of the night mail. +Sanders was to start at eight o'clock, and it was a minute before the +hour. The ringing of his bell and the hiss of the steam were in his +ears. He was just about to open the throttle when a voice on the other +side called to him, and Fairfax climbed up into the cab. + +"Take me in, Sanders, old man; let me hang on here, will you? I've got +to get to New York as fast as you can take me." + +Sanders nodded, the station signal had been given. He started out, and +Antony made himself as small as possible in the only available place +between the fireman, who was one of his special pals, and the engineer. +Sanders' face was towards his valves and brakes. He pulled out into the +driving sleet, scanning the tracks under the searchlight. + +"What's up, Tony?" the fireman at his side asked him as they rolled out +into the night to the ringing of the bell. Fairfax handed him his +despatch and the fireman read it, and Fairfax answered him-- + +"A little cousin. One of my little cousins. What time are we due in New +York?" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was past midnight when Antony rushed out of the Forty-second Street +station into a blizzard of sleet and snow. He stood a second looking up +and down Madison Avenue, searching vainly for a car. There were no cabs +at the station, there was nothing in sight but the blinding storm, and +he began on foot to battle his way with the elements. It had been +snowing in New York for twelve hours. The same fierce challenge met him +that he had received the year before, and he pushed his way through the +dim streets where the storm veils wrapped the gas lamps like shrouds. He +had been on duty since six that morning, except for a few hours in the +afternoon. Every now and then he had to stop for breath and to shake the +weight of snow off his collar. He was white as wool. The houses on +either side were dark with a stray light here and there, but he knew +that farther on he should find one house lit with the light that burns +for watchers. He glowed like a gladiator, panted like a runner, and he +reached the door and leaned for breath and waited for an answer to his +ring. Like a gladiator! How he had mouthed Spartacus for them! He could +see the dancing eyes, and little Gardiner touched the muscles of his +arm. + +"Feel mine, Cousin Antony." + +Heart of steel! Well, he would need it now. + +The door was opened, he never knew by whom, and a silence met him that +was profound after the voices of the storm. He stamped his feet and +shook off the drift from without, threw off his coat, caked thick and +fairly rattling with its burden, threw off his hat, heavy and dripping, +and as he was, his heart of steel beating in him like a tender human +heart, he limped up the quiet stairs. Even then he noticed that there +were signs of a feast in the house. It should have been the annual +dinner of Mr. Carew. The odours of flowers that had died were sickening +in the heat. Smilax twisted around the balustrade of the stairs met his +work-stained hand that trembled in the leaves. On the second floor, some +one, he was not clear, but afterwards he thought it must have been Miss +Eulalie, met him and took him in. + +In the feeble sick-room light, grouped a few people whose forms and +faces go to make part of the sombre pictures of watchers; that group in +which at some time or other each inhabitant of the world takes his +place. There was one kneeling figure; the others stood round the bed. +The little bark, quite big enough to carry such a small freight thus far +on the voyage, was nearly into port. + +Bella lay close to her little brother, her dark hair and dress the only +shadow on the white bed covers. Gardiner's hair was brushed back from +his brow, he looked older, but still very small to go so far alone. +Gardiner was travelling, travelling--climbing steep mountains, white +with snow, and his breath came in short laboured sighs, fast, fast--it +was the only sound in the room. Bella had not left his side for hours, +her cheek pressed the pillow by his restless head. Her tears had fallen +and dried, fallen and dried. Bella alone knew what Gardiner tried to +say. His faltering words, his halting English, were familiar to the +sister and she interpreted to the others, to whom Gardiner, too small to +reach them, had never been very near. Twenty times the kneeling figure +had asked-- + +"What does he say, Bella? What does he want?" + +"He thinks it is a game," the little sister said; "he says it's cold, he +says he wants Cousin Antony." + +Since his summons, when Gardiner found that he must gird his little +loins for the journey, his mind had gone to the big cousin who had so +triumphantly carried him over the imaginary steeps. + +From the door, where he had been standing on the edge of the group, a +tall figure in a red flannel shirt came forward, bent down, and before +any one knew that he had come, or who he was, he was speaking to the +sick child. + +"Gardiner, little cousin, here's your old cousin Antony come back." + +Gardiner was travelling hard, but his head stopped its restless turning. +He looked up into the beloved face, whose smile shone on him and lit his +dark journey. Gardiner tried to answer the brightness of that smile, he +tried to hold out his little arms. In a sob Bella whispered-- + +"He wants Cousin Antony to carry him." + +Without removing his look of tender brightness from the traveller's +face, Fairfax murmured-- + +"I reckon I'll take him in my arms, Aunt Caroline." + +And as the steepest, coldest place came in sight to little Gardiner, he +was lifted in a warm embrace. He opened his eyes upon Antony's and with +a radiant look gave up the painful climbing to the rescuer. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Fairfax himself made many cruel Siberian journeys and voyages through +hellish tropics, on his own narrow bed in the hall room overlooking the +New York Central yards. He had something close to pneumonia and turned +and cried out on his bed, too small for his big form, and in his +delirium he kicked away the footboard. His uncle's house, which he had +left as brusquely this time as before, haunted him in his mind troubled +by sickness. He cried out that it was a cursed place and that Gardiner +had been killed by neglect, and that he shook the dust of New York from +his feet. From wild blue eyes that flamed under his hair grown long, he +stared into the space peopled by delirium and called his solitary +attendant "Bella," and begged her to come away with him before it was +too late, for, as many sick people seem to be, he was travelling. In his +case he journeyed back to his boarding-house and laid his visions down +and waked up in the same old world that had treated him badly, but which +he was not ready to leave. + +It was a sunny, brilliant January day. The snow had frozen on his window +and the light played upon gleaming bands, and through the dingy yellow +shade the sunlight came determinedly. On the table by his bedside were +his medicines and milk, and he was covered by counterpanes lent by the +other lodgers. + +He felt the perspiration pour off him as his mind found its balance, and +he saw how weak he was; but though it hurt him to breathe, he could do +so, and the crisis was past. He had fallen on his bed when he came from +New York and here he had remained. He wet his cracked lips, said +"Water," and from behind him, where she had been sitting, a girl came +and held a glass to his lips. Fairfax drank, closed his eyes, made no +sign of recognition, for he knew Molly Shannon. She wiped the sweat from +his brow and face tenderly, and though her hand had not trembled before +in her ministrations, it trembled now. Her heart was beating with +gratitude for she knew he was saved. She gave him milk and brandy, after +a few moments, then sat down to her work. Fairfax, speaking each word +distinctly, said-- + +"I reckon I've been pretty sick, haven't I?" + +"You're all right now, Misther Fairfax." + +He smiled faintly. He was indifferent, very weak, but he felt a kind of +mild happiness steal over him as he lay there, a sense of being looked +after, cared for, and of having beaten the enemy which had clutched his +throat and chest. He heard the voices of Molly and the doctor, heard her +pretty Irish accent, half-opened his eyes and saw her hat and plaid +red-and-black shawl hanging by the window. The plaid danced before his +eyes, became a signal flag, and, watching it, he drowsed and then fell +into the profound sleep which means recovery. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Fairfax took Molly Shannon's presence for granted, accepted her +services, obeyed her docilely and thanked her with his smile which +regained its old radiance as he grew stronger. Lying shaven, with his +hair cut at last--for she had listened to his pleading and sent for a +barber--in clean sheets and jacket, he looked boyish and thin, and to +the Irish girl he was beautiful. She kept her eyes from him for fear +that he should see her passion and her adoration, and she effaced +herself in the nurse, the mother, the sister, in the angel. + +Sure, she hadn't sent word to any one. How should she? Sorry an idea she +had where he came from or who were his folks. + +"I am glad. I wouldn't have worried my mother." + +And answering the question that was bounding in Molly's heart, he said-- + +"There's no one else to frighten or to reassure. I must write to my +mother to-day." + +As he said this he remembered that he would be obliged to tell her of +little Gardiner, and the blood rose to his cheek, a spasm seized his +heart, and his past rushed over him and smote him like a great wave. + +Molly sat sewing in the window, mending his shirts, the light outlining +her form and her head like a red flower. He covered his face with his +hand and a smothered groan escaped him, and he fell back on the pillow. +Molly ran to him, terrified: "a relapse," that's what it was. The doctor +had warned her. + +"God in heaven!" she cried, and knowing nothing better to do, she put +her arms round him as if he had been a boy. She saw the tears trickle +through his thin hands that in his idleness had grown white, though the +dark ridges around the broken nails were blackened still. + +Fairfax quickly regained his control and made the girl go back to her +work. After a little he said-- + +"Who's been paying for all these medicines, and so forth?" + +"Lord love ye, that's nothing to cry about." + +"There is money in my vest pocket, Molly; get it, will you?" + +She found a roll of bills. There were twenty dollars. + +She exclaimed-- + +"That's riches! I've only spent the inside of a five-dollar bill." + +"And the doctor?" + +"Oh, he'll wait. He's used to waiting in Nut Street." + +Fairfax fingered the money. "And your work at Sheedy's?" + +Molly stood by the bed, his shirt in her hand, her brass thimble on one +finger, a bib apron over her bosom. + +"Don't bother." + +"You've lost your place, Molly; given it up to take care of me." + +She took a few stitches, the colour high in her face, and with a rare +sensitiveness understood that she must not let Antony see her sacrifice, +that she must not put her responsibility on Fairfax. She met his eyes +candidly. + +"If you go on like this, you'll be back again worse nor ye were. +Sheedy's afther me ivery day at the dure there, waitin' till I'm free +again. He is that. Meanwhile he's payin' me full time. He is that. He'll +keep me me place!" + +She lied sweetly, serenely, and when the look of relief crept over +Fairfax's face, she endured it as humble women in love endure, when +their natures are sweet and honey-like and their hearts are pure gold. + +She took the five dollars he paid her back. He was too delicate in +sentiment to offer her more, and he watched her, his hands idly on the +sheets. + +"I reckon Joe Mead's got another fireman, Molly?" + +"Ah, no," she laughed, "Joe's been here every day to see when you would +be working, and when Joe don't come the other felly comes to see when +you'll let _him_ off!" + +Life, then, was going on out there in the yards. He heard the shriek of +the engines, the fine voices of the whistles, and the square of his +sunny window framed the outer day. People were going on journeys, people +were coming home. He had come back, and little Gardiner.... + +"Sit down," he said brusquely to the girl who stood at his side; "sit +down, for God's sake, and talk to me; tell me something, anything, or I +shall go crazy again." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He recovered rapidly; his hard work had strengthened his constitution, +and Molly Shannon modestly withdrew, and Mary Kenny, the landlady, who +had disputed the place from the first, took it and gave Antony what +further care he needed. He missed Molly the first day she left him, +missed her shawl and hat and the music of her Irish voice. He had sent +for books through Joe Mead, and read furiously, realizing how long he +had been without intellectual food. + +But the books made him wretched. + +Not one of them was written for an artist who had been forced by hard +luck to turn into a day labourer. All the beautiful things he read made +him suffer and desire and long, and worse still, made him rebel. One +phrase out of Werther lingered and fascinated him-- + +"The miseries of mankind would be lighter if--God knows why this is +so--if they would not use all their imagination to remember their +miseries and to recall to themselves the souvenirs of their unhappy +past." + +The unhappy past! Well, was it not sad at his age to have a past so +melancholy that one could not recall it without tears? + +Every one but Sanders came to see him, and jolly him up. Joe Mead gave +him to understand that he only lived for the time when Tony should come +back to feed "the Girl," as he called his engine. Tony looked at his +chief out of cavernous eyes. Joe Mead had on his Sunday clothes and +would not light his cigar out of deference to Tony's sick-room. + +"You're forty, Mead, aren't you?" + +"About that, I guess." + +"And I am only twenty-three," returned Fairfax. "Is that going to be a +picture of me at forty?" he thought, and answered himself violently: "My +mother's pride and mine forbid." + +"Sanders doesn't come to see me, Joe?" + +"Nope," returned the other, "you bet your life. If he ain't waiting for +you at the door with a gun when you come down it's only because he is +off on his job." + +When his chief got up to leave him, Fairfax said, "I want you to get me +a book on mechanics, Joe, practical mechanics, and don't pay over a +dollar and a half." + +He owed Molly Shannon more than he could ever return. The doctor told +him, because he imagined that it would give the young fireman +satisfaction, that the nursing had saved his life. Sanders was not at +the stair-foot when Fairfax finally crept down to take his first +outing. It was the middle of February and a mild day. Indeed, he had +been at work over a fortnight when he caught sight of Molly and Sanders +standing at the head of Nut Street, talking. + +As he came up to them, Sanders turned a face clouded with passion on +Fairfax. + +"You cursed hound!" he growled under his breath, and struck out, but +before he could reach Fairfax Molly threw herself on Sanders and caught +the blow on her arm and shoulder. In spite of her courage she cried out +and would have fallen but for Fairfax. The blow, furiously directed by +an able-bodied man, had done worse work than Sanders intended, and the +poor girl's arm hung limp and she fainted away. + +"Mother of God," muttered Sanders, "I have killed you, Molly darling!" + +Her head lay on Fairfax's shoulder. "Let's get her into the coffee +house," he said shortly. + +Sanders was horrified at the sight of the girl he adored lying like +death from his blow, and with a determination which Fairfax could not +thwart the engineer took the girl in his own arms. + +"Give her to me," he said fiercely, "I'll settle with you later. Can't +take her into the coffee house: they've turned her out on account of +you. There's not a house that would take her but the hotel. I'm going to +carry her to my mother." + +Followed by a little group of people whom Fairfax refused to enlighten, +they went down the street, and Sanders disappeared within the door of +the shanty where his family lived. + +The incident gave Antony food for thought, and he chewed a bitter cud as +he shut himself into his room. He couldn't help the girl's coming to him +in his illness. He could have sent her about her business the first day +that he was conscious. She would not have gone. She had lost her place +and her reputation, according to Sanders, because of her love for him. +There was not any use in mincing the matter. That's the way it stood. +What should he do? What could he do? + +He took off his heavy overcoat and muffler, rubbed his hands, which were +taking on their accustomed dirt and healthy vigour, poured out a glass +of milk from the bottle on his window sill, and drank it, musing. The +Company had acted well to him. The paymaster was a mighty fine man, and +Antony had won his interest long ago. They had advanced him a month's +pay on account of his illness. He brushed his blonde hair meditatively +before the glass, settled the cravat under the low rolling collar of his +flannel shirt. He was a New York Central fireman on regular duty, no +further up the scale than Molly Shannon--as far as Nut Street and the +others knew. Was there any reason why he should not marry her? She had +harmed herself to do him good. He was reading his books on mechanics, a +little later he was going to night school when his hours changed; he was +going to study engineering; he had his yard ambitions, the only ones he +permitted himself to have. + +It was four o'clock of the winter afternoon, and the sunset left its red +over the sky. Through his little window he saw the smoke of a locomotive +rise in a milky column, cradle and flow and melt away. The ringing of +the bells, the crying note of the whistles, had become musical to +Fairfax. + +There was no reason why he should not marry the Irish girl who doled out +coffee to railroad hands.... Was there none? The figure of his mother +rose before him, beautiful, proud, ambitious Mrs. Fairfax. She was +waiting for his brilliant success, she was waiting to crown him when he +should bring his triumphs home. The ugly yards blurred before his eyes, +he almost fancied that a spray of jasmine blew across the pane. + +He would write-- + +"Mother, I have married an Irish girl, a loving, honest creature who +saved my life and lost her own good name doing so. It was my duty, +mother, wasn't it? I am not striving for name or fame; I don't know what +art means any more. I am a day labourer, a common fireman on an engine +in the Albany yards--that's the truth, mother." + +"Good heavens!" He turned brusquely from the window, paced his room a +few times, limping up and down it, the lame jackdaw, the crippled bird +in his cage, and his heart swelled in his breast. No--he could not do +it. The Pride that had led him here and forced him to make his way in +spite of fate, the Pride that kept him here would not let him. He had +ambitions then? He was not then dead to fame? Where were those dreams? +Let them come to him and inspire him now. He recalled the choir-master of +St. Angel's church. He could get a job to sing in St. Angel's if he +pleased. He would run away to Albany. He had run away from New York; now +he would run from Nut Street like a cad and save his Pride. He would +leave the girl with the broken arm, the coffee-house door shut against +her, to shift for herself, because he was a gentleman. Alongside the +window he had hung up his coat and hat, and they recalled to him her +things as they had hung there. There had been something dove-like and +dear in her presence in his room of sickness. His Pride! He could hear +his old Mammy say-- + +"Massa Tony, chile, you' pride's gwine to lead yo thru black waters some +day, shore." + +He said "Come in" to the short, harsh rap at the door, and Sanders +entered, slamming the door behind him. His face was hostile but not +murderous; as usual his bowler was a-cock on his head. + +"See here, Fairfax, she sent me. She ain't hurt much, just a damned +nasty bruise. I gave her my promise not to stick a knife into you." + +Fairfax pushed up his sleeves; his arms were white as snow. He had lost +flesh. + +"I'll fight you right here, Sanders," he said, "and we'll not make a +sound. I'm not as fit as you are, but I'll punish you less for that +reason. Come on." + +Molly's lover put his hand in his pockets because he was afraid to leave +them out. He shook his head. + +"I gave the girl my word, and I'd rather please Molly than break every +bone in your ---- body, and that's saying a good deal. And here on my +own hook I want to ask you a plain question." + +"I shan't answer it, Sandy." + +The other with singular patience returned, "All right. I'm going to ask +just the same. Are you ... will you ... what the hell...!" he exclaimed. + +"Don't go on," said Fairfax; "shut up and go home." + +Instead, Sanders took off his hat, a sign of unusual excitement with +him. He wiped his face and said huskily-- + +"Ain't got a chance in the world alongside you, Fairfax, and I'd go down +and crawl for her. That's how _I'm_ about her, mate." His face broke up. + +Fairfax answered quietly, "That's all right, Sanders--that's all right." + +The engineer went on: "I want you to clear out and give me my show, +Tony. I had one before you turned up in Nut Street." + +"Why, I can't do that, Sanders," said Fairfax gently; "you oughtn't to +ask a man to do that. Don't you see how it will look to the girl?" + +The other man's face whitened; he couldn't believe his ears. + +"Why, you don't mean to say...?" he wondered slowly. + +The figure under the jasmine vine, the proud form and face of his +mother, grew smaller, paler as does the fading landscape when we look +back upon it from the hill we have climbed. + +"The doctor told me Molly had saved my life," Fairfax said. "They have +turned her out of doors in ---- Street. Now you must let me make good as +far as I can." + +The young man's blue eyes rested quietly on the blood-shot eyes of his +visitor. Sanders made no direct answer; he bit his moustache, +considered his companion a second, and clapping his hat on his head, +tore the door open. + +"You are doing her a worse wrong than any," he stammered; "she ain't +your kind and you don't love her." + +His hand whitened in its grip on the door handle, then giving one look +at his companion as though he meditated repeating his unfortunate attack +upon him, he flung himself out of the door, muttering-- + +"I've got to get out of here.... I don't dare to stay!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +By the time the sublime spring days came, Fairfax discovered that he +needed consolation. He must have been a very stubborn, dull animal, he +decided, to have so successfully stuffed down and crushed out Antony +Fairfax. Antony Fairfax could not have been much of a man at any time to +have gone down so uncomplainingly in the fight. + +"A chap who is uniquely an artist and poet," he wrote to his mother, "is +not a real man, I reckon." + +But he had not described to her what kind of a fellow stood in his +stead. Instead of going to church on Sundays he exercised in the free +gymnasium, joined a base-ball team--the firemen against the +engineers--and read and studied more than he should have done whenever +he could keep his eyes open. Then spring came, and he could not deny +another moment, another day or another night, that he needed +consolation. + +The wives and daughters of the railroad hands and officials--those he +saw in Nut Street--were not likely to charm his eyes. Fairfax waited for +Easter--waited with a strange young crying voice in his heart, a +threatening softness around his heart of steel. + +He went on rapidly with his new studies; his mind grasped readily +whatever he attacked, and his teacher, less worldly than the choir-master +at St. Angel's, wondered at his quickness, and looked at his disfigured +hands. Joe Mead knew Tony's plans and his ambitions; by June they would +give Fairfax an engine and Mead would look out for another fireman to +feed "the Girl." The bulky, panting, puffing, sliding thing, feminine as +the machine seemed, could no longer charm Fairfax nor occupy all his +thoughts. + +He had been sincere when he told Sanders that he would look out for +Molly Shannon. The pinnacle this decision lifted him to, whether felt to +be the truth or purely a sentimental advance, nevertheless gave him a +view which seemed to do him good. The night after Sanders' visit, +Fairfax slept in peace, and the next day he went over to Sanders' mother +and asked to see Molly Shannon. She had left Nut Street, had run away +without leaving any address. Fairfax did not push his chivalry to try to +find her. He slept better than ever that night, and when during the +month Sanders himself went to take a job further up in the State and the +entire Sanders family moved to Buffalo, Fairfax's slumbers grew sounder +still. At length his own restless spirit broke his repose. + +April burst over the country in a mad display of blossoms, which +Fairfax, through the cab of his engine, saw lying like snow across the +hills. He passed through blossoming orchards, and above the smell of oil +and grease came the ineffable sweetness of spring, the perfume of the +earth and the trees. Just a year ago he had gone with Bella and Gardiner +to Central Park, and he remembered Gardiner's little arm outstretched +for the prize ring he could never secure, and Bella's sparkling success. +The children had been in spring attire; now Fairfax could buy himself a +new overcoat and did so, a grey one, well-made and well-fitting, a straw +hat with a crimson band, and a stick to carry on his Sunday +jauntings--but he walked alone. + +He flung his books in the bottom drawer of his bureau, locked it and +pitched the key out of the window. He would not let them tempt him, for +he had weakly bought certain volumes that he had always wanted to read, +and Nut Street did not understand them. + +"It's the books," he decided; "I can't be an engineer if I go on, nor +will I be able to bear my lonely state." + +Verse and lovely prose did not help him; their rhythm and swell drew +away the curtains from the window of his heart, and the golden light of +spring dazzled the young man's eyes. He eagerly observed the womenkind +he passed, and Easter week, with its solemn festival, ran in hymn and +prayer toward Easter Day. New frocks, new jackets, new hats were bright +in the street. On Easter Sunday Fairfax sat in his old place by the +choir and sang. The passion and tenderness brooding in him made his +voice rich and the choir-master heard him above the congregation. From +the lighted altar and the lilies, from the sunlight streaming through +the stained windows, inspiration came to him, and as Fairfax sat and +listened to the service he saw in imagination a great fountain to the +left of the altar, a fountain of his building that should stand there, a +marble fountain held by young angels with folded wings, and he would +model, as Della Robbia modelled, angels in their primitive beauty, their +bright infancy. The young man's head sank forward, he breathed a deep +sigh. He owed every penny that he had laid by to Mrs. Kenny, to the +tailor and the doctor, and in another month he would be engineer on +probation. His inspiration left him at the church door. He walked +restlessly up to the station and with a crowd of excursionists took his +train to West Albany. Luncheon baskets, crying babies, oranges, peanuts, +and the rest of the excursion paraphernalia filled the car. Fairfax +looked over the crowd, and down by the farther door caught sight of a +familiar face and figure. + +It was Molly Shannon coming back to Nut Street for Easter. For several +months the girl had been working in the Troy collar factory, and drawn +by the most powerful of magnets was reluctantly returning to Nut Street +on her holiday. Molly had no new dress for Easter. She hadn't even a new +hat. Her long hours in the factory and her state of unhappy, unrequited +love, had worn away the crude brilliance of her form. She was pale, +thinner, and in her cheap dress, her old hat with its faded ribbon, with +her hands clasped over a little imitation leather handbag, she sat +utterly alone, as youth and beauty should never be. + +Fairfax limped down the car and took his place by her side. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Mrs. Kenny, with prodigal hospitality, took Molly in for over Sunday. +Fairfax walked alongside of her to his boarding-house, carrying the +imitation leather bag, talking to her, laughing with her, calling the +colour back and making her eyes bright. He found himself, with his young +lady, before the threshold of Kenny's hotel. "Gents only." Whether this +was the rule or an idea only, Fairfax wondered, for Molly was not the +first one of the gentler sex who had been cordially entertained in the +boarding-house! Mrs. Kenny's sister and her sister's child, her mother +and aunts three, had successively come down on the hotel during +Fairfax's passing, and been lavishly entertained, anywhere and +everywhere, even under Fairfax's feet, for he had come out one morning +from his door to find two little girls sleeping on a mattress in the +hall. + +All his lifelong Fairfax retained an adoration for landladies. They had +such tempting opportunities to display qualities that console and +ennoble, and the landladies with whom he had come in contact took +advantage of their opportunities! It didn't seem enough to wait five +weeks for a chap to pay up, when one's own rent was due, but the +landlady must buy chicken at ruinous prices when a chap was ill, and +make soup and put rice in it, and carry it steaming, flecked with rich +golden grease, put pot-pie balls in it and present it to a famishing +fireman who could do no more than kiss the hand, the chapped hand, that +brought the bowl. + + * * * * * + +"Now _wud_ ye, Misther Fairfax?" + +He would, as if it had been his mother's! + +Nut Street was moral, domestic and in proportion severe. Mary Kenny had +not been born there; she had come with her husband from the +happy-go-lucky, pig-harbouring shanties of County Cork. She was the +most unprejudiced soul in the neighbourhood. Between boarders, a lazy +husband, six children and bad debts, she had little time to gossip, but +plenty of time in which to be generous. + +"I _wull_ that!" she assured Molly. "Ye'll sleep in the kitchen on a +shakedown, and the divil knows where it'll shake _from_ for I haven't a +spare bed in the house!" + +Molly would only stay till Monday.... Fairfax put her little bag on the +kitchen table, where a coarse cloth was spread, and the steam greeted +them of a real Irish stew, and the odour of less genuine coffee tickled +their appetites. + +Molly Shannon considered Fairfax in his new Easter Sunday spring +clothes. From his high collar, white as Nut Street could white it, to +his polished boots--he was a pleasant thing to look upon. His cravat was +as blue as his eyes. His moustache was brushed carefully from his young, +well-made mouth, and he beamed with good humour on every one. + +"Shure, dinner's dished, and the childer and Kenny are up to the +cemetery pickin' vi'lets. Set right down, the rest will be along. Set +down, Misther Fairfax and Molly Shannon." + +After dinner, up in his room, the walls seemed to have contracted. The +kitchen's smoky air rose even here, and he flung his window wide to the +April sweetness. The atmosphere was too windless to come in and wrestle +with the smell of frying, but he saw the day was golden as a draught +waiting to be quaffed. The restricted schedule of Sunday cast a quiet +over the yards, and from the distance Fairfax heard sounds that were not +distinguishable in the weekday confusion, the striking of the hour from +the Catholic Church bell, the voices of the children playing in the +streets. There was a letter lying on his bureau from his mother: he had +not had the heart to read it to-day. The gymnasium was shut for repairs, +there was no ball game on for Easter Day, and, after a second's +hesitation, he caught up his hat from where he had dropped it at his +feet and rushed downstairs into the kitchen. + +Molly, her sleeves rolled up, was washing dishes for Mrs. Kenny. + +"Don't you want to come out with me for a walk?" Fairfax asked her. + +"Go along," said Mrs. Kenny, giving her a shove with her bare elbow. +"I'll make out alone fine. The suds is elegant. If you meet Kenny and +the children, tell them there's not a bit left but the lashins of the +stew, and to hurry up." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +There was a divine fragrance in the air. Fairfax stopped to gather a few +anemones and handed them to his silent companion. + +"Since you have grown so pale in the collar factory, Miss Molly, you +look like these flowers." + +He stretched out his, arms, bared his head, flung it up and looked +toward the woodland up the slope and saw the snow-white stones on the +hill, above the box borders and the cedar borders of the burial place: +above, the sky was blue as a bird's wing. + +"Let me help you." He put his hand under her arm and walked with her up +the hill. They breathed together; the sweet air with its blossomy scent +touched their lips, and the ancient message of spring spoke to them. He +was on Molly's left side; beneath his arm he could feel her fluttering +heart and his own went fast. At the hill top they paused at the entrance +to a pretentious lot, with high white shafts and imposing columns, +broken by the crude whiteness of a single marble cross. Brightly it +stood out against the air and the dark green of cedar and box. + +"This is the most perfect monument," he said aloud, "the most +harmonious; indeed, it is the only relief to the eye." + +On every grave were Easter garlands, crosses and wreaths; the air was +heavy with lilac and with lily. + +Except for a few monosyllables Molly said nothing, but now, as they +paused side by side, she murmured-- + +"It's beautiful quiet after the racket of the shops; it's like heaven!" + +Fairfax's glance wandered over the acres of monuments, marking the +marble city, and came back to the living girl at his side. + +"It's a strange place for two young people to stroll about in, Miss +Molly." + +Molly Shannon stood meekly, her work-stained hands clasped loosely +before her and in her form were the beauties of youth, virginity, +chastity, promise of life and fecundity, and, for Fairfax, of passion. + +"Ah, I don't know," she answered him slowly, "I think it's lovely and +quiet here. Back in Troy next week when we work overtime and the boss +gets mad, I'll think of it likely, I guess." + +He talked to her as they strolled, realizing his need of companionship, +and his pent-up heart poured itself forth as they walked between the +graves, and he told the Irish girl of Bella and little Gardiner, and of +his grief. + +"I don't know what I did that day," he finished. "I was a brute to my +aunt and to the little girl. I laid him down on his bed and rushed out +like a crazy man; the house seemed to haunt me. I must have been ill +then. I recall that my aunt called to me and that Bella hung on my arm +and that I shook her off. I recall that my uncle followed me downstairs +and stood by me while I got into my overcoat, but I was too savage and +too miserably proud to answer him. I left him talking to me and the +little girl crying on the stairs." + +She asked him timidly, "What had they done to make you hate them so?" +She told herself in her humility that he was a gentleman and not for +her. + +He continued, carried away by the fact of a good listener, and, although +she listened, she understood less than Benvenuto Cellini, less, even, +than the children. He came up against so many things that were +impossible to tell her that he stopped at length, laughing. + +"You see how a chap runs on when he has a friend by him, Miss Molly. Why +do you go back to the collar factory?" + +He stopped short, remembering what Sanders had said, and that Nut Street +had shut its doors against her. They had come down through the cemetery +to the main avenue that stretched, spacious and broad, between the +dwellings of the dead. They sauntered slowly side by side, an +incongruous, appealing couple. He saw her worn shoes, the poor skirt, +the hands discoloured as were his, through toil, and his glance +followed up the line of her form and his artistic sense told him that it +was lovely. Under her coarse bodice the breast gently swelled with her +breath, her eyes were downcast, and there was an appealing charm about +her that a young man in need of love could not gainsay. Pity for her had +been growing long in Fairfax--since the first day he saw her in the +coffee house, since the time when he had decided to go elsewhere for his +meals. + +She stopped at the foot of the avenue and said something was beautiful, +and he looked up. The marble figure of an angel on a grey pedestal rose +at the gate, a colossal figure in snowy marble, with folded wings and +one uplifted hand. There was a solemn majesty in the creation, a fine, +noble, holy majesty, and the sculptor halted before it so long, his face +grave and his eyes absorbed, that when Molly sighed, he started. Along +the base ran the words-- + +"_Why seek ye the living among the dead?_" + +"Come," he said brusquely to his companion; "come. This is no place for +us." And he hurried her out of the grounds. + +On the way home his silence was not flattering to his companion, who was +too meek to be offended. Already the pleasure of being by his side was +well-nigh too much for her swelling heart to bear. The lengthening +twilight filled Nut Street as they turned into it, and very nearly every +member of the little working colony was out of doors, including the +Sheedys and the new tenants of Sanders' old room. Walking alongside of +Molly Shannon, Fairfax understood what his promenade would mean. He +glanced at his companion and saw her colour, and she raised her head +with a dignity that touched him, and as they passed the Sheedys he said +"Good-evening" in his pleasant Southern voice, lifting his hat as though +they had been of his own kind. He drew the Irish girl's arm within his +own. + +For Molly, she walked a gamut of misery, and the sudden realization of +the solemnity of the thing he was doing made the young man's heart beat +heavily. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +He had been gone from home more than a year, his mother wrote. "One +cannot expect to carve a career in twelve months' time, Tony, and yet I +am so impatient for you, my darling, I am certain you have gone far and +have splendid things to show me. Are you sure that Albany is the place +for you? Would it not have been better to have stayed on with +Cedersholm? When will you run down to your old mother, dearest? I long +for the sound of your footstep, the dear broken footstep, Tony...." Then +she went on to say not to mind her foolishness, not to think of her as +mourning, but to continue with his beautiful things. She had not been +very well of late--a touch of fever, she reckoned: Emmeline took the +best of care of her. She was better. + +He let the pages fall, reading them hastily, eagerly, approaching in his +thought of her everything he had longed to be, had yearned to be, might +have been, and the letter with its elegant fine writing and the +fluttering thin sheets rustled ghost-like in his hand. As he turned the +pages a leaf of jasmine she had put between the sheets fell unseen to +the floor. + +He would go to New Orleans at once: he would throw himself at his +mother's knees and tell her his failures, his temptations, his griefs: +he would get a transfer to some Southern train, he would steal a ride, +but he would go. His mother's pride would suffer when she saw what he +had become, but he was not bringing her home a shameful story. She would +ask to see his beautiful creations--alas! even his ideals were buried +under grime and smoke, their voices drowned in whistles and bells! He +folded his arms across his breast, the last sheet of the long letter in +his hand, and again his room stifled him as it had done before when he +had flown out to walk with the Irish girl. The walls closed in upon him. +The ceiling seemed to confine him like a coffin lid, and the flickering +gas jet over his bureau burned pale like a burial candle.... + +He groaned, started forward to the door as though he would begin his +journey home immediately, but like many a wanderer who starts on his +voyage home and finds the old landmarks displaced, before Fairfax could +take the first step forward, his course was for ever changed.... He had +not heard Molly's knock at the door. The girl came in timidly, holding +out a telegram; she brought it as she had brought the other, without +comment, but with the Irish presentiment of ill, she remained waiting +silently, knowing in her humble breast that she was all he had. + +Fairfax opened the despatch, held it transfixed, gave a cry and said to +Molly, staring her wildly in the eyes: "My mother, my mother!" and went +and fell on his knees by his bed and flung his arms across it as though +across a beloved form. He shook, agonized for a few moments, then sprang +up and stared at the desertion before him, the tears salt on his face +and his heart of steel broken. And the girl by the door, where she had +clung like a leaf blown there by a wind of grief, came up to him. He +felt her take his arm between her hands, he felt her close to him. + +"It cuts the heart o' me to see ye. It's like death to see ye. Is it +your mother gone? The dear mother ye must be like? God knows there's no +comfort for that kind, but," she breathed devotedly, "I'd give the life +o' me to comfort ye." + +He hardly heard her, but her presence was all he had. Her human +companionship was all that was left him in the world. He put his hand on +her shoulder and said brokenly-- + +"You don't know what this means. It is the end of me, the end. To think +I shall never see her again! Oh, _Mother_!" he cried, and threw up his +arms. The loving woman put hers about him as the gesture left him shorn +of his strength, and when his arms fell they were around her. He held +her for a moment as a drowning man holds to that which is flung out to +him to save his life; then he pushed her from him. "Let me get out of +this. I must get out of the room." + +"You'll not do anything to yourself? Ah, tell me that." + +He snatched up his hat and fled from her without reply. + +He wandered like a madman all night long. Whither he did not know or +care. He was walking down his anguish, burying his new grief deep, deep. +His nails clenched into his palms, the tears ran over his face. One by +one as the pictures of his mother came to him, imperious, graceful, +enchanting, one by one he blessed them, worshipped before them until the +curtain fell at the end--he could not picture that. Had she called for +him in vain? Had she watched the open door to see him enter? In God's +name why hadn't they sent for him? "Suddenly of heart disease ..." the +morning of this very day--this very day. And on he tramped, +unconsciously going in the direction he had taken that morning, and at a +late hour found himself without the gates of the cemetery where he and +Molly Shannon had spent the late afternoon. The iron gates were closed; +within stretched the shining rows of the houses and palaces of the dead, +and on their snowy portals and their marble doors fell the first tender +glimmer of the day. Holding the gate between his convulsive hands, +staring in as though he begged an entrance as a lodger, Fairfax saw rise +before him the angel with the benign uplifting hand, and the lettering, +large and clear, seemed written that day for him as much as for any +man-- + +"_Why seek ye the living among the dead?_" + +He raised his eyes to the angel face on whose brow and lips the light of +his visions had gathered for him that morning; and as he looked the +angelic figure brightened in the dawn; and after a few moments in which +he remained blotted against the rails like an aspirant at Heaven's gate, +he turned and more quietly took his way home. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +He did not go South. There was nothing for him to go for. The idea of +his home uninhabited by her made him a coward. Emmeline sent him her +thimble, her lace collar, her wedding ring and a lock of her hair, +shining still and without a touch of grey. The packet, wrapped up in +soft paper and folded by jasmine leaves and buds, whose withered petals +were like a faded dress, Fairfax put away in his trunk and did not +untie; he did not wish to open his wound. And his face, thinner from his +illness and his loss, looked ten years older. The early happy ecstasy of +youth was gone, and a bitter, mature recklessness took its place, and +there was no hand to soothe him but Molly's, and she had gone back to +Troy. He tried what ways were open to a man of his age and the class he +had adopted, and he turned for distraction and relief and consolation to +their doors. But at those portals, at the threshold of the houses where +other men went in, he stopped. If his angel had deserted him, at any +rate the beast had not taken its place. The vast solitude and the cruel +loneliness, the isolation from his kind, made him an outcast too +wretched not to cry for help and too clean to wallow in order to forget +his state. His work saved his health and his brain. He made a model of +an engine in plaster and went mad over it; he set it on a shelf in his +room and when in June he drove his own engine and was an engineer on the +New York Central, he knew his locomotive, body and soul and parts, as no +other mechanic in the Company knew it. His chiefs were conscious of his +skill and intelligence. There were jealousies and enmities, and instead +of driving the express as he had hoped, he was delegated to a local on a +branch line, with an Italian for fireman who could not speak a word of +any but his own language. + +"You speak Italian, don't you, Fairfax?" his boss at the office asked +him. + +("Cielo azuro ... Giornata splendida...!") and he smelt the wet clay. + +"I can _point_," laughed the engineer, "in _any_ language! and I reckon +I'll get on with Falutini." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The boss was a Massachusetts man and new to Nut Street, and Fairfax, +when he took the paper with his orders from Rainsford's hand, saw for +the first time in months a man of his own class, sitting in the +revolving chair before the desk where his papers and schedules and +ledgers were filed. The man's clothes were too thin for the season, his +linen was old and his appearance meagre, and in his face with its sunken +cheeks, the drooping of the eyes and the thinness of the brow, were the +marks of the sea of life and its waste, and the scars of the storm. A +year ago Fairfax would have passed Rainsford by as a rather +pitiful-looking man of middle age. + +The boss, his thin hand opening and shutting over a small book which +looked like a daily ledger, regarded the engineer in his red shirt as +Fairfax paused. + +"Irish, I expect? Your name, Fairfax, is Irish. I understand you've had +a hard blow this year, been sick and lost your mother." + +At the quiet statement of this sacred fact Fairfax started painfully, +his face flushed. + +"He would not have spoken to me like that," he thought, "if he had not +imagined me a working man." + +"Work is the best friend a young man can have," Rainsford went on; "it +is a great safeguard. I take it that you are about thirty?" + +"Twenty-three," said Fairfax, shortly. + +His report was brief. Just then his fireman came in, a black-haired, +tall young fellow with whom Fairfax knew he should never sing "Mia +Maddelena." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +He avoided Rainsford, gave himself up to his engine and his train, and +took a dislike to his black-headed fireman, who dared to be Italian and +to recall the aurora of days he had buried fathoms deep. The heat +pouring on him in summer time made him suffer physically. He rather +welcomed the discomfort; his skin grew hardened and tanned and oiled and +grimed, and his whole body strong and supple; and his devotion to his +work, the air that filled him as he flew, made him the perfect, splendid +animal that he was. + +At night, when the darkness blotted out the steel rails, and the breeze +blowing through the car-window fluttered his sleeve till it bellied, and +the cinders, red and biting, whirled by, and on either side the country +lay dark and fragrant with its summery wealth--at night his eyes, fixed +on the track under the searchlight, showed him more than once a way to +end his unhappy life, but his confused reveries and his battle, +spiritual and physical, helped him, and he came out of it with a love +for life and a stronger hold upon it each time than the last. He gave up +wearing his Sunday clothes, he went as the others did; he had not been +for months to Albany or to Troy. + +One Sunday in midsummer his local did not run on the seventh day. He +considered his own image in the glass over his bureau and communed with +his reflection. The result of his musings was that he opened his trunk +and took out the precious packet; started to unfold it, turned it over +in his uncertain hands, thrust it back, set his teeth and went out to +the junction and took the train for Troy. + +He found her in the boarding-house where she was passing her Sunday, +rocking the landlady's teething baby. He bade her to come as she was, +not to fix up. The idea of a toilet which would end in a horrible frock +rasped his nerves. She detected a great change in him, simple-minded +though she was, and she tried to get him to talk and failed. Down at the +Erie Canal, by the moored boats and the motionless water, he seized her +arm and facing her, said, his lips working-- + +"I have come to ask you to marry me, Molly." + +She grew as white as the drying linen on the windless air, as the family +wash hung on the canal boat lines behind her. Her grey eyes opened wide +on Antony. + +"I'm making a good living: too much for me alone." + +He saw her try to find her voice and her senses, and with something of +his old radiance, he said-- + +"I'm a brute. I reckon I don't know how to make love. I've startled +you." + +"Ah, shure, ye don't know what ye're saying," she whispered; "the likes +o' me ain't good enough." + +"Hush, hush," he answered, "don't say foolish things." + +She gasped and shook her head. "Ye shouldn't tempt me so. It's crool. Ye +shouldn't tempt me so." + +With a self-abandonment and a humility which he never afterward forgot, +as her life and colour came back Molly said under her breath-- + +"Take me as I am, shure, if I'm the least bit of good to ye. I love ye +enough for both." + +He exclaimed and kissed her. + +Dreams of women! Visions of the ecstasy of first love, ideals and +aspirations, palpitating, holy, the young man's impassioned dream of The +Woman, the Only Woman, the notion and conception that the man of nature +and of talent and of keen imagination sleeps upon and follows and seeks +and seeks and follows all his life, from boyhood to the grave--where +were they then? + +He had brushed his aunt's cheek, he had touched her hand and trembled; +now he kissed fresh young lips that had yearned for his, and he gave his +first embrace to woman, put his arms round Molly Shannon and her young +body filled them. As she had said, she had love enough for both. He felt +a great gratitude to her, a relaxation of his tense senses, a melting of +his heart, and his tenderness was deep for her when his next kiss met +her tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +He returned to Nut Street dazed, excited but less sentimentally +miserable and more profoundly touched. He had made himself a mechanical +career; he had assumed the responsibilities of a man. He might have been +a miserable failure as a sculptor, perhaps he would be a good mechanic. +Who knows where any flight will carry a man? Making his life, married +and founding a home, he would be a factor in the world's progress, and a +self-supporting citizen. He tried to fire himself with this sacrifice. +At any rate, in order to save his body he had lost his soul--that is, +his spiritual soul. "Is not the life more than the meat?" In the +recesses of his artist's mind a voice which he had strangled tried to +tell him that he had done his soul a great, great wrong. Nevertheless, a +solemn feeling of responsibility and of manhood came upon him, a grave +quiet strength was his, and as he journeyed back to his lodgings, he did +not then regret. + +Mrs. Kenny and her husband and the children were in the kitchen as he +passed and the landlady called out something, but he did not hear for he +was half-way upstairs. As he opened the door and went into his room he +saw some one was standing by the window--no, leaning far out of the +window, very far; a small figure in a black dress. + +"Bella!" he cried. + +She flashed about, rushed at him, and for the first time since "Going to +Siberia" he felt the entwining arms. He suffered the dashing embrace, +then, freeing himself, saw her hair dark under her black hat, and that +she had grown in eighteen months, and he heard-- + +"Oh, Cousin Antony, how long you have been coming home! I have been +waiting for your engine to come under the window, but I didn't see you. +How did you get here without my seeing you?" + +If the sky had opened and shown him the vision of his own mother he +could not have been more overwhelmed with surprise. + +"Where did you come from, Bella? Who is with you?" + +She took her hat off, dropped it easily on the floor, and he saw that +her hair was braided in a great braid. She sat on the ledge of the open +window and swung her feet. Her skirts had been lengthened, but she was +still a little girl. The charming affectionate eyes beamed on him. + +"But you are like anybody else, Cousin Antony, to-day. When I saw you in +your flannel shirt I thought you were a fireman." + +At the remembrance of when she had seen him, a look of distress crossed +her mobile face. She burst out crying, sprang up and ran to him. + +"Oh, Cousin Antony, I want him so, my little brother, my little +playmate." + +He soothed her, made her sit on his bed and dried her tears, as he had +dried them when she had cried over the blackbird. + +"Who is with you, honey? Who brought you here?" + +As though she had stored up all her sorrow, as though she had waited +with a child's loyal tenderness for this moment, she wound her arms +around Fairfax's neck and brought her face close to his cheek. + +"I miss him perfectly dreadfully, Cousin Antony. Nobody took care of him +much but me. Now father is broken-hearted. You loved him, didn't you? He +perfectly worshipped you." + +"There, Bella, you choke me, honey. I can't breathe. Now tell me who let +you come. Is Aunt Caroline here?" + +She had no intention of answering him, and wiped her eyes briskly on the +handkerchief that he gave her. + +"Tobacco," she sniffed, "your handkerchief has got little wisps of +tobacco on it. I think it is perfectly splendid to be an engineer! I +wouldn't have thought so though, if I hadn't seen you in the flannel +shirt. Wouldn't you rather be a _genius_ as you used to think? Don't +you make casts any more? Isn't it _sweet_ in your little room, and +aren't the tracks mixing? How do you ever know which ones to go on, +Cousin Antony? And _which_ is your engine? Take me down to see it. How +Gardiner would have loved to ride!" + +She was a startling combination of child and woman. Her slenderness, her +grace, her tender words, the easy flow of speech, the choice of words +caught and remembered from the varied books she devoured, her ardour and +her rare brilliant little face, all made her an unusual companion. + +"Now answer me," he ordered, "who came with you to Albany?" + +"No one, Cousin Antony." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I came alone." + +"From New York? You're crazy, Bella!" + +She sat up with spirit, brought her heavy braid around over her shoulder +and fastened the black ribbon securely. + +"I lose my hair ribbons like anything," she said. "Why, I've done things +alone for years, Cousin Antony. I've been all over New York matching +things. I used to buy all Gardiner's things alone and have them charged. +I know my way. I'm going on fourteen. You dropped your telegram, the one +Miss Mitty sent you, when you rushed out that night. I found it on the +stairs." She fished it out of her pocket. "Mr. Antony Fairfax, 42, Nut +Street, West Albany. I had to watch for a good chance to come, and when +I got to Forty-second Street I just took a ticket for West Albany, and +no one ever asked me my name or address, and the people in the cars gave +me candy and oranges. At the station down here I asked the ticket man +where Nut Street was, and he said: 'Right over those tracks, young +lady,' and laughed at me. Downstairs the woman gave me a glass of +milk--and aren't the children too sweet, Cousin Antony, with so many +freckles? And doesn't she speak with a brogue just like old Ann's?" + +"This is the wildest thing I ever heard of," said her cousin. "I must +telegraph your mother and take you home at once." + +She gasped. "Oh, you wouldn't do that? I'm not going home. I have run +away for good." + +"Don't be a goose, little cousin." + +"I hate home," she said hotly, "it's lonely, and I miss my little +brother. They won't let me go to school, and mother takes lessons from +an opera singer, and there is no quiet place to read. I never go to the +Top Floor where we used to play." She clung to his hand. "Let me stay, +Cousin Antony," she pleaded, "I want to live with you." + +She coloured furiously and stopped. And Fairfax saw that she was like +his mother, and that the promises were fulfilled. Her low collar, edged +with fine lace, fell away from the pure young throat. Her mouth, piquant +and soft, half-coaxing and half-humorous, and her glorious eyes fast +losing the look of childhood, were becoming mysterious. + +"You are too big a girl," he said sternly, "to talk such nonsense. You +are too old to be so silly, Bella. Why, your people must be insane with +anxiety." + +But her people, as it turned out, were at Long Branch for the summer, +and Bella, presumably to go to the dentist, had come up to stay for a +day or two with the little Whitcomb ladies. She had chosen her time +well. + +"No one knows where I am. The Whitcombs don't know I am coming to New +York, and the family think I am with Miss Eulalie and Miss Mitty." + +"There is a train to New York," he said, "in half an hour." + +"Oh," she cried, "Cousin Antony, how horrid! You've changed perfectly +dreadfully. I see it now. You used to be fond of me. I thought you were +fond of me. I don't want to force myself on you, Cousin Antony." + +Fairfax was amazed, charmed and bewildered by her. What did Mrs. Kenny +think? He opened the door and called her, and said over his shoulder to +Bella-- + +"What did you tell the woman downstairs?" + +Bella picked her hat up from the floor and wound the elastic around her +fingers. Her face clouded. + +"Tell me," Antony urged, "what did you say to Mrs. Kenny?" He saw her +embarrassment, and repeated seriously: "For heaven's sake, Bella, tell +me." + +"No," she whispered, "I can't." + +He shrugged in despair. "Come, it can't be anything very dreadful. I've +got to know, you see." + +The bell of the Catholic Church tolled out eight o'clock. + +"Come, little cousin." + +Half-defiantly and half-shamefacedly, she raised her eyes. + +"It's rather hard to tell you," she stammered, "you seem to be so mad at +me." She put a brave face on it. "I just told them that I was engaged to +you and that I had come to marry you." And she stood her ground, her +little head held up. + +Fairfax stifled a shout, but was obliged to laugh gently. + +"Why, Bella, you are the most ridiculous little cousin in the world. You +have read too much. Now, please don't cry, Bella." + +He flung the door open and called: "Mrs. Kenny, Mrs. Kenny! Will you +come up-stairs?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Those five hours were short to him travelling back to New York. Bella +talked to Fairfax until she was completely talked out. Leaning on him, +pouring out her childish confidences, telling him things, asking him +things, until his heart yearned over her, and he stored away the tones +of her sweet gay voice, exquisite with pathos when she spoke of +Gardiner, and naďvely tender when she said-- + +"Cousin Antony, I love you better than any one else. Why can't I stay +with you and be happy? I want to work for my living too. I could be a +factory girl." + +_A factory girl!_ + +Then she fell asleep, her head on his shoulder, and was hardly awake +when they reached Miss Mitty's house and the cab stopped. + +He said, "Bella, we are home." + +She did not answer, and, big girl as she was, he carried her in asleep. + +"I wish you could make her believe it's all a dream," he said to the +Whitcombs. "I don't want the Carews to know about it. It would be far +better if she could be induced to keep the secret." + +"I am afraid you can't make Bella believe anything unless she likes, Mr. +Antony." + +No one had missed her. From the Long Branch boat she had gone directly +to the Forty-second Street station, and started bravely away on her +sentimental journey. + +The little ladies induced him to eat what they could prepare for him, +and he hurried away. He was obliged to take his train out at nine Monday +morning. + +He bade them look after bold Bella and teach her reason, and before he +left he went in and looked at the little girl lying with her face on +her hand, the stains of tears and travel on her face. + +"I told her that I had come to marry you, Cousin Antony...." + +"Little cousin! Honey child!" + +His heart was tender to his discarded little love. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Bella Carew's visit did disastrous work for Fairfax. The day following +he was like a dead man at his engine, mechanically fulfilling his +duties, his eyes blood-shot, his face worn and desperate. The fireman +Falutini bore Fairfax's rudeness with astonishing patience. Their run +was from nine until four, with a couple of hours lying off at Fonda, and +back again to Albany along in the night. + +The fatality of what he had been doing appeared to Antony Fairfax in its +full magnitude. He had cut himself off from his class, from his kind for +ever. Bella Carew, baby though she was, exquisite, refined, brilliant, +what a woman she would be! At sixteen she would be a woman, at eighteen +any chap, who had the luck and the fortune, could marry her. She would +be the kind of woman that a man would climb for, achieve for, go mad +for. As far as he was concerned, he had made his choice. He was engaged +to be married to an Irish factory girl, and her words came back to him-- + +"If I'm any good, take me as I am. You couldn't marry the likes o' me." + +Why had he ever been such a short-sighted Puritan, so little of a +worldling as to entangle himself in marriage? More terribly the sense of +his lost art had come in with the little figure he had admitted. + +When he flung himself into his room Monday morning his brain was beyond +his usual control, it worked like magic, and one by one they passed +before him, the tauntingly beautiful aerial figures of his visions, the +angelic forms of his ideals, and if under his hands there had been any +tools he would have fallen upon them and upon the clay like a famished +man on bread. He threw himself down on his lonely bed in his room +through which magic had passed, and slept heavily until Mrs. Kenny +pounded on the door and roused him an hour before his train. + + * * * * * + +At Fonda, in the shed, he climbed stiffly from his cab, his head aching, +his eyes drunk with sleep. All there was of brute in him was rampant, +and anything that came in his way would have to bear the brunt of his +unbalanced spleen. + +Falutini, a great bunch of rags in his hand, was at the side of the +engine, wiping the brass and softly humming. Fairfax heard it-- + + "Azuro puro, + Cielo azuro, + Mia Maddalena..." + +"Stop that infernal bellow," he said, "will you?" + +The Italian lifted himself upright and responded in his own tongue-- + +"I work, I slave, I endure. Now I may not sing? Macché," he cried +defiantly, "I will sing, I will." + +He threw his chest out, his black eyes on Tony's cross blue ones. He +burst out carolling-- + +"Ah Mia Maddalena." + +Fairfax struck his face; the Italian sprang at him like a cat. Falutini +was as tall as Fairfax, more agile and with a hard head. However, with +one big blow, Fairfax sent him whirling, and as he struck and felt the +flesh and blood he discovered how glorious a thing a fight is, how nerve +relaxing, and he received the other's assault with a kind of ecstasy. +They were not unequally matched. Falutini's skin and muscles were like +toughened velvet; he was the cock of his village, a first-rate boxer; +and Tony's muscles were of iron, but Fairfax was mad and gloomy, and the +Italian was desperate and disgusted, and he made the better show. + +A few men lounged in and one called out: "You darned cusses are due to +start in ten minutes." + +Fairfax just then had his arm round the Italian's neck, the close +cropped head came under his chin, and as Fairfax panted and as he smelt +the garlic that at first had nauseated him in his companion, he was +about to lay his man when the same voice that called before, yelled in +horror-- + +"Look out, for God's sake, Fairfax, he's got a knife." + +At the word, Fairfax gave a wrench, caught his companion's right hand +with his left and twisted the wrist, and before he knew how he had +accomplished it, he had flung the man and knife from him. The knife hit +Number Twenty-four and rattled and the fireman fell in a lump on the +ground. Fairfax stood over him. + +"What a mean lout you are," he said in the jargon he had learned to +speak, "what a mean pup. Now you get up, Tito, and clear out." + +The fellow rose with difficulty, white, trembling, punched a little +about the face, and breathing like a saw-mill. Some one handed the knife +to Fairfax. + +"It never was made in America. It's a deadly weapon. Ugh, you onion!" + +The Italian wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shirt sleeve and +spat out on the floor. + +Fairfax felt better than he had felt for years. He went back to his +engine. + +"Get up, Tito," he commanded his fireman; "you get in quickly or I'll +help you up. Give me the oil can, will you?" he said. And Tito, +trembling, his teeth dry between his lips, obeyed. + +Fairfax extended his hand, meeting his companion's eyes for the first +time, and said frankly-- + +"My fault. No hard feeling, Tito. Bene benissimo." + +He smiled and slapped the Italian on the back almost affectionately. +Tito saw that radiant light for the first time--the light smile. The old +gentleman had said a man could win the world with an expression like +that upon his face. + +"Keep your knife, Falutini; cut up garlic with it: don't use it on me, +amico--partner." + +They went to work without a word further on the part of either, and +Number Twenty-four slipped out on to the switch and was wedded to the +local on the main line. + +Fairfax was relieved in mind, and the morbid horror of his crisis had +been beaten and shaken out. + +"What brutes we are," he thought, "what brutes and animals. It is a +wonder that any spirit can grow its wings at any time." + +He drew up into a station and stopped, and, leaning out of his window, +watched the passengers board the train. Pluff, pluff, pant, pant. The +steal and flow and glide, the run and the motion that his hand on the +throttle controlled and regulated, became oftentimes musical to him, and +when he was morose he would not let the glide and the roll run to +familiar melodies in his head, above all, no Southern melodies. "Tramp, +tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," that was the favourite with Number +Twenty-four. He had used to whistle it as he modelled in his room in New +Orleans, where the vines grew around his window and Maris made molasses +cake and brought it up hot when the syrup was thick on the side, and +downstairs a voice would call, "Emmeline, oh, Emmeline." That sacred +voice...! When Number Twenty-four was doing her thirty miles an hour, +that was the maximum speed of the local, her wheels were inclined to +sing-- + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton, + Among thy green braes: + Flow gently, I'll sing thee + A song in thy praise. + My Mary's asleep + By thy murmuring stream, + Flow gently, sweet Afton, + Disturb not her dream." + +And little Gardiner leaned hard against his arm and Bella ran upstairs +to escape the music because she did not like to cry, and his aunt's +dove-like eyes reproached him for his brutal flight. He would not hear +any ballads; but to-night, no sooner had he rolled out again into the +open country than he began to hum unconsciously the first tune the +wheels suggested. They were between the harvest fields and in the +moonlight lay the grain left by the reapers. + + "Cielo azuro + Giornata splendida, + Mia Maddalena." + +Fairfax laughed when he recognized it. He glanced over at Falutini who +was leaning out of his window dejectedly. At the next station, whilst +the engine let off steam, Fairfax called to his fireman, and the man, as +he turned his face to his chief, looked more miserably homesick than +revengeful. + +"_I_ used to know a chap from Italy!" Fairfax said in his halting +Italian, "a molto bravo diavolo. Shake her down, Tito, and brace her up +a little, will you?" + +The fireman bent to the furnace, its blast red on his face; from under +the belly of the engine the sparks sang as they fell into the water +gutter along the track. + +"My chap was a marble cutter from Carrara." + +Tito banged the door of the furnace. "_I_ too am from Carrara." + +"Good!" cried Fairfax, "good enough." And to himself he said: "I'll be +darned if I ever knew Benvenuto Cellini's real name!" + +"Carrara," continued his companion, "is small. He may have been a +cousin. What was his name?" + +"Benvenuto Cellini," replied Tony, easily, and rang his bell. + +Once more they rolled out into the night. As they drove through the +country Fairfax saw the early moonlight lie along the tracks, sifting +from the heavens like a luminous snow. No breeze stirred and over the +grain fields the atmosphere hung hot and heavy, and they rushed through +a sea of heat and wheat and harvest smells. The wind of their going made +a stir, and as Fairfax peered out from his window his head was blown +upon by the wind of the speed. + +Falutini from his side of the cab said, "Benvenuto Cellini. That is not +a Carrara man, no, no." + +"I never knew him by any other name," said the engineer. "I like +Italians." He threw this cheerfully over his shoulder at his inferior. + +There was a childlike and confiding smile on the Italian's face; brutal +as all Italian peasants are, brutal but kindly and unsuspicious as a +child, ready to love and ready to hate. + +"Only you mustn't use your knife; it's not well thought of in America. +You'll get sent to gaol." + +The Limited whistled from around a curve, came roaring toward them, tore +past them, cutting the air, and Fairfax's local plugged along when the +mile-a-minute left them. Tony was conscious that as he hummed the sound +grew full and louder; he was accompanied by a voice more assured than +his own, and in melodious fraternity the two men sang together. So they +took their train in. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +The Kennys did not know what had happened to Misther Fairfax. He sang on +the stairs now and again as he had done when he first came to Nut +Street. He bought the children sweet Jackson balls and the baby nearly +died from "wan in its troat," and his mother picked him up by his socks +and rattled the sticky sweet out of the child's larynx, and the cat +finished it. + +Tony's foreman was asked in to have supper and a late cup of coffee, and +Miss Cora Kenny, whom "Pop" had sent to the Troy convent the first week +of Antony's appearance in the Gents' Boarding and Lodging House, came +home for a Catholic holiday, and she helped her mother. They made +macaroni for Tito Falutini--"high Falutini," as Mrs. Kenny called him. +The name stuck, and the macaroni stuck as well, fast to the plate; but +the Italian, in bashful gratitude, his eyes suffused with smoke and +tears, ate gratefully, gesticulating his satisfaction, and Cora Kenny +studied him from the stove where she slaved to tempt the appetites of +Fairfax and his friend. + +Fairfax was proud of Falutini: he was not an ordinary acquaintance; he +sang after supper, standing stiffly in a corner of the kitchen, his red +shirt well opened at the throat, and his moustache like black velvet +above his red lips. + +"He sings betther than the theayter, Misther Fairfax," Mr. Kenny said; +"it makes yer eyes thrick ye," and blew his nose, and Cora asked the +singer softly if he could give them "When the band begins to play," or +"Gallagher's Daughter Belle." Tito smiled hopefully, and when Fairfax +laughingly translated, assured Cora Kenny by means of Fairfax again, +that if determination could make a man learn a foreign song, he would +sing her "Gallagher's Daughter Belle" next Saturday night. + +"Ah," she breathed, "she'd not be home then!" + +"No," said Kenny, who was a lazy husband but a remarkable father, "that +she _wud_ not!" + +The Italian fireman and the Irish lodging-house keeper's daughter gazed +in each other's eyes. "Gallagher's Daughter Belle" ... dum ... dum ... +Fairfax hummed it, he knew it. Kenny's daughter Cora--_that_ would be +more to the point: and he thought of Molly. He had not seen her since he +had kissed her a fortnight before. Cora said she had never been bold +before, had never let herself think how jealous she was, but to-night +Mr. Tito High-Falutini's eyes made her a new woman. Cora said to her +mother over her shoulder-- + +"Shure, Molly Shannon's the onlucky gurl." + +"How's that, Cora?" + +"Lost her job." + +"No!" exclaimed Mrs. Kenny, sympathetically, "and with what doin'?" + +Shure, the foreman's daughter was a chum with Cora. The boss had made +the girl prisents of collars, and it seemed, so Bridget said--Cora with +exquisite subtlety dropped her voice, and after a second Mrs. Kenny +exclaimed-- + +"Cora, you're a bad gurl to hark to such goings on, much less belave +thim," and pushed her daughter back and brought out herself the crowning +delicacy of the feast, a dish that needed no foreign help to compose, +steaming praties cooked in their shimmies, as she expressed it. Cora sat +down by High-Falutini, Mrs. Kenny went into the next room to her +littlest children, and Kenny lit a fresh pipe, held the bowl in his +hand, and opposite his distractingly pretty little daughter kept a +thoughtful eye upon the pair. And Fairfax went upstairs two steps at a +time. + + * * * * * + +It was after eleven, dense and hot, but he had gone up eagerly. Of late, +whenever he had a few spare moments he took them, and all Sundays he +remained in his room. There was an odour in the apartment, one that +persistently rose above the tenement smells, a damp, moist, earthy +perfume, to Fairfax delicious beyond words. Mosquitoes were rampant, +but he had been brought up in a mosquito-ridden country, and he had +rigged a bit of muslin across his window, and burned Mrs. Kenny's gas +with heartless inconsideration. + +On a small wooden stool stood something covered with cloths damped night +and morning by Fairfax, and during the day by Matty Kenny, a +public-school girl of twelve years of age, a pretty, half-witted little +creature, whom of all Nut Street Fairfax liked and whom he blindly +trusted. Between school hours the little girl ran up and patted with a +sponge the mysterious image in Misther Fairfax's hall room. Tell? Ah, +shure, Misther Fairfax, cross her heart and hope to die but she'd not. +As her duties consisted in tidying Antony's room, her visits were not +remarked. Now Antony lifted off the first cloth; he drew out the stool +under the light, flung off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, loosened his +cravat, got from his drawer a small spatular instrument, and looking at +his unveiled work, meditatively wiped the dried clay from his tool. Then +he drew off the last bit of cheesecloth, uncovering a statuette modelled +in clay with great delicacy and great assurance. The gaslight fell +yellow on it and the little statue seemed to swim, to oscillate and +illumine. It was the figure of a little girl, her hair loose around her +face, holding to her cheek a dead blackbird. The art of the work was its +great sincerity, the calm, assured modelling, the tender truthfulness; +the form of the child, her dress, even her strapped shoes were only +indicated, nevertheless it was a perfect bit of realism, though crude. +But the head, the attitude, the cheek and the face, the little caressing +enfolding hands, were Greek in their perfect execution. + +A flush rose on the young man's face, his eyes brightened, he gave a +soft touch here and there with the little instrument, but he had done +all he could to this creation. It was only in perishable clay, it must +crumble and dry; how could he perpetuate it? He thought of having it +cast in terra-cotta, but how and where? The figure vacillated in the +gaslight, and taunted him with its perishability, its evanescence, +frail, transient as childhood is transient. "Bella," he mused before it, +"little cousin." His right hand had not quite lost its cunning, then? +He could construct and direct a locomotive, but he had not lost all his +skill. For what the statue proved to him, for its evidence of his living +art and his talent, he loved it, he turned it and viewed it on all +sides, whistling softly under his breath, not morbid about his tunes +now. + +Tito High-Falutini pushed the door open. "Goin' home, Tony, la Signora +Kenni has turned me out." + +Fairfax pointed to his statue. "Look. If we were in Carrara somebody +would lend me a quarry or I would steal one, and turn little Bella into +a snow image." He spoke in English, entirely uncomprehended by his +companion. He put his hand on Tito's arm. + +"Did you do that, Tony? It is valuable. In Italy we make terra-cotta +figures like that and sell them." + +"Do you think, Tito," his companion replied, "that I would sell little +Bella for a few lire, you commercial traveller?" + +Tito was acquainted with the Italian quarter, he would find some one who +baked in terra-cotta. They had brought their trades with them. Tony +could do others: a Savoyard with a hand-organ, those things were very +gentile, very brave indeed, and money, said Tito, gloating, money,--why +that would cost a dollar at least. + +Fairfax covered up the clay and pushed the stool back in its corner. + +"You can make a fool of yourself, too," he said good-humouredly, and +pushed Falutini out. "Go home and dream of Kenny's daughter Cora, and +don't forget to buy a can of crude oil and order a half dozen of those +cock-screws. Good-night." He banged the door. + +He undressed, still softly whistling, unpinned the curtain from the +window, and what there was of heat and freshness came into the room with +the mosquitoes that had huddled at the glass and the sill. He had heard +Cora Kenny's information: Molly had lost her place because she would not +do what the boss wanted. They always wanted one thing in the collar +factories. The boss was a beast. He heaved a deep sigh. He had not been +lonely the last fortnight, his work had absorbed him. There was no way +for him to go on with it, he had no time, nor means. It had brought him +near to his people, to his mother, to his kinsmen, to the child who had +died, to the one that remained. But he knew his loneliness would return, +his need of companionship, of expression and life, and he was too +healthy, too strong to be nourished by his sentimental thought of the +child-woman or to live on the sale of terra-cotta statues. He cradled +his young head with its fair hair on his arm and fell asleep, and over +the yards the harvest moon rose yellow and shone through the small +window and on Antony. He might have been a boy asleep at school, his +face looked so young and so unstained, and the same light shone on the +angel of the resurrection at the gate of the rural cemetery, on +Gardiner's little grave in Woodlawn, and on his mother's grave in New +Orleans, where the brick walls keep the coffins high above the +Mississippi's tide and silt. + +The moonlight could not penetrate to the corner where, under the damp +cloths, Bella wept over the blackbird pressed against her cheek. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Fairfax expected to find a melancholy, wet-eyed little creature with a +hard-luck story when he went to Troy, and although he knew that Molly +would never reproach him, he knew as well that he had treated her very +badly. From the day he had asked her to become Mrs. Antony Fairfax, and +heard Cora Kenny's news, he had not been near his sweetheart. His +sweetheart! Since he had read "The Idylls of the King" in his boyhood, +no woman had seemed too high or too fine for him: he had been Lancelot +to Guinevere, the Knight to the Lady: Molly Shannon had not been in any +romance he had ever read. + +He found her sitting among her lodging-house keeper's children in a room +tidied by her own hands. During her leisure, she had made herself a pink +gingham dress with small white rosebuds on it, and around her neck a low +white collar she had pinned with a tortoise-shell brooch. Her dress was +the simplest Fairfax had ever seen her wear. It was cool and plain, and +the Irish girl's milk-white skin, her auburn hair, her eyes with the +black flecks in them, her young round breast, her bare fore-arm, as she +rocked Patsy O'Brien, were charming, and her cry, as Fairfax came in, +and the hands she pressed to her heart were no less charming. + +She sprang up, her work fell to the floor: she stood deathly white and +trembling. Her emotion, her love, affected the young man very deeply. He +did not think of the obstacles between them, of her station, or of +anything as he came into Mrs. O'Brien's parlour-bedroom amongst her six +ubiquitous children and disturbed the cradle to get to Molly Shannon. He +thought of one fact only, that he had kissed her: how had he forgotten +the honey of it for a fortnight? Without so much as bidding her +good-morning, he repeated the ecstasy and kissed her. She had time to +grow faint and to regain her life in his arms, and under her happy +breath she whispered: "Ah, I must quiet Patsy. Ah, let me go, he'll hurt +his throat." And she bent, blooming and heart-breakingly happy, over the +cradle. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Kenny called him as he went past the door. "Shure," she said, "I've +got bad news for ye, Misther Fairfax, dear." + +He stopped on the threshold. "There is only one death on the earth that +could give me any pain, Mrs. Kenny. I reckon it's----" + +"It's not death then," she hastened, "shure it's a little thing, but +poor Matty's that crazy that the child has gone out to her aunty's and +wurra a bit will she come home." + +"Matty!" Fairfax exclaimed. + +"Shure, the moniment in your bedroom, Misther Fairfax." + +He flew upstairs. The corner inhabited for him by a fairy companion was +empty. The image of his talent, of his little love, of his heart's hope, +had disappeared. Mrs. Kenny did not follow him upstairs as one would +have supposed that she would do. He locked his door, the cloths lay in a +pile, damp and soggy. Why had they not left the fragments--the precious +morsels? His eyes filled with impotent, angry grief; he tore his table +drawer open and found the designs which he had made for the figure. The +sketches seemed crude and poor beside the finished work whose execution +had been inspired. This destruction unchained again his melancholy. He +was overwhelmed; the accident seemed like a brutal insistence of +Destiny, and he seemed bound to the coarse, hard existence to which he +had taken in desperation. With this destruction he saw as well the +wiping out of his life of Bella. + +Ah, at Troy that day he had done more than break a clay image of her. He +opened the door as if he would have called to Mrs. Kenny, then slammed +it, unable to speak from excitement, and a dogged look crossed his face. +The night was muggy, his throat burned with a sudden thirst, and he +exulted that it did so. On his empty room, empty to him for ever, for +the figure in the corner had disenchanted it of all its horrors for +fourteen happy days and nights, he looked once and then he fled. He +threw himself down the stairs and out into the late mid-summer night. + + * * * * * + +The coloured porter at the Delavan put him to bed at one o'clock in a +comfortable room. As the fellow's black face bent above him, Tony, who +saw it blur and waver before his intoxicated eyes, murmured-- + +"Emmy, Emmy, don't tell my mother, and wake me at seven, for I run out +at nine sharp." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +The paymaster, Peter Rainsford, had found little in West Albany to +excite the tepid interest he still retained in life, but Tony Fairfax, +the driver of Number Twenty-four, had attracted his attention. Each time +that Fairfax came to report Rainsford made a vain effort to engage him +in conversation. The agent wondered what the engine-driver's story was, +and having one of his own, hoped for Fairfax's sake that there was +anything but a class resemblance between them. + +Detained late this night at his desk, he pushed back his lamp to +contemplate Tito Falutini, who, his hat pressed against his red flannel +breast, his teeth sparkling, came in to report. Tito told a tale in a +jargon which only an etymologist could have sifted into words. + +"Well, what do you think has become of him?" Rainsford asked. + +The Italian gesticulated with his hat far and wide. + +"_You_ took the train to Fonda alone, without an engineer, Falutini? How +was it the fellows didn't stop you at Fonda? It doesn't seem possible." + +The official opened a ledger and ran his eye over the names. + +"I can put Steve Brodie on Number Twenty-four to-morrow morning. You +should have reported at once in West Albany, Falutini." + +The name of Steve Brodie was intelligible to Tito. "Nota io," he said, +"not a fire for any man, only Toni." + +Rainsford wrote a few moments in his ledger. "Want me to strike your +name right off the books now, Falutini? I've a good mind to do it +anyway. You should have reported at nine this morning." + +"Want to find Fairfax," said the Italian. + +The disappearance did not speak well for the young man in whom the boss +had taken an interest. + +"Has he paid up at Kenny's?" Rainsford asked hopelessly. + +Falutini did not understand. "Signora Kenni," informed the fireman, +"mutche cri, kids mutche cri, altro." Fairfax, the fellow made Rainsford +understand, had left his clothes and belongings. + +"Ah," Rainsford thought, "it looks worse than at first." + +"No," Falutini explained, "no fight." Then he broke forth into an +explanation from which Rainsford vainly tried to create some order. +Statues and terra-cotta figures mingled with an explanation of theft of +some property of Fairfax's and his flight in consequence. + +"I'll close up here in a quarter of an hour, and go over and see Mrs. +Kenny. Steve Brodie will take your engine, and you look out for +yourself, my man, and don't get bounced when you come in to report +to-morrow." + +Rainsford saw Mrs. Kenny in the kitchen-bedroom-parlour of the +first-class hotel (Gents only). When he came in and sat down in the +midst of the Irish family Rainsford did not know that he was the second +gentleman that had crossed the threshold since the sign had swung in the +window. Mary Kenny was intelligible, charmingly so, and her account was +full of colour; and the young man's character was drawn by a woman's +lips, with a woman's tenderness. + +"Ah, wurra sor," she finished, "Oi cud go down on me knees to him if it +wasn't for Pathrick Kenny. It was an evil day when that Hitalian came to +the dure. Wud ye now?" she offered, as though she suggested that he +should view sacred relics, "wud ye feel like goin' up to his room and +castin' an eye?" + +Peter Rainsford did so, feeling that he was taking a man at a +disadvantage, but consoling himself with the thought that Fairfax's +disappearance warranted the invasion. Mrs. Kenny, the baby on her arm, +stood by his side, and called over the objects as though she were a +showman at a museum. + +"That's his bury, sor, and the best wan in the hotel, and them's his +little ornyments an' foolin's in order on the top. Matty reds his room +up, an' never a hand but mine puts his wash to rights." She pulled a +drawer open. "His beautiful starched shirts, I doos them with me own +hands and charges him as though he was me son; an' there is his +crayvats, an' over there," she pointed with her thumb, "stud the image, +bad cess to the Hitalian an' his likes, Mr. Rainsford, an' many's the +time I've stud beyont the dure an' heard him sing and whustle beautiful, +whilst he was a-carvin' of it." + +Rainsford looked at a small design pinned against the wall: he +considered it long. + +"Do ye think that he's kilt then?" asked the Irish woman. + +The paymaster returned briskly. "No, I don't think so. I hope he has not +come to any harm." + +"His readin' buks, sor," she said, "wud ye cast an eye?" + +But here Rainsford refused, and returning to his own lodgings higher up +in the town, and on a better scale, went home thoughtful, touched, and +with a feeling of kinship with the truant engineer. Before, however, he +could take any steps to look for Fairfax, a coloured man from somewhere +appeared with the request that Mrs. Kenny send all Fairfax's things. The +mysterious lodger enclosed, moreover, a week's board in advance, but no +address; nor had the coloured man any information for Nut Street, and a +decided antipathy existed between George Washington and Mary Kenny. She +was pale when she packed up Fairfax's belongings and cried into his +trunk, as she laid the drawing of Bella Carew next to the unopened +packet of his mother's treasures. She was unconscious of what sacred +thing she touched, but she was cut to the heart, as was poor Falutini. +Peter Rainsford, who had not gone far in his friendship with the elusive +Fairfax, was only disappointed. + + * * * * * + +At the close of the following Sunday afternoon, Rainsford was reading in +his room when Fairfax himself came in. + +"Why, hello, Fairfax," the paymaster's tone was not that of a +disaffected patron to a delinquent engineer. "You are just two weeks +late in reporting Number Twenty-four. But I'm sincerely glad you came, +whatever the reason for the delay." + +Rainsford's greeting was that of a friend to a friend. Fairfax, +surprised, lifted his eyebrows and smiled "thanks." He took the chair +Rainsford offered. "Why _thank_ you, Rainsford." He took a cigar which +Rainsford handed him. He was in the dress of a railroad man off duty. + +"Now I don't know anybody I've been more curious about," said the +paymaster. "Where on earth did you go to, Fairfax? You don't know how +you have mystified us all here, and in fact, me from the first." + +"There are no end of mysteries in life," said the young man, still +smiling; "I should have wondered about you, Mr. Rainsford, if I had had +either the time or the courage!" + +"Courage, Fairfax?" + +"Why yes," returned the engineer, twisting his cigar between his +fingers, "courage to break away from the routine I've been obliged to +follow." + +Fairfax saw before him a spare man of about forty years of age. The thin +hair, early grey, came meekly around the temples of a finely made and +serious brow, but the features of Rainsford's face were delicate, the +skin was drawn tightly over the high cheek-bones. There was an extreme +melancholy in his expression; when defeat had begun to write its lines +upon his face, over the humiliating stain, Resignation had laid a hand. + +"Well, I'll spare you wondering about me, Fairfax," the agent said; "I +am just a plain fellow, that's all, and for that reason, when I saw that +one of the hands on my pay-roll was clearly a gentleman, and a very +young one too, it interested me, and since I have been to Kenny's"--he +hesitated a little--"since I have heard something about you from that +good soul, why, I am more than interested, I am determined!" + +Fairfax, his head thrown back, smoked thoughtfully, and Rainsford noted +the youthfulness of the line of his neck and face, the high idealism of +the brow, the beautiful mouth, the breeding and the sensitiveness there. + +"Why, it's a crime, that's what it is. You are young, you're a boy. +Thank God for it, it is not too late. Would you care to tell me what +brought you here like this? I won't say what misfortune brought you +here, Fairfax,"--he put his nervous hand to his lips--"but what folly on +your part." + +Rainsford took for granted the ordinary reasons for hard luck and the +harvest of wild oats. + +Fairfax said, "I have no people, Rainsford; they are all dead." + +"But you have influential friends?" + +"No," said Fairfax, "not one." + +"You have extraordinary talent, Fairfax." + +The young man started. "But what makes you think that?" + +"Falutini told me." + +Fairfax laughed harshly. "Poor Tito. He's a judge, I daresay." His face +clouded, grew quite stern before Rainsford's intent eyes. "Yes," he said +slowly, "I think I have talent; I think I must have a lot somewhere, but +I have got a mighty dangerous Pride and it has driven me to a sort of +revenge on Fate, an arrogant showing of my disdain--God knows of what +and of whom!" More quietly he said: "Whilst my mother lived I could not +beg, Rainsford, I couldn't starve, I couldn't scratch and crawl and live +as a starving artist must when he is making his way. I wanted to make a +living first, and I was too proud to take the thorny way an artist +must." + +Fairfax got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked across +Rainsford's small room. It was in excellent order, plainly furnished but +well supplied with the things a man needs to make him comfortable. There +were even a few luxuries, like pillows on the hard sofa, bookshelves +filled with books and a student's lamp soft under a green shade. As he +turned back to the paymaster Fairfax had composed himself and said +tranquilly-- + +"I reckon you've got a pretty bad note against me in the ledger, haven't +you, Rainsford?" + +"Note?" repeated the other vaguely. "Oh, your bad conduct report. Well, +rather." + +"Who has got my job on Number Twenty-four?" + +"Steve Brodie." + +Fairfax nodded. "He surely does know how to drive an engine all right, +and so do I, Rainsford." + +"You mustn't run any more engines, Fairfax." + +"I don't want to come back to West Albany and to the yards," said the +engineer. + +"I haven't much influence now," Rainsford said musingly, "but I have +some friends still. I want you to let me lend you some money, a very +small sum." + +The blood rushed to Fairfax's face. He extended his hand impulsively. + +"There, Rainsford, you needn't go on. You are the first chap who has put +out a rope to me. I did have twenty-five cents given me once, but +otherwise----" + +"I mean it sincerely, Fairfax." + +"Rainsford," said the young man, with emotion in his voice, "you are a +fine brand of failure." + +"Will you let me stand by you, Fairfax?" + +"Yes, indeed," said the other, "I will, but not in the way you mean. I +reckon I must have felt what kind of a fellow you were or I wouldn't be +here. At any rate you're the only person I wanted to see. I quite +understand you can't take me back at the yards, and I don't want to +drive in and out from West Albany. Could you do anything for me at the +general company, Rainsford? Would they give me a job in Albany? I'd take +a local though I'm up to an express." + +"No," said Rainsford, "you mustn't think of driving engines; I won't +lift my hand to help you." + +"It is all I can do," returned the engineer quietly, after a second, +"all I want." Then he said, "I've _got_ to have it...." + +"Why I'll _lend_ you enough money, Fairfax, to pay your passage to +France!" + +"Stop!" cried the young man with emotion, "it's too late." + +"Nonsense," said the other warmly, Fairfax's voice and personality +charming him as it charmed others. "Why, you are nothing but a big, +headlong boy! You have committed a tremendous folly; you've got art at +your finger tips. Are you going to sweat and stew all your life in the +cab of an engine? Why, you are insane." + +"Stop," cried Fairfax again, "for the love of heaven...." + +Rainsford regarded him, fascinated. He saw in him his own lost +promises, his own lost chance; it seemed to him that through this young +man he might in a way buy back the lost years. + +"I'll _not_ stop till I have used every means to make you see the +hideous mistake you're making." + +"Rainsford," said Antony, paling, "if you had made me this offer the day +before I left Nut Street, I would have been in France by this. My God!" +he murmured beneath his breath. "_How_ I would have escaped!"--checked +himself with great control for so young a man and so ardent a man. He +was a foot taller than his desk-bowed pale companion, and he laid his +hand impulsively on his chief's shoulder. + +"If you can give me a _job_, Rainsford, do so, will you? I know I have +no right to ask you, after the way I have treated the Company, but I am +married. I have married Molly Shannon. You know her, the girl at +Sheedy's." He waited a second, looking the other man in the eyes, then, +with something of his old humour, he said, "There are two of us now, +Rainsford, and I have got to make our living." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Death does not always make the deepest graves. His art was buried +deepest of all, and there was just one interest in his life, and that +was not his wife. He was kind to her, but if he had beaten her she would +have kissed his hand; she could not have loved him better. Her life was +"just wrapped round him." He treated her as a lady, and he was a +gentleman. Her manners were always soft and gentle, coming from a sweet +good heart. She grew thinner, and her pride in him and her love for him +and her humility made Molly Fairfax beautiful. There was a great deal of +cruelty in the marriage and in their mating. It was no one's fault, and +the woman suffered the most. Their rooms were in a white frame building +with green blinds, one of the old wooden houses that remained long in +Albany. It did not overlook the yards, for Fairfax wanted a new horizon. +From her window, Molly could see the docks, the river, the night and day +boats as they anchored, and she had time to watch and know them all. +Nothing in his working life or in his associations coarsened Antony +Fairfax; it would have been better for him had it done so. She was not +married to an engineer, but to a gentleman, and he was as chivalrous to +her as though she had been the woman of his dreams; but she spent much +of the time weeping and hiding the traces from him, and in the evenings, +when he came home to the meal that she prepared each day with a greater +skill and care, sometimes after greeting her he would not break the +silence throughout the evening, and he did not dream that he had +forgotten her. His new express engine became his life. He drove her, +cared for her, oiled and tended her with art and passion. There were no +bad notes against him at the office. His records were excellent, and +Rainsford had the satisfaction of knowing that the man whom he had +recommended was in the right place. The irony of it all was that his +marrying Molly Shannon did not bring him peace, although it +tranquillized him, and kept part of his nature silent. He had meditated +as he drove his engine, facing the miles before him as the machine ate +them up, and these miles began to take him into other countries. There +was a far-awayness in the heavens to him now, and as he used to glance +up at the telegraph wires and poles they became to him masts and +riggings of vessels putting out to sea, and from his own window of his +little tenement apartment of two bedrooms and a kitchen, he watched the +old river boats and the scows and the turtle-like canal boats that +hugged the shore, and they became vessels whose bows had kissed ports +whose names were thrilling, and in the nest he had made his own, +thinking to rest there, his growing wings began to unprison and the nest +to be too small. There was no intoxication in the speed of his +locomotive to him, and he felt a grave sense of power as he regulated +and slowed and accelerated, and the smooth response of his locomotive +delighted him. She flew to his hand, and the speed gave him joy. + +At lunch time Falutini had told him of Italy, and the glow and the +glamour, the cypress and the pines, the azure skies, olive and grape +vines brought their enchantment around Fairfax, until No. 111 stood in +an enchanted country, and not under the shed with whirling snows or +blinding American glare without. He exchanged ideas with Rainsford. The +agent became his friend, and one Sunday Fairfax led him into the Delavan +House, and George Washington nearly broke his neck and spilled the soup +on the shoulder of the uninteresting patron he was at the moment +serving, in his endeavour to get across the floor to Antony. + +"Yas, _sah_, Mistah Kunnell Fairfax, sah! Mighty glad to see yo', and +the Capting?--Hyah in de window?" + +"Rainsford," said the young man, "isn't it queer? I feel at home here. +This dingy hotel and this smiling old nigger, they are joys to me--joys. +To this very table I have brought my own bitter food to eat and bitter +water to drink, and half forgotten their tastes as I have eaten the +Delavan fare, and been cheered by this faithful old darkey. Perhaps all +the chaps round here aren't millionaires or Depuysters, but there are no +railroad men such as I am lunching here, and I breathe again." + +The two ate their tomato soup with relish. Poor Molly was an indifferent +cook, and the food at Rainsford's hash-house was horrible. + +"Don't come here often now, Fairfax, do you?" + +"Every Sunday." + +"_Really?_ And do you bring Mrs. Fairfax?" + +"No," frowned the young man, "and I wonder you ask. Don't you understand +that this is my holiday? God knows I earn it." + +Rainsford finished his soup. The plate was whisked away, was briskly +replaced by a quantity of small dishes containing everything on the bill +of fare from chicken to pot-pie, and as Rainsford meditated upon the +outlay, he said-- + +"She's a gentle, lovely creature, Fairfax. I don't wonder you were +charmed by her. She has a heart and a soul." + +Fairfax stared. "Why when did you see her?" + +He had never referred to his wife since the day he had announced his +marriage to his chief. + +"She came on the day of the blizzard to the office to bring a parcel for +you. She wanted me to send it up the line by the Limited to catch you at +Utica." + +"My knit waistcoat," nodded Fairfax. "I remember. It saved my getting a +chill. I had clean forgotten it. She's a good girl." + +Rainsford chose amongst the specimens of food. + +"She is a sweet woman." + +Here George Washington brought Fairfax the Sunday morning _Tribune_, and +folded it before his gentleman and presented it almost on his knees. + +"Let me git ye a teenty weenty bit mo' salid, Kunnell?" + +Fairfax unfolded the _Tribune_ leisurely. "Bring some ice-cream, George, +and some good cigars, and a little old brandy. Yes, Rainsford, it isn't +poison." + +Fairfax read attentively, and his companion watched him patiently, his +own face lightened by the companionship of the younger man. Fairfax +glanced at the headlines of the _Tribune_, said "By George!" under his +breath, and bent over the paper. His face underwent a transformation; he +grew pale, read fixedly, then laughed, said "By George!" again, folded +the paper up and put it in his pocket. + +The ice-cream was brought and described as "_Panillapolitan_ cream, +sah," and Fairfax lit a cigar and puffed it fast and then said +suddenly-- + +"Do you know what hate is, Rainsford? I reckon you don't. Your face +doesn't bear any traces of it." + +"Yes, Fairfax," said the other, "I know what it is--it's a disease which +means battle, murder, and sudden death." + +The young man took the paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, and +Rainsford was surprised to see his hands tremble, the beautiful clever +hands with the stained finger ends and the clean, beautiful palm. +Falutini did more work than Fairfax now. He slaved for his master. + +"Read that, Rainsford." He tapped a headline with his forefinger. "It +sounds like an event." + + THE UNVEILING OF THE ABYDOS SPHINX IN CENTRAL PARK + CEDERSHOLM'S WONDERFUL PEDESTAL. + THE DIFFICULT TRANSPORTATION OF THE EGYPTIAN + MONUMENT FROM THE PORT TO THE PARK. + UNVEILING TO TAKE PLACE NEXT SATURDAY. + +The article went on to speak of the dignified marble support, and hinted +at four prehistoric creatures in bronze which were supposed to be the +masterpieces of modern sculpture. + +Rainsford read it through. "Very interesting. An event, as you say, +Tony. Cedersholm has made himself a great reputation." + +"_Damn him!_" breathed the engineer. His heart was beating wildly, he +felt a suffocation in his breast. A torrent of feeling swept up in him. +No words could say what a storm and a tempest the notice caused. + +"Jealous," Rainsford thought. "Cedersholm has all that poor Fairfax +desires." + +Overcome by the memories the headlines recalled, overcome by his anger +and the injustice, Fairfax's face grew white. + +"Take a little more coffee, Kunnell," said George Washington at his +elbow. + +"No." Antony repulsed him rudely. "Did you read it all, Rainsford?" + +"I think so. I dare say this will bring Cedersholm close on a hundred +thousand dollars." + +"It will pave his way to hell one day, Rainsford," said the engineer, +leaning across the table. "It will indeed! Why, it is a monument of +injustice and dishonour. Do you know what that Sphinx rests on, +Rainsford, do you know?" + +For a moment the railroad agent thought his friend had lost his senses +brooding over his discarded art, his spoiled life. + +"Four huge prehistoric creatures," Rainsford read mildly. + +Fairfax's lips trembled. "It rests on a man's heart and soul, on his +flesh and blood, on his bleeding wounds, Rainsford. I worked in +Cedersholm's studio, I slaved for him night and day for eighteen months. +I spilled my youth and heart's blood there, I did indeed." His face +working, he tapped his friend's arm with his hand. "I made the moulds +for those beasts. I cast them in bronze, right there in his studio. +Every inch of them is mine, Rainsford, mine. By ... you can't take it +in, of course, you don't believe me, nobody would believe me, that's why +I can do nothing, can't say anything, or I'd be arrested as a lunatic. +But Cedersholm's fame in this instance is mine, and he has stolen it +from me and shut me out like a whipped dog. He thinks I am poor and +unbefriended, and he knows that I have no case. Why, he's a _hound_, +Rainsford, the meanest hound on the face of the earth." + +Rainsford soothed his friend, but Fairfax's voice was low with passion, +no one could overhear its intense tone. + +"Don't for a moment think I have lost my senses. If you don't believe +me, give me a pencil and paper and I'll sketch you what I mean." + +Rainsford was very much impressed and startled. "If what you say is +true," he murmured. + +And Fairfax, who had regained some of his control--he knew better than +any one the futility of his miserable adventure--exclaimed-- + +"Oh, it's true enough; but there is nothing to do about it. Cedersholm +knows that better than any one else." + +He sat back, and his face grew dark and heavy with its brooding. His +companion watched him helplessly, only half convinced of the truth of +the statement. Fairfax lifted his eyes and naďvely exclaimed-- + +"Isn't it cruel, Rainsford? You speak of failures; did you ever see such +a useless one as this? Cedersholm and his beasts which they say right +here are the best things in modern sculpture, and me with my engine and +my--" He stopped. "Give me the bill," he called to George Washington. + +The old darkey, used as he was to his gentleman's moods, found this one +stranger than usual. + +"Anythin' wrong with the dinner, Kunnell?" he asked tremulously. "Very +sorry, Capting. Fust time yo'--" + +Fairfax put the money in his hand. "All right, George," he assured +kindly, "your dinner's all right--don't worry. Good-bye." And he did not +say as he usually did, "See you next Sunday." For he had determined to +go down to New York for the unveiling of the monument. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The May afternoon, all sunshine and sparkle, had a wine to make young +hope spring from old graves and age forget its years, and youth mad with +its handicaps; a day to inspire passion, talent, desire, and to make +even goodness take new wings. + +With the crowd of interested and curious, Antony Fairfax entered Central +Park through the Seventy-second Street gate. Lines of carriages extended +far into Fifth Avenue, and he walked along by the side of a smart +victoria where a pretty woman sat under her sunshade and smiled on the +world and spring. Fairfax saw that she was young and worldly, and +thought for some time of his mother, of women he might have known, and +when the victoria passed him, caught the lady's glance as her look +wandered over the crowd. A May-day party of school children spread over +the lawn at his left, the pole's bright streamers fluttering in the +breeze. The children danced gaily, too small to care for the unveiling +of statues or for ancient Egypt. The bright scene and the day's gladness +struck Antony harsh as a glare in weakened eyes. He was gloomy and +sardonic, his heart beating out of tune, his genial nature had been +turned to gall. + +The Mall was roped off, and at an extempore gate a man in uniform +received the cards of admission. Fairfax remembered the day he had +endeavoured to enter the Field Palace and his failure. + +"I'm a mechanic," he said hastily to the gateman, "one of Mr. +Cedersholm's workmen." + +The man pushed him through, and he went in with a group of students from +Columbia College. + +In a corner of the Mall, on the site he had indicated to the little +cousins, rose a white object covered by a sheeting, which fell to the +ground. Among the two hundred persons gathered were people of +distinction. There was to be speech-making. Fairfax did not know this or +who the speakers were to be. All that he knew or cared was that at three +o'clock of this Saturday his Beasts--his four primitive creatures--were +to be unveiled. He wore his workday clothes, his Pride had led him to +make the arrogant display of his contempt of the class he had deserted. +His hat was pushed back on his blond head. His blue eyes sparkled and he +thrust his disfigured hands into his pockets to keep them quiet. The +lady beside whose carriage he had stood came into the roped-off +enclosure, and found a place opposite Fairfax. Once more her eyes fell +on the workman's handsome face. He looked out of harmony with the people +who had gathered to see the unveiling of Mr. Cedersholm's pedestal. + +For the speakers, a desk and platform had been arranged, draped with an +American flag. Antony listened coldly to the first address, a _résumé_ +of the dynasty in whose dim years the Abydos Sphinx was hewn, and the +Egyptologist's learning, the dust he stirred of golden tombs, and the +perfumes of the times that he evoked, were lost to the up-state engineer +who only gazed on the veiled monument. + +His look, however, returned to the desk, when Cedersholm took the place, +and Fairfax, from the sole of his lame foot to his fair head, grew cold. +His bronze beasts were not more hard and cold in their metallic bodies, +nor was the Sphinx more petrified. Cedersholm had aged, and seemed to +Fairfax to have warped and shrunk and to stand little more than a +pitiful suit of clothes with a _boutonničre_ in the lapel of the +pepper-and-salt coat. There was nothing impressive about the sleek grey +head, though his single eye-glass gave him distinction. The Columbia +student next to Fairfax, pushed by the crowd, touched Antony Fairfax's +great form and felt as though he had touched a colossus. + +Cedersholm spoke on art, on the sublimity of plastic expression. He +spoke rapidly and cleverly. His audience interrupted him by gratifying +whispers of "Bravo, bravo," and the gentle tapping of hands. He was +clearly a favourite, a great citizen, a great New Yorker, and a great +man. Directly opposite the desk was a delegation from the Century Club, +Cedersholm's friends all around him. To Fairfax, they were only brutes, +black and white creatures, no more--mummers in a farce. Cedersholm did +not speak of his own work. With much delicacy he confined his address to +the past. And his adulation of antiquity showed him to be a real artist, +and he spoke with love of the relics of the perfect age. In closing he +said-- + +"Warm as may be our inspirations, great as may be any modern genius, +ardent as may be our labour, let each artist look at the Abydos Sphinx +and know that the climax has been attained. We can never touch the +antique perfection again." + +Glancing as he did from face to face, Cedersholm turned toward the +Columbia students who adored him and whose professor in art he was. +Searching the young faces for sympathy, he caught sight of Fairfax. He +remembered who he was, their eyes met. Cedersholm drank a glass of water +at his hand, bowed to his audience, and stepped down. He moved briskly, +his head a little bent, crossed the enclosure, and joined the lady whom +Fairfax had observed. + +"That," Fairfax heard one of his neighbours say, "is Mr. Cedersholm's +fiancée, Mrs. Faversham." + +Fairfax raised his eyes to the statue. There was a slight commotion as +the workmen ranged the ropes. Then, very gracefully, evidently proud as +a queen, the lady, followed by Mr. Cedersholm, went up to the pedestal, +took the ropes in her gloved hands, and there was a flutter and the +conventional covering slipped and fell to the earth. There was an +exclamation, a murmur, the released voices murmured their praise, +Cedersholm was surrounded. Fairfax, immovable, stood and gazed. + +The pedestal was of shell-pink marble, carved in delicate bas-relief. +Many of the drawings Antony had made. Isis with her cap of Upper and +Lower Egypt, Hathor with the eternal oblation--the Sphinx.... God and +the Immortals alone knew who had made it. + +On its great, impassive face, on its ponderous body, there was no +signature, no name. Under the four corners, between Sphinx and pedestal, +crouched four bronze creatures, their forms and bodies visible between +the stones of the pink pedestal and the soft blue of the Egyptian +granite. The bold, severe modelling, their curious primitive conception, +the life and realism of the creatures were poignant in their suggestion +of power. The colour of the bronze was beautiful, would be more +beautiful still as the years went on. The beasts supported the Egyptian +monument. They rested between the pedestal and the Sphinx; they were the +support and they were his. They seemed, to the man who had made them, +beautiful indeed. Forgetting his outrage and his revenge, in the artist, +Fairfax listened timidly, eagerly, for some word to be murmured in the +crowd, some praise for his Beasts. + +He heard many. + +The students at his side were enthusiastic, they had made studies from +the moulds; moulds of the Beasts were already in the Metropolitan +Museum. The young critics were lavish, profuse. They compared the +creatures with the productions of the Ancients. + +"Cedersholm is a magician, he is one of the greatest men of his +time...." + +The man in working clothes smiled, but his expression was gentler than +it had been hitherto. He lifted his soft hat and ran his fingers through +his blond hair and remained bareheaded in the May air that blew about +him; his fascinated eyes were fastened on the Abydos Sphinx, magnetized +by the calm, inscrutable melancholy, by the serene indifference. The +stony eyes were fixed on the vistas of the new world, the crude Western +continent, as they had been fixed for centuries on the sands of the +pathless desert, on the shifting sands that relentlessly effaced +footsteps of artist and Pharaoh, dynasty and race. + +Who knew who had made this wonder? + +How small and puny Cedersholm seemed in his pepper-and-salt suit, his +_boutonničre_ and single eye-glass, his trembling heart. His heart +trembled, but only Fairfax knew it; he felt that he held it between his +hands. "He must have thought I was dead," he reflected. "What difference +did it make," Fairfax thought, "whether or not the Egyptian who had hewn +the Sphinx had murdered another man for stealing his renown? After four +thousand years, all the footsteps were effaced." His heart grew +somewhat lighter, and between himself and the unknown sculptor there +seemed a bond of union. + +The students and the master had drifted away. Cedersholm was in the +midst of his friends. Fairfax would not have put out his hand to take +his laurel. His spirit and soul had gone into communion with a greater +sculptor of the Sphinx, the unknown Egyptian. Standing apart from the +crowd where Cedersholm was being congratulated, Fairfax remarked the +lady again, and that she stood alone as was he. She seemed pensive, +turning her lace parasol between her hands, her eyes on the ground. The +young man supposed her to be dreaming of her lover's greatness. He +recalled the day, two years ago, when with Bella and Gardiner he had +come up before the opening in the earth prepared for the pedestal. +"Wait, wait, my hearties!" he had said. + +Well, one of them had gone on, impatient, to the unveiling of greater +wonders, and Antony had come to his unclaimed festival alone.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +He said to Rainsford at luncheon, over nuts and raisins, and coffee as +black as George Washington's smiling face-- + +"I reckon you think I've got a heart of cotton, don't you? I reckon you +think I don't come up to the scratch, do you, old man? I assure you that +I went down to New York seeing scarlet. I had made my plans. Afterward, +mind you, Rainsford, not of course before a whole lot of people,--but in +his own studio, I intended to tell Cedersholm a few truths. Upon my +honour, I believe I _could_ have killed him." + +Rainsford held a pecan nut between the crackers which he pressed slowly +as he listened to his friend. Antony's big hand was spread out on the +table; its grip would have been powerful on a man's throat. + +"We often get rid of our furies on the way," said Rainsford, slowly. "We +keep them housed so long that they fly away unobserved at length. And +when at last we open the door, and expect to find them ready with their +poisons, they've gone, vanished every one." + +"Not in this case," Fairfax shook his head. "I shall call on them all +some day and they will all answer me. But yesterday wasn't the time. +You'll think me poorer-spirited than ever, I daresay, but the woman he +is going to marry was there, a pretty woman, and she seemed to love +him." + +Fairfax glanced up at the agent and saw only comprehension. + +"Quite right, Tony." Rainsford returned Fairfax's look over his +glistening eyeglasses, cracked the pecan nut and took out the meat. "I +am not surprised." + +Antony, who had taken a clipping from his wallet, held it out. + +"Read this. I cut it out a week ago. Yesterday in the Central Park old +ambitions struck me hard. Read it." + +The notice was from a Western paper, and spoke in detail of a +competition offered to American sculptors by the State of California, +for the design in plaster of a tomb. The finished work was to be placed +in the great new cemetery in Southern California. The prize to be +awarded was ten thousand dollars and the time for handing in the design +a year. + +"Not a very cheerful or inspiring subject, Tony." + +On the contrary, Fairfax thought so. He leaned forward eagerly, and +Rainsford, watching him, saw a transfigured man. + +"Death," said the engineer, "has taken everything from me. Life has +given me nothing, old man. I have a feeling that perhaps now, through +this, I may regain what I have lost.... I long to take my chance." + +The other exclaimed sympathetically, "My dear fellow, you must take it +by all means." + +Fairfax remained thoughtful a moment, then asked almost appealingly---- + +"Why, how can I do so? Such an effort would cost my living, _her_ +living, the renting of a place to work in...." As he watched Rainsford's +face his eyes kindled. + +"I offered to lend you money once, Tony," recalled his friend, "and I +wish to God you'd taken the loan then, because just at present--" + +The Utter Failure raised his near-sighted eyes, and the look of +disappointment on the bright countenance of the engineer cut him to the +heart. + +"Never mind." Fairfax's voice was forced in its cheerfulness. "Something +or other will turn up, I shall work Sundays and half-days, and I reckon +I can put it through. I am bound to," he finished ardently, "just bound +to." + +Rainsford said musingly, "I made a little investment, but it went to +pot. I hoped--I'm always hoping--but the money didn't double itself." + +The engineer didn't hear him. He was already thinking how he could +transform his kitchen into a studio, although it had an east light. Just +here Rainsford leaned over and put his hand on Antony's sleeve. "I want +to say a word to you about your wife. I don't think she's very well." + +"Molly?" answered his companion calmly. "She's all right. She has a +mighty fine constitution, and I never heard her complain. When did you +see her, Rainsford?" He frowned. + +"Saturday, when you were in New York. You forgot to send your pass-book, +and I went for it myself." + +"Well?" queried Antony. "What then?" + +"Mrs. Fairfax gave me the book, and I stopped to speak with her for a +few moments. I find her very much changed." + +The light died from the young man's illumined face where his visions had +kindled a sacred fire. The realities of life blotted it out. + +"I'm not able to give Molly any distractions, that you know." + +"She doesn't want them, Tony." Rainsford looked kindly and +affectionately, almost tenderly, at him, and repeated gently: "She +doesn't want amusement, Tony." + +And Fairfax threw up his head with a sort of despair on his face-- + +"My God, Rainsford," he murmured, "what can I do?" + +"I'm afraid she's breaking her heart," said the older man. "Poor little +woman!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +In the little room they used as parlour-kitchen and which to one of the +inhabitants at least was lovely, Fairfax found Molly sitting by the +window through which the spring light fell. The evening was warm. Molly +wore a print dress, and in her bodice he saw that she had thrust a spray +of pink geranium from the window-boxes that Antony had made and filled +for her. Nothing that had claim to beauty failed to touch his senses, +and he saw the charm of the picture in the pale spring light. He had +softly turned the door-handle, and as there was a hand-organ playing +without and Molly listening to the music, he entered without her hearing +him. + +"Is it yourself?" she exclaimed, startled. "You're home early, Tony." + +He told her that he had come to take her for a little walk, and as she +moved out of the light and came toward him, he thought he knew what +Rainsford had meant. She was thin and yet not thin. The roundness had +gone from her cheeks, and there was a mild sadness in her eyes. +Reproached and impatient, suffering as keenly as she, he was +nevertheless too kind of heart and nature not to feel the tragedy of her +life. He drew her to him and kissed her. She made no response, and +feeling her a dead weight he found that as he held her she had fainted +away. He laid her on the bed, loosened her dress, and bathed her icy +temples. Before she regained consciousness he saw her pallor, and that +she had greatly changed. He was very gentle and tender with her when she +came to herself; and, holding her, said-- + +"Molly, why didn't you tell me, dear? Why didn't you tell me?" + +She had thought he would be angry with her. + +He exclaimed, hurt: "Am I such a brute to you, Molly?" + +Ah, no; not that. But two was all he could look out for. + +He kneeled, supporting her. Oh, if he could only be glad of it, then she +would be happy. She'd not let it disturb him. It would be sure to be +beautiful and have his eyes and hair. + +He listened, touched. There was a mystery, a beauty in her voice with +its rich cadence, her trembling breath, her fast beating pulse, her +excitement. Below in the street the organ played, "Gallagher's Daughter +Belle," then changed to--ah, how could he bear it!--"My Old Kentucky +Home." Tears sprang to his eyes. Motherhood was sacred to him. Was he to +have a son? Was he to be a father? He must make her happy, this modest, +undemanding girl whom he had made woman and a wife. He kissed her and +she clung to him, daring to whisper something of her adoration and her +gratitude. + +When after supper he stood with her in the window and looked out over +the river where the anchored steamers were in port for over Sunday, and +the May sunset covered the crude brick buildings with a garment of +glory, he was astonished to find that the stone at his heart which had +lain there so long was rolled a little away. He picked up the geranium +which Molly had worn at her breast and which had fallen when she +fainted, and put it in his button-hole. It was crushed and sweet. Molly +whispered that he would kill her with goodness, and that "she was heart +happy." + +"Are you, really?" he asked her eagerly. "Then we'll have old Rainsford +to supper, and you must tell him so!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Fairfax, stirred as he had been to the depths by his visit to New York, +awake again to the voices of his visions, could give but little of +himself to his home life or to his work. The greatest proof of his +kindly heart was that he did not let Molly see his irritation or his +agony of discontent. If he were only nothing but an engineer with an +Irish wife! Why, why, was he otherwise? In his useless rebellion the +visions came and told him why--told him that to be born as he was, +gifted as he was, was the most glorious thing and the most suffering +thing in the world. + +To the agent who had accepted the Fairfax hospitality and come to +supper, Tony said-- + +"To ease my soul, Peter, I want to tell you of something I did." + +Molly had washed the dishes and put them away, and, with a delicate +appreciation of her husband's wish to be alone with his friend, went +into the next room. + +"After mother died my old nigger mammy in New Orleans sent me a packet +of little things. I could never open the parcel until the other day. +Amongst the treasures was a diamond ring, Rainsford, one I had seen her +wear when I was a little boy. I took it to a jeweller on Market Street, +and he told me it was worth a thousand dollars." + +Here Tony remained silent so long that his companion said-- + +"That's a lot of money, Tony." + +"Well, it came to me," said the young man simply, "like a gift from her. +I asked them to lend me five hundred dollars on it for a year. It seems +that it's a peculiarly fine stone, and they didn't hesitate." + +Rainsford was smoking a peaceful pipe, and he held the bowl +affectionately in his hand, his attention fixed on the blond young man +sitting in the full light of the evening. The night was warm, Fairfax +was in snowy shirt-sleeves, his bright hair cropped close revealed the +beautiful lines of his head; he was a powerful man, clean in habits of +body and mind, and his expression as he talked was brilliant and +fascinating, his eyes profound and blue. Around his knees he clasped the +hands that drove an engine and ached to model in plaster and clay. His +big shoe was a deformity, otherwise he was superb. + +"I've taken a studio, Rainsford," he smiled. "Tito Falutini found it for +me. It is a shed next to the lime-kiln in Canal Street. I've got my +material and I'm going to begin my work for the California competition." + +The older, to whom enthusiasm was as past a joy as success was a dim +possibility, said thoughtfully-- + +"When will you work?" + +"Sundays, half-holidays and nights. God!" he exclaimed in anticipation, +holding out his strong arms, "it seems too good to be true!" + +And Rainsford said, "I think I can contrive to get Saturdays off for +you. The Commodore is coming up next week. He owes me a favour or two. I +think I can make it for _you_, old man." + +There was a little stir in the next room. Fairfax called "Molly!" and +she came in. She might have been a lady. Long association with Fairfax +and her love had taught her wonders. Her hair was carefully arranged and +brushed until it shone like glass. Her dress was simple and refined; her +face had the beauty on it that a great and unselfish love sheds. + +"It means," said Rainsford to himself as he rose and placed a chair for +her, "that Molly will be left entirely alone." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +What Rainsford procured for him in the Saturday holidays was worth the +weight of its hours in gold. This, with Sundays, gave him two working +days, and no lover went more eagerly to his mistress than Antony to the +barracks where he toiled and dreamed. He began with too mad enthusiasm, +lacking the patience to wait until his conceptions ripened. He roughly +made his studies for an Angel of the Resurrection, inspired by the +figure in the West Albany Cemetery. As he progressed he was conscious +that his hand had been idle, as far as his art was concerned, too long; +his fingers were blunted and awkward, and many an hour he paced his shed +in agony of soul, conscious of his lack of technique. He was too +engrossed to be aware of the passing months, but autumn came again with +its wonderful haze, veiling death, decay and destruction, and Fairfax +found himself but little more advanced than in May, when he had shut +himself in his studio, a happy man. + +He grew moody and tried to keep his despair from his wife, for not the +least of his unrest was caused by the knowledge that he was selfish with +her for the sake of his art. By October he had destroyed a hundred +little figures, crushed his abortive efforts to bits, and made a clean +sweep of six months' work and stood among the ruins. He never in these +moments thought of his wife as a comforter, having never opened his +heart to her regarding his art. He shrank from giving her entrance into +his sanctuaries. He was alone in his crisis of artistic infecundity. + +On this Sunday morning he left his studio early, turned the key and +walked up Eagle Street toward the church he had not entered since he was +married. Led by discontent and by a hope that beneath the altar in his +old place he might find peace and possibly hear a voice which would tell +him as every creator must be told--HOW. He listened to the music and to +the Litany, the rich, full voices singing their grave, solemn pagan +appeal; but the sensuous ecstasy left Fairfax indifferent and cold. +To-day there were no visions around the altar through whose high windows +came the autumn glory staining the chancel like the Grail. His glance +wandered to the opposite side of the church where in the front pew were +the young scholars of Canon's School, a bevy of girls; and he thought +with a pang of Bella. She wouldn't be little Bella Carew much longer, +for she was nearly sixteen, charming little Bella. He thought of the +statue he had made and which had been so wantonly destroyed, and with +this came the feeling that everything he touched had been warped and +distorted. Ashamed of this point of view, he sighed and rose with the +others at the Creed. He repeated it with conviction, and at the words, +"Resurrection and the Life Everlasting," he dwelt upon "Everlasting +Life" as though he would draw from the expression such consolation as +should make him belittle the transient show with its mass of failures +and unhappy things, and render immortal only that in him which was still +aspiring, still his highest. He was glad to see instead of the curate a +man with a red hood mount the pulpit steps, and he knew it was the Canon +himself. With a new interest in his mind he sat erect. + +For the first time since he had come to the North a man whom he could +revere and admire stood before him. The Canon's clear-cut heavenly face, +his gracious voice, his outstretched hand as he blessed his people, made +an agreeable impression on the young man out of his element, nearly +shipwrecked and entirely alone. It occurred to him to speak to the Canon +after service; but what should he say? What appeal could he make? He was +an engineer married to a Roman Catholic woman of the other class, too +poor a specimen of his own class to remain in it. Since his marriage he +had felt degraded in society, out of place. If the Canon had advice to +give him, it would be to shut up his studio and devote himself to his +wife. + +He wandered slowly out of the building amongst the others into the +golden autumn day, and the music of the organ rolled after him like a +rich blessing. He waited to let the line of schoolgirls pass him, and +all of a sudden as he looked at them their ranks broke, he heard a cry, +an exclamation, and a call-- + +"_Cousin Antony!_" + +Before she could be prevented she had flown to him. Not throwing herself +against him in the old mad sweetness of her impulsive nature,--both +pretty gloved hands were held out to him and her upturned face lifted +all sparkle and brilliance, her red lips parted. "Oh, Cousin Antony!" + +Both Fairfax's hands held hers. + +"Quick!" she cried, "before Miss Jackson comes out. Where do you live? +When will you come to see me? But you can't come! We're not allowed to +have gentlemen callers! When can I come to see you? Dear Cousin Antony, +how glad I am!" + +"Bella!" he murmured, and gazed at her. + +The rank-and-file of schoolgirls, giggling, outraged and diverted, +passed them by, and the stiff teachers were the last to appear from the +church. + +"Tell me," Bella repeated, "where do you live? I'll write you. I've +composed tons of letters, but I forgot the number in Nut Street. Here's +Miss Jackson, the horrid thing! Hurry, Cousin Antony." + +He said, "Forty, Canal Street," and wondered why he had told her. + +Miss Jackson and Miss Teeter passed the two, and were so absorbed in +discussing the text of the sermon that neither saw Mistress Bella Carew. + +"I'm safe," she cried, "the old cats! The girls will never tell--they're +all too sweet. But I must go; I'll just say I've dropped my Prayer-book. +There, you take it!" + +And she was gone. + +Antony stood staring at the flitting figure as Bella ran after the +others down the steps like an autumn leaf blown by a light wind. She +wore a brown dress down to her boot tops (her boots too were brown with +bows at the tops); her little brown gloves had held his hand in what had +been the warmest, friendliest clasp imaginable. She wore a brown hat +with a plume in it that drooped and dangled, and Antony had looked into +her brown eyes and seen their bright affection once more. + +Well, he had known that she was going to be like this! Not quite, +though; no man ever knows what a woman can be, will be, or ever is. He +felt fifty years old as he walked down the steps and turned towards +Canal Street to the door he had fastened four hours before on his +formless visions. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +He did not go home that day. + +Towards late evening he sat in the twilight, his head in his hands, a +pile of smoked cigarettes and Bella's Prayer-book on the table before +him.... In the wretched afternoon he had read, one after another, the +services: Marriage ... for better or for worse, till death do us +part.... The Baptismal service, and the Burial for the Dead. + +At six he rose with a sigh, and, though it was growing dark, he began to +draw aimlessly, and Rainsford, when he came in, found Tony sketching, +and the young man said-- + +"You don't give a fellow much of your company these days, Peter. Have a +cigarette? I've smoked a whole box myself." + +"I'm glad to see you working, Fairfax." + +"You don't know how glad I am," Fairfax exclaimed; "but the light's +bad." + +Putting aside his drawing-board, he turned to his friend, and, with an +ardour such as he had not displayed since the old days at the Delavan, +began to tell of his conception. + +"I have given up my idea of a single figure. I shall make a bas-relief, +a great circular tablet, if you understand, a wall with curving sides, +and emblematic figures in high relief. It will be a mighty fine piece of +work, Rainsford, if it's ever done." + +"What will your figures be, Tony?" + +"Ah, they won't let me see their forms or faces yet." He changed the +subject. "What have you done with your Sunday, old man? Slept all day?" + +"No, I've been sitting for an hour or two with Mrs. Fairfax." + +Molly's husband murmured, "I'm a brute, and no one knows it better than +I do." + +Rainsford made no refutation of his friend's accusation of himself, but +suggested-- + +"She might bring her sewing in the afternoons, Tony; it would be less +lonely for her?" + +Fairfax noticed the flush that rose along the agent's thin cheek. + +"By Jove!" Fairfax reflected. "I wonder if old Rainsford is in love with +Molly?" The supposition did not make him jealous. + +The two men went home together, and Rainsford stayed to supper as he had +taken a habit of doing, for Fairfax did not wish to be alone. But when +at ten o'clock the guest had gone and the engineer and his wife were +alone together in their homely room, Fairfax said-- + +"Don't judge me too harshly, Molly." + +Judge him? Did he think she did? + +"You might well, my dear." + +He took the hand that did all the work for his life and home and which +she tried to keep as "ladylike" as she knew, and said, his eyes full on +her-- + +"I do the best I can. I'm an artist, that's the truth of it! There's +something in me that's stronger than anything else in the world. I +reckon it's talent. I don't know how good it is or how ignoble; but it's +brutal, and I've got to satisfy it, Molly." + +Didn't she know it, didn't Mr. Rainsford tell her? Didn't she want to +leave him free? + +"You're the best girl in the world!" he cried contritely, and checked +the words, "You should never have married me." + +She couldn't see the struggle in him, but she could observe how pale he +was. She never caressed him. She had long since learned that it was not +what he wanted; but she laid her hand on his head, for he was sitting on +the bed, and it might have been his mother who spoke-- + +"You're clear tired out," she said gently. "Will I fix up a bed for you +in the kitchen to-night? You'll lie better." + +He accepted gratefully. To-morrow, being Monday, was the longest day in +the week for him. + +He could not permit himself to go to church again, but during the next +few days he half expected to hear a knock at the door which should +announce Bella. But she did not come, and he was glad that she did not, +and more than once, in the evening, he walked around the school +building, up ---- Street, looking at the lighted windows of the house +where the doves were safely coted, and thought of the schoolgirl, with +her books and her companions. + +"... Not any more perfectly straight lines, Cousin Antony ..." + +And the leaves fell, piles of them, red and yellow, and were swept and +burned in fires whose incense was sweet to him, and the trees in the +school garden grew bare. + +In the first days of his Albany life, his Visions had used to meet him +in those streets; now there seemed to be no inspiration for him +anywhere, and he wondered if it were his marriage that had levelled all +pinnacles for him or his daily mechanical work? His associations with +Tito Falutini? Or if it were only that he was no sculptor at all, not +equal to his dreams! + +In the leaf-strewn street, near the Canon's School, he called on the +Images to return, and, half halting in his walk, he looked up at one +lighted window as if he expected to see a girlish figure there and catch +sight of a friendly little hand that waved to him; but there was no such +greeting. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon, as he went into his studio, some one rose from the sofa, +and his wife's voice called to him-- + +"Don't be startled, Tony. I just came for awhile to sit with you." + +He was amazed. Molly had never crossed the threshold of the workroom +before, not having been invited. She had brought her sewing. It was so +lonely in the little rooms, she wondered if it wasn't lonesome in the +studio as well? + +Smoking and walking to and fro, his hands in his pockets, Fairfax +glanced at his wife as she took up the little garments on which she was +at work. Her skin was stainless as a lily save here and there where the +golden fleck of a freckle marred its whiteness. Her reddish hair, +braided in strands, was wound flatly around her head. There was a +purity in her face, a Mystery that was holy to him. He crossed over to +her side and lit the lamp for her. + +"Who suggested your coming? Rainsford?" + +"Nobody. I wanted to come, just." + +He threw himself down on the sofa near her. "I can't work!" he +exclaimed. "I've not been able to do anything for weeks. I reckon I'm no +good. I'm going to let the whole thing go." + +Molly folded her sewing and laid it on the table. "Would you show me +what you've been workin' at, Tony?" + +The softness of her brogue had not gone, but she had been a rapid pupil +unconsciously taught, and her speech had improved. + +"I've destroyed most of my work," he said, hopelessly; "but this is +something of the new scheme I've planned." + +He went over to the other part of the studio and uncovered the clay in +which he had begun to work, and mused before it. He took some clay from +the barrel, mixed it and began to model. Molly watched him. + +"I get an idea," he murmured; "but when I go to fix it it escapes and +eludes me. It has no form. I want a group of figures in the foreground +and the idea of distance and far-away on the other side." + +"It will be lovely, Tony," she encouraged him. "I mind the day we walked +in the cemetery for the first time and you looked at the angel so long." + +"Yes." He was kneeling, bending forward, putting the clay on with his +thumb. + +"Ever since then"--Molly's tone was meditative--"that angel seems like a +friend to me. Many's the time when there's a hard thing to do he seems +to open the door and I go through, and it's not so hard." + +She was imaginative, Fairfax knew it. She was superstitious, like the +people of her country. The things she said were often full of fancy, +like the legends and stories of the Celts; but now he hardly heard her, +for he was working, and she went back to her task by the lamp, and, +under the quiet of her presence and its companionship, his modelling +grew. He heard her finally stir, and the clock struck seven, and they +had had no supper. Until she crossed the floor, he did not speak. Then +he turned-- + +"I'll work on a little longer. I want to finish this hand." + +"Take your time, Tony. I'll be going home slowly, anyway." + +She was at the door, stood in it, held it half-open, her arm out along +the panel looking back at him. Her figure was in the shadow, but the +light fell on her face, on her hair and on her hand. The unconscious +charm of her pose, her slow pause, her attitude of farewell and waiting, +the solemnity of it, the effect of light and shadow, struck Fairfax. + +"Molly," he cried, "wait!" + +But she had dropped her arm. "You'll be coming along," she said, +smiling, "and it's getting late." + + * * * * * + +He found that the spell for work was broken after she left, though a +fleeting idea, a picture, an image he could not fix, tantalized him. He +followed his wife. He had passed the most peaceful hour in his Canal +Street studio since he had signed the lease with the money of his +mother's ring. He would have told Molly this, but Rainsford was there +for supper. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Molly came and sat with him Saturday afternoons and Sundays. Fairfax +made studies of his wife as she sewed, a modern conception of a woman +sitting under a lamp, her face lifted, dreaming. He told Rainsford that +when the lease was up he should vacate the studio, for he could not go +on with his scheme for the monument. He had the memories of Molly's +coming to him during the late autumn and winter afternoons. The +remembrance of these holidays soothed and pardoned many faults and +delinquencies. She seemed another Molly to the Sheedy counter girl, the +Troy collar factory girl, and an indefinable Presence came with her, +lingered as she sewed or read some book she had picked up, and if +Fairfax the artist watched the change and transformation of her face as +it refined and thinned, grew more delicate and meditative, it was +Fairfax the man who recalled the picture afterward. + +She was exceedingly gentle, very silent, ready with a word of +encouragement and admiration if he spoke to her. She knew nothing of the +art he adored, but seemed to know his temperament and to understand. She +posed tranquilly while the short days met the early nights; she +disguised her fatigue and her ennui, so that he never knew she grew +tired, and the Presence surrounded her like an envelope, until Antony, +drawing and modelling, wondered if it were not the soul of the child +about to be born to him, and if from the new emotion his inspiration +would not stir and bless him at the last? + +What there was of humour and fantasy in her Irish heart, how imaginative +and tender she was, he might have gathered in those hours, if he had +chosen to talk with her and make her his companion. But he was reserved, +mentally and spiritually, and he kept the depths of himself down, nor +could he reveal his soul which from boyhood he had dreamed to give to +One Woman with his whole being. He felt himself condemned to silence and +only partially to develop, and no one but Molly Fairfax, with her +humility and her admiration, could have kept him from unholy dreams and +unfaithfulness. + +His life on the engine was hard in the winter. He felt the cold +intensely, and as his art steadily advanced, his daily labour in the +yards grew hateful, and he pushed the days of the week through till +Sunday should come and he be free. His face was set and white when +Rainsford informed him that it would be impossible to give him +"Saturdays off" any longer. Antony turned on his heel and left the +office without response to his chief, and thought as he strode back to +his tenement: "It's Peter's personal feeling. He's in love with Molly, +and those days in the studio gall him." + +Molly, who was lying down when he came in, brushed her hand across her +eyes as if to brush away whatever was there before he came. She took his +hat and coat; his slippers and warm jacket were before the stove. + +"Rainsford has knocked me off my Saturdays," he said bitterly. + +She stopped at the hook, the things in her hand. "That's hard on you, +Tony, and you getting on so well with your work." + +She didn't say that she could not have gone on any more ... that the +walk she took the week before to Canal Street had been her last; but +Fairfax, observing her, rendered keen by his own disappointment, +understood. He called her to him, made her sit down on the sofa beside +him. + +"Peter has been better to you than I have," he said sadly. "I've tired +you out, my dear, and I've been a selfish brute to you." + +He saw that his words gave her pain, and desisted. He was going to be +nothing more from henceforth but an engineer. He would shut the studio +and take her out on Sundays. She received his decision meekly, without +rebuffing it, and he said-- + +"Molly, if I had not come along, I reckon you would have married Peter +Rainsford. There! Don't look like that!" + +"Tony," she replied, "I'd rather be wretched with you--if I were, and +I'm not, dear. I'd rather be unhappy along of you than the happiest +queen." + +He kissed her hand with a gallantry new to her and which made her +crimson, and half laugh and half cry. + +She went early to bed, and Antony, alone in the kitchen, raked down the +coals, covered the fire in the stove, heard the clock tick and the +whistles of the boat on the river. In the silence of the winter night, +as it fell around him, he thought: "I reckon I'll have to try to make +her happy, even if I cut out my miserable talent and kill it." And as he +straightened himself he felt the Presence there. The solemn Presence +that had come with her to his workshop and kept him company, and it was +so impressive that he passed his hand across his forehead as though +dazed, and opened the door of his bedroom to see her and be assured. She +was already asleep; by her side, the little basket prepared, waited for +the life to come. He stepped in softly, and his heart melted. He knelt +down and buried his face in the pillow by her side, and without waking +she turned her face toward him in her sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +He did not go to the studio for a month, but though he remained with her +the poor girl profited little by his company. He smoked countless +cigarettes, in spite of the fact that he had doctor's bills to look +forward to. In the long winter evenings he read books that he fetched +from the library while the blizzards and storms swept round the window, +and the next day his duties stared him in the face. He dreamed before +the stove, his cigarette between his fingers, and Molly watched him; but +Rainsford, when he came, did not find her any more alone. + +Finally, in the last Sunday of January, after the noon dinner, she +fetched him his coat and muffler. + +"I can't let you stay home any more like this, Tony," she told him. +"Take your things and go to the studio; I'm sure you're dying to, and +don't hurry back. I'm feeling fine." + +He caught her suggestion with an eagerness that made her bite her lip; +she kept her face from him lest he should see her disappointment. He +exclaimed joyously-- + +"Why, I reckon you're right, Molly. I _will_ go for awhile. I'll work +all the better for the holiday." + +He might have said "sacrifice." + +As he got into his things he asked her: "You're sure you'll not need +anything, Molly? You think it's all right for me to go?" + +She assured him she would rest and sleep, and that the woman "below +stairs" would come up if she wanted anything. He mustn't hurry. + +He took the studio key. He was gone, his uneven step echoed on the +narrow stairs. She listened till it died away. + +Fairfax before his panel during the afternoon worked as though Fate were +at his heels. When he came in the room was bitter cold, and it took the +big fire he built long to make the shed inhabitable; but no sooner had +the chill left the air, and he unwrapped his plaster, than a score of +ideas came beating upon him like emancipated ghosts and shades, and he +saw the forms, though the faces were still veiled. He sang and whistled, +he declaimed aloud as the clay he mixed softened and rolled under his +fingers.... It let him shape it, its magic was under his thumb, its +plasticity, its response fascinated the sculptor. He tried now with the +intensity of his being to fix his conception for the gate of Death and +Eternal Life. He had already made his drawing for the new scaffolding, +and it would take him two Sundays to build it up. Falutini would help +him. + +It seemed strange to work without Molly sitting in her corner. He +wondered how long the daylight would last; he had three months still +until spring; that meant twelve Sundays. He thought of Molly's +approaching illness, and a shadow crossed his face. Why had he come back +only to tempt and tantalize himself with freedom and the joy of +creation? + +Sunday-Albany outside was as tranquil as the tomb, and scarcely a +footstep passed under his window. The snow lay light upon the +window-ledge and the roof, and as the room grew warmer the cordial light +fell upon him as he worked, and a sense of the right to labour, the +right to be free, made him take heart and inspired his hand. He began +the sketch of his group on a large scale. + +As he bent over his board the snow without shifted rustling from the +roof, and the slipping, feathery shower fell gleaming before his window; +the sound made him glance up and back towards the door. As he did so he +recalled, with the artist's vivid vision, the form of his wife, as she +had stood in the opened door, her arm along the panel, in the attitude +of waiting and parting. + +"By Jove!" he murmured, gazing as though it were reality. Half +wondering, but with assurance, he indicated what he recalled, and was +drawing in rapidly, absorbed in his idea, when some one struck the door +harshly from without, and Rainsford called him. + +Fairfax started, threw down his pencil, and seized his hat and +muffler--he worked in his overcoat because he was cold--to follow the +man who had come to fetch him in haste. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +Over and over again that night in his watch that lasted until dawn, as +he walked the floor of his little parlour-kitchen and listened, as he +stood in the window before the soundless winter night and listened, +Fairfax said the word he had said to her when she had paused in the +doorway-- + +"Wait...!" + +For what should she wait? + +Did he want her to wait until he had caught the image of her on his mind +and brain that he might call upon it for his inspiration? + +He called her to "wait!" + +Until he should become a great master and need her with her simplicity +and her humble mind less than ever? Until he should be honoured by his +kind and crowned successful and come at last into his own, and she be +the only shadow on his glory? Not for that! + +Until Fairfax one day should need the warmth of a perfectly unselfish +woman's heart, a self-effacing tenderness, a breast to lean upon? She +had given him all this. + +He smelled the ether and strange drugs. The doctor came and went. The +nurse he had engaged from the hospital, "the woman from below stairs" as +well, came and went, spoke to him and shut him out. + +He was conscious that in a chair in a corner, in a desperate position, +his head in his hands, Rainsford was sitting. Of these things he was +conscious afterward, but he felt now that he only listened, his every +emotion concentrated in the sense of hearing. What was it he was so +intent to hear? The passing of the Irrevocable or the advent of a new +life? He stood at length close to her door, and it was nearly morning. A +clock somewhere struck four presently, and the whistle of the Limited +blew; but those were not the sounds he waited to hear. + +At five o'clock, whilst it was still dark in the winter morning, he +started, his heart thumping against his breast, a sob in his throat. Out +of the stillness which to him had been unbroken, came a cry, then +another, terribly sweet and heart-touching--the cry of life. He opened +the door of his wife's room and entered softly in his stocking feet. +There seemed to be a multitude between him and his wife and child. He +did not dare to approach, but stood leaning against the wall, cold with +apprehension and stirred to his depths. He seemed to stand there for a +lifetime, and his knees nearly gave way beneath him. His hand pressed +against his cheek. He leaned forward. + +"_Wait!_" + +He almost murmured the word that came to his lips. + +For what should Molly Fairfax wait? Life had given her a state too high. +She had brought much grace to it and much love. She had given a great +deal. To wait for return, for such gifts, was to wait for the +unattainable. + +She went through the open door that she saw open, perhaps not all +unwillingly; and she was not alone, for the child went with her, and +they came to Fairfax and told him that she had gone through gently +murmuring his name. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +As Nut Street, with the destruction of his little statue, had been wiped +out of his history, so the two rooms overlooking the river and +steamboats knew Antony Fairfax no more. He turned the key in the door +the day they carried away the body of his wife, and when he came back +from the snowy earth and the snowy white city where he left her with his +hour-old child, he went to the Delavan House as he had done before, and +buried his head in his arms on his lowly bed in a hotel room and wept. + +The following day he sent word to Rainsford to look out for another +engineer in his place. He had driven his last trip. + +Tito Falutini wrung his friend's hand, and told Fairfax, in his broken +Italian-English, that he knew a fellow would take the rooms as they +stood. "Would Tony give the job to him?" Save for his clothes and +Molly's things, and they were few, he took nothing, not even the +drawings decorating the wall on which other Irish eyes should look with +admiration. + +He interviewed the jewellers again. They gave him four hundred dollars +and took his mother's ring. He paid his doctor's bills and funeral +expenses, and had fifty dollars left until he should finish his +bas-relief. He went to live at the Canal Street studio and shut himself +up with his visions, his freedom, his strange reproach and his sense of +untrammelled wings. + +He worked with impassioned fervour, for now he _knew_. He modelled with +assurance, for now he _saw_. His hands were so eager to create the idea +of his brain that he sighed as he worked, fairly panted at his task as +though he ran a race with inspiration. Half-fed, sometimes quite +sleepless, he lost weight and flesh. He missed the open-air life of the +engine and the air at his ears. But now at his ears were the audible +voices of his conceptions. February and March passed. His models were, a +mannequin, his studies of Molly Fairfax, and once the daughter of the +man who rented him the workshop stood before him draped in the long +garment; but he sent her away: she was too _living_ for his use. He ate +in little cheap restaurants down by the riverside, or cooked himself +coffee and eggs over his lamp, and wondered who would be the first to +break the silence and isolation, for it was six weeks before he saw a +single human being save those he passed in the street. + +"Rainsford," he said to the agent, who on the last day of March came +slowly in at noon, walking like a man just out of a long illness, "I +reckoned you'd be along when you were ready. I've waited for you here." + +Fairfax's hand was listlessly touched by his friend's, then Rainsford +went over and took Molly's place by the lamp. Fairfax checked the words, +"Not _there_, for God's sake, Rainsford!" He thought, "Let the living +come. Nothing can brush away the image of her sitting there in the +lamplight, no matter how many fill the place." + +Rainsford's eyes were hollow, and his tone as pale as his face, whose +sunken cheeks and hollows, to Fairfax, marked the progress of a fatal +disease. His voice sounded hoarse and strained; he spoke with effort. + +"I've come to say good-bye. I've given up my job here in West Albany. +I'm going to try another country, Tony." + +The sculptor sat down on the lounge where he had used to sit near his +wife, and said solicitously-- + +"I see you're not well, old man. I don't wonder you're going to try a +better climate. I hope to heaven I shall never see another snow-flake +fall. I assure you I feel them fall on graves." + +There was a moment's silence. The agent passed his hand across his face +and said, as if reluctant to speak at all-- + +"Yes, I am going to try another country." He glanced at Fairfax and +coughed. + +"California?" questioned Antony. "I hope you'll get a job in some such +paradise. Do you think you will?" + +The other man did not reply. He looked about the studio, now living-room +and workshop, and said-- + +"I should like to see what you have been doing, Fairfax. How are you +getting on?" + +Tony, however, did not rise from the sofa nor show any inclination to +comply, and his friend irrelevantly, as though he took up the young +man's problems where he had left them, before his own sentiment for +Molly had estranged him from her husband-- + +"You must be pretty hard up by now, Tony." He drew from his waistcoat +pocket his wallet, and took out a roll of bills which he folded +mechanically and held in his transparent hand. "Ever since the day you +came in to take your orders from me in West Albany, I've wanted to help +you. Now I've got the money to do so, old man." + +"No, my kind friend." + +"Don't refuse me then, if I am that." The other's lip twitched. "Take +it, Tony." + +"You mustn't ask me to, Peter." + +"I made a turnover last week in N. Y. U. I can afford it. I ask you for +the sake of old times." + +Fairfax covered the slender hand with his. He shook it warmly. + +"I'm sorry, old man. I can't do it." + +The near-sighted eyes of the paymaster met those of Fairfax with a +melancholy appeal, and the other responded to his unspoken words-- + +"No, Rainsford, not for anything in the world." + +"It's your _Pride_," Rainsford murmured, and he put on his shining +glasses and looked through them fully at Fairfax. "It's your Pride, +Tony. What are you going to do?" + +For answer, Fairfax rose, stretched out his arms, walked toward his +covered bas-relief and drew away the curtain. + +His friend followed him, stood by his side, and, with his thin hand +covering his eyes, looked without speaking at the bas-relief. When he +finally removed his hand and turned, Fairfax saw that his friend's face +was transformed. Rainsford wore a strangely peaceful look, even an +uplifted expression, such as a traveller might wear who sees the door +open to a friendly shelter and foretastes his repose. + +Rainsford held out his hand. "Thank you, Tony," and his voice was clear. +"You're a great artist." + +When he had gone, Fairfax recalled his rapt expression, and thought, +sadly, "I'm afraid he's a doomed man, dear old Rainsford! Poor old +Peter, I doubt if any climate can save him now." And went heavy-hearted +to prepare his little luncheon of sandwiches and milk. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Fairfax had finished his lunch and was preparing to work again when, in +answer to a knock, he opened the door for Tito Falutini, who bore in in +his Sunday clothes, behind him a rosy, smiling, embarrassed lady, whom +Fairfax had not seen for a "weary while." + +"_Mrs._ Falutini," grinned his fireman. "_I_ married! Shakka de han." + +"Cora!" exclaimed Fairfax, kissing the bride on both her cheeks; "I +would have come to see your mother and you long ago, but I couldn't." + +"Shure," said the Irish girl tenderly, her eyes full of tears. "I know, +Mr. Fairfax, dear, and so does the all of us." + +He realized more and more how well these simple people knew and how +kindly is the heart of the poor, and he wondered if "Blessed are the +poor in spirit" that the Canon had spoken of in church on Sunday did not +refer to some peculiar kind of richness of which the millionaires of the +world are ignorant. He made Falutini and his bride welcome, and Cora's +brogue and her sympathy caused his grief to freshen. But their +boisterous happiness and their own content was stronger than all else, +and when at last Cora said, "Och, show us the statywary 't you're +makin', Misther Fairfax, dear," he languidly rose and uncovered again +his bas-relief. Then he watched curiously the Irish girl and the Italian +workman before his labour. + +"Shure," Cora murmured, her eyes full of tears, "it's Molly herself, Mr. +Fairfax, dear. It's _living_." + +He let the covering fall, and its folds suggested the garments of the +tomb. + +The young couple, starting out in life arm-in-arm, had seen only life +in his production, and he was glad. He let them go without reluctance, +eager to return to his modelling, and to retouch a line in the woman's +figure, for the bas-relief was still warm clay, and had not been cast in +plaster, and he kept at his work until five o'clock in the afternoon, +when there was another knock at his door. He bade the intruder absently +"Come in," heard the door softly open and close, and the sound jarred +his nerves, as did every sound at that door, and with his scalpel in his +hand, turned sharply. In the door close to his shadow stood the figure +of a slender young girl. There was only the space of the room between +them, and even in his surprise he thought, "_Now_, there is nothing +else!" + +"Cousin Antony," she said from the doorway where he had seen the vision, +"aren't you going to speak to me? Aren't you glad to see me?" + +Her words were the first Fairfax had heard in the rich voice of a woman, +for the child tone had changed, and there was a "timbre" now in the tone +that struck the old and a new thrill. Her boldness, the bright assurance +seemed gone. He thought her voice trembled. + +"Why don't you speak to me, Cousin Antony? Do you think I'm a _ghost_?" + +(A ghost!) + +Bella came forward as she spoke, and he saw that she wore a girlish +dress, a long dress, a womanly dress. With her old affectionate gesture +she held out her hand, and on her dark hair was a little red bonnet of +some fashion too modish for him to find familiar, but very bewitching +and becoming, and he saw that she was a lovely woman, nearly seventeen. + +"I lost the precious little paper you gave me, Cousin Antony, that day +at church, and I only found it to-day in packing. I'm going home for the +Easter holidays." + +He realized that she was close to him, and that she innocently lifted up +her face. Fairfax bent and kissed her under the red hat on the hair. + +"Now," she cried, nodding at him, "I've hunted you down, tracked you to +your lair, and you _can't_ escape. I want to see your work. Show me +everything." + +But Fairfax put his hand up quickly, and before her eyes rested on the +bas-relief he had let the curtain fall. + +"You're not an engineer any more, then, Cousin Antony?" + +"No, Bella." + +"Tell me why you ran away from us as you did? Oh!" she exclaimed, +clasping her pretty hands, "I've thought over and over the questions I +wanted to ask you, things I wanted to tell you, and now I forget them +all. Cousin Antony, it wasn't _kind_ to leave us as you did,--Gardiner +and me." + +He watched her as she took a chair, half-leaning on its back before his +covered work. Bella's pose was graceful and elegant. Girl as she was, +she was a little woman of the world. She swung her gloves between her +fingers, looking up at him. + +"It's nearly five years, Cousin Antony." + +"I know it." + +She laughed and blushed. "I've been running after you, _shockingly_, +haven't I? I ran away from home and found you in the queer little street +in the queer little home with those _angel_ Irish people! How are they +all, Cousin Antony, and the freckled children?" + +"Bella," her cousin asked, "haven't they nearly finished with you in +school? You are grown up." + +She shook her head vehemently. "Nonsense, I'm a dreadful hoyden still. +Think of it! I've never been on the roll of honour yet at St. Mary's." + +"No?" he smiled. "They were wrong not to put you there. How is Aunt +Caroline?" + +The girl's face clouded, and she said half under her breath-- + +"_Why, don't you know?_" + +Ah, there was another grave, then? What did Bella mean? + +She exclaimed, stopped swinging her gloves, folded her hands gravely-- + +"Why, Cousin Antony, didn't you read in the papers?" + +He saw a rush of colour fill her cheeks. It wasn't death, then? He +hadn't seen any papers for some time, and he never should have expected +to find his aunt's name in the papers. + +"I don't believe I can tell you, Cousin Antony." + +He drew up a chair and sat down by her. "Yes, you can, little cousin." + +Her face was troubled, but she smiled. "Yes, that was what you used to +call me, didn't you? You see, I'm hardly supposed to know. It's not a +thing a girl _should_ know, Cousin Antony. Can't you guess?" + +"Hardly, Bella." + +Fairfax wiped his hands on a bunch of cloths, and the dry morsels of +clay fell to the floor. + +"Tell me what it is about Aunt Caroline." + +"She is not my mother any more, Cousin Antony, nor father's wife +either." + +He waited. Bella's tone was low and embarrassed. + +"I don't know how to tell it. She had a lovely voice, Cousin Antony." + +"She had indeed, Bella." + +"Well," slowly commented the young girl, "she took music lessons from a +teacher who sang in the opera, and I used to hear them at it until I +nearly lost my mind sometimes. I _hate music_--I mean that kind, Cousin +Antony." + +"Well," he interrupted, impatient to hear the _dénouement_. "What then, +honey?" + +"One night at dinner-time mother didn't come home; but she is often +late, and we waited, and then went on without her.... She never came +home, and no one ever told me anything, not even old Ann. Father said I +was not to speak my mother's name again. And I never have, until now, to +you." + +Fairfax took in his Bella's hands that turned the little rolled kid +gloves; they were cold. He bent his eyes on her. Young as she was, she +saw there and recognized compassion and human understanding, qualities +which, although she hardly knew their names, were sympathetic to her. He +bent his eyes on her. + +"Honey," Fairfax said, "you have spoken your mother's name in the right +place. Don't judge her, Bella!" + +"Oh!" exclaimed the young girl, crimsoning. She tossed her proud, dark +head. "I do judge her, Cousin Antony, I do." + +"Hush!" he exclaimed sternly, "as you say, you are too young to +understand what she has done, but not too young to be merciful." + +She snatched her hands away, and sprang up, her eyes rebellious. + +"Why should I not judge her?" Her voice was indignant. "It's a disgrace +to my honourable father, to our name. How can you, Cousin Antony?" +Fairfax did not remove his eyes from her intense little face. "She was +never a mother to us," the young girl judged, with the cruelty of youth. +"Think how I ran wild! Do you remember my awful clothes? My things that +never met, the buttons off my shoes? Think of darling little Gardiner, +Cousin Antony...!" + +Her cousin again bade her be silent. She stamped her foot passionately. + +"But I will speak! Why should you take her part?" + +With an expression which Bella felt to be grave, Fairfax repeated-- + +"You must not speak her name, as your father told you. It's a mighty +hard thing for one woman to judge another, little cousin. Wait until you +are a woman yourself." + +Fairfax understood. He thought how the way had opened to his weak, +sentimental aunt; he fancied that he saw again the doe at the gate of +the imposing park of the unreal forest; the gate had swung open, and, +her eyes as mild as ever, the doe had entered the mystic world. To him +this image of his aunt was perfect. Oh! mysterious, dreadful, wonderful +heart of woman! + +Bella stood by his side, looking up at him. "Cousin Antony," she +breathed, "why do you take her part?" + +"I want her daughter to take it, Bella, or say nothing." + +Her dark eyes were on him intently, curiously. His throat was bare, his +blond hair cut close around his neck; the marks of his recent grief and +struggle had thinned and saddened his face. He had altered very much in +five years. + +"I remember," Bella said sharply, "you used to seem fond of her;" and +added, "I loved my father best." + +Fairfax made no reply, and Bella walked slowly across the studio, and +started to sit down under the green lamp. + +"No," cried Fairfax, "not there, Bella!" + +Her hand on the back of the chair, the young girl paused in surprise. + +"Why, why not, Cousin Antony?" + +Why not, indeed! He had not prevented Rainsford from sitting there. + +"Is the chair weak in its legs?" she laughed. "I'm light--I'll risk it," +and, half defiantly, she seated herself by the table, leaning both +elbows on it. She looked back at him. "Now, make a little drawing of me +as you used to do. I'll show it to the girls in school to prove what a +genius we have in the family; and I must go back, too, or I'll have more +bad marks than ever." + +Fairfax did not obey her. Instead, he looked at her as though he saw +through her to eternity. + +Bella sprang up impulsively, and came toward him. "Cousin Antony," she +murmured, "I'm perfectly dreadful. I'm selfish and inconsiderate. It's +only because I'm a little wild. I don't mean it. You've told me +nothing." She lifted his cravat from the chair. "You wear a black cravat +and your clothes are black. Is it for Aunt Arabella still?" + +Fairfax seemed to himself to look down on her from a height. Her +brilliance, her sparkle and youth were far away. His heart ached within +him. + +"One goes mighty far in five years, Bella.... One loses many things." + +"I know--Gardiner and your mother. But who else?" + +He saw her face sadden; the young girl extended her hand to him, her +eyes darkened. + +"Who else?" she breathed. + +Fairfax put out his arms toward her, but did not enfold her. He let his +hands rest on her shoulders and murmured, "Bella, little Bella," and +choked the other words back. + +"No," she said, "I'm not little Bella any more. Please answer me, Cousin +Antony." + +He could not have told her for his life. He could tell her nothing; her +charm, her lifted face, beautiful, ardent, were the most real, the most +vital things the world had ever held for him. The fascination found him +under his new grief. He exclaimed, turning brusquely toward his covered +scaffolding-- + +"Don't you want to see my work, Bella? I've been at it nearly a year." + +He rapidly drew the curtain and exposed his bas-relief. + +There was in the distance a vague indication of distant sky-line--a far +horizon--upon which, into which, a door opened, held ajar by a woman's +arm and hand. The woman's figure, draped in the clinging garment of the +grave, was passing through, but in going her face was turned, uplifted, +to look back at a man without, who, apparently unconscious of her, gazed +upon life and the world. That was all--the two figures and the feeling +of the vast illimitable far-away. + +It seemed to Fairfax as he unveiled his work that he looked upon it +himself for the first time; it seemed to him finished, moreover, +complete. He knew that he could do nothing more with it. He heard Bella +ask, "Who is it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful!" her old +enthusiasm soft and warm in her voice. + +At her repeated question, "Who is it?" he replied, "A dream woman." And +his cousin said, "You have lovely dreams, but it is too sad." + +He told her for what it was destined, and she listened, musing, and when +she turned her face to him again there were tears in her eyes. She +pointed to the panel. + +"There should be a child there," she said, with trembling lips. "They go +in too, Cousin Antony." + +"Yes," he responded, "they go in too." + +He crossed the floor with her toward the door, neither of them speaking. +She drew on her gloves, but at the door he said-- + +"Stop a moment. I'm going a little way with you." + +"No, Cousin Antony, you can't. Myra Scutfield, my best friend, is +waiting for me with her brother. I'm supposed to be visiting her for +Sunday. You mustn't come." + +Her hand was on the door latch. He gently took her hand and pushed it +aside. He did not wish her to open that door or to go through it alone. +As they stood there silent, she lifted her face and said-- + +"I'm going away for the Easter holidays. Kiss me good-bye." + +And he stooped and kissed her--kissed Bella, the little cousin, the +honey child--no, kissed Bella, the woman, on her lips. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +From the window he watched her fly up the street like a scarlet bird, +and realized what a child she was still, and, whereas he had felt a +hundred that day at church, he now felt as old as the ancient Egyptians, +as the Sphinx, a Sage in suffering and knowledge of life, beside his +cousin. He called her little, but she was tall and slender, standing as +high as his shoulder. + +He turned heavily about to his room which the night now filled. The +street lamps were lit, and their frail glimmer flickered in, like the +fingers of a ghost. His money was nearly gone. There was the expense of +casting his work in plaster, the packing and shipping of the bas-relief. +He lit his lamp, and, as he adjusted the green shade, under which Molly +had used to sit and sew, he saw on the table the roll of bills which +Rainsford had offered to him that morning. He picked up the money with a +smile. + +"Poor old Rainsford, dear old chap. He was determined, wasn't he?" + +Fairfax wrapped up the heavy roll of money, marked it with Rainsford's +name, and stood musing on his friend's failing health, his passion for +Molly, and the fruitless, vanishing story that ended, as all seemed to +end for him, in death. Suddenly, over his intense feelings, came the +need of nourishment, and he wanted to escape from the room where he had +been caged all day. + +At the Delavan, George Washington welcomed him with delight. + +"Yo' dun forgit yo' ol' friends, Massa' Kunnell Fairfax, sah. Yo doan +favour dis ol' nigger any moh." + +Fairfax told him that he was an expensive luxury, and enjoyed his quiet +meal and his cigar, took a walk in a different direction from Canal +Street, and at ten o'clock returned to find a boy waiting at the door +with a note, whistling and staring up and down the street, waiting for +the gentleman to whom he was to deliver his note in person. + +Fairfax went in with his letter, knowing before he opened it that +Rainsford had something grave to tell him. He sat down in Molly's chair, +around which the Presence had gathered and brooded until the young man's +soul had seemed engulfed in the shadow of Death. + + "MY DEAR TONY, + + "When you read this letter, it will be of no use to come to me. + Don't come. I said my final word to you to-day when I went to make + my will and testament. You will discover on your table all my + fortune. It counts up to a thousand dollars. I have a feeling that + it may help you to success. You know what a failure I have been. I + should have been one right along. Now that I have found out that a + mortal disease is upon me, my last spurt of courage is gone. When I + stood before your work to-day, Tony, it was a benediction to me. + Although I had fully decided to _go out_, I should have gone + hopelessly; now there is something grand to me in the retreat. The + uplift and the solemnity of the far horizon charm me, and though I + open the door for myself and have no right to any claim for mercy, + nevertheless I think that I shall find it there, and I am going + through the open door. God bless you, Fairfax. Don't let the + incidents of your life in Albany cloud what I believe will be a + great career. + + "THOMAS RAINSFORD." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +He was too young to be engulfed by death. + +But he did not think or understand then that the great events which had +racked his nerves in suffering were only incidents. Nor did he know that +neither his soul nor his heart had suffered all they were capable of +enduring. In spite of his deep heart-ache and his feelings that quivered +with the memories of his wife, he was above all an artist, a creator. +Hope sprang from this last grave. Desire in Fairfax had never been fully +born; how then could it be fully satisfied or grow old and cold before +it had lived! + +Tony Fairfax was the sole mourner that followed Rainsford's coffin to +the Potter's Field. They would not bury him in consecrated ground. Canon +Prynne had been surprised by a visit at eight o'clock in the morning. + +Fairfax was received by the Bishop in his bedroom, where the Bishop was +shaving. Fairfax, as he talked, caught sight of his own face in the +glass, deathly white, his burning eyes as blue as the heavens to which +he was sure Rainsford had gone. + +"My friend," the ecclesiastic said, "my friend, I have nothing to do +with laws, thank God. I am glad that no responsibility has been given me +but to do my work. But let me say, to comfort you, is not every whit of +the earth that God made holy? What could make it more sacred than the +fact that He created it?" + +Fairfax thought of these words as he saw the dust scatter and heard the +rattle of the stones on the lid of Rainsford's coffin, and in a clear +and assured voice of one who knows in whom he has believed, he read from +Bella's Prayer-book (he had never given it back to her), "I am the +Resurrection and the Life." He could find no parson to go with him. + +On the way back to Albany he met the spring everywhere; it was just +before the Easter holidays. Overhead the clouds rolled across a +stainless sky, and they took ship-like forms to him and he felt a strong +wish to escape--to depart. Rainsford had set him free. It would be +months before he could hear from his competition. There was nothing in +this continent to keep him. He had come North full of living hope and +vital purpose, and meekly, solemnly, his graves had laid themselves out +around him, and he alone stood living. + +Was there nothing to keep him? + +Bella Carew. + +He had, of all people in the world, possibly the least right to her. She +was his first cousin, nothing but a child; worth, the papers had said, a +million in her own right. The heiress of a man who despised him. + +But her name was music still; music as yet too delicate, sweet as it +was, not to be drowned by the deeper, graver notes that were sounding +through Fairfax. There was a call to labour, there was the imperious +demand of his art. In him, something sang Glory, and if the other tones +meant struggle and battle, nevertheless his desire was all toward them. + + + + +BOOK III + +THE VISIONS + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The sea which he had just crossed lay gleaming behind him, every lovely +ripple washing the shores of a new continent. + +The cliffs which he saw rising white in the sunlight were the Norman +cliffs. Beyond them the fields waved in the summer air and the June sky +spread blue over France. + +As he stepped down from the gang-plank and touched French soil, he gazed +about him in delight. + +The air was salt and indescribably sweet. The breeze came to him over +the ripening fields and mingled with the breath of the sea. + +They passed his luggage through the Customs quickly, and Antony was free +to wonder and to explore. Not since he had left the oleanders and +jasmines of New Orleans had he smelled such delicious odours as those of +sea-girdled Havre. A few soldiers in red uniforms tramped down the +streets singing the Marseillaise. A group of fish-wives offered him +mussels and crabs. + +In his grey travelling clothes, his soft grey hat, his bag in his hand, +he went away from the port toward the wide avenue. + +The bright colour of a red awning of a café caught his eye; he decided +to breakfast before going on to Paris. + +Paris! The word thrilled him through and through. + +At a small table out of doors he ordered "boeuf ŕ la mode" and "pommes +de terre." It seemed agreeable to speak French again and his soft Creole +accent charmed the ear of the waiter who bent smiling to take his order. + +Antony watched with interest the scene around him; those about him +seemed to be good-humoured, contented travellers on the road of life. +There was a neat alacrity about the waiters in their white aprons. + +A girl with a bouquet of roses came up to him. Antony gave her a sou and +in exchange she gave him a white rose. + +"Thank you, Monsieur the Englishman." + +He had never tasted steak and potatoes like these. He had never tasted +red wine like this. And it cost only a franc! He ordered his coffee and +smoked and mused in the bland June light. + +He was happier than he had been for many a long day. + + * * * * * + +Eventful, tremulous, terrible and expressive, his past lay behind him on +another shore. He felt as though he were about to seek his fortune for +the first time. + +As soon as Rainsford's generous gift became his own, the possession of +his little fortune, even at such a tragic price, made a new man of +Fairfax. He magnified its power, but it proved sufficient to buy him a +gentlemanly outfit, the ticket to France, and leave him a little +capital. + +His plans unfolded themselves to him now, as he sat musing before the +restaurant. He would study in the schools with Cormon or Julian. He had +brought with him his studies of Molly--he would have them criticized by +the great masters. All Paris was before him. The wonders of the +galleries, whose masterpieces were familiar to him in casts and +photographs, would disclose themselves to him now. He would see the +Louvre, Notre Dame de Paris.... + +His spirits rose as he touched the soil of France. Now Paris should be +his mistress, and art should be his passion! + + * * * * * + +His ticket took him second-class on a slow train and he found a seat +amongst the humble travelling world; between a priest and a soldier, he +smoked his cigarettes and offered them to his companions, and watched +the river flowing between the poplars, the fields red with poppies, +yellow with wheat. The summer light shining on all shone on him through +the small window of the carriage, and though it was sunset it seemed to +Fairfax sunrise. The hour grew late. The darkness fell and the motion of +the cars made him drowsy, and he fell asleep. + + * * * * * + +He was awakened by the stirring of his fellow-passengers, by the rich +Norman voices, by the jostling and moving among the occupants of the +carriage, and he gathered his thoughts together, took his valise in his +hand and climbed down from the car. + +He passed out with the crowd through the St. Lazare station. He had in +Havre observed with interest the novel constructions of the engines and +the rolling stock. The crowd of market-women, peasants, curés, was +anonymous to him, but as he passed the engine which had brought him from +Havre, he glanced up at the mechanician, a big, blond-moustached fellow +in a blue blouse. The engineer's face streamed with perspiration and he +was smoking a cigarette. + +He had shunned engines and yards, and everything that had to do with his +old existence, for months; now he nodded with a friendly sympathetic +smile to the engine-driver. + +"Bien le bonjour," he said cheerfully, as he had heard the people in the +train say it, "Bien le bonjour." + +The Frenchman nodded and grinned and watched him limp down and out with +the others to the waiting-room called, picturesquely, the Hall of the +Lost Footsteps--"La Salle des Pas Perdus." + +And Antony's light step and his heavy step fell among the countless +millions that come and go, go and come, unmarked, forgotten--to walk +with the Paris multitudes into paths of obscurity or fame--"_les pas +perdus_." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +It was the first beginning of summer dawn when he turned breathlessly +into the Rue de Rome and stood at length in Paris. He shouldered his big +bag and took his bearings. At that early hour there were few people +abroad--here and there a small open carriage, drawn by a limp, +melancholy horse and dominated by what he thought a picturesque cabby, +passed him invitingly. A drive in a cab in America is not for a man of +uncertain means, and the folly of taking a vehicle did not occur to him. +Along the broad avenue at the street's foot, lights were still lit in +the massive lamps, shops and houses were closed, and by a blue sign on +the wall he read that he was crossing a great avenue. The Boulevard +Haussmann was as tranquil as a village street. A couple of good-looking +men, whom he thought were soldiers, caught his eye in their uniforms of +white trousers and blue coats. He asked them, touching his hat, the +first thing that came to his mind: "La Rue Mazarine, Messieurs--would +they direct him?" + +When he came out on the Place de la Concorde at four o'clock he was +actually the only speck visible in the great circle. He stopped, +enchanted, to look about him. The imaginative and inadequate picture of +the Place de la Concorde his idea had drawn, faded. The light mists of +the morning swept up the Avenue des Champs Elysées, and there stood out +before his eyes the lines of the Triumphal Arch, which to Antony said: +Napoleon! + +On the left stretched gardens toward a great palace, all that has been +left to France and the glory which was her doom. + +From the spectral line of the Louvre, his eyes came back to the +melancholy statues that rose near him--Strassburg, Luxemburg, Alsace +and Lorraine. Huge iron wreaths hung about their bases, wreaths that +blossomed as he looked, like flowers of blood and lilies of death. + +Then in front of him the calm, rose-hued obelisk lifted its finger, and +once again the shadow of Egypt fell across the heart of a modern city. +To Antony, the obelisk had an affinity with the Abydos Sphinx, but this +obelisk did not rest on the backs of four bronze creatures! + +The small cabs continued to tinkle slowly across the Place; a group of +young fellows passed by, singing on their way to the Latin Quarter, from +some fęte in Montmartre--they were students going home before morning. +In the distance, here and there, were a few foot passengers like +himself, but to Antony it seemed that he was alone in Paris. And in the +fresh beginning of a day untried and momentous, the city was like a +personality. In the summer softness, in the tender, agreeable light, the +welcome to him was caressing and as lovely as New York had been brutal. + +Antony resumed his way to the river, followed the quays where at his +side the Seine ran along, reddening in the summer's sunrise. Along the +river, when he crossed the Pont des Arts, he saw the stirring of +Parisian life. He went on down the quays, past quaint old houses whose +traditions and history he wanted to know, turned off into a dark +street--la Rue Mazarine. He smiled as he read the sign. What had this +narrow Parisian alley to do with him? He had adopted it out of caprice, +distinguished it from all Paris. + +He scanned the shops and houses; many were still closed, neither +milk-shops nor antiquity dealers suggested shelter. A modest sign over a +dingy-looking building caught his eye. In the courtyard, in green wooden +tubs, flourished two bay-trees. + +"Hotel of the Universe"--Hotel de l'Univers. + +That was hospitable enough, wide enough to take Antony Fairfax in. +Behind the bay-trees a dirty, discouraged looking waiter, to whom the +universe had apparently not been generous, welcomed, or at least +glanced, at Fairfax. The fellow wore a frayed, colourless dress-suit; +his linen was suspicious, but his head at this early hour was sleekly +brushed and oiled. + +"No, the hotel is not yet full," he told the stranger, as though he +said, "The entire universe, thank God, has not yet descended upon us." + +For one franc fifty a room could be had on the sixth floor. Antony +yielded up his bag and bade the man show the way. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +He could hardly wait to make his hasty toilet and set forth into the +city. He saw something of it from the eave-window in his microscopic +room. Chimney-pots, stained, mossy roofs, the flash of old spires, the +round of a dome, the river, the bridges, all under the supernal blue of, +to him, a friendly sky--he felt that he must quaff it all at a draught. +But the fatigue of his lame limb began to oppress him. There was the +weight of sleep on his eyelids, and he turned gratefully to the small +bed under the red rep curtains. It was ridiculously small for his six +feet of body, but he threw himself down thankfully and slept. + +Dreams chased each other through his brain and he stretched out his +hands toward elusive forms in his sleep. He seized upon one, thinking it +was Bella, and when he pressed his cheek to hers, the cheek was cold and +the form was cold. He slept till afternoon and rose still with the daze +upon him of his arrival and his dreams, and the first excitement +somewhat calmed. He had enough change for his lodging and dinner, but +nothing more. + +He walked across the bridge and the light and brilliance of the city +dazzled him. He went into the Louvre, and the coolness and breadth of +the place fell on him like a spell. He wondered if any in that vast +place was as athirst as he was and as mad for beauty. He wandered +through the rooms enthralled, and made libations to the relics of old +Egypt; he sent up hymns to the remains of ancient Greece, and before the +Venus of Milo gave up his heart, standing long absorbed before the +statue, swearing to slave for the production of beauty. He found himself +stirred to his most passionate depths, musing on form and artistic +creation, and when the pulse in his heart became too strong and the +Venus oppressed his sense, he wandered out, limped up the staircase and +delivered up his soul at the foot of the pedestal of the Winged Victory. +He did not go to the paintings; the feast had been tremendous--he could +bear no more. + +On his way out of the Louvre he passed through the Egyptian room. Ever +since the Abydos Sphinx had been brought to America, from the Nile, +Egypt had charmed him. He had read of Egypt, its treasures, in the +Albany library now and then on Sunday afternoons. It had a tremendous +attraction for him, and he entered the room where its relics were with +worship of the antique in his soul. + +He turned to go, when his foot touched something on the floor and he +stooped to pick it up--a fine chain purse heavy with pieces of gold. He +balanced it in his hand and looked around for the possible owner, but he +was the only sightseer. He went, however, quickly from the museum, not +knowing in just what manner to restore this property, and in front of +him, passing out on to the gallery above the grand staircase, he saw a +lady leisurely making her exit. She was beautifully dressed and had such +an air of riches about her that he thought to himself, with every +reason, why should she not be the possessor of a gold purse? He went up +to her. + +"I beg pardon," he began, and as she turned he recognized her in a +moment as the woman by whose carriage he had stood in the crowd on the +day of the unveiling of his statue--he recognized her as the woman who +had drawn the veil of the Sphinx. She was Cedersholm's fiancée. "Have +you lost anything, Madame?" + +She exclaimed: "My purse! Oh, thank you very much." Then looked at him, +smiling, and said, "But I think I have seen you before. Whom must I +thank?" + +He had his hat in his hand. His fine, clear brow over which the hair +grew heavily, his beautiful face, his strength and figure, once seen and +remembered as she had remembered them in that brief instant in New York, +were not to be forgotten. Still the resemblance puzzled her. + +"My name is Rainsford," he said quietly, "Thomas Rainsford. I am one of +Mr Cedersholm's pupils." + +"If that is so," she said, "you are welcome at my house at any time. I +am home Sundays. Won't you give me the pleasure of calling, Mr. +Rainsford?" + +He bowed, thanked her, and they walked down the stairs together, and she +was unable to recall where she had seen this handsome young man. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +In his little hotel that night he lighted a candle in a tall nickel +candlestick, and, when he was ready for bed, he peered into his mirror +at his own face, which he took pains to consider thoughtfully. Like a +friend's it looked back at him, the marks of Life deep upon it. + +At two o'clock he was in a heavy sleep when he was roused by the turning +of the handle of his door. Some one had come into the room and Antony, +bolt upright, heard the door drawn and the key turned. Then something +slipped and fell with a thud. He lit his candle, shielded it, and to his +amazement saw sitting on the floor, his big form taking up half the +little room, a young fellow in full evening dress, an opera hat on the +back of his head. + +"Don't squeal," said the visitor gently with a hiccough; "I see I'm too +late or too early, or shomething or other." + +He was evidently a gentleman out of his room and evidently drunk. Antony +laughed and got half-way out of bed. + +"You're in the wrong room, that's clear, and how are you going to get +out of it? Can you get up with a lift?" + +"Look here"--the young man who was an American and who would have been +agreeable-looking if he had not been drunk and hebetated, sat back and +leaned comfortably against the door--"roomsh all right, good roomsh, +just like mine; don't mind me, old man, go back to bed." + +Antony came over and tried to pull him up, but the stranger was immense, +as big as himself, and determined and happy. He had made up his mind to +pass his night on the floor. + +Antony rang his bell in vain, then sighed, himself overcome with sleep. +To the young man who barricaded the door, and who was already beginning +to drowse, he said pleasantly---- + +"Give us your hat, anyway, and take off your coat." + +"Now you go back to bed, sir," ordered the other with solemn dignity, +"go back to bed, don't mind me. I'm nothing but a little mountain +flower," he quoted pathetically. His head fell over, his big body +followed it. + +Antony took one of his pillows, put it under the fellow's head, and +turned in himself, amused by his singularly companioned night. + + * * * * * + +"What the deuce!" he heard the next morning from a voice not unpleasant, +although markedly Western. And he opened his eyes to see bending over +him a ruffled, untidy, pasty-looking individual whom he remembered to +have last seen sprawling on the floor. + +"Say, are you in my bed or am I only out of my own?" asked the young +man. + +Antony told him. + +"George!" exclaimed the other, sitting down on the bed and taking his +head in his hands, "I was screwed all right, and I fell like a barrel in +the Falls of Niagara. I'm ever so much obliged to you for not kicking up +a row here. My room is next or opposite or somewhere, I guess--that is, +if I'm in the Universe." + +Antony said that he was. + +"I feel," said the young man, "as though its revolutions had +accelerated." + +"There's water over there," said Antony; "you're welcome to have it." + +"See here," said the total stranger, "if you're half the brick you +seem--and you are or you wouldn't have let me snore all night on the +carpet--ring for Alphonse and send him out to get some bromo seltzer. +There's a chemist's bang up against the hotel, and he's got that line of +drugs." + +Fairfax put out his arm and rang from the bed. The young man waited +dejectedly; having taken off his coat and collar, he looked somewhat +mournfully at his silk hat which, the worse for his usage of it, had +rolled in a corner of Fairfax's room. + +Alphonse, who for a wonder was within a few steps of the room, answered +the bell, his advent announced by the shuffling of his old slippers; but +before he had knocked the young man slid across the room and stood flat +behind the door so that, when it opened, his presence would not be +observed by the valet. + +The man, for whom Fairfax had not yet had occasion to ring, opened the +door and stood waiting for the order. He was a small, round-faced fellow +in a green barege apron, that came up and down and all over him. In his +hand he carried a melancholy feather duster. + +"Le déjeuner, Monsieur?" smiled Alphonse cordially, "un café complet?" + +"Yes," acquiesced Antony eagerly, "and as well, would you go to the +pharmacy and get me a bottle of bromo seltzer?" + +"Bien, Monsieur." The valet looked much surprised and considered +Fairfax's handsome, healthy face. "Bien, Monsieur," and he waited. + +Fairfax was about to say: "Give me my waistcoat," but remembering his +secluded friend, sprang out of bed and gave to Alphonse a five-franc +piece. + +"You're a brick," said the young man, coming out from behind the door. +"I'm awfully obliged. Now let me get my head in a basin of water and +I'll be back with you in a jiffy." And he darted out evidently into the +next room, for Fairfax heard the door bang and lock. + +Fairfax threw back his head and laughed. He was not utterly alone in +France, he had a drunken neighbour, a fellow companion on the sixth +floor of the Universe, which, after all, divides itself more or less +into stories in more ways than one. He opened his window and let in the +June morning, serene and lovely. It shone on him over chimney-pots and +many roofs and slender towers in the far distance. He heard the dim +noise of the streets. He had gone as far in his toilet as mixing the +shaving water, when the valet returned with a tray and presented Fairfax +with his first "petit déjeuner" in France. The young man thought it +tempting--butter in a golden pat, with a flower stamped on it. The +little rolls and something about the appearance of the little meal +suggested his New Orleans home--he half looked to see a dusky face beam +on him--"Massa Tony, chile"--and the vines at the window. + +"Voici, Monsieur." Alphonse indicated the bromide. "I think everything +is here." The intelligent servant had perceived the crushed silk hat in +the corner and gave a little cough behind his hand. + +Fairfax, six feet and more in his stockings, blond and good to look at, +his bright humour, his charm, his soft Creole accent, pleased Alphonse. + +"I see Monsieur has not unpacked his things. If I can serve Monsieur he +has only to ask me." Alphonse picked up the opera hat, straightened it +out and looked at it. "Shall I hang this up, Monsieur?" + +"Do, behind the door, Alphonse." + +The man did so and withdrew, and no sooner his rapid, light footsteps +patted down the hall-way than Fairfax eagerly seated himself before his +breakfast and poured out his excellent café au lait. The door was softly +pushed in again, shut to and locked--the dissipated young gentleman +seemed extremely partial to locked doors--and Fairfax's companion of the +night before said in an undertone---- + +"Go slow, nobody in the hotel knows I'm in it." + +Fairfax, who was not going slow over his breakfast, indicated the opera +hat behind the door and the bromide. + +"Hurrah for you and Alphonse," exclaimed the young fellow, who prepared +himself a pick-me-up eagerly, and without invitation seated himself at +Fairfax's table. + +A good-looking young man of twenty-five, not more, with a cheerful, +intelligent face in sober moments, now pale, with parched lips and eyes +not clear yet. He had washed and his hair was smoothly brushed. He had +no regularity of features such as Fairfax, being a well-set-up, ordinary +young fellow, such as one might see in any American college or +university. But there was a fineness in the lines of his mouth, a +drollery and wit in his eyes, and he was thoroughly agreeable. + +"I'm from the West," he said, putting his glass down empty. "Robert +Dearborn, from Cincinnati--and I'm no end obliged to you, old chap, +whoever you are. You've got a good breakfast there, haven't you?" + +"Have some," Antony offered with real generosity, for he was famished. + +"Well," returned Dearborn, "to tell you the truth, I feel as if I were +robbing a sleeping man to take it, for I know how fiendishly hungry you +must be. But, by Jove, I haven't had a thing to eat since"--and he +laughed--"since I was a child." + +He rinsed the glass that had held the bromide, poured out some black +coffee for himself and took half of Fairfax's bread and half of his +flower-stamped butter, and devoured it eagerly. When he had finished he +wiped his mouth and genially held out his hand. + +"Ever been hungry?" + +Antony did not tell him how lately. + +"Good," nodded Dearborn, "I understand. Passing through Paris?" + +"Just arrived." + +"Well, I've been here for two whole years. By the way," he questioned +Antony, "you haven't told me your name." + +Fairfax hesitated because of a fancy that had come into his mind when he +had discovered the loss of his fortune. + +"Thomas Rainsford," he said; then, for he could not deny his home, "from +New Orleans." + +"Ah!" exclaimed his companion, "that's why you speak such ripping +French. Now, do you know, to hear me you wouldn't think I'd seen a +gendarme or a Parisian pavement. My Western accent, you must have +remarked it, refuses to mix with a foreign language. I can speak +French," he said calmly, "but they can't understand me yet; I have been +here two years." + +There was a knock at the door. Dearborn started and held up his hand. + +"If Monsieur will give me his boots," suggested the mellow voice of +Alphonse, "I will clean them." + +Fairfax picked up his boots, the big shoe and the smaller one, and +handed out the pair through a crack in the door. + +When once again the rabbit steps had pattered away--"Go on dressing," +Dearborn said, "don't let me stop you. You don't mind my sitting here a +minute until Alphonse does with his boot-cleaning operations. He's a +magician at that. They keep their boots clean, here, if they don't +wash." + +Dearborn made himself comfortable, accepted a cigarette from the packet +the landlady had given Fairfax, and put his feet on the chair that +Fairfax had vacated. + +"I went out last night to a little supper with some friends of mine. The +banquet rather used me up." + +He smiled, and Fairfax saw how he looked when he was more himself. His +hair, as the water dried on it, was reddish, he was clean-shaven, his +teeth were white and sound, his smile agreeable. + +"Now, if I hadn't been drunk, I shouldn't have come back to the +Universe. I was due a quarter of a mile away from here. They'll keep me +when they find me. I haven't paid my bill here to Madame Poulet for six +weeks. But they are decent, trustful sort of people and can't believe a +chap won't ever pay. But I was fool enough to leave my father's cable in +my room and Madame Poulet had it translated. I grant you it wasn't +encouraging for a creditor, Rainsford." + +Antony heard his name used for the first time, the R's rolled and made +the most of. It seemed to bring back the dead. + +"Listen to the cable," said the communicative young man: "'You can go to +the devil. Not a cent more from me or your mother.'" + +Fairfax, who was tying his cravat, turned around and smiled, and he +limped over to his visitor. + +"It's not the most friendly telegram I ever heard," he said. + +"Step-father," returned the other briefly. "She knows nothing about +it--my mother, I mean. I've been living on her money here for two years +and over and it's gone; but before I take a penny from him ..." + +"I understand," said Fairfax, going back to the mirror and beginning to +brush his hair. + +"Did you ever have a mother?" asked the red-haired young man with a +queer look on his face, and added, "I see you have. Well, let's drop the +subject, then, but you may discuss step-fathers all you choose." + +Fairfax, for he was not Rainsford, yet, took a fancy to his visitor, a +fancy to his rough, deep voice; he liked the eyes that were clearing +fast, liked the kindly spirited face and the ready, boy-like confidence. + +"What are you up to in Paris?" he asked Dearborn, regarding him with +interest. + +"I'm a playwright," said the other simply. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +"A playwright," Fairfax repeated softly. If Dearborn had said "Ali +Baba," Fairfax would scarcely have been more surprised. + +"You must know the Bohemian life here?" he asked, "even possibly know +some artists?" + +"Well, rather," drawled his companion; "I live among them. I don't know +a single chap who isn't doing something, burning the midnight oil or +using the daylight in a studio." + +As Dearborn spoke, Fairfax, looking at him more observantly, saw +something in his countenance that responded to his own feelings. + +"What are you over here for, Rainsford?" asked the Westerner. + +"I am a sculptor." + +"Delightful!" exclaimed his companion. "Where are you going to work? +With Carrier-Belleuse or Rude?" + +"Ah, I don't know--I don't know where I can go or what I can do." + +His companion, with an understanding nod, said, "Didn't bring over a +gold-mine with you, perhaps?" + +As he said this he laughed, extended both his hands and jumped up from +his seat. + +"I like you exceedingly," he exclaimed heartily. "The governor had +telegraphed me to go to the devil and I thought I'd take his advice. The +little supper I was giving last night was to say good-bye to a +hundred-franc note, some money that I won at poker. I might have paid +some of this hotel bill, but I didn't. I wish you had been there, +Rainsford! But, never mind, you had the afterglow anyway! No," he +laughed, "let us surprise them at home. I don't quite know how, but +let's surprise them." + +Fairfax shook his head as though he didn't quite understand. + +"Is there no one who thinks you an insane fool for going in for art? +Nobody that your success will be gall to?" + +"No, I'm all alone." + +"Come," urged the other, too excited to see the sadness on his +companion's face. "Come, isn't there some one who will cringe when your +statues are unveiled?" + +"Stop!" cried Fairfax eagerly. + +"Come on then," cried the boy; "whoever it may be, your enemy or my +stepfather--we will surprise them yet!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +In January of the following year he leaned out of the window and smelled +Paris, drank it in, penetrated by its fragrance and perfume. He saw the +river milkily flowing between the shores, the stones of the quay +parapet, the arches of the bridges, the wide domain of roofs and towers. + +The Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre had not yet begun to rise, though they +were laying its foundation stones, and his eyes travelled, as they +always did, through the fog to the towers of Notre-Dame with its black, +mellow front and its melancholy beauty. The bourdon of the bells smote +sympathetically through him. No matter what his state of mind might be, +Paris took him out of himself, and he adored it. + +He was looking upon the first of the winter mists. The first grey +mystery had obscured the form of the city. Paris had a new seduction. He +could not believe now that he had not been born in France and been +always part of the country he had adopted by temperament and spirit. +Like all artists, his country was where he worked the best. For him now, +unless the place were a workshop, it could never be a hearthstone, and +he took satisfaction in recalling his ancestry on his mother's +side--Debaillet, or, as they called it in New Orleans, Ballet. As +Arabella Ballet his mother had been beautiful; as Mrs. Fairfax she had +given him Irish and French blood. + +"Atavism," he said to Dearborn, "you cannot love this place as I do, +Bob. My grandfather escaped in the disguise of a French cook to save his +head in 1793. I seem to see his figure walking before me when I cross +the Place de la Concorde, and the shadow of the guillotine falls across +his path." + +From his corner of the room Dearborn drawled, "If the substance of the +guillotine had fallen across his neck, Tony, where would you be in our +mutual history?" + +Antony had asked his companion to call him Tony. He had not been able to +disassociate himself with everything that recalled the past. + +Fairfax's figure as he turned was dark against the light of the window +and the room was full of the shadows of the early January twilight. He +wore a pair of velveteen breeches whose original colour might have been +a dark, rich blue. His flannel shirt (no longer red) was fastened +loosely at the neck by a soft black cravat under a rolling collar. It +was Sunday and he was working, the clay white upon his fingers and +nails. He wore an old pair of slippers, and Dearborn on a couch in a +corner watched him, a Turkish drapery wound around his shoulders, for +the big room was chilly and it smelled of clay and tobacco smoke. The +studio was an enormous attic, running the length of an hotel once of +some magnificence, now a tumble-down bit of still beautiful +architecture. The room was portioned off for the use of two people. Two +couches served in the night-time as their beds, there was a small stove +guiltless of fire, a few pieces of studio property, a skylight, a desk +covered with papers and books and manuscripts, and in the part of the +room near the window and under the skylight, Tony Fairfax, now Thomas +Rainsford, worked among his casts and drawings, amidst the barrels of +clay and plaster. To him, in spite of being almost always hungry, in +spite of the discomfort, of the constant presence and companionship of +another when he often longed for solitude, in spite of this, his domain +was a heaven. He had come into the place in June with Dearborn. + +Tony had paid a year's rent in advance. He was working as a common +journeyman in the studio of Barye, and early in the morning, late at +night, and on Sundays, worked for himself eagerly, hungrily, like the +slave of old in Albany, and yet, with what a difference! He had no one +but himself to consider, but had the interest of the atelier where he +studied, even as he sold his skill that it might be lost in the +creations of more advanced artists, and there, during the days of his +apprenticeship, his visions came to him, and what conceptions he then +had he tried to work out and to mature, when he had the chance, in his +own room. + +Dearborn, who never left the studio except to eat, smoked and worked and +read all day. + +The two men were sufficiently of a size to wear each other's clothes. +They had thought it out carefully and had preserved from the holocaust, +of the different financial crises, one complete out-of-door outfit, from +hat to boots--and those boots! + +It was "déplorable" the bookseller, whose little shelf of books lay on +the stone wall of the quay, said, it was "déplorable" that such a fine +pair of men should be lame and in exactly the same fashion. Fairfax +could not walk at all in the other man's shoes, so his normal friend +made the sacrifice and the proper shoes were pawned, and Robert Dearborn +and Tony Fairfax had shared alternately the big boot and the small one, +the light and the heavy step. And they were directed by such different +individuals, the boots went through Paris in such diverse ways! + +"By Jove!" exclaimed Dearborn, examining the boots carefully, "it isn't +fair. You're walking these boots of ours to death! Who the deuce will +take them out in his bare feet to be repaired?" + +They were just as absurdly poor as this. Nobody whose soul is not +absorbed in art can ever understand what it is to be so stupidly poor. + +Dearborn, when he could be forced out of the house, put on the shoes +with reluctance; he was greatly annoyed by the clatter of the big boot. +The shoes didn't fit him in the least. He would shuffle into the nearest +café, if his credit was good enough to permit it, and there, under the +small table on which he wrote page after page over his cigarette and cup +of black coffee, he hid the big awkward shoe for as long as he could +endure exile from the studio. Then he came home. + +Fairfax swung the boot down the stairs, he swung it along the pavements +of Paris! What distance he took it! It seemed to have a wing at the +heel. It tramped through the quarters of the city from the quays to +fine old streets, to forgotten alleys, to the Cité on the Ile, then +again by the fresh gay avenues of the Champs Elysées to the Bois, again +to the quays, and, when well up the river, he would sometimes board the +boat and come back down the Seine, dreaming, musing, creating, and, +floating home, would take the big boot upstairs. + +"By Jove, Tony!" Dearborn remarked, examining the boots closely, "it's +not fair! One of us will have to _drive_ if you don't let up, old man!" + +Dearborn, when he did not haunt his café and when inspiration failed, +would haunt the Bibliothčque Nationale, and amongst the "Rats de +littérature"--savant, actor, poet, amongst the cold and weary who lounge +in the chairs of the library to dream, to get warm, and to imagine real +firesides with one's own books and one's own walls around them--Dearborn +would sit for hours poring over old manuscripts from which he had hoped +to extract inspiration, listening, as do his sort, for "the voices." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was a year of privation, but there were moments spent on the +threshold of Paradise. + +His materials, barrels of clay and plaster, were costly. Dearborn said +that he thanked God he had a "métier" requiring no further expenditure +than a pot of ink and a lot of paper. + +"The ideas," he told Fairfax, "are expensive, and I think, old man, that +I shall have to _buy_ some. I find that they will not come unless I +invite them to dinner!" + +Neither of the young men had made a hearty meal for an unconsciously +long time. The weather grew colder and they lived as they could on +Fairfax's day wage. + +At this time, when during the hours of his freedom he was housed with +his companion, Fairfax was overwhelmed by the rush of his ideas and his +desire to create. He would not let himself long for solitude, for he was +devoted to his friend and grateful for his companionship and affection, +but a certain piece of work had haunted him since his first Sunday +afternoon at the Louvre, and he was eager to finish the statue he had +begun and to send it to the Salon. + +The Visions no longer eluded him--ever present, sometimes they +overpowered him by their obsession. They flattered the young man, +seeming to embrace him, called to him, uplifted him until heights +levelled before his eyes and became roads upon which he walked lightly, +and his pride in his own power grew. Antony forgot to be humble. He was +his own master--he had scorned the Academies. For several weeks, when he +first came to Paris, he had posed as a model. Sitting there before the +students, glowing with shame and pride, his heart was defiant, and not +one of the students, who modelled the fine bust and head, imagined how +ardent his heart was or what an artist posed for them. Often he longed +to seize a tool from inefficient hands and say, "Here, my children, like +this, don't you see?" + +He learned much from the rare visits of the Master and his cursory, +hasty criticism, but he welcomed the impersonal labour in the atelier of +Barye, where he was not a student but a worker, mechanical supposedly, +yet creative to his fingertips. And as he watched Barye work, admiring +him profoundly, eager for the man's praise, crushing down his own +individuality, careful to do nothing but the technical, mechanical +things he was given to do there--before his hand grew tired, while his +brain was fresh, he would plan and dream of what he would do in his own +attic, and he went back as a thirsty man to a source. + +There came the dead season. Barye shut his atelier and went to Spain. +There was nothing to do for Antony Fairfax and he was without any means +of making his bread. After a few days of idleness, when his hands and +feet were chilblained and he could hardly pass the cafés and +restaurants, where the meals were cooking, without a tightening of the +chest, he thought to himself, "Now is the time for the competition money +to fall among us like a shower of gold"; but he had not heard one word +from America or from Falutini, to whom the result was to have been +written and who had Fairfax's address. + +Dearborn, in a pair of old tennis trousers, a shabby black velvet +jacket, sat Turkish fashion on his divan, his writing tablet on his +knees. For weeks past he had been writing a five-act play-- + +"Too hungry, Tony, by Jove, to go on. Every time I start to write, the +lines of some old-time menu run across the page--Canards ŕ la presse, +Potage ŕ la Reine. Just now it was only pie and yellow cheese, such as +we have out in Cincinnati." + +Fairfax was breaking a mould. By common consent a fire had been built in +the stove. Tony had taken advantage of the warm water to mix his +plaster. Dearborn came over from his sofa. + +"I wouldn't care to have a barrel of plaster roll on those chilblains +of mine, Tony. It's a toss up with us now, isn't it, which of us _can_ +wear the boots?" + +Pinched and haggard, his hands in his pockets, the young fellow watched +the sculptor. Fairfax skilfully released his statue from the mould. He +had been working on this, with other things, for a month. He unprisoned +the little figurine, a little nude dancer, her arms above her head, the +face and smile faun-like. + +"Pleine de malice," said Dearborn, "extręmement fine, my dear Tony. As +an object of 'luxe' I find it as exquisite as an article of food, if not +as satisfying. It's not good enough to _eat_, Tony, and those are the +only standards I judge by now." + +Fairfax turned the figure between his fingers lovingly--lily-white, +freshly cold, bits of the mould clinging to it, small and fine, it lay +in the palm of his shapely hand. + +"If you don't want the boots, Bob," he said, "I think I'll go out in +them." + +The legal owner of the boots went out in them into the damp, bitter +cold. His big figure cut along through the mist and he limped over the +Pont des Arts towards the Louvre. All Paris seemed to him blue with +cold. The river flowed between its banks with suppressed intent and +powerful westward rush, and its mighty flow expressed indifference to +the life and passion of existence along its shores. + +He leaned a moment on the bridge. Paris was personal to him and the +river was like its soul. He was faint from lack of food and overstrain. + +In the Louvre, other men of conglomerate costumes as well as he sought +the warm rooms. Tramps, vagrants in pitiful rags, affected interest in +the works of art, resting their worn figures on the benches, exulting in +the public welcome of the museum. Fairfax was more presentable, if as +poor. He wore a soft black hat of good make and quality, bought in a +sporting moment by Dearborn early in his career. Tony wore his own +clothes, retained because they were the newest and a soft black scarf, +the vogue in the quarter, was tied under his collar in rather an +extravagant bow. He wandered aimlessly through the rooms, glanced at the +visitors and saw that they were many, and when he had become thoroughly +warm, screwed his courage to the sticking point and went out of the +front entrance. A little way from the guides he took his place, and from +his pocket his figurine. It showed quite as a lily in the foggy light, +pale and ashamed. Its nudity appealed more to the sculptor because of +this wanton exposure to the vulgar herd. He trembled, began to regret, +but offered it, holding it out for sale. + +Some dozen people passed him, glanced at him and his small statue, but +he would have passed unnoticed had a lady not come slowly down the steps +and seen him, stopped and looked at him, though he did not see her until +she had approached. He flamed scarlet, covered his statuette and wished +that the cobbles of the pavement would open and swallow him. + +She was--he thought of it afterward a hundred times--a woman of singular +tact and an illumined sympathy, as well as a woman of exquisite +comprehension. + +"Mr. Rainsford!" she exclaimed. "You have something to sell?" she added, +and simply, as though she spoke to an ordinary vendor, yet he saw that +as she spoke a lovely colour rose in her cheek under her veil, and he +found that he was not ashamed any more. + +She put out her hand. It came from a mantle of velvet and a cuff of +costly fur--he couldn't have dreamt then how costly. He lifted his hat, +bareheaded in the cold, and laid the little figure in her hand. + +"How perfectly charming!" she murmured, holding it. And the dryad-like +figure, with its slender arms above its head and the faun-like, +brilliant little face, seemed perfection to her. She said so. "What a +perfect thing! Of course, you have the clay original?" + +Fairfax could not speak. The sight of this woman so worldly, elegant, +sumptuous, at the first praise of his little statue, he realized that he +was selling it, and it struck him as a crime--his creation, his vision, +hawking it as a fish-wife might hawk crabs in the public street! + +He felt a great humiliation and could have wept--indeed, tears did +spring to his eyes and the cold dried them. + +Two "sergents de ville" came up to them. + +"Pardon, Monsieur," asked one of them, "have you a license?" + +Fairfax started, but the lady holding the little statue turned quickly +to the officials-- + +"A license? _Pourquoi faire, mes amis?_" + +"It is against the rules to sell anything in the streets of Paris +without a license," said the policeman. + +"Well," she exclaimed, "my friend has just made me a gift. This +gentleman is a friend of mine for whom I am waiting to take me to my +carriage. Allez vous en," she smiled at them, "I will excuse you, and so +will Monsieur." + +She was so perfectly mistress of the situation that he had nothing to do +but leave himself in her hands. + +"You will let me take you home," she said, "in whatever direction you +are going," and he followed her to her little carriage, waiting before +the curb. + +She got in, gave the address of his studio to her coachman, and the next +thing he knew was that he was rolling over the pavement he had so +painfully traversed a few hours before. + +She talked to him of the master, Cedersholm, and Antony listened. She +talked enthusiastically, admiringly, and he parried her questions as to +when and where he had worked with the Swedish sculptor. The statuette +lay on her lap. + +At the studio door, when Fairfax left her, she said, taking up the +self-same gold purse that he had restored to her in the Louvre seven +months ago-- + +"I hope that I have enough money to pay for this treasure, Mr. +Rainsford. It's so beautiful that it must be very dear. What is the +price?" + +And Fairfax, hot all over, warm indeed for the first time in long, +stammered-- + +"Don't speak of price--of course, I don't know you well enough, but if +you really like it, please take it." + +"Take it!" Mrs. Faversham had cried, "but I mean to--I adore it. Mr. +Cedersholm will tell you how valuable it is, but I must pay you for it, +my dear Mr. Rainsford." + +Holding the carriage door open, his fine face on fire and his blue eyes +illumined, he had insisted, and Antony's voice, his personality, his +outstretched hand bare, cold, shapely, charmed her and impressed her, +and he saw her slowly, unwillingly accept his sudden gift. He had seen +her embarrassed suddenly, as he was. Then she had driven away in her +carriage, to be lost in the mists with other people who did not matter +to him, and poor as he had started out, poorer, for he had not the +statuette, he limped down the stairs again and into the street to forage +for them both. + +He thought whimsically: "I must feed up the whole dramatis personć of +old Bob's play, for he can't get on until he's fed up the cast!" + +He limped along the Rue du Bac, his cold hands in his pockets, his head +a little bent. But no battle with life now, be it what it would, could +compare with his battle in New York. Now, indeed, though he was cold and +hungry and tired, he was the inhabitant of a city that he loved, he was +working alone for the art he adored. He believed in himself--not once +had he yet come to the period of artistic despair. + +During these seven months the little personal work he had been able to +do had only whetted his desire; he was young, possessed of great talent +and of brilliant imagination, and he was happy and hopeful and +determined; the physical wants did not weigh on his spirit nor did the +long period of labour injure his power of production. He chafed, indeed, +but he felt his strength even as he pulled against the material things +from which he had to free himself. + +And as Fairfax, part of the throng, walked aimlessly up the Rue du Bac +with his problems, he walked less alone that night than ever in his +life, for he was absorbed in the thought of the woman. + +He realized now how keenly he had observed her, that she was very +charming and very beautiful. He could have drawn those dear features, +the contour of her neck and chin, the poise of her head, the curve of +her shoulder, and, imperceptible, but no less real and strong, her grace +and charm made her an entity to him, so much so that she actually seemed +to have remained by his side, and he almost fancied, as he breathed the +misty air, that he breathed again the odour of the scent that she used, +sweet and delicate, and that he felt the touch of her velvet sleeve +against his coat. + +He still had in his possession one object, which, if pawned, might +furnish enough money to pay for a meal. It was a little seal, belonging +to his mother, set in old gold. + +This afternoon, before leaving the studio, he had thrust it in his +waistcoat pocket, in case the little statuette did not sell. + +They gave him five francs for it, and he laid in a stock of provisions, +and with his little parcel once more he limped up the studio stairs to +Dearborn, who, wrapped in the coverlet, waited by the stove. + +He told his story, and Dearborn listened delightedly, his literary and +dramatic sense pleased by the adventure. + +They were talking of the lady when the concierge, toward nine o'clock, +tapped at the door and handed Antony a thick blue envelope, inscribed +"Mr. Thomas Rainsford" by a woman's hand. + +"Tony, old man," said the playwright, as Antony's fingers trembled +turning the page, "the romance of a poor young man has begun." + +The letter ran as follows:-- + + "MY DEAR MR. RAINSFORD, + + "I am anxious to have a small bas-relief of me, to give to Mr. + Cedersholm when he shall come over. Would you have time to + undertake this work? I can pose when you like. + + "I know how many claims a man of talent has upon his time, and I + want to secure some of yours and make it mine. I venture to send + this sum in advance. I hope you will not refuse it. Perhaps you + will dine with me to-morrow and we will talk things over. + + "Yours faithfully, + "MARY FAVERSHAM." + +Fairfax read this letter twice--the second time the words were not quite +clear. He handed it across the table to his companion silently. The +five-hundred-franc bill lay between the plate where the veal had been +and the empty coffee cup. + +Dearborn, when he had eagerly read the note, glanced up to speak to +Fairfax and saw that he had turned away from him. In his figure, as he +bowed over, leaning his head upon his hands, there were the first marks +of weariness that Dearborn had ever seen. There had been weariness in +the step that limped up the stairs and crossed the room when Fairfax had +entered with the meagre bundle of food. Dearborn leaned over and saw his +friend's fine profile, and there was unmistakably the mark of fatigue on +the face, flushed by fire and lamp-light. Dearborn knew of his companion +very little. The two had housed together, come together, bits of +driftwood on the river of life, drawn by sympathy in the current, and +few questions had been asked. He knew that Rainsford was from New +Orleans, that he had studied in New York. Of Antony's life he knew +nothing, although he had wondered much. + +He said now, lightly, as he handed the letter back, "You haven't been +playing perfectly square with me, Tony. I'm afraid you have been wearing +the boots under false pretences, but, nevertheless, I guess you will +have to wear them to-morrow night, old man." + +As Fairfax did not move, Dearborn finished more gravely-- + +"I would be glad to hear anything you are willing to tell me about it." + +Fairfax turned slowly and put the letter back in his pocket. Then +leaning across the table, in an undertone, he told Dearborn +everything--everything. He spoke quietly and did not linger, sketching +for him rapidly his life as far as it had gone. Twice Dearborn rose and +fed the stove recklessly with fuel. Once he stood up, took a coverlet +and wrapped it around him, and sat blinking like a resurrected mummy. +And Fairfax talked till Bella flashed like a red bird across the +shadows, lifted her lips to his and was gone. Molly shone from the +shadows and passed like light through the open door. And, last of all, +Mrs. Faversham came and brought a magic wand and she lingered, for +Fairfax stopped here. + +He had talked until morning. The dawn was grey across the frosty pane +when he rose to throw himself down on his bed to sleep. The +five-hundred-franc note lay where he had left it on the table between +the empty plate and the empty cup. The fire was dead in the stove and +the room was cold. + +Dearborn, excited and interested, watched with the visions of Antony's +past and the visions of his own creations for a long time. And Fairfax, +exhausted by the eventful day, troubled by it, touched by it, watched +the vision of a woman coming toward him, coming fatally toward him, +wonderfully toward him--but he was tired, and, before she had reached +him, he fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Antony waited in the drawing-room of her hotel in the Avenue du Bois de +Boulogne some quarter of an hour before she came downstairs. He thought +later that she had purposely given him this time to look about and grow +accustomed to the atmosphere, to the room in which he afterward more or +less lived for several months. + +There was not a false note to disturb his beauty-loving sense. He stood +waiting, on one side a long window giving on a rose garden, as he +afterward discovered, on the other a group in marble by Cedersholm. He +was studying this with interest when he heard Mrs. Faversham enter the +room. She had foreseen that he would not be likely to wear an evening +dress and she herself had put on the simplest of her frocks. But he +thought her quite dazzling, and the grace of her hands, and her welcome +as she greeted him, were divine to the young man. + +"I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Rainsford." + +Instantly he bent and kissed her hand. She saw him flush to his fair +hair. He felt a gratitude to her, a thankfulness, which awakened in him +immediately the strongest of emotions. + +She seemed to consider him a distinguished guest. She told him that she +was going to Rome when Mr. Cedersholm came over--there would be a little +party going down to Italy. + +Fairfax's eyes kindled, and in the few moments he stood with her there, +in her fragrant drawing-room, where the fire in the logs sang and +whispered and the lamp-light threw its long, fair shadows on the crimson +floors and melted in the crimson hangings, he felt that he stood with an +old friend, with some one he had known his life long and known well, +even before he had known--and there was a poignancy in his +treason--even before he had known his mother. + +When the doors were thrown open and another visitor was announced, he +was jealous and regretful and glanced at Mrs. Faversham as though he +thought she had done him a wrong. + +"My vife, oui," said the gentleman who came in and who was of a +nationality whose type was not yet familiar to Fairfax. "My wife is +horsed to-night, chčre Madame; she cannot come to the dinner--a thousand +pardons." + +"I am sorry the Countess is ill." + +Potowski, who had been told by his hostess not to dress, had made up for +the sacrifice as brilliantly as he could. His waistcoat was of +embroidered satin, his cravat a flaming scarlet, and in his button-hole +an exotic flower which went well with his dark, exotic face. He was a +little ridiculous: short and fat, with a fashion of gesticulating with +his hands as though he were swimming into society, but his expression +was agreeable and candid. His near-sighted eyes were naďve, his voice +sweet and caressing. Rainsford saw that his hostess liked Potowski. She +was too sweet a lady to be annoyed by peculiarities. + +In a few moments, the lame sculptor on one side and the flashy Slav on +the other, she led them to the little dining-room, to an exquisite +table, served by two men in livery. + +There was an intimacy in the apartment shut in by the panelling from +floor to ceiling of the walls. The windows were covered with yellow +damask curtains and the footfalls made no sound on the thick carpet. + +"Mr. Rainsford is a sculptor," his hostess told Potowski. "He has +studied with Cedersholm, but we shall soon forget whose pupil he is when +he is a master himself." + +"Ah," murmured the young man, who was nevertheless thrilled. + +"He is going to do a bas-relief of me, Potowski--that is, I hope he will +not refuse to make my portrait." + +"Ah, no," exclaimed Potowski, clasping his soft hands, "not a +bas-relief, chčre Madame, but a statuary, all of it. The figure, is not +it, Mr. Rainsford? You hear people say of the face it is beautiful, or +the hand, or the head of a woman. I think it is all of her. It should +be the entirety always, I think. I think it is monstrous to dissect the +parts of the human body even in art. When I go to the _Museo_ and see a +hand here, a foot there, a torso somewhere else--you will laugh, I am +ridiculous, but it makes me think I look at a _haccident_. + +"_Therefore_," exclaimed Potowski, gaily swimming toward the fruit and +flowers with his soft hand, "begin, cher Monsieur, by making a whole +woman! I never, never sing part of a _hopera_. I sing a lyric, a little +complete song, but in its entirety." + +"But, my dear Potowski," Mrs. Faversham laughed, "a bas-relief or a bust +is complete." + +"But why," cried the Pole, "why behead a lady? As for a profile, it is +destruction to the human face." He turned to Fairfax. "You think I am a +pagan. In France they have an impolite proverb, 'Stupid as a musician,' +but don't think it is true. We see harmony and melody in everything." + +Apparently Potowski's lunacy had suggested something to Fairfax, for he +said seriously---- + +"Perhaps Mrs. Faversham will let me make a figure of her some day"--he +hesitated--"in the entirety," he quoted; and the words sounded madness, +tremendously personal, tremendously daring. "A figure of her standing in +a long cloak edged with fur, holding a little statuette in her hand." + +"Charming," gurgled Potowski--he had a grape in his mouth which he had +culled unceremoniously from the fruit dish. "That is a very modern idea, +Rainsford, but I don't understand why she should hold a statuette in her +hand." + +"For my part," said the hostess, "I only understand what I have been +taught. I am a common-place public, and I prefer a classic bas-relief, a +profile, just a little delicate study. Will you make it for me, Mr. +Rainsford?" + +The new name he had chosen, and which was never real to him, sounded +pleasantly on her lips, and it gave him, for the first time, a +personality. His past was slipping from him; he glanced around the oval +room with its soft lights and its warm colouring. It glowed like a +beautiful setting for the pearl which was the lady. The dinner before +him was delicious. It ceased to be food--it was a delicate refreshment. +The perfume of the flowers and wines and the cooking was intoxicating. + +"You eat and drink nothing," Mrs. Faversham said to him. + +"No," exclaimed Potowski, sympathetically, peering across the table at +Rainsford. "You are suffering perhaps--you diet?" + +Antony drank the champagne in his glass and said he was thinking of his +bas-relief. + +Potowski, adjusting a single eye-glass in his eye, stared through it at +Rainsford. + +"You should do everything in its entirety, Mr. Rainsford. Eat, drink, +sculpt and sing," and he swam out again gently toward Rainsford and Mrs. +Faversham, "and love." + +Antony smiled on them both his radiant smile. "Ah, sir," he said, "is +not that just the thing it is hard for us all not to do? We mutilate the +rest, our art and our endeavours, but a young man usually once in his +life loves in entirety." + +"I don't know," said the Pole thoughtfully, "I think perhaps not. +Sometimes it's the head, or the hands, or the figure, something we call +perfect or beautiful as long as it lasts, Mr. Rainsford, but if we loved +the entirety there would be no broken marriages." + +Mrs. Faversham, whom the musician entertained and amused, laughed softly +and rose, and, a man on each side of her, went into the drawing-room, to +the fire burning across the andirons. Coffee and liqueurs were brought +and put on a small table. + +"Potowski is a philosopher, is he not, Mr. Rainsford? When you hear him +sing, though, you will find that his best argument." + +Potowski stirred six lumps of sugar into his small coffee cup, drank the +syrup, drank a glass of liqueur with a sort of cheerful eagerness, and +stood without speaking, dangling his eyeglass and looking into the fire. +Mrs. Faversham took a deep chair and her dark, slim figure was lost in +it, and Antony, who had lit his cigarette, leaned on the chimney-piece +near her. + +She glanced at him, at the deformed shoe, at his shabby clothes. He had +made his toilet as carefully as he could; his linen was spotless, his +cravat new and fashioned in a big bow. His fine, thoughtful face, lit +now by the pleasure of the evening, where spirit and courage were never +absent if other marks were there; his fine brow with the slightly +curling blond hair bright upon it, and the profound blue of his eyes--he +was different from any man she had seen, and she had known many men and +been a great favourite with them. It pleased her to think that she knew +and understood them fairly well. She was thinking what she could do for +this man. She had wondered this suddenly, the day Fairfax had met her +and left her in the Louvre; she had wondered more sincerely the evening +she left him at his door. She had asked him to her house in a spirit of +real kindness, although she had already felt his charm. Looking at him +now, she thought that no woman could see him and hear him speak, watch +him for an hour, and not be conscious of that charm. She wondered what +she could do for Mr. Rainsford. + +"Sit there, won't you?"--she indicated the sofa near her--"you will find +that a comfortable place in which to listen. Count Potowski is the one +unmaterial musician I ever knew. Time and place, food or feast, make no +difference to him." + +Potowski, without replying, turned abruptly and went toward the next +room, separated from the salon by glass doors. In another moment they +heard the prelude of Bohm's "Still as the Night," and then Potowski +began to sing. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The studio underwent something of a transformation. Dearborn devoted +himself to its decoration. The crisp banknote was divided between the +two companions. + +Fairfax ordered a suit of clothes on trust, a new pair of boots on +trust, and bought outright sundry necessaries for his appearance in the +world. + +And Dearborn spent too much in making the studio decent, and bought an +outfit of writing materials, a wadded dressing-gown with fur collar and +deep pockets, the cast-off garment of some elegant rastaquoučre, in a +second-hand clothing shop on the boulevard. He had no plans for +enjoying Paris. He philosophically looked at the cast-off shoes that had +gallantly limped with the two of them up and down the stairs and here +and there in the streets on such devious missions. If he should be +inclined to go out he would wear them. His slippers were his real +comfort. He devoted himself to the interior life and to his play. He had +the place to himself, and after a long day's work he would read or plan, +looking out on the quays and the Louvre, biting his fingers and weaving +new plots and making youthful reflections upon life. + +In the evenings Fairfax would limp home. Five days of the week he went +to Barye's studio and worked for the master. Twice a week he went to the +Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. Just how his friend spent his time when he +was not in the studio Dearborn wondered vainly. The sculptor grew less +and less communicative, almost morose. Tony took to smoking countless +cigarettes and sitting in the corner of the big divan, his arms folded +across his chest, his eyes fixed on some object which Dearborn could not +see. He would listen, or appear to, whilst Dearborn read his play; or +draw for him the scenario for a new play; or the young man would read +aloud bits of verse or prose that he loved and found inspiring. And +Antony, more than once, could hear his own voice as he had declaimed +aloud to the little cousins on a winter's afternoon, "St. Agnes' Eve, +how bitter chill it was," or some other favourite repeated to shining +eyes and flushed attention. Very often what Dearborn read was neither +familiar nor distinguishable, for Fairfax was thinking about other +things. They were not always alone in the workroom. Dearborn had +friends, and those of them who had not gone away on other quests or been +starved out or pushed out, would come noisily in of an evening, bringing +with them perhaps a man with a fiddle and a man with a flute, and they +would dance and there would be beer and "madeleines" and gay amusement +of a very inoffensive kind, of a youthful kind. There would be dancing +and singing, and sometimes Fairfax would take part in it all and sing +with them in his pleasant baritone and smile upon them; but he liked it +best when they were alone, and Dearborn did too; and in Fairfax's +silence and the other man's absorption they nevertheless daily grew +firmer and faster friends. + +"Bob," Fairfax said--and as he spoke he abruptly interrupted Dearborn in +the most vital scene of his act--"I can't take a penny from her for this +portrait." + +Dearborn dropped his manuscript on his knee. His expression was that of +a slightly hurt egotism, for he had sat up all night working over this +scene and burned all day to read it to Fairfax. + +"Well, anyhow, don't ask me to cough up the two hundred and fifty +francs. That's all I ask," he said a little curtly. + +"I shall give her some study, one of these other statuettes," Fairfax +said moodily, "some kind of return for the five hundred francs." + +"She wouldn't care for anything I have got, would she, Tony?" Dearborn +put his hands in the ample pockets and displayed his voluminous wrapper. +"I'm crazy about this dressing-gown," he said affectionately. "It has +warmed and sheltered my best thoughts. It has wrapped around and +comforted my fainting heart. It's hatched ideas for me; it's been a +plaidie to the angry airs. Tony, she wouldn't take the dressing-gown, +would she?" + +"Rot!" exclaimed his friend fiercely. "Don't be an ass. Don't you see +how I feel?" + +"No, I don't," said the other simply. "I am not a mind reader. I'm an +imaginator. I can make up a lot of stuff about your feeling. I daresay I +do invent. You will see this in my play some day. You are really an +inspiration, old man, but as for having an accurate idea of your +feelings...! For three weeks, ever since that banknote fluttered amongst +the crumbs of our table, you have scarcely said a word to me, not a +whole paragraph." He shook his finger emphatically. "If I were not +absorbed myself, no doubt I should be beastly, diabolically lonesome." + +Antony seemed entirely unmoved by this picture. "I think I shall go to +Rome, Bob," he began, then cried: "No, I mean to St. Petersburg." + +"It will be less expensive," Dearborn suggested dryly, "and considerably +less travel, not to go to the Bois de Boulogne." + +"I shall finish this portrait this week," Fairfax went on. "Now I can't +scrape it out and begin again. I have done it twice. It would be +desecration, for it's mightily like her, and my reason for my going +there is over." + +"Well, how about that full-length figure of her in furs and velvets, +holding a little statuette in her hands, that you used to rave about +doing? If at first you make a bas-relief, begin and begin again! There +are busts and statues, as there are odes and sonnets and curtain-raisers +and five-act tragedies." + +"Yes," returned Fairfax, "there are tragedies, no doubt about it." + +Fairfax, smoking, struggled with the emotions rising in him and which he +had no notion of betraying to his friend. In the corner where Dearborn +had rolled it, for he made the whole studio pretty much his own now, was +the statue Fairfax was making of his mother. It was covered with a white +cloth which took the lines and form of the head and shoulders. It stood +ghostly amongst the shadows of the room and near it, on a stool, were +Antony's sculpting tools, his broad wooden knives and a barrel of +plaster. His gaze wandered to these inanimate objects, nothing in +themselves, but which suggested and made possible and real his art--the +reason for his existence. Now, when he stopped modelling Mrs. Faversham, +he would go on with the bust of his mother. He turned his eyes to +Dearborn. + +"I have been up there for five weeks; I have been entertained there like +a friend; I have eaten and drunk; I have accepted her hospitality; I +have gone with her to the plays and opera. I have pretty well lived on +her money." + +"All men of the world do that," Dearborn said reasonably. "It's an +awfully nice thing for a woman to have a handsome young man whom she can +call on when she likes." + +Fairfax ignored this and went on. "I have met her friends, delightful +and distinguished people, who have invited me to their houses. I have +never gone, not once, not even to see Potowski. Now I shall go up next +Sunday and finish my work, and then I'm going away." + +Dearborn crossed his thin legs, his beloved knit slippers, a remnant of +his mother's affection, dangling on the toe of his foot. He made a +telescope of his manuscript and peered through it as though he saw some +illumination at the other end. + +"You are not serious, Tony?" + +Antony left the sofa and came over to his friend. Five weeks of +comparative comfort and comparative release from the anxiety of +existence--that is, of material existence--had changed him wonderfully. +His contact with worldly people, the entertainments of Paris, the +stimulant to his mind and senses, his pleasures, had done him good. His +face was something fuller. He had come home early from dining with Mrs. +Faversham, and in his evening dress there was an elegance about him that +added to his natural distinction. In the lapel of his coat drooped a few +violets from the _boutonničre_ that had been placed by his plate. + +"Cedersholm is coming next week." He lit a fresh cigarette. + +"Well," returned Dearborn, coolly, "he is neither the deluge nor the +earthquake, but he may be the plague. What has he got to do with you, +old man?" + +"She is going to marry him." + +"That," said Dearborn with spirit, "is rotten. Now, I will grant you +that, Tony. It's rotten for her. Things have got so mixed up in your +scenario that you cannot frankly go and tell her what a hog he is. That +is what ought to be done, though. She ought to know what kind of a cheat +and poor sort she is going to marry. In real life or drama the simple +thing never happens." Dearborn smiled finely. "She ought to know, but +you can't tell her." + +"No," said his friend slowly, "nor would I. But neither can I meet him +in her house or anywhere else. I think I should strike him." + +"You didn't strike him, though," said Dearborn, meaningly, "when you had +a good impersonal chance." + +"I wish I had." + +"I thought you told me they were all going to Rome?" + +"Mrs. Faversham doesn't want to go." + +"Ah," murmured Dearborn, nodding, "she doesn't." + +"No." Fairfax did not seem to observe his friend's tone. "She is +mightily set on having me meet Cedersholm. She wants to have him +patronize me, help me!" He laughed dryly and walked up and down the +studio into the cold, away from the fire, and then back to Dearborn in +his dressing-gown and slippers. "Patronize me, encourage me, pat me on +the back--put me in the way of meeting men of the world of art and +letters, possibly work with him. She has all sorts of kindly patronizing +schemes. But she doesn't know that I have been hungry and cold, and have +been housed and fed by her money. Perhaps she does, though," he cried +furiously to Dearborn. "No doubt she does. Do you think she does, Bob?" + +"No, no--don't be an ass, Tony, old man." + +"You see, now don't you, that I can't stay in Paris, that I can't meet +that man and knock him down--not tell her that I am not the poor +insignificant creature that she thinks, that without me Cedersholm could +not have whipped up his old brain and his tired imagination to have done +the work that brought him so marked a success. I would have to tell her +what I did, and that, crude and unschooled as I was, she would have to +see that he was afraid of me, afraid of my future and my talent. Oh, +Dearborn!" he cried, throwing up his arms. + +Dearborn left his chair and went to Fairfax and put his hand on his +shoulder. + +"That's right," he said heartily, "blurt it all out, old man. Some day, +when the right time comes, you will let it out to him." + +Fairfax leaned on Dearborn's arm. "There were eight of us at dinner +to-night," he said, "and Cedersholm was the general topic. He is much +admired. He is to have the Legion of Honour. Much of what they said +about him was just, of course, perfectly just and fair, but it sickened +me. They were enthusiastic about his character, his generosity to his +pupils, his sympathy with struggling artists, and one man, who had been +at the unveiling of the Sphinx, spoke of my Beasts." + +Dearborn felt Antony's hand trembling on his arm. + +"The gall rose up in my throat, Bob. I saw myself working in a sacred +frenzy in his studio, sweating blood, and my joy over my creations. I +saw myself eager, hopeful, ardent, devoted, with a happy, cheerful +belief in everybody. I had it then, I did indeed. Then I saw my ruined +life, my wasted years as an engineer in Albany, my miserable, my cruel +marriage, the things I stooped to and the degradation I might have +known. My mother, whom I never saw again, called me--my wife, my child, +passed before me like ghosts. If I could have had a little encouragement +from him then, only just my due, well.... I was thinking of all those +things whilst they spoke of him, and then I looked over to her...." As +he spoke Mrs. Faversham's name, Antony's voice softened. "... And she +was looking at me so strangely, strangely, as though she felt something, +knew something, and my silence seemed ungracious and proof of my +jealousy; but I could not have said a warm word in praise of him to save +my character in her eyes. When we were alone after dinner she asked me, +in a voice different to any tone I have heard from her, 'Don't you like +Mr. Cedersholm? You don't seem to admire him. I have never heard you +speak his name, or say a friendly word about him,' and I couldn't answer +her properly, and she seemed troubled." + +Fairfax stopped speaking. The two friends stood mutely side by side. +Then Antony said more naturally-- + +"You see a little of how I feel, Bob." + +And the other replied, "Yes, I see a little of how you feel"; but he +continued with something of his old drollery: "I would like to know a +little of how _she_ feels." + +"What do you mean?" + +Antony's voice was so curt, and his words were so short, that Dearborn +was quick to understand that it would not be wise to touch on the +subject of the woman. + +"Why, I mean, Tony, that it is a valuable study for a playwright. I +should like to understand the psychology of all characters." + +Fairfax shrugged impatiently. "Confound you, you are a brute. All +artists are, I reckon. You drive your chariot over human hearts in order +to get a dramatic point." + +Here the post came and with it a blue letter whose colour was familiar +to Dearborn now, and he busied himself with his own mail under the lamp. +Fairfax opened his note. It had no beginning. + + * * * * * + +"If it does not rain to-morrow, will you take me to Versailles? Unless +you send me word that you cannot go, I will call for you at ten o'clock. +We will drive through the Bois and lunch at the Reservoirs." + + * * * * * + +For a moment it seemed as though Antony would hand over his note to +Dearborn, as he had handed Mrs. Faversham's first letter the night it +came. But he replaced it in its envelope and put it in his pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He wrote her that he should not be able to go to Versailles. He deserted +his day's work at Barye's and remained at home modelling. And Dearborn, +seeing Fairfax's distraction, went out early and did not return until +dark. Fairfax found himself alone again, alone with his visions, alone +with his pride, alone with powerful and new emotions. + +Sometimes in January, in the middle of the month, days come that +surprise the Parisians with their inconstancy and their softness. The +sun shone out suddenly and the sky was as blue as in Italy. + +Fairfax could see the people strolling along the quays, with coats open, +and the little booksellers did a thriving business and the "_bateaux +mouche_" shot off into the sunlight bound toward the suburbs which +Fairfax had learned in the summer time to know and love. Versailles +would be divine on such a day. + +His hours spent at the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne must have been +impersonal. His first essay he destroyed and began again. He did not +want to bring these intimate visits suddenly to an end. But when his +sitter very courteously began to question him, he was uncommunicative. +He could not tell her the truth. He did not wish to romance or to lie to +her. Mrs. Faversham, both sensitive and "fine," respected his reticence. +But she found out about him. They talked of art and letters and life in +general, circling around life in particular, and Fairfax revealed +himself more than he knew, although of his actual existence he told +nothing. He enjoyed the charm of the society of a worldly woman, of a +clever woman. He fed his mind and cultivated his taste, delighted his +eyes with the graceful picture she made, sitting, her head on her hand, +posing for her portrait. Her features were not perfect, but the +ensemble was lovely and he modelled with tenderness and pleasure until +the little bas-relief was magically like her. He was forced to remember +that the study was intended as a present for Cedersholm. He was very +silent and very often wondered why she asked him so constantly to her +house, why she should be so interested in so ungracious a companion. +This morning, in his studio on the Quai, he unwrapped his statue of his +mother. It was a figure sitting in her chair, a book in her hand, as he +had seen her countless times on the veranda of the New Orleans house, +dreaming, her face lifted, her eyes looking into the distance. He went +back to his work with complicated feelings and a heart at which there +was a new ache. He had hardly expected that this statue, left when he +had gone to take up the study of another woman, would charm him as it +did. He began to model. As he worked, he thought the face was singularly +like Bella's--a touch to the head, to the lips, and it was still more +like the young girl. Another year was gone. Bella was a woman now. +Everything, as he modelled, came back to him vividly--all the American +life, with its rush and struggle. So closely did it come, so near to +him, that he threw down his tools to walk up and down in the sunlight +pouring through the big window. He took up his tools and began modelling +again. The statuette was tenderly like his mother. He smoothed the folds +at her waist--and saw under the clay the colour of the violet lawn with +its sprinkling flowers of darker violet. He touched the frills he had +indicated around the throat--and felt the stirring of the Southern +breeze across his hand and smelled the jasmine. He paused after working +for two hours, standing back, resting his lame limb and musing on the +little figure. It grew to suggest all womanhood: Molly, as he had seen +her under the lamp-light--Mrs. Faversham, as he had watched her leaning +on her hand--not Bella. He looked and thought. Bella was a child, a +little girl. There was nothing reposeful or meditative about Bella, yet +he had seen her pore over a book, her hair about her face. Would she +ever sit like this, tranquil, reposeful, reading, dreaming? The face was +like her, but the resemblance passed. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Mrs. Faversham's dresses and jewels, her luxuries, her carriages and her +horses, the extravagance of her life, had not dazzled Antony; his eyes +had been pleased, but her possessions were a distinct envelope +surrounding her and separating them. After watching Potowski's +natatorial gestures, Fairfax had longed to swim out of the elegance into +a freer sea. + +He had told her nothing of his companion or of his life. He often longed +to stuff some of the dainties of the table into his pockets for +Dearborn, to carry away some of the fire in his hands, to bring +something of the comfort back, but he would not have spoken for the +world. Once she had broached the subject of further payment, and had +seen by his tightening lips that she had made a mistake. In spite of the +fact of his reserve and that he was proud to coldness and sometimes not +quite kind, intimacy grew between them. Mrs. Faversham was engaged to be +married, but Fairfax did not believe that she loved Cedersholm. What her +feelings were, or why she wanted to marry him, he could not guess. The +intimacy between them was caused by what they knew of each other as +human beings, unknown, unexplained, unformulated. There was a tremendous +sympathy, and neither the man nor the woman knew how real it was. And +although there was her life--she was five years his senior--and his life +with its tragedies, its depths and its ascensions, although there was +all this unread and unspoken between them, neither of them, when they +were together, was conscious of any past. A word, a touch, a look, a +hazard chance would have revealed to them how near they stood. + +As he went on modelling, he found that he was beginning to think of her +as he had not let himself do during the weeks when she had sat for him. +He found that he could not go on with his work now and think of her. He +had voluntarily denied himself this day at Versailles where he might +have enjoyed her for hours. When she had told him that she had written +to Cedersholm about him he had smiled. + +"He will not recall my name. I was an obscure pupil with others. He will +not remember Tom Rainsford." + +Evidently Cedersholm had not remembered him. The subject was never +mentioned between them again. Except as he heard it in general +conversation, Cedersholm's name was no longer frequently on Mrs. +Faversham's lips. He stopped working, wrapped his plaster carefully and +pushed the stool back into the corner. Near it was a pile of books which +he had carefully done up to return to Mrs. Faversham. She had obtained +orders for him from her friends, none of which he had accepted. Why +should he be so churlish? Why should he refuse to take advantage of her +kindness and generosity? Why should not her influence help him on his +stony way? What part did his pride play in it? Was it on account of +Cedersholm, or was it something else? + +At noon he went out to eat his luncheon in a little café where he was +known and popular. The little room was across a court-yard filled with +potted plants on which the winter had laid icy fingers, but which to-day +in the sunshine seemed to have garbed themselves with something like +spring. The little restaurant was low, noisy, filled with the clatter +and bustle of the noon meal served to hungry students and artists. The +walls were painted by the brush of different skilful craftsmen, young +artists who could not pay their accounts and had settled their scores by +leaving paintings on the walls, and one could read distinguished names. +When Fairfax came here, as he sometimes did, he always took a little +table in the second and darker room by another window which gave on a +quiet court on whose stones were heaped up the statues and remains of an +old Louis XV palace. This room was reserved for the older and quieter +clients, and here, at another table in the corner, a pretty girl with a +shock of curly hair under a soft hat and an old cape and an old +portfolio, always ate, and she sometimes smiled at him. He would catch +her eye, and she was, as Fairfax, always alone. + +Girl-students and grisettes, and others less respectable, had eyed him +and elbowed him, but not one had tempted him. There was no merit in his +celibacy, but to-day, as he glanced over at the English girl-student, +something about her caught his attention as never before. She was half +turned to him; her portfolio lay on the table at her side with the +remains of a scanty lunch. Her head was bowed on her hands. She looked +dejected, forlorn, bringing her little unhappiness to the small +restaurant where so many strugglers and aspirants brought their hopes +and their inspirations. This little bit of humanity seemed on this day +uninspired, cast down, and he had remarked her generally before because +of her gaiety, her eagerness, and he had avoided her because he knew +that she would be sympathetic with him. + +In a sort of revenge possible on himself, and feeling his own +loneliness, he permitted himself to look long at her and saw how +miserably poor her dress was, how rusty and dusty her cape, how trodden +down were her little shoes. She was all in brown, from the old beaver +hat to her boots, in a soft, old-faded note of colour, and her hair was +gloriously golden like a chrysanthemum. As Antony looked at her she took +out her handkerchief and wiped something off her cheek and from her +eyes. His luncheon of steak and potatoes had been served him. He took up +his napkin and his dinner and limped over to the table where the English +girl sat bowed over. + +"Would you like a comrade for luncheon? Say so, if you don't want me." +He saw her start, wipe her eyes and look up with a sob on her lips. + +"Oh, yes, I don't mind." Her voice was stifled. "Sit down, it is good of +you." + +The girl covered her face with her hands for a second and then wiped her +eyes determinedly, as if she fetched herself out of stony depths. She +smiled tremulously and her lips were as red and full and sweet as a +rose. + +"Garcon," he ordered, "fetch two bocks. Yes, mademoiselle, it will do +you good." + +"I say," she fluttered, "were you lonely over there in your corner?" + +Fairfax nodded. She put out her little hand, stained with paint and oil, +and it was cold and delicate as it touched his. It seemed to need the +strength of the man's big, warm grasp. + +"I have always liked your face, do you know--always," she said. "I knew +that you could be a real pal if you wanted. You are not like the others. +I expect you are a great swell at something. Writing?" + +"No, I am a workman in Barye's studio--a sculptor." + +"Oh," she said incredulously. "You look '_arrivé_,' awfully +distinguished. I expect you really _are_ something splendid." + +The beer came foaming. The girl lifted her glass with a hand which +trembled. Tears hung on her lashes still, ready to fall, but she was a +little sport and full of character and life. She nodded at Fairfax and +murmured-- + +"Here's to our being friends." + +Her voice was sweet and musical. They drank the draught to friendship. + +Fairfax asked cruelly: "What made you cry?" + +She touched her portfolio. "There," she said, "that is the reason. My +last fortnight's work. I draw at Julian's, and I had a fearful criticism +this morning, most discouraging. I am here on my own." She stopped and +said rather faintly: "Why should I tell you?" + +"We drank just now to the reason why you should." + +"That's true," she laughed. "Well, then, this is my last week in Paris. +I will have to go back to England and drop painting, unless they tell me +that I am sure to have a career and that it is worth while." + +A career! She was a soft, sweet, tender little creature in spite of her +good comradeship and the brave little tilt to her hat, and she was fit +for a home nest, and no more fit to battle with the storm of a career +than a young bird with a tempest. + +"Let me see your portfolio, will you?" + +"First," she said practically, "eat your steak and your potatoes." +Touching her eyes, she added: "I thought of what Goethe said as I cried +here--'Wer nie sein Brot mit Thraenen ass'--only it's not the first +bread and tears that have gone together in this room, I expect." + +"No," returned Fairfax, "I reckon not, and you are lucky to have the +bread, Mademoiselle. Some have only tears." + +"I know," she returned softly, "and I have been most awfully lucky so +far." + +When they had finished he made the man clear away the things, and she +spread out the contents of her portfolio before him, watching his face, +as he felt, for every expression. He handled thoughtfully the bits of +card-board and paper, seeing on them only the evidence of a mediocre +talent, a great deal of feeling, and the indications of a sensitive +nature. One by one he looked at them and turned them over, and put them +back and tied up the green portfolio by its black tapes. Then he looked +at her, saw how white her little face had grown, how big and blue her +eyes were, how childlike and inadequate she seemed to life. + +"You need not speak," she faltered. "You were going to say I'm no good. +I don't want to hear you say it." + +Impulsively, he put out his strong hands and took hers that fluttered at +her coat. + +"Why should you care for what I say? You have your masters and your +chiefs." + +"Yes," she nodded, "and they have been awfully encouraging, all of them, +until to-day." + +Fairfax looked at her earnestly. "You must not mind if you feel that you +have got it in you. Don't seek to hear others' opinions, just go boldly, +courageously on. What I say has no meaning." + +He dropped her hands and the colour came back somewhat into her face. + +"What you say has importance, though," she answered. "I have the feeling +that you are somebody. Anyhow, I have watched you every time you came. I +think you know things. I believe you must be a great artist. I should +believe you--I do believe you. I see you don't think I'm any good. +Besnard didn't think so when he came to-day. I don't want to go on being +a fool." + +As she spoke, from the other restaurant came the notes of a fiddle and +a flute, for two wandering musicians, habitués of these smaller cafés, +had wandered in to earn the price of their luncheon. They were playing, +not very well, but very plaintively, an old French song, one in vogue in +the Latin Quarter. The sun, still magnificently brilliant, had found its +way around to the back of the place, and over the court with the ruined +marbles the light streamed through the window and fell on Fairfax and +the little girl. + +"What do you say," he suggested abruptly, "to coming with me for the +afternoon? Let's go on the top of a tram and ride off somewhere." + +He rose, paid the man who came for his luncheon (the girl's score had +already been settled), and stood waiting. She fingered the tapes of her +closed portfolio, her lips still trembled. The sunlight was full on her, +shining on her hair, on her old worn cape, on the worn felt hat, on the +little figure which had been so full of courage and of dreams. Then she +looked up at Antony and rose. + +"I will go," she said, and he picked up the portfolio, tucked it under +his arm, and they walked out together, through the smoky larger room +where part of the lunchers were joining in the chorus of the song the +musicians played. And this little handful of the Latin Quarter saw the +two pass out together, as two pass together often from those Bohemian +refuges. Some one, as the door opened and shut on Antony and the girl, +cried: "Vive l'amour!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +On the way out to Versailles from the top of the tram, lifted high above +Paris and the river, alongside of the vulgar head, alongside of the +strange little English girl, Fairfax listened to the outpouring of her +heart. She took his interest for granted. With an appreciative +understanding of human nature, and as though she had been bearing a +burden for years which she had never let slip, she rested it now, and +her blue eyes on his, her hands in the old woollen gloves, which she had +slipped on before they started, clasped in her lap, she talked to +Fairfax. By the time the tram stopped before the Palace of Versailles, +he had heard her story. She was the daughter of an Irish clergyman. Nora +Scarlet was her name. + +Nora and Molly! + +But they were very different. This girl was as gay as a lark. She +laughed frankly aloud, musically, and put her hand on his with a free +"camaraderie." She made sparkling little faces at him and called him +softly, "Ami." + +"My name is Nora, Nora Scarlet, but I don't want you to tell me your +name until the end of the day, please. It is just a silly idea, but I +will call you 'Ami.' I daresay it is a great name you have got, and I +would rather feel that I don't want to know it too soon." + +She had shown talent in the school where she had started in Ireland, and +had taken a scholarship and had come to Paris to study, to venture +unprepared and quite wildly into the student life, to struggle on small +means and insufficient food uphill toward art. She displayed in talking +a touching confidence in herself and worship of beauty, as well as a +simple and loyal attitude toward life in general. She occupied a +furnished room near the studio and, as she expressed it, "fished for +herself." She was the oldest of seven children, with a weight of +responsibility on herself. Her father's salary was ridiculous, she told +him, not enough to bring up one hungry child well, much less half a +dozen. + +"I thought that I could support myself with my art," she told Fairfax, +"and that I should soon be _arrivée, lancée_, but to-day, when the +criticism discouraged me and I knew that I should have to write home for +money soon, well ... I'd not like to tell you what strange fancies +came." She lifted up her finger and pointed at the river as it lay +between its shores. "And now," she glanced at him, "when you tell me, +too, that I am no good at painting!" + +"I haven't said that," remonstrated Fairfax; "but don't let's talk about +work now, what do you say? Let's have a holiday." + +They walked up the Palace over the cobbles of the courtyard and paused +to look back at the Route de Paris, that Miss Nora Scarlet might +thoroughly picture the procession of the fish-wives and the march of the +Paris populace up to Versailles, where the people swept its violent sea +over the royal courts and the foam rose to the windows where royal faces +whitened against the panes. Nora Scarlet and Fairfax wandered through +the great rooms, part of the tourist crowd. The handsome man limped, a +student's stoop across his shoulders, by the side of the small blond +girl with her student cape and her soft hat, her hair like chrysanthemum +petals. Fairfax took occasion in the portrait room to tell her that she +looked like a Greuze. Nora Scarlet was an appreciative sightseer. + +"Oh, if I could only paint," she murmured, "if I could only paint!" and +she clasped her woollen gloves prayerfully before the portraits of the +Filles de France. But the Nattiers and the Fragonards mocked her, and +the green portfolio under Fairfax's arm mocked her still more. Side by +side, they penetrated into the little rooms where a Queen lived, +intrigued, loved, and played her part. And Fairfax had his envies before +Houdon's head of Marie Antoinette. + +The wide, sweet, leaf-strewn alleys were very nearly deserted where they +stood, for the day had grown colder and the winter sunlight left early +to give place to a long still winter evening. Their footsteps made no +sound on the brown carpet of the park. Antony had not stopped to ask +what kind of a woman the girl student was when he spontaneously left his +lonely seat in the restaurant to take his place at her side, but +everything she said to him revealed a frank, innocent mind. He saw that +she had come with him without thinking twice, and he should have been +touched by it. He drew her arm within his as they passed the great +fountain. The basin was empty and its curve as round and smooth as human +lips. + +"Now," he said, "the time has come to talk of you and what you want to +do and can do, and how you can do it." + +"That's awfully kind." + +"No, those are just the questions that I have to ask myself every day +and find on some days that I haven't got the answer. It's a riddle, you +know. We don't every day quite find the answer to it. I reckon we would +never go on if we did, but it's good sport to ask and try to find out, +and, believe me, Miss Nora Scarlet, two are better than one at a riddle, +aren't they?" + +"Oh, very much." They went along leisurely and after a second she +continued: "It's lonely in Paris for a girl who doesn't want to go in +for lots of things, and I have been getting muddled. But the worst +muddle is pounds, shillings and pence"--she laughed musically--"it's +reduced to pence at last, but I don't find the muddle reduced a bit." + +"You want to do portraits?" he asked. + +"Yes, I haven't an idea about anything else." + +The trees above their heads made leafy bowers in summer, but now between +the fine bare branches, they saw the delicate wintry sky, pale with the +fading light of what had been a rare January day. + +"Suppose I get an order for you to paint a portrait and you are paid in +advance." + +She stopped, holding him back by the arm, and exclaimed, joyously-- + +"Oh, but you could not!" + +"Suppose that I can. If I do succeed and you paint the portrait, will +you do something for me?" + +She looked up at him quickly. He was much above her. Nora Scarlet had +seen Fairfax several times a week for many months. She knew him as well +as any person can know another by sight--she knew his clothes, the way +he wore them. It had been easy to study his face attentively, for he was +so absorbed in general that he was unconscious of scrutiny. She had +learned every one of his features pretty well by heart. Solitary as she +was, without companions or friends except for her studio mates, she had +grown to think as women do of a man they choose, to surround him with +fancies and images. She had idealized this unknown artist, and her +thoughts kept her company, and he had become almost part of her life +already. She looked up at him now and blushed. He put his hand down over +hers lightly. + +"I mean that when the portrait is finished, we will have it criticized +by the subject first, then by some one in whom you have great +confidence, and if you are certain then that you have a vocation, we +will see what can be done--some way will open up. There is always sure +to be a path toward the thing that is to be. But if the criticism is +unfavourable, I want you to promise me to go back to England and to your +people, and to give up art as bravely as you can--I mean, courageously, +like a good soldier who has fought well and lost the battle. Perhaps," +Fairfax said, smiling, "if I were not an artist my advice would be worth +less, but the place is too full of half-successes. If you can't be at +the top, don't fill up the ranks. Get down as soon as you can and be +another kind of success." + +The advice was sound and practical. She listened to his agreeable voice, +softened by the Southern accent. She watched him as he talked, but his +face was not that of an adviser. It was charmingly personal and his +smile the sweetest she had ever seen. She murmured-- + +"You are awfully kind. I promise." + +"Good," he exclaimed heartily, "you are a first-rate sort; however it +turns out, you are plucky." + +The most delicious odours of moist earth, blessed with the day's +unexpected warmth, rose on the winter air. Their footfalls were lost in +the leaves. Far down at the end of the alley they could see other +strollers, but where they stood they were quite alone. The excitement of +the unusual outing, the pleasure of companionship, brought the colour to +their cheeks, a light to their eyes. The girl's helplessness, the human +struggle so like to his own, her admiration and her frankness, appealed +to him greatly. His late agitation, useless, hopeless, perilous +moreover, and which he felt he must overcome because it could have +neither issue nor satisfaction, made Fairfax turn here for satisfaction +and repose. They wandered slowly down the alley, her hand within his +arm, and he said, looking down at her-- + +"Meanwhile, you belong to me." + +The words passed his lips before he realized what they meant, or their +importance. He did so as soon as he spoke. He felt her start. She +withdrew the hand from his arm. He stopped and said-- + +"Did I frighten you?" He took her little hand. + +"A little," Nora Scarlet said. Her eyes were round and wide. + +Antony held her hand, looking at her, trying to see a deeper beauty in +her face than was there, greater depths in her eyes than they could +contain, more of the woman to fill his need and his loneliness. He +realized how great that loneliness was and how demanding. She seemed +like a child or a bird that he had caught ruthlessly. + +"Didn't you drink just now to our friendship?" + +She nodded, bit her lips, smiled, and her humour returned. + +"Yes, I drank to our friendship." + +"Well," he said, and hesitated, "well...." He drew her a little toward +him; she resisted faintly, and Fairfax stopped and quickly kissed her, a +feeling of shame in his soul. He kissed her again, murmured something to +her, and she kissed him. Then she pushed him gently away, her face +crimson, her eyes full of tears. + +"No, no," she murmured, "you shouldn't have done it. It is too awful. +It's unworthy. Ami," she gasped, "do you know you are the first man I +ever let do that? Do you believe me?" She was clinging to his hands, +half laughing, half sobbing, and the kiss was sweet, sweet, and the +moment was sweet. To one of them it was eternal, and could never come in +all her lifetime like that again. + +He stifled his self-reproach. He would have taken her in his arms again, +but she ran from him, swiftly, like the bird set free. + +"Wait," he called; "Nora Scarlet, I promise." He hurried to her. "You +forget I am a lame jackdaw." + +Then she stood still. They were walking together, his arm around her +waist, when they came out at the alley's end. Standing by a marble bust +on its pedestal, quite alone and meditative, as if she had just looked +up, seen something and nevertheless decided to wait, Fairfax saw Mrs. +Faversham. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +His first sensation, as he saw her, was as if a sudden light had broken +upon a soul's darkness which until this moment had blinded him, +oppressed him, condemned him; then there came a great revulsion against +himself. Mrs. Faversham was very pale, as white as the bust by whose +side she stood. She held out her hand, in its delicate glove, and tried +to greet him naturally. + +"How do you do, Mr. Rainsford?" + +He was conscious of how kind she was, how womanly. He had refused her +invitation and flaunted in her sight a vulgar pastoral. His cheeks were +hot, his lips hardly formed a greeting. This was the work he had offered +as an excuse to her when he had said that he could not go to Versailles. +"Then what is it to her?" he thought; "she is engaged to be married to +Cedersholm. What am I or my vulgarities to her?" There was a fresh +revulsion. + +"Will you let me present Miss Scarlet," he said quietly, "Mrs. +Faversham?" + +Mrs. Faversham, who had recovered herself, gave her hand into the +woollen glove of Nora Scarlet, and, looking at the young girl, said that +perhaps they had been sketching. + +"Not in January," replied Nora with perfect self-possession. From the +crown of Mrs. Faversham's fur hat to the lady's shoes, the girl's honest +eyes had taken in her elegance and her grace. "We have been walking a +bit after Paris." + +Fairfax felt as though he had been separated from this lady for a long +time, as though he had just come back, after a voyage whose details were +tiresome. She seemed too divine to him and at once cruelly near and +cruelly removed, in her dark dress, her small walking hat with a spray +of mistletoe shining against the fur, her faultless shoes, her face so +sweet and high-bred under her veil, her aloofness from everything with +which he came in contact, her freedom from care and struggle, from +temptation, from the sordidness of which he had long been a part. He +suffered horribly; short as the moment was, the acuteness of its +sensations comprised for him a miserable eternity. + +"I have my carriage here, Mr. Rainsford. Will you not let me drive you +both back to Paris?" + +He wanted nothing but to go with her then, any way, the farther the +better, and for ever. It came upon him suddenly, and he knew it. He +refused, of course, angry to be obliged to do so, angrier still at what +he was sure she would think was the reason for his doing so. She bade +them both good-bye, now thoroughly mistress of herself, and reminded him +that she would expect him the next day at three. She asked Miss Scarlet +many questions about her work and the schools, as they walked along a +little together, before Mrs. Faversham took the path that led to the +gate where her carriage waited. + + * * * * * + +When they were together again alone, Fairfax and his companion, in the +tram, he felt as though he had cut himself off once again, by his folly, +from everything desirable in the world. The night was cold. He did not +realize how silent he was or how silent she was. When they had nearly +reached Paris, Miss Scarlet said-- + +"Is it her portrait you thought I might get to paint?" + +The question startled him, the voice as well. It was like being spoken +to suddenly by a perfect stranger. + +"Yes," he answered, "she is wonderfully generous and open-hearted. I am +sure that she would give you an order." + +"Please don't bother," said the girl proudly. "I would not take the +order." + +Her tone was so curt and short that it brought Fairfax back to +realities. + +"Why, pray, don't you find her paintable?" he asked. + +The girl's voice was contemptuous. "I don't know. I didn't look at her +with that idea." + +Fairfax had nothing left him but his self-reproach, his humiliation, his +sense of degradation, though God knows the outing was innocent enough! +The Thing had happened. The Event had transpired. The veil had been +drawn away from his heart when he saw her there in the park and spoke to +her. The idea that she must think him light and vulgar-minded, an +ordinary Bohemian, amusing himself as is the fashion in the Latin +Quarter, was unbearable to him. He would have given his right hand to +have been alone in the park and to have met her alone. Under the spell +of his suffering, he said cruelly to the girl whom he had so wantonly +captured-- + +"If you won't let me help you in my way, I'm afraid I can't help you at +all." + +And she returned, controlling her voice: "No, I am afraid you cannot +help me." + +He was unconscious of her until they reached the centre of Paris and he +found himself in the street by her side, and they were crossing the Pond +des Arts on foot. The lamps were lit. The tumult and stir of the city +was around them, the odour of fires and the perfume of the city pungent +to their nostrils. They walked along silently, and Fairfax asked her +suddenly-- + +"Where shall I take you? Where do you live?" and realized as he spoke +how little he knew of her, how unknown they were to each other, and yet +what a factor she had been in his emotional life. He had held her in his +arms and kissed her not three hours ago. + +She put her hand out to him. "We will say good-bye here," she said +evenly. "I can go home alone." + +"Oh no," he objected, but he saw by her face that in her, too, a +revulsion had taken place, perhaps stronger than his own. He was ashamed +and annoyed. He put out his hand and hers just touched it. + +"Thank you," she said, "for the excursion, and would you please give me +my portfolio?" + +He handed it to her. Then quite impulsively: "I don't want to part from +you like this. Why should I? Let me take you home, won't you?" + +He wanted to say, "Forgive me," but she had possessed herself of her +little sketches, the poor, inadequate work of fruitless months. She +turned and was gone almost running up the quays, as she had run before +him down the alley of Versailles. He saw her go with great relief, and, +when the little brown figure was lost in the Paris multitude, he turned +and limped home to the studio in the Quais. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +He did not go to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne at the appointed hour, +and was so ungracious as not to send her any word. He took the time for +his own work, and from thence on devoted himself to finishing the +portrait of his mother. Meanwhile, Dearborn, enveloped in smoke, dug +into the mine of his imagination and brought up treasures and nearly +completed his play. He recited from it copiously, read it aloud, wept at +certain scenes which he assured Tony would never be as sad to any +spectator as they were to him. + +"I wrote them on an empty stomach," he said. + +Fairfax, meanwhile, finished his statuette and decided to send it to an +exhibition of sculpture to be opened in the Rue de Sčvres. He had +bitterly renounced his worldly life, and was shortly obliged to pawn his +dress suit, and, indeed, anything else that the young men could gather +together went to the Mont de Piété, and once more the comrades were +nearly destitute and were really clad and fed by their visions and their +dreams. + +"You see," he said one day, shortly, to Dearborn, when the silence +between the quays and the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne had grown +intolerable to him, "you see how indifferent she is. She doesn't know +what has become of me. For all she knows I may be drowned in the Seine." + +"Or imprisoned for debt," said Dearborn, cheerfully, "that's more +likely. The tailor doesn't believe you have gone to London, Fairfax. Try +a more congenial place, Tony. Let it be Monte Carlo next time--every one +goes there sooner or later." + +When he came back from Versailles he told Dearborn nothing about his +escapade in detail, simply mentioning the fact that he had taken out a +little girl to spend the day in the woods and that she had bored him in +the end, and that he had had the misfortune to meet Mrs. Faversham +unexpectedly. + +Dearborn was one of those subtle spirits who do not need to be told +everything. He rated Antony for playing what he called an ungallant part +to the little Bohemian. + +"You say her hair was like chrysanthemums and that she had violet eyes? +Why, she is a priceless treasure, Tony! How could you desert her?" + +And several times Dearborn tried to extract something more about the +deserted little girl from his friend, but it was in vain. + +"I am sorry," Dearborn said. "We need women, Tony--we need to see the +flutter of their dresses, to watch them come and go in this little room. +By Jove, I often want to open the door and invite up the concierge, the +concierge's wife, his aunt 'and children three' or any, or all of Paris +who would come and infuse new life into us. Anything that is real flesh +and blood, to chase for a moment visions and dreams away and let us +touch real hands." + +"You don't go out enough, old man." + +"And you went out too much, Fairfax. It's not going out--I want some one +to come in. I want to see the studio peopled. You have grown so morose +and I have become such a navvy that our points of view will be false the +first thing we know." + +The snow had been falling lightly. There was a little fringe of it along +the sill, and toward sunset it had turned cold, and under the winter fog +the sun hung like an orange ball behind a veil. The Seine flowed tawny +and yellow under their eyes, as they stood together talking in the +window. + +Fairfax was in his painting clothes, the playwright in his beloved +dressing-gown that Fairfax had not the heart to pawn for coffee and +coal. There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs without. + +"It's the fellows coming to take my statuette," said Fairfax. + +"It's the tailor, the bootmaker and the shirtmaker," said Dearborn. "Go +behind the screen, Tony--run to Monte Carlo." + +There was a tap at the door and a cheerful voice called-- + +"Mr. Rainsford, _c'est moi_." + +"It is Potowski. I will have to let him in, Bob. Here's all Paris for +you. You wanted it." + +He opened the door for Count Potowski. + +The Polish singer came quickly in, his silk hat and his cane in his +hand. He looked around brightly. + +"You don't hide from me," he said. "I have a fatal grasp when I take +hold. You never call on me, Monsieur--so I call on you. Guerrea!--which +means in Polish what 'altro' means in Italian, 'Doch' in German, 'Voilŕ' +in French, and in unenthusiastic English, nothing at all." + +Fairfax presented the Count to Dearborn, who beamed on him, amused, and +Potowski glanced at the cold, cheerless Bohemia. It was meagre. It was +cold. Privation was apparent. The place was not without a charm, and it +had distinction. There were the evidences of intense work, of devotion +to the ideal. There were the evidences of good taste and good breeding. +The few bits of furniture were old and had been bought for a song, but +selected with judgment. Fairfax's statuette waited on its pedestal to be +carried away--in the winter light, softened and subdued by mist, Mrs. +Fairfax read in her chair. Dearborn's table, strewn with his papers and +books, told of hours spent at a beloved labour. There was nothing +material to attract--no studio properties or decorations to speak of. +Two long divans were placed against a wall of agreeable colour. There +was nothing but the spirit of art and work, and the spirit of youth as +well, but Potowski was delighted. He pointed to the statuette. + +"This," he said, "is the lovely lady with whom you have been shut up all +these days. It is charming, Monsieur." + +"It is a study of my mother as I remember her." + +"I salute it," said Potowski, making a little inclination. "I salute +_you_. It is beautiful." He put his hand on Fairfax's arm. "You do my +wife. You do the Contessa," said Potowski, "the same. I adore it. It +looks my wife. It might be her, Monsieur. But all beauty is alike, is +not it? One lovely woman is all women. Are you not of my opinion?" + +He swam toward Dearborn who was fascinated by Potowski's overcoat lined +with fur, and with the huge fur collar, with his patent shoes with their +white tops, with his bright waistcoat, his single eyeglass, his shining +silk hat and, above all, by the gay foreign face, its waxed moustache +and its sparkling dark eyes. + +Dearborn wrapped his dressing-gown modestly around him to conceal his +shirtless, collarless condition. Running his hands through dishevelled +red hair, he responded-- + +"No, I don't agree with you. I guess your feminine psychology is at +fault there, Count." + +"_Rreally_ not," murmured the Count, looking at him eagerly. + +"Mr. Dearborn is a playwright," said Antony. "He is a great student of +character." + +Potowski waved his hand in its light glove. "You write plays, Monsieur? +You shall write me a libretto. I have been looking for ever for some one +to write the words for a _hopera_ I am making." + +Dearborn nodded. "Far from being all alike, I don't think that there +have been two women alike since Eve." + +"_Rreally!_" + +Potowski looked at the red-headed man as if he wondered whether he had +met and known all women. + +"You find it so, Monsieur? Now I have been married three times. Every +one of them were lovely women. I find them all the same." + +"You must have a very adaptable, assimilating and modifying nature," +said Dearborn, smiling. + +"Modifying? What is that?" asked the Pole sweetly. + +Neither of the young men made excuses for the icy cold room. They were +too proud. They had nothing to offer Potowski, not even a cigarette, but +the Pole forced his cigar-case upon them, telling them that he made his +cigarettes with a machine by the thousand. + +"My wife, Contessa Potowski, makes them, I mean. I do myself the +pleasure to send you a box. They're contraband. You will be arrested if +the police knows so." + +"That," said Dearborn, "would really disappoint the tailor. I think he +would like to get in his own score first. But I would rather go to +prison as a contrabander than as a debtor." + +They sat on the sofa together and smoked, their breath white in the cold +room. But the amiable Potowski beamed on them, and Antony saw Dearborn's +delight at the outside element. And Dearborn sketched his scenario, the +colour hot in his thin cheeks, and Potowski, rubbing his hands to warm +them, hummed airs from his own opera in a heavenly voice, and the voice +and the enthusiasm magnetized poor Dearborn, carried out of his rut, and +before he knew it he had promised to write a libretto for "Fiametta." + +Whilst they talked the porters came and took away the statuette of Mrs. +Fairfax, and Potowski said-- + +"It was like seeing _they_ carry away my wife." And, when they had gone, +Antony lighted the candles and Potowski rose and cried, as though the +idea had just come to him: "Guerrea! My friends, I am alone to-night. My +wife has gone to sing in Brussels. I implore you to come out to dinner +with me--I know not where." He glanced at the sculptor and playwright, +as they stood in the candle light. He had only seen Fairfax a +well-dressed visitor at Mrs. Faversham's entertainments. On him now a +different light fell. In his working clothes, there was nothing +poverty-stricken about him, but the marks of need were unmistakably in +the environment. He spoke to Dearborn, but he looked at Fairfax. "I have +grown very fond of him. I love to speak my thoughts at him. We don't +always agree, but we are always good for each other. I have not seen him +for some time. I thought he go away." + +Dearborn smiled. "He _was_ just going to Monte Carlo," he murmured. + +Potowski, who did not hear, went on: "We will go and eat in some +restaurant on this side of the river. I am tired of the Café de Paris. +We will see a play afterwards. There is 'La Dame aux Camélias' with the +divine Sarah. We laugh at dinner and we shall go and sob at La Dame aux +Camélias. I like a happy weeping now and then." He swam toward them +affably and appealingly. "I don't dress. I go as I am." + +Dearborn grasped one of the yellow-gloved hands and shook it. + +"Hang it all! I'm going, Tony. There are two pair of boots, anyhow. I +haven't been to a play," he laughed excitedly, "since I was a child. +Hustle, Tony, we will toss up for the best suit of clothes." + +The drama of Dumas gave Antony a beautiful escape from reality. La Dame +aux Camélias disenchanted him from his own problems for the time. In the +Count's box he sat in the background and fed his eyes and his ears with +the romantic and ardent art of the Second Empire. He found the piece +great, mobile, and palpitating, and he was not ashamed. The divine Sarah +and Marguerite Gautier died before his eyes, and out of the ashes +womanhood arose and called to him, as the Venus de Milo had called to +him down the long gallery, and distractions he had known seemed soulless +and unreal shapes. He worshipped Dumas in his creation. + +"Rainsford," whispered Potowski, laying his hand on Antony's knee, "what +do you t'ink, my friend?" The tears were raining down his mobile face; +he sighed. "_Arrt_," he said in his mellow whisper, "is only the +expression of the feeling, the beautiful expression of the feeling. That +is the meaning of all _arrt_." + +The big red curtain fell slowly and the three men, poet, singer and +sculptor, kept their seats as though still under the spell of Dumas and +unable to break it. + +"Tony," said Dearborn, as they went out together, "I am going to burn up +all four acts." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The middle of January arrived, and he thought Cedersholm would have come +by that time and supposed that they would be off for Rome. + +The study of his mother was accepted by the jury for the exhibition in +the Rue de Sčvres, and Fairfax went on the opening day, saw his name in +the catalogue, and his study on the red pedestal made a dark mellow note +amongst the marbles. He stood with the crowd and listened with beating +heart to the comments of the public. He watched the long-haired +Bohemians and the worldly people, the Philistine and the élite as they +surged, a little sea of criticism, approval, praise and blame, through +the rooms. + +"Pas mal, ça." "Here is a study that is worth looking at." "By whom is +this?" + +And each time that he heard his name read aloud--Thomas Rainsford--he +was jealous of it for Antony. It seemed a sacrilege, a treachery. He +wandered about, looking at the other exhibits, but could not keep away +from his own, and came back timidly, happily, to stand by the figure of +his mother in her chair. There was much peace in the little work of art, +much repose. He seemed to see himself again a boy, as he had been that +day when she asked for the cherries and he had run off to climb for +them--and had gone limping ever since. She had sat languidly with her +book that day, as she sat now, immortalized by her son in clay. + +Some one came up and touched his arm. "Bonjour, Rainsford." It was +Barye, his chief. He had been looking at the group behind the sculptor. +He said briefly: "Je vous félicite, monsieur." He smiled on his +journeyman from under shaggy brows. "They will talk about you in the +_Figaro_. C'est exquis." + +Fairfax thanked him and watched Barye's face as the master scrutinized +and went around the little figure. He put out his hand to Fairfax. + +"Come and see me to-morrow. I want to talk to you." + +Fairfax answered that he would be sure to come, just as though he were +not modelling at the studio for ten francs a day. He had been careful +all along not to repeat his error of years before. He had avoided +personalities with his master, as he toiled like a common day-labourer, +content to make his living and to display no originality; but now he +felt a sense of fellowship with the great Frenchman and walked along by +Barye's side to the door, proud to be so distinguished. He glanced over +the crowd in the hope of seeing Her, but instead, walking through the +rooms, his eyeglass in his eye, the little red badge of the Legion of +Honour in his coat, he saw Cedersholm. + +The following day, when he went to the exhibition, the man at the door +handed a catalogue to Fairfax and pointed to No. 102, against which was +the word "Sold." His price had been unpretentious. + +"Moreover," said the man, "No. 102 will certainly have a medal." + +Fairfax, his hands in his empty pockets, was less impressed by that +prognostication than by the fact that there was money for him somewhere. +The man opened the desk and handed Fairfax an envelope with five hundred +francs in it. + +"Who was the purchaser?" Fairfax looked at the receipt he was given to +sign and read: "Sold to Mr. Cedersholm." + +"Mais non," he exclaimed shortly, "ça, non!" + +He was assured, however, that it was the American sculptor and no other. +On his way home he reflected, "She sent him to purchase it." And the +five hundred francs bill burned in his pocket. Then he called himself a +fool and asked what possible interest she could still have in Thomas +Rainsford, whose news she had not taken in four weeks. And also, he +reflected, that so far as Cedersholm was concerned, Thomas Rainsford had +nothing to do with Antony Fairfax. "He merely admired my work," he +reflected bitterly. "He has seemed always singularly to admire it." + +He paid some pressing debts, got his clothes out of pawn, left Dearborn +what he wanted, and was relieved when the last sou of the money was +gone. + +"I wonder, Bob," he said to Dearborn, "when I shall ever have any +'serious money.'" And with sudden tenderness he thought of Bella. + +Dearborn, who had also recovered a partially decent suit of clothes, +displayed his trousers and said-- + +"I think some chap has been wearing my clothes and stretched them." They +hung loose on him. + +Fairfax laughed. "You have only shrunk, Bob, that's all. You need +feeding up." + +The studio had undergone a slight transformation, which the young men +had been forced to accede to. A grand piano covered with a bright bit of +brocade stood in the centre of the studio, a huge armchair, with a +revolving smoking-table, by its side. The chair was for Dearborn to loll +in and dream in whilst Potowski played and sang at the piano. Dearborn +was thus supposed to work the libretto for "Fiametta." + +Potowski, who came in at all hours, charmed the very walls with his +voice, sang and improvised; Fairfax worked on the study he was making +for Barye, and Dearborn, in the big chair, swathed in his wrapper, made +notes, or more often fell serenely to sleep, for he worked all night on +his own beloved drama, and if it had not been for Potowski he would have +slept nearly all day. The Pole, at present, had gone to Belgium to fetch +his wife, who had been away for several weeks. + +When there was a knock on the door on this afternoon, the young men, +used to unexpected visitors, cried out-- + +"Come in--entrez donc!" + +But there was the murmur of a woman's voice without, and Fairfax, his +sculpting tools in his hands, opened the door. It was Mrs. Faversham. + +He stood for a dazed second unable even to welcome her. Dearborn sprang +up in embarrassment and amusement. Mrs. Faversham herself was not +embarrassed. + +"Is not Potowski here?" shaking hands with Antony. "I had expected to +meet him. Didn't he tell you that I was coming? I understood that you +expected me." + +Fairfax shut the door behind her. "You are more than welcome. This is my +friend, Mr. Dearborn. You may have heard Potowski speak of him." + +She shook hands with the red-haired playwright, whom she captivated at +once by her cordiality and her sweet smile. Of course she had heard of +him and the libretto. Potowski had given her to understand that she +might hear the overture of "Fiametta." + +The young men exchanged glances and neither of them told her that +Potowski was in Belgium. Dearborn rolled the chair toward her and waved +to it gracefully. + +"This is the chair of the muses, Mrs. Faversham, and not one of them has +been good enough to sit in it before now." + +She laughed and sat down, and Fairfax looked at her with joy. + +"We must give Mrs. Faversham some tea," said Dearborn, "and if you will +excuse me while we wait for Potowski, I will pop out and get some milk +and you boil the tea-kettle." + +He took his hat and cape and ran out, leaving them alone. + +Mrs. Faversham looked at the sculptor in his velveteen working clothes, +the background of his workshop, its disorder and its poverty around him. + +"How nice it is here," she said. "I don't wonder you are a hermit." + +"Oh," he exclaimed, "don't compliment this desolation." + +She interrupted him. "I think it is charming. You feel the atmosphere of +living and of work. You seem to see things here that are not visible in +rooms where nothing is accomplished." + +He sat down beside her. "Are there such rooms?" he asked. "I don't +believe it. The most thrilling dramas take place, don't they, in the +most commonplace settings?" + +As though she feared that Dearborn would come back, she said quickly-- + +"I don't know why you should have been so unkind. I have heard nothing +of you for weeks, do you know, excepting through Potowski. It wasn't +kind, was it?" + +"I was rude and ungrateful, but I could not do otherwise." + +She bent forward to him as he sat on the divan. "I wonder why?" she +asked. "Were we not friends? Could you not have trusted me? Do you think +me so narrow and conventional--so stupid?" + +"Oh!" he exclaimed, and he smiled a little, thinking of Nora Scarlet. +"It is not quite what you think." + +He was angry with her, with the facts of their existence, with her great +fortune, and her engagement to the man he despised above all others, his +own incognito and the fact that she had sent Cedersholm to buy his +study, and that he could not express to her, without insult, his +feelings or tell her frankly who he was. + +"You were not kind, Mr. Rainsford." + +He reflected that she thought him the lover of a Latin Quarter student, +if she thought at all, which she probably did not. Without humility he +confessed-- + +"Yes, I have been very rude indeed." He wiped his clay-covered hands +slowly, each finger separately, his eyes bent. He rose abruptly. "Would +you care to look at a study I am making for Barye?" He drew off the +cloths from the clay he was engaged in modelling. She only glanced at +the group and he asked her, almost roughly: "Why did you buy by proxy my +little study in the exhibition? Why did you ask Cedersholm to do so?" + +Mrs. Faversham looked at him in frank surprise. "Your study in the +exhibition? I knew nothing of it. I did not know you had exhibited. I +have been ill for a fortnight, and have not seen a paper or heard a hit +of news." + +He was softened. His emotions violently contradicted themselves, and he +saw now that she had grown a little thinner and looked pale. + +"Have you been ill? What a boor you must think me never to have +returned!" + +She was standing close to the pedestal and rested her hand on the +support near his wooden tools. She wore a beautiful grey drees, such a +one as only certain Parisian hands can create. It fitted her to +perfection, displaying her shape, and, where the fur opened at the neck, +amongst the lace he saw the gleaming and flashing of a jewel whose value +would have made a man rich. Already the air was sweet with the fragrance +of the scent she used. She had been in grey when he had first seen her +on the day of the unveiling of the monument. Fairfax passed his hand +across his eyes, as though to brush away a vision which, like a mist, +was still between them. He put his hand down over hers on the pedestal. + +"I love you," he said very low. "That is the matter. That is the +trouble. I love you. I want you to know it. I dare love you. I am +perfectly penniless and I am glad of it. I want to owe everything to my +art, to climb through the thorns to where I shall some day reach. I am +proud of my poverty and of my emancipation from everything that others +think is necessary to happiness. I am rude. I cannot help it. I shall +never see you again. I ought not to speak to you in my barren room. I +know that you are not free and that you are going to be married, but you +must hear once what I have to tell you. I love you.... I love you." + +She was as motionless as the grey study. He might himself have made and +carved "the woman in her entirety," for she stood motionless before him. + +"Tell Cedersholm," he said bitterly, "tell him that a poor sculptor, a +struggler who lives to climb beyond him, who will some day climb beyond +him, loves you." + +The arrogance and pride of his words and her immobility affected him +more than a reproof or even speech. He took her in his arms, and she was +neither marble nor clay, but a woman there. + +"Tell him," he murmured close to her cheek, "that I have kissed you and +held you." + +And here she said; "Hush!" almost inaudibly, and released herself. She +was trembling. She put her hands to her eyes. "I shall tell him nothing. +He is nothing to me. I sent him away when he first came, a fortnight +ago. I shall never see Cedersholm again." + +"What!" cried Tony, looking at her in rapture, "what, you are _free_?" +At his heart there was triumph, excitement, wonder, all blending with +the bigger emotion. He heard himself ask her eagerly: "Why, why did you +do this?" + +There were tears on her eyelids. + +His face flushing, his eyes illumined, he looked down on her and lifted +her face to him in both his hands. + +"Why?" + +"I think you know," she murmured, her lips trembling. + +He gave a cry, and as he was about again to embrace her they heard +Dearborn's step upon the stairs. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Faversham was in the window looking out upon Paris, and Fairfax was +modelling on his study when the playwright came in with a can of milk, +some madeleines and a pot of jam. + +After she had gone he wanted to escape and be alone, but Dearborn +chatted, pacing the studio, whilst Fairfax dressed and shaved, praising +the visitor. + +"She's a great lady, Tony. What breeding and race! And she's not what +the books call 'indifferent' to you." + +"Go to the devil, Dearborn!" + +Dearborn went to work instead, not to lose the inspiration of the lovely +woman. He began a new scene, and dressed his character in dove grey with +silver fox at her throat. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Fairfax, at the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, found instead of the +entrance he had expected, a note for him. + + "I cannot see you to-night. Be generous,--understand me. Mr. + Cedersholm leaves for Russia to-morrow, he has asked me as a last + favour to let him see me. I have done him so much wrong that I + cannot refuse him. Come early to-morrow morning, and we will walk + in the Bois together. I am yours, + + "MARY." + +He read the letter before the footman, and the "yours, Mary" made his +heart bound and his throat contract. He walked toward the Champs Elysées +slowly, thinking. Cedersholm sailed to-morrow, away from France. He was +sent away beaten, bruised, conquered. He must have loved her. No man +could help it. Was this the beginning of Fairfax's triumph? Well, he +could not help it--he was glad. Cedersholm had stolen his fire, the +labour of his youth, and now he would not have been human if there had +not been a thrill through him that the conqueror knows. He could spare +him this farewell evening with the woman who signed herself "I am yours, +Mary." + +"Vade in Pace," he murmured. + +Then the vision of the woman rose more poignant than anything else, and +he saw her as she had stood under his hands, the tears in her eyes, and +the fire and pallor of passion on her face. + +What should he do now? Marry her, of course. He would be married, then, +twice at thirty. He shook his broad shoulders as though instinctively he +chafed under the sudden adjusting to them of a burden. He limped out +into the Champs Elysées, under the rows of light where the lamps were +like illumined oranges. The vehicles twinkled by like fire-flies in the +mist. Before him was the Palais de l'Industrie and back of it stretched +the Champ de Mars and Napoleon's tomb. The freedom of the night and the +hour was sweet to him; and he dreamed as he limped slowly down the +Avenue under the leafless trees. Probably wisdom would tell him that, if +he married now, it would be the end of his career. Love was an +inspiration, a sharp impelling power to art, but marriage, a home, +another household, another hearth and family, beautiful as the picture +was, seemed to him, even bright and keen as was his passion, to be +captivity. And the memory of Albany came back to him, the cold winter +months, the days on the engine, the blizzards against the tenement +panes, household cares, small and petty, the buying of coal and food, +and the constant duties which no man can shrink from and be a man, and +which fret the free spirit of the creator. Moreover, the anguish of +those days returned, biting his very entrails at the remembrance of his +griefs, his remorse, his regrets. Molly by the study light, patient and +wifely, rose before his eyes. There was his wife, and she seemed holy +and stainless, set apart for that position and very perfect. He saw her +lying pale and cold, beautiful as marble, with the little swathed form +on her bosom, which had given and never nourished. He saw them both--his +wife and child. Can a man begin over again? Can he create anew, +perfectly anew, the same vision? He saw her go through the open door, +holding it wide for him. So she should hold it at the last. He could +give her this. He had defrauded her of so much. He could give to her to +eternity a certain faithfulness. + +He was exalted. He walked freely, with his head uplifted. It was a misty +evening and the mists blew about him as he limped along in his student's +cape, his spirit communing with his ideals and with his dead. Before, +his visions took form and floated down the Avenue. Now they seemed +unearthly, without any stain of human desire, without any worldly +tarnish. He must be free. The latitude of his life must be unbounded by +any human law, otherwise he would never attain. The flying forms were +sexless and his eyes pursued them like a worshipper. They were angelic. +For the moment he had emancipated himself from passion. + +He reached the Place de la Concorde. It was ten o'clock. He could not go +home to be questioned by Dearborn--indeed, he could not have stood a +companion. He called a cab and told the man to drive him up to the Bois +de Boulogne, and they rolled slowly up the Avenue down which he had just +come. But in what position did he stand toward Mary Faversham? She had +refused Cedersholm because she loved him and he loved her--more than he +ever could love, more than he ever had loved. A cab passed him in which +two forms were enlaced. The figures of two lovers blotted in the +darkness. Along the alleys, under the winter trees, every now and then +he saw other lovers walking arm-in-arm, even in winter warmed by the +eternal fire. He touched his pocket where her note lay and his emotions +stirred afresh. + +He dreamed of her. + +He had been tortured day by day, these weeks, by jealousy of Cedersholm, +and this helped him on in his sentimental progress. They passed the +street, which a moment before he had taken from her house, to come out +upon the Champs Elysées. They rolled into the Bois, under the damp +darkness and the night, and the forest odours came to him through the +window of the cab. She would have to wait until he was rich and famous. +As far as her fortune was concerned, if she loved him she could give it +to the poor. He could tell her how to use it. She should never spend a +cent of it on herself. He must be able to suffice for her and for him. +Rich or poor, the woman who married him would have to take him as he +was. On the lake the mists blew over the water. They lay white as +spirits among the trees. Everything about the dark and silent night was +beautiful to him, made beautiful by the sacred warfare in his own mind. +Above all came the human eagerness to see her again, to touch her again, +to tell his love, to hear her say what Dearborn's coming had prevented. +And he would see her to-morrow morning. It was profanity to walk in +these woods without her. + +"Go back," he called to the coachman, "go back quietly to the Quais." + +He hoped that he should be able to sleep and that the next day would +come quickly. He became ardent and devoted as he dreamed, and all the +way back his heart ached for her. + +When he entered the studio and called Dearborn he received no response. +There was a note from the playwright on the table--he would not be +back until the next morning. + +Fairfax, his hand under his pillow, crushed her letter, and the words: +"I am yours, Mary," flushed his palm and his cheek. + + * * * * * + +He had been awake since dawn, fire in his blood and heart animating his +brain and stimulating his creative power. In the early light he had +seated himself to make a few sketches, drawing little exquisite studies +of her, and the face on the paper was ideal, irritatingly so. The chin +and the cheek was young and soft, too youthful for Mrs. Faversham. It +suggested Bella. + +When he went to see her that afternoon, for the first time he was shown +upstairs. Each step was sacred to him as he mounted to the part of the +house in which she lived her intimate life. The stairs were marble, +covered by thick rugs; the iron balustrade had been brought from a +château in the days of the Revolution. Along the wall at his side hung +splendid tapestries, whose colours would have delighted him at another +time. But his eyes now were blinded to material things. His soul, heart +and nature were aflame, and he walked on air. When he was shown into a +small room, Mrs. Faversham's own sitting-room, his agitation was so +great that he seemed to walk through a mist. + +She was not there. The day was fresh and the wood fire burning across +the andirons called to him with a friendly voice. The objects by which +she surrounded herself represented a fortune; the clock before him, +which marked the hour in which he first came to see his love, had +belonged to Marie Antoinette, and it beamed on the lover from its wise +old clever face,--crystal water fell noiselessly, as the minutes passed, +from a little golden mill over which watched two Loves like millers. +There were her books on the table, bound with art and taste. There were +her writing things on her desk, and a half-finished letter on the +blotter. There was her "chaise-longue" with its protective pillows, its +sable cover, and between the lace curtains Antony could see the trees of +the park. On the footstool a Pekinese dog sat looking at him +malevolently. It lifted its fluffy body daintily and raised its +impertinent little face to the visitor. Then a door opened and she came +in murmuring his name. Antony, seeing her through a mist of love which +had not yet cleared, took her in his arms, calling her "Mary, Mary!" He +felt the form and shape of her in his arms. As dream women had never +given themselves to him, so she seemed to yield. + +When they sat side by side on the little sofa the Pekinese dog jumped up +and sat between them. She caressed it with one hand, laying the other on +Antony's shoulder. + +"I must tell you my life," he said, and his sight cleared as he spoke, +and he saw her face transformed by its emotion, her eyes adoring and +beautiful, her lips parted as if the breath of life he had given to her +left her wondering still. + +"Don't tell me of anything to-day." + +He took the hand that lay on his shoulder and raised it. "I must tell +you now." + +"I ask for nothing, Antony. What does the past matter?" She bent forward +and kissed him on his eyes. "I would like to think they had never looked +at anything before to-day." + +He smiled. "But they have looked hard at many things, Mary. They will +always look deeply, and I want you to look back with me." + +She sighed. "Then, forward with me." The Pekinese dog sprang into her +lap. "Go on," she said docilely; "but I am so divinely happy! Why should +we think of anything else?" + +He brushed away the mist that threatened again to cloud his vision. He +took her hand and held it firmly and, lifting up his head, began frankly +to tell her of his past. + +"I am a Southerner, born in New Orleans...." + +As he talked she listened spellbound by his power of narrative. In his +speech he was as charming a creator as in his art. She saw the picture +of his Louisiana home; she saw the exquisite figure of his mother; she +saw the beginning of his genius and his poetic, dreaming years. When he +began the more realistic part of his story, talking aloud like this of +himself for the first time to a woman he loved, he forgot her entirely, +carried back by a strong force to the beginning of his struggles in New +York. She listened, unchanged and a little terrified, as he told her of +his work in the sculptor's studio, disguising the name of the man for +whom he worked. She stopped him, her hand on his. So had she asked +previously Cedersholm. Her voice brought him back to the present, to a +feeling that for nothing in the world would he tell her yet, and he said +"No, no," veiling the fact so that he could not guess, and passed over +the misery of his master's treachery and his defeat. But through his +narrative like a flame, charming, brilliant, vivifying, flashed the +personality of Bella, though a child only, still a woman, and again Mary +Faversham, with her hand on his stopped him-- + +"What a bewitching child," she said. "Don't speak of her with such fire. +I believe you loved her! She must be a woman." + +Antony stirred. He rose from the divan where he was sitting and crossed +over to the fireplace and stood by the eighteenth-century clock where +the crystal water fell with the passing moments. She looked at him as he +stood there, powerfully built, strong, the light of his feeling and of +his introspection kindling in his eyes and on his brow. It had been +three o'clock when he began his story. The afternoon grew paler, the +fire died down to ashes on the little hearth. He took a cigarette from +his pocket, lit it and stood smoking a few moments. Then he went in his +imagination to Albany and carried his hearer with him, and he began to +speak of Molly. He waited for a moment before laying bare to her his +intimate life. As he turned and met her eyes, he said-- + +"I do not know how to tell you this. You must listen as well as you can. +It is life, you know, and there are many kinds." + +Antony, absorbed in his speech, forgot her entirely. He told her of +Molly Shannon with a tenderness that would have moved any woman. When +he closed the chapter of his married life, with his last words a silence +fell, and he saw that she was moved beyond what he had dreamed she would +be. He went back to her, waited a moment, then sat down and put his arm +around her. + +"That is my past," he murmured. "Can you forget what there is in it of +defeat and forget its sorrow?" + +She kissed him and murmured: "I love you the better for it. It seems you +have come to me through thorny ways, Antony. Perhaps I can make you +forget them." + +He did not tell her that she would. Even in this moment, when she was in +his arms, he knew that in her there would be no such oblivion for him. +The marks were too deep upon him. He felt them now. With what he had +been saying, there came back to him a sense of the tremendous burden he +had borne when poor, a sense of the common burden we all bear and which +in the heart of the poet nothing ever entirely lifts. + +"Listen," he said urgently and with a certain solemnity. "Any other man +would speak to you about nothing but love. I can do it some day perhaps +too easily, but not now, for this is our beginning and between us both +there must be nothing to conceal." He thought she started a little, and +said hastily: "I mean, nothing for our souls to hide. What I have told +you is my life, but it does not end there. I adore my work. I am a +worker born, I don't know how much of one, but I must give my time and +my talent to it." + +"I know, I know," she breathed. "Do you think I don't realize it, +Antony? Do you think I don't adore you for it? Why, it is part of what +makes me love you." + +"That is all," he said. "I could no more emancipate myself from my work +than I can from my ideals; they are part of me. I am perfectly poor." + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, softly, "don't, don't speak of that." + +He turned his fine eyes on her with a light in them whose courage and +beauty she did not understand. + +"Why not speak of it?" he asked quietly. "I am not ashamed of the fact +that I have no money. Such as money is, I shall make it some day, and I +shall not value it then any more than I do now. It is necessary, I +begin to see, but only that. Its only importance is the importance we +give to it: to keep straight with our kind; to justify our existence, +and," he continued, "to help the next man." + +His face took a firmer expression. More than in his recitation of his +life he seemed to forget her. As he said so, his arms fell a little way +away from her--she grew cold--he seemed a stranger. Only for a moment, +however, for he turned, put out his arms, and drew her to him. He kissed +her as he had not kissed her yet, and after a few moments said-- + +"Mary, I bring you my talent, and my manhood, and my courage--nothing +else--and I want it to be enough for you." + +She said that it was. That it was more than enough. + +Fairfax sighed, his arms dropped, he smiled and looked at her, and +said-- + +"I wonder if it is?" He glanced round the room quietly, with an +arrogance of which he was unconscious. "You must give all this up, +Mary." + +"Must I?" She flushed and laughed. "You mean to say you want me to come +to Bohemia?" + +"I want you to live as I can live," he said, "share what I must have ... +that is, I should ask you that if you married me now ..." + +He watched her face. It was still illuminated. Her love for him was too +vital to be touched by this proposition which she did not wholly +understand. + +"Most men shrink," Fairfax said, "from taking the woman they love from +her luxuries. I believe that I shall not be poor very long. It will be a +struggle. If you marry me now, you will share it with me, otherwise ..." +He waited a moment. + +And she repeated: "Otherwise, Antony?" + +"I shall go away," he answered, "and not come back again until I am rich +and great." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +After he had left her he was dazed and incredulous. His egoism, his +enthusiasm, his idea of his own self-sufficiency seemed preposterous. A +man in love should entertain no idea but the thought of the woman +herself. He began to chafe at poverty which he had assured her made no +difference to him. Did he wish to live again terrible years of sacrifice +and sordidness? If so, he could not hope a woman accustomed to luxury +would choose to share his struggle. He was absurd. + + * * * * * + +"Money," Dearborn said, regarding his shabby cuffs, "opens many doors. I +am inclined also to think that it shuts many doors. You remember the +Kingdom of Heaven and the needle's eye; but," he continued whimsically, +"I should not think of comparing Mrs. Faversham to a camel, Tony!" + +"Don't be an ass," said Antony, proudly. "Mrs. Faversham and I feel +alike about it. Money will play no part in our mutual future." And, as +he said this, was sure neither of her nor of himself. + +"Under which circumstances," said his companion, "I shall offer you +another cup of coffee and tell you my secret. Going with my play to +London is not the only one. I am in love. When you have drunk your +coffee we'll go home. Potowski is going to play for us, and he is going +to bring his wife at last." + +The two friends sat that evening in a corner of a café on the Boulevard +Montparnasse. There were Bohemians around them at their table, and they +themselves were part of that happy, struggling world. Dearborn dropped +his voice, and said softly to Fairfax-- + +"And I have asked my little girl to come as well to-night to hear the +music." + +Fairfax, instead of drinking his coffee, stared at Dearborn, and when +Dearborn murmured, "Nora Scarlet is her name. Isn't it a name for a +drama?" Fairfax stared still harder and repeated the girl's name under +his breath, flushing, but Dearborn did not observe it. + +"I want you to see her, Tony; she is sweet and good." + +"Bob," said Fairfax gravely, "you mean to tell me you have been falling +in love and carrying on a romance without telling me a word about it?" + +Dearborn smiled. "To tell the truth, old man," he replied, "you have +been so absorbed; there was not room for two romances in the studio. + +"I met her in the springtime, Gentle Annie," Dearborn said whimsically, +"and it was raining cats and dogs--but for me it rained just love and +Nora. We were both waiting for a 'bus. Neither one of us had an +umbrella. Now that you speak of it, Tony, I think we have never mended +that lack in our possessions. We climbed to the _impériale_ together, +and the rain beat upon us both. We laughed, and I said to myself, a girl +that can laugh like that in a shower should be put aside for a rainy +day. We talked and we giggled. The rain stopped. We forgot to get down. +We went to the end of the line and still we forgot to get down. The +conductor collected a double fare, and afterward I took her home." + +(Antony thought to himself, "Just what I did not do.") + +"She is angelic, Tony, delightful, an artist's dream, a writer's +inspiration, and a poor man's fairy." + +Fairfax laughed. + +"Don't laugh, old man," said Dearborn simply. "I have never heard you +rave like this about the peerless Mary." + +Fairfax said, "No. But then you talk better than I do." He shook +Dearborn's hand warmly. "You know I am most awfully glad, don't you?" + +"I know I am," said Dearborn, lighting a cigarette. + +He settled himself with a beautiful content, asking nothing better than +to go on rehearsing his love affair. + +"We have been engaged a long time, Tony. It is only a question of how +little two people can dare to try to get on with, you know, and I have +determined to risk it." + +As they went up the steps of the studio together, Fairfax said-- + +"She is coming to-night, Bob, you say? Does she know anything about me?" + +At this Dearborn laughed aloud. "She knows a great deal about me, Tony. +My dear boy, do you think we have talked much about anything but each +other? Do you talk with Mrs. Faversham about me? Nora knows I live here +with a chum. She doesn't even know your name." + +As Dearborn threw open the door they could hear Potowski playing softly +the old French ballad, "J'ai perdu ma tourterelle." + +A woman sat by Potowski in a big chair, and the lamp on the piano shone +yellow upon her. When the two men entered the studio she rose, and +Potowski, still playing, said-- + +"Let me present, at last, my better half. Mes amis, la Comtesse +Potowski." + +Dearborn greeted her enthusiastically, and Tony stood petrified. The +comtesse, more mistress of the moment than Tony was, put out one hand +and smiled, but she had turned very pale. + +It was his Aunt Caroline.... + +"Mr. Rainsford," she lifted her brows, "I think I have seen you before." + +Tony bowed over her hand and Potowski, still smiling and nodding, +cried-- + +"These are great men and geniuses, _ma chérie_. You have here two great +artists together. They both have wings on their shoulders. Before they +fly away from us and are lost on Olympus, be charming to them. Carolina, +_ma chérie_, they shall hear you sing." + +Robert Dearborn put his hand on Potowski's shoulder and said-- + +"We love your husband, madame. He has been such a bully friend to us, +such a wonderful friend." + +"Poof, my dear Bobbie," murmured Potowski. + +("J'ai perdu ma tourterelle.") + +Fairfax asked, looking directly at her, "Will you really sing for us, +Madame Potowski? Can you sing some old English ballad? We have not heard +a word of English for many a long day." + +Potowski wandered softly into a familiar tune. He smiled over his +shoulder at his wife, and, standing by the piano, Caroline +Carew--Carolina Potowski--put her hands over her husband's on the keys +and indicated an accompaniment, humming. + +"If you can, dear, I will sing Mr. Rainsford _this_." + +Tony took his place on the divan. + +Then Madame Potowski sang: + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton." + +In New York Tony had said, as he sat in the big Puritan parlour, that +her voice was divine. No one who has ever heard Carolina Potowski sing +"Flow gently, sweet Afton" can ever forget it. Tony covered his face +with his hands and said to himself, being an artist as well, "No matter +what she has done, it was worth it to produce such art as that." + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes + Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise, + My Mary is asleep by your turbulent stream, + Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream." + +Little Gardiner once more leaned against his arm; restless little Bella +in red, her hair down her back, slipped out of the room to read in +peace, and he sat there, a homeless stranger in a Northern city without +a cent of money in his pocket, and the desires of life and art shining +in his soul. + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton." + +He indistinctly heard Dearborn open the door. A woman slipped in and +went over and sat down by her lover. The two sat together holding hands, +and "Sweet Afton" flowed on, and nobody's dream was disturbed. Little +Gardiner slept his peaceful sleep in his child's grave; his mother slept +her sleep in a Southern cemetery; the Angel of Resurrection raised his +spotless wings over the city of the silent dead, and Antony's heart +swelled in his breast. + +When the Comtesse Potowski stopped singing no one said a word. Her +husband played a few bars of Werther and she sang the "Love Letters." +Then, before she ceased, Antony was conscious that Nora Scarlet had +recognized him. Before any embarrassment could be between them, he went +over to her and took her hand, saying warmly-- + +"I am so glad, Miss Scarlet. Dearborn has told me of his good fortune. +He is the best fellow in the world, and I know how lucky he is," and +Nora Scarlet murmured something, with her eyes turned away from him. + +Tony turned to Madame Potowski and said ardently, "You must let me come +to see you to-morrow. I want to thank you for this wonderful treat." + +And when Potowski and his Aunt Caroline had gone, and when Dearborn had +taken Nora Scarlet home, Antony stood in the studio, which still +vibrated with the tones of the lovely voice. He had lived once again a +part of his old life. This was his mother's sister, and she had made +havoc of her home. He thought of little Bella's visit to him in Albany. + +"Mother has done something perfectly terrible, Cousin Antony--something +a daughter is not supposed to know." + +Well, the something perfectly terrible was, she had set herself free +from a man she did not love; that she was making Potowski happy; that +she had found her sphere and soared into it. + +Fairfax tried in vain to think of himself now and Mary Faversham, but he +could not. The past rushed on him with its palpitating wings. He groaned +and stretched out his arms into the shadows of the room. + +"There is something that chains me, holds me prisoner. I am wedded to +something--is it death and a tomb?" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +During the following weeks it seemed to him he was chasing his soul and +her own. In their daily intercourse--sweet, of course, tender, of +course--there was a constant sense of limitation. He wanted her to share +with him his love of the beautiful, but Mary Faversham was conventional. +He would have spent hours with her in the Louvre, hanging over +treasures, musing before pictures whose art he felt he could never +sufficiently make his own. Mrs. Faversham followed him closely, but +after a time watched the people. Whilst her lover--in love with all +beauty--remained transfixed over the contemplation of a petrified rose +found in the ruins of Pompeii, or intoxicated himself with the beauty of +an urn, she would interrupt his meditation by speaking to him of +unimportant things. She found resemblances in the little Grecian statues +to her friends in society. Tony sighed and relinquished seeing museums +with Mary. She patronized art with _largesse_ and generosity but he +discovered it was one way to her of spending money, an agreeable, +satisfying way to a woman of breeding and refinement. + +The bewitching charm of her clothes, her great expenditures on herself, +made him open his blue eyes. Once he held her exquisitely shod foot in +his hand, admiring its beauty and its slenderness. On the polished +leather was the sparkle of her paste buckles; he admired the ephemeral +web of her silk stocking, and was ashamed that the thought should cross +his mind as to what this lovely foot represented of extravagance. But he +had been with her when she bought the buckles on the Rue de la Paix; he +knew the price they cost. Was the money making him sordid--hypercritical, +unkind? + +Life for six months whirled round him. Mary Faversham dazzled and +bewitched him, charmed and flattered him. Their engagement had not been +made public. He ceased to work; he was at her beck and call; he went +with her everywhere. At her house, in her box at the opera, he met all +Paris. She was hardly ever alone with him; he made one of a group. +Nevertheless, they were talked about. Several orders for busts were the +outcome of his meeting fashionable Paris; but he did not work. Toward +March he received word from America that his bas-relief under the name +of Thomas Rainsford had won the ten thousand dollar prize. He felt like +a prince. For some singular reason he told no one, not even Dearborn. In +writing to him the committee had told him that according to the +contracts the money would not be forthcoming until July. He had gone +through so many bitter disappointments in his life that he did not want +in the minds of his friends to anticipate this payment and be +disappointed anew. + +Among his fellow-workers in the Barye studio was the son of a +millionaire pork-packer from Chicago. The young man took a tremendous +liking to Antony. With a certain perspicacity, the rich young fellow +divined much of his new friend's needs. He came to the studio, to their +different reunions, and chummed heartily with Dearborn and Fairfax. +Peterson was singularly lacking in talent and tremendously +over-furnished with heart. One day, as they worked side by side in the +studio of the big man, Peterson watched Antony's handling of a tiger's +head. + +"By Jove!" cried the Chicagoan, "you are simply great--you are simply +great! I wonder if you would be furious with me if I said something to +you that is on my mind?" + +The something on the simple young man's mind was that he wanted to lend +Fairfax a sum of money, to be paid back when the sculptor saw fit. After +a moment's hesitation Antony accepted the loan, making it one-third as +much as the big-hearted chap had suggested. Fairfax set July as the date +of payment, when his competitive money should come in. He borrowed just +enough to keep him in food and clothes for the following months. + +There were no motors in Paris then. In the mornings he drove with Mrs. +Faversham to the Bois and limped by her side in the _allées_, whilst the +worldly people stared at the distinguished, conspicuous couple. One day +Barye himself stopped them, and to the big man Antony presented Mrs. +Faversham who did not happen to know her fiancé's chief. + +Fairfax looked at her critically as she laughed and was sweet and +gracious. Carriages filed past them; shining equipages, the froth and +wine of life flowed around them under the trees, whose chestnut torches +were lit with spring. + +Barye said to Antony, "Not working, are you, Rainsford? _C'est +dommage_", and turning to Mrs. Faversham he added, nodding, "_C'est +dommage_." + +Antony heard the words throughout the day, and they haunted him--_c'est +dommage_. Barye's voice had been light, but the sculptor knew the +underlying ring in it. There is, indeed, no greater pity than for a man +of talent not to work. That day he lunched with her on the terrace of +her hotel overlooking the rose garden. Fairfax ate scarcely anything. +Below his eyes spread a _parterre_ of perfect purple heliotropes. The +roses were beginning to bloom on their high trees, and the moist earth +odours from the garden he had thought so exquisite came to him +delicately on the warm breeze. But this day the place seemed oppressive, +shut in by its high iron walls. In the corner of the garden, the +gardener, an old man in blue overalls, bent industriously over his +potting, and to Antony he seemed the single worthy figure. At the table +he was surrounded by idlers and millionaires. He judged them bitterly +to-day, brutally and unreasonably, and hastily looked toward Mrs. +Faversham, his future life's companion, hoping that something in her +expression or in her would disenchant him from the growing horror that +was threatening to destroy his peace of mind. Mary Faversham was all in +white; from her ears hung the pearls given her by her husband, whom she +had never loved; around her neck hung a creamy rope of pearls; she was +discussing with her neighbour the rising value of different jewels. It +seemed to them both a vital and interesting subject. + +It was the end of luncheon; the fragrance of the strawberries, the +fragrance of the roses came heavily to Antony's nostrils. + +His aunt, the Comtesse Potowski, sat at his right. She was saying-- + +"My dear boy, when are you going to be married? There is nothing like a +happy marriage, Tony. A woman may have children, you know, and be +miserable; she has not found the right man. I hope you will be very +happy, Tony." + +Some one asked her to sing, and Madame Potowski, languid, slim, with +unmistakable distinction, rose to play. She suggested his mother to +Antony. She sang selections from the opera then in vogue. Tony stood +near the piano and listened. Her voice always affected him deeply, and +as he had responded to it in the old days in New York he responded now, +and there was a sense of misery at his heart as he listened to her +singing the music of old times when he had been unable to carry out his +ideals because of his suffering and poverty. + +There was now a sense of soul discontent, of pitiless remorse. As if +again to disenchant himself, he glanced at Mary as she, too, listened. +Back of her in the vases were high branches of lilac, white and +delicate, with the first beauty of spring; she sat gracefully indolent, +smoking a cigarette, evidently dreaming of pleasant things. To Antony +there was a blank wall now between him and his visions. How unreal +everything but money seemed, and his soul stifled and his senses numbed. +In this atmosphere of riches and luxury what place had he? Penniless, +unknown, his stature stunted--for it had been dwarfed by his idleness. +Again he heard Barye say, "_C'est dommage_." + +His aunt's voice, bright as silver, filled the room. He believed she was +singing for him expressly, for she had chosen an English ballad--"Roll +on, silvery moon." Again, with a sadness which all imaginative and +poetic natures understand, his present slipped away. He was back in +Albany in the cab of his engine; the air bellied in his sleeve, the air +of home whipped in his veins--he saw the fields as the engine flashed by +them, whitening under the moonlight as the silvery moon rolled on! How +he had sweated to keep himself a man, how he had toiled to keep his hope +up and to live his life well, what a fight he had made in order that his +visions might declare themselves to him! + +When his aunt ceased to sing and people gathered around her, Tony rose +and limped over to Mrs. Faversham. He put out his hand. + +"I must go, Mary," he said. "I have some work to do this afternoon." + +She smiled at him. "Don't be ridiculous, Tony." + +The others had moved away to speak to the Comtesse Potowski, and they +were alone. + +"I am becoming ridiculous," said Antony, "that is true, but it is not +because I am going to work." + +She did not seem to notice anything in his gravity. "Don't forget we are +dining and driving out to Versailles; don't forget, Tony." + +Fairfax made no response. On his face was a pitiless look, but Mrs. +Faversham, happy in her successful breakfast and enchanted with the +music, did not read his expression. + +"I will come in to-morrow, Mary." + +Mrs. Faversham, turning to a man who had come up to her, still +understood nothing. + +"Don't forget, Tony,"--she nodded at him--"this afternoon." + +Antony bade her good-bye. He looked back at her across the room, and she +seemed to him then the greatest stranger of them all. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +He went upstairs to his atelier with a strange eager hammering at his +heart. For several weeks the studio had been, for him, little more than +an ante-chamber--a dressing-room where he had made careful toilettes +before going to Mrs. Faversham. His constant attendance upon a beautiful +woman had turned him into something of a dandy, and the purchase of fine +clothes and linen had eaten well into his borrowed money, which had been +frankly used by Dearborn when in need. + +"Dearborn, wear any of my things you like, only don't get ink spots on +them, for God's sake!" + +And Dearborn had responded, "I don't need to go courting in +four-hundred-franc suits, Tony; Nora is my kind, you know." + +And when Antony had flashed out, "What the devil do you mean?" Dearborn +explained-- + +"Only that Nora and I are poor together. I didn't intend to be rude, old +man." + +Dearborn had gone to London third-class with his play under his arm and +hope in his heart. Antony had not been sorry to find himself alone. When +he was not with Mary he paced the floor, his idle hands in his pockets. +At night he was restless, and he did not disturb any one when at two +o'clock he would rise to smoke, and, leaning out of the window, watch +the dawn come up over the Louvre, over the river and the quays. His +easels, his tools, his covered busts mocked him as the dust settled down +upon them. His part of the big room had fallen into disuse. In the +salons of Mary Faversham nothing seemed important but the possession of +riches; they talked of art there, but they discussed it easily, and no +one ever spoke of work. They talked of books there, but the makers of +them seemed men of another sphere. His aunt and the Comte Potowski sang +there indeed, but to Antony their voices were only echoes. He had grown +accustomed to objects whose possession meant small fortunes. His own few +belongings seemed pitiful and sordid. Poverty at Albany had appalled +him, but as yet his soul had been untarnished. Life seemed then a +beautiful struggle. Here in Paris, too, as he worked with Dearborn in +his studio, the lack of money had been unimportant, and privation only a +step on which men of talent poised before going on. Lessons had been +precious to him, and in his meagre existence all his untrammelled senses +had been keen. Now his lack of material resource was terrible, +degrading, sickening. + +He threw open wide the window and let in the May sunlight, and the noise +of the streets came with it. Below his window paused the "goat's +milkman," calling sweetly on his little pipe; a girl cried lilies of the +valley; there was a cracking of whips, the clattering of horses' feet, +and the rattling of the little cabs. The peculiar impersonality of the +few of the big city, the passing of the anonymous throng, had a soothing +effect upon him. The river flowed quietly, swiftly past the Louvre, on +which great white clouds massed themselves like snow. Fairfax drew a +long breath and turned to the studio, put on his old corduroy clothes, +filled himself a pipe, and uncovered one of his statues in the corner, +and with his tools in his hand took his position before his discarded +work. + +This study had not struck him as being successful when he had thrown the +cloth over it in February, when he had gone up to the Avenue du Bois de +Boulogne. Since that time he had not touched his clay. Now the piece of +work struck his critical sense with its several qualities of merit. He +was too real an artist not to see its value and to judge it. Was it +possible that he had created that charming thing--had there been in him +sufficient talent to form those plastic lines? It was impossible for +Antony to put himself in the frame of mind in which he had been before +he left his work; in vain he tried to bring back the old inspiration of +feeling. The work was strange to him, and almost beautiful too. He was +jealous of it, angry at it. Had he become in so short a time a useless +man? He should have been gaining in experience. A man is all the richer +for being in love and being loved. The image of Mary would not come to +him to soothe his irritation. He seemed to see her surrounded by people +and things. Evidently his love had not inspired him, nor did luxury and +the intercourse with worldly people. He had been the day before with +Mary to see the crowning exhibition of a celebrated painter's work, the +fruits of four years of labour. The artist himself, frightfully obese, +smiling and self-satisfied, stood surrounded by his canvases. None of +the paintings had the spontaneity and beauty of his early works--not +one. Fairfax had heard a Latin Quarter student say, "B---- used to paint +with his soul before he was rich, now he paints with his stomach." The +marks of the beast had stamped out the divine seal. + +As Fairfax mixed his clay in the silent room where he and Dearborn had +half starved together, he said, "I have never yet become so frightfully +rich as to imperil my soul." + +In the declining spring light he began to model. He did not look like a +happy man, like a happy lover, like a man destined to marry a beautiful +woman with several millions of dollars. "Damn money," he muttered as he +worked, and, after a little, "Damn poverty," he murmured. What was it, +then, he could bless? In his present point of view nothing seemed +blessed. He was working savagely and heavily, but hungrily too, as +though he besought his hands to find again for him the sacred touch that +should electrify him again, or as though he prayed his brain to send its +enlightened message to his hand, or as though he called on his emotion +to warm his hardened heart--a combination which he believed was needful +to work and art. Fairfax was so working when the porter brought him a +letter. + +It was from Dearborn, and Antony read it eagerly, holding it up to the +fading light. As he saw Dearborn's handwriting he realized that he +missed his companion, and also realized the strong link between them +which is so defined between those who work at a kindred art. + +"Dear old man,"--the letter was dated London--"I am sky-high in a room +for which I pay a shilling a night. A thing in the roof is called a +window. Through it I see a field of pots--not flower-pots, but +chimney-pots--and the smoke from them is hyacinthine. The smoke of +endless winters and innumerable fogs has grimed every blessed thing in +this filthy room. My bed-spread is grey cloth, once meant to be white. +Other lodgers have left burnt matches on the faded carpet, whose flowers +have long since been put out by the soot. Out of this hole in the roof I +see London, the sky-line of London in a spring sky. There is a singular +sort of beauty in this sky, as if it had trailed its cerulean mantle +over fields of English bluebells. For another shilling I dine; for +another I lunch. I skip breakfast. I calculate I can stay here ten days, +then the shillings will be all gone, Tony. In these ten days, old man, I +shall sell my play. I am writing you this on the window-sill; without is +the mutter of soft thunder of London--the very word London thrills me to +the marrow. Such great things have come out of London--such prose--such +verse--such immortality! + +"To-day I passed 'Jo,' Dickens's street-sweeper, in Dickens's 'Bleak +House.' I felt like saying to him, 'I am as poor as you are, Jo, +to-day,' but I remembered there were a few shillings between us. + +"Well, old man, as I sit here I seem to have risen high above the +roof-tops and to look down on the struggle in this great vortex of life, +and here and there a man goes amongst them all, carrying a wreath of +laurel. Tony, my eyes are upon him! Call me a fool if you will, call me +mad; at any rate I have faith. I know I will succeed. Something tells me +I will stand before the curtain when they call my name. It is growing +late. I must go out and forage for food ... Tony. I kiss the hand of the +beautiful Mrs. Faversham." + +Antony turned the pages between his fingers. The reading of the letter +had smoothed the creases from his brow. He sighed as he lifted his head +to say "Come in," for some one had knocked timidly at the door. + +"Hello!" Fairfax said, and now that they were alone he called her "Aunt +Caroline." + +Madame Potowski came forward and kissed him. + +He drew a big chair into the window. He was always solicitous of her and +a little pitiful. + +Madame Potowski's hair had been soft brown once; it was golden, frankly +so, now, and her fine lips were a little rouged. In her dress of +changeable silk, her cape of tulle, her hat with a bunch of roses, her +tiny gloved hands, she was a very elegant little lady. She rested her +hands on her parasol and had suggested his mother to Antony. Then, as +that resemblance passed, came the fleeting suggestion which he never +cared to hold--of Bella. + +"I have come, my dear Tony, to see you. I wanted to see you alone." + +Tony lit a cigar and sat by her side. The Comtesse Potowski had a little +diamond watch with a chain on her breast. Outside the clock struck five. + +"I have only a second to stay--my husband misses me if I am five minutes +out of his sight." + +"I do not wonder, Aunt Caroline." + +"Isn't it all strange, Tony," she asked, "how very far up we have come?" + +He shook the ashes off his cigar. "Well, I don't feel myself very far +up, Aunt Caroline." + +"My dear Tony, aren't you going to marry an immense fortune?" + +"Is that what people say, Aunt Caroline?" + +"You are going to do a very brilliant thing, Tony." + +"Is that what you call going very far up?" + +His aunt shook her pretty head. "Money is the greatest power in the +world, dear boy. Art is very well, but there is nothing in the wide +world like an income, dear." + +Her nephew stirred in his chair. Caroline Potowski looked down at her +little diamond watch, her dress shining like a bunch of many-hued roses. +Antony knew that her husband was rich; he also made a good income from +his singing and she must have made not an inconsiderable fortune. + +"What are you thinking about?" said his aunt later, her hand on his own. +"You have shown great wisdom, great worldly wisdom." + +"My God!" exclaimed her nephew between his teeth. + +If Madame Potowski heard this exclamation, it was not tragic to her. She +lowered her tone, although there was no one to hear them. + +"Tony, I am very anxious about money." + +Her nephew laughed aloud. In spite of himself there came over him in a +flash the memory of the day nearly ten years ago when she sat on the +side of his miserable little bed in his miserable little room in New +York and took from him as a loan--which she never meant to pay back--all +the money he had in the world. He put his hands in his pockets. + +"Has your husband any financial difficulties?" + +"My husband knows nothing about it," she said serenely. "You don't +suppose I could tell him, do you? I must have five thousand francs, dear +Tony, before to-morrow." + +Tony said lightly, "I am afraid economy is not your strong point." + +"Tony," she exclaimed reproachfully, "I am a wonderful manager; I can +make a franc go further than my husband can a louis, and I have a real +gift for bargains. Think of it! I only had one hundred dollars a month +to dress myself and Bella and poor little Gardiner, and for all my +little expenses." The children's names on her lips seemed sacrilege to +him. He did not wish her to speak those sacred names, or destroy his +sacred past, whose charm and tenderness persisted over all the suffering +and which nothing could destroy. "I have been buying a quantity of old +Chinese paintings--a great bargain; in ten years they will be worth +double the money. You must come and see them. The dealer will deliver +them to-morrow." + +"History," Antony thought, "how it repeats itself!" + +Caroline Potowski leaned toward her nephew persuasively, and even in the +softened twilight he saw the weakness and the caprices of her pretty +face, and he pitied Potowski. + +"I must have five thousand francs before to-morrow," said his aunt, +"otherwise these dealers will make me trouble." + +Fairfax laughed again. With a touch of bitterness he said-- + +"And I must have an income of five times as much as that a year--ten +times as much as that a year--unless I wish to feel degraded because I +am a poor labourer." + +The comtesse did not reply to this. As she did not, Fairfax saw the +humour of it. + +"You do not really think I could give you five thousand francs, auntie?" + +"I know you haven't a great deal of money, dear boy----" + +"Not a great deal, auntie." + +"But you seem to have such a lot of time to spend to amuse yourself." + +He nodded. "So I seem to have." + +The comtesse looked at him a little askance. "You are going to make such +a brilliant marriage. Mrs. Faversham is so fearfully rich." + +Fairfax exclaimed, but shut down on the words that came to his lips. He +realized that his aunt was a toy woman, utterly irresponsible, a pretty +fool. He said simply-- + +"You had better frankly tell your husband." + +She swung her parasol to and fro. "You think so, Tony?" + +"Decidedly." + +"And you couldn't possibly manage, Tony?" + +Tony pointed to his studies. "These are my only assets; these are my +finances, auntie. I shall have to sell something to live on--if I am so +lucky as to be able to find a customer." + +"If I could give the dealer a thousand francs to-morrow I think he would +wait," said his aunt. + +Tony shook his head. "I wish I were a millionaire for five minutes, Aunt +Caroline." + +His aunt rose and smoothed her glove. "I shall have to pawn my watch and +necklace," she said tranquilly. "Bella is fearfully rich," she drawled, +nodding at him, "and she is of age. Her father will settle a million on +her when she marries." + +A pang went through Fairfax's heart. Another heiress! + +"They say she is awfully pretty and awfully sought after." + +Antony murmured, "Yes, yes, of course," and took a few paces up and down +the room. + +"Do you know," said his aunt, who had slowly walked over to the door +and stood with her hand on the knob, "I used to think you were a little +in love with Bella. She was such a funny, old-fashioned child, so grown +up." + +Fairfax exclaimed fiercely, "Aunt Caroline, I don't like to re-live the +past!" + +"I don't wonder," she murmured quietly; "and you are going to make such +a brilliant marriage." + +He saw her go with relief. She was terrible to him--like a vampire in +her silks and jewels. Would she ruin her innocent, kindly husband? What +would she do if she could not raise the money? He believed her capable +of anything. + +For three days he worked feverishly, and then he wrote to Mrs. Faversham +that he was a little seedy and working, and that as Dearborn was away he +would rather she would not come to the studio. Mrs. Faversham accepted +his decision and wrote that she was organizing a charity concert for +some fearfully poor people whom the Comtesse Potowski was patronizing; +the comte and comtesse would both sing at the _musicale_, and he must +surely come. "We must raise five thousand francs," she wrote, "and +perhaps you may have some little figurine that we could raffle off in +chances." + +Tony laughed as he read the letter. He sent her a statuette to be +raffled off for his aunt's Chinese paintings. She was ignorant of any +sense of honour. + + * * * * * + +When Dearborn came back from London he found Antony working like mad. + +Dearborn threw his suit-case down in the corner, his hat on top of it, +and extended his hands. + +"Empty-handed, Tony!" + +But Fairfax, as he scanned his friend's face, saw no expression of +defeat there. + +"Which means you left your play in London, Bob." + +"Tony," said Dearborn, linking his arm in Fairfax's and marching him up +and down the studio, "we are going to be very rich." + +"Only that," said Tony shortly. + +"This is the beginning of fame and fortune, old man!" + +Dearborn sat down on the worn sofa, drew his wallet out of his pocket, +took from it a sheaf of English notes, which he held up to Fairfax. + +"Count it, old chap." + +Fairfax shook his head. "No; tell me how much for two years' flesh and +blood and soul--how you worked here, Bob, starved here, how you felt and +suffered!" + +"I forget it all," said the playwright quietly; "but it can never be +paid for with such chaff as this,"--he touched the notes. "But the +applause, the people's voices, the tears and laughter, that will pay." + +"By heaven!" exclaimed Fairfax, grasping Dearborn's hand, "I bless you +for saying that!" + +Dearborn regarded him quietly. "Do you think I care for money?" he said +simply. "I thought you knew me better than that." + +Fairfax exclaimed, "Oh, I don't know what I know or think; I am in a bad +dream." + +Dearborn laid the notes down on the sofa. "It is for you and me and +Nora, the bunch, just as long as it lasts." + +Between Dearborn and himself, since Antony's engagement, there had been +a distinct reserve. + +Antony lit a cigarette and Dearborn lighted his from Antony's. The two +friends settled themselves comfortably. It was the close of the day. +Without, as usual, rolled the sea of the Paris streets, going to, going +with the river's tide, and going away from it; the impersonal noise +always made for them an accompaniment not disagreeable. The last light +of the spring day fell on Fairfax's uncovered work, on the damp clay +with the fresh marks of his instruments. He sat in his corduroys, a red +scarf at his throat, a beautiful manly figure half curled up on the +divan. The last of the day's light fell too on Dearborn's reddish hair, +on his fine intelligent face. Fairfax said-- + +"Now tell me everything, Bob, from the beginning, from the window as you +looked over the chimney-pots with the hyacinthine smoke curling up in +the air--tell me everything, to the last word the manager said." + +"Hark!" exclaimed Dearborn, lifting his hand. "Nora is coming. I want +to tell it to her as well. No one can tell twice alike the story of his +first success--the first agony of first success." He caught his breath +and struck Fairfax a friendly blow on his chest. "It will be a success, +thank God! There is Nora," and he crossed the studio to let Nora Scarlet +in. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +The third day he went up to see her and found her in the garden, a +basket on her arm, cutting flowers. She wore a garden hat covered with +roses and carried a pair of gilded shears with which to snip her +flowers. As Antony came down the steps of the house she dropped the +scissors into the basket with her garden gloves. She lifted her cheek to +him. + +"You may kiss me, dear," she said; "no one will see us but the flowers +and the birds." + +Antony bent to kiss her. It seemed to him as though his arms were full +of flowers. + +"If you had not come to-day, I should have gone to you. You look well, +Tony," she said. "I don't believe you have been ill at all." + +"My work, Mary." + +She took his arm and started towards the house. "You must let me come +and see what wonderful things you are doing." + +"I am doing nothing wonderful," he said slowly. "It has taken me all +this time to realize I was never a sculptor; I have been so atrociously +idle, Mary." + +"But you need rest, my dear Tony." + +"I shall not need any rest until I am an old man." + +He caressed the hand that lay on his arm. They walked past the +flower-beds, and she picked the dead roses, cutting the withered leaves, +and talking to him gaily, telling him all she had done during the days +of their separation, and suddenly he said-- + +"You do not seem to have missed me." + +"Everywhere," she answered, pressing his arm. + +They walked together slowly to the house, where she left her roses in +the hall and took him into the music-room, where they had been last +when he left her, the afternoon following the luncheon. + +"I must impress her indelibly on my mind," Antony thought. "I may never +see her again." + +When she had seated herself by the window through which he could see the +roses on the high rose trees and the iron balcony on whose other side +was the rumble of Paris, he stood before her gravely. + +"Come and sit beside me," she invited, slowly. "You seem suddenly like a +stranger." + +"Mary," he said simply, "the time has come for me to ask you----" The +words stuck in his throat. What in God's name was he going to ask her? +What a fanatic he was! Utterly unconscious of his thoughts, she +interrupted him. + +"I know what you want to ask me, Tony, and I have been waiting." She +leaned against him. "You see, I have had the foolish feeling that +perhaps you didn't care as you thought you did. It is that dreadful +difference in our age." + +"Do you care, Mary?" + +She might have answered him, "Why otherwise should I marry a penniless +man, five years my junior, when the world is before me?" + +She said, "Yes, I care deeply." + +"Ah," he breathed, "then it is all right, Mary; that is all we need." +After a few seconds he said gently: "Now look at me." Her face was +flushed and her eyes humid. She raised them to him. He was holding one +of her hands in both of his as he spoke, and from time to time touched +it with his lips. "Listen to me; try to understand. I am a Bohemian, an +artist; say that over and over. Do you think me crazy? I have not been +ill. I went into a retreat. I shut myself up with my soul. This life +here,"--he gestured to the room as though it held a host of +enemies,--"this life here has crushed me. I had begun to think myself a +miserable creature just because I am poor. Now, if money is the only +thing that counts in the world, of course I am a miserable creature, and +then let us drink life to its dregs; and if it is not the only thing, +well then, let us drink the other things to their dregs." She said, +"What other things?" + +"Why, the beauty of struggling together with every material +consideration cast out! Think how beautiful it is to work for one you +love; think of the beauty of being all in all to each other, Mary!" + +"But we are that, Tony." + +Now that Antony had embarked, he spoke rapidly. "You owe your luxury to +your husband whom you never loved. Now I cannot let you owe him anything +more, Mary." + +She began, "But I don't think of my fortune in connection with him." + +Antony did not hear her. "I feel lately as though I had been selling my +soul," he said passionately. "And what can a man have in exchange for +his soul? Of course, it was presumptuous folly of me to have asked you +to marry me." + +She put both her hands over his and breathed his name. He spoke +desperately, and the picture rose up before him of his bare studio and +his meagre life. + +"Will you marry me now?" + +"I said I was quite ready." + +"The day will come when I will be rich and great." He paused. He saw +that her eyes were already troubled, and asked eagerly, "You believe +that, don't you?" + +"Of course." + +"Great enough, rich enough, not to make a woman ashamed. You must wait +for that time with me." + +Mary Faversham said quietly, "You have been shutting yourself up with a +lot of fanatical ideas." + +He covered her lips gently with his hands. His face became grave. + +"Oh," he said, "don't speak--wait. You don't dream what every word you +say is going to mean--wait. You don't understand what I mean!" + +And he began to tell her the gigantic sacrifice he was about to impose +upon her. If he had been assured of his love for her, assured of her +love for him, he might have made a magnetic appeal, but he seemed to be +talking to her through a veil. He shook his head. + +"No, I cannot ask it, Mary." + +Mary Faversham's face had undergone a change. It was never lovelier +than now, as with gravity and sweetness she put her arms around his neck +and looked up at him with great tenderness. She said-- + +"I think I know what you mean. You want me to give up my fortune and go +to you." + +She seemed to radiate before Fairfax's eyes, and his worship of her at +this moment increased a thousandfold. He leaned forward and laid his +head against her breast. + +In the love of all women there is a strong quality of the maternal. Mary +bent over the blond head and pressed her lips to his hair. When Antony +lifted his face there were tears in his eyes. He cried-- + +"Heaven bless you, darling! You don't know how high I will take you, how +far I will carry us both. The world shall talk of us! Mary--Mary!" + +She smoothed his forehead. She knew there would never be another moment +in her life like this one. + +He said, "I will take you to the studio, of course. I haven't told you +that in June I shall have fifty thousand francs, and from then on I will +be succeeding so fast that we will forget we were ever poor." He saw her +faintly smile, and said sharply, "I suppose you spend fifty thousand +francs now on your clothes!" + +She said frankly, "And more; but that makes no difference," and +ventured, "You don't seem to think, Tony, what a pleasure it would be to +me to do for you." She paused at his exclamation. "Oh, of course, I +understand your pride," and asked, "What shall I do with my fortune, +Tony?" + +"This money on which you are living," he said gravely, "that you have +accepted from a man you never loved, give it all to the poor. Keep the +commandment for once, and we will see what the treasures of heaven are +like." + +He thought she clung to him desperately, and there was an ardour in the +return of her caress that made him say-- + +"Mary, don't answer me to-day, please; I want you to think it calmly +over. Just now you have shown me what I wanted to see." + +She asked, "What?" + +"That you love me." + +She said, "Yes, I do love you. Will you believe it always?" + +Bending over her he said passionately, "I shall believe it when I have +your answer, and you are going to make me divinely happy." + +She echoed the word softly, "Happy!" and her lips trembled. Across the +ante-chamber came the sound of voices. Their retreat was about to be +invaded by the people of the world who never very long left Mary +Faversham alone. + +"Oh!" she cried, "I cannot see any one. Why did they let any one in?" +And, lifting her face to him, she said in a low tone, "Tony, kiss me +again." + +Antony, indifferent as to who might come and who might not, caught her +to him and held her for a second, then crossed the room to the curtained +door and went down the terrace steps and across the garden. + +By the big wall he turned and looked back to where, through the long +French windows, he could see the music-room with the palms and gilt +furniture. Mary Faversham was already surrounded by the Comte de B---- +and the Baron de F----. He knew them vaguely. Before going to get his +hat and stick from the vestibule, he watched her for a few moments, with +a strange adoration in his heart. She was his, she was ready to give up +everything for the sake of his ideals. He thought he could never love +more than at this moment. He believed that he was not asking her to make +a ridiculous sacrifice, but on the contrary to accept a spiritual +gain--a sacrifice of all for love and art and honour, too! As he looked +across the room a distinguished figure came to Mary Faversham. He was +welcomed very cordially. It was Cedersholm. He had been in Russia for +months. Fairfax's heart grew cold. + +As though Mary fancied that her mad lover might linger, she came over to +the window and drew down the Venetian shade. It fell, rippling softly, +and blotted out the room for Fairfax. A wave of anger swept him, a +sudden uncertainty regarding the woman herself followed, and immediately +he saw himself ridiculous, crude and utterly fantastical in his +ultimatum. The egoism and childishness of what he had done stood out to +him, and in that second he knew that he had lost her--lost her for +ever. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +He did not go home. He went into the Bois and walked for miles. His +unequal, limping strides tired him to death and he was finally the only +wanderer there. Over the exquisite forest of new-leaf trees the stars +came out at length, and the guardians began to observe him. At eight +o'clock in the morning he had not eaten. He went into a small restaurant +and made a light meal. For the first time since Albany, when he had +drank too much in despair and grief, he took now too much red wine. He +walked on feathers and felt his blood dance. He rang the bell at Mary +Faversham's at nine-thirty in the morning, and the butler, intensely +surprised, informed him that Mary had gone out riding in the Bois with +Monsieur Cedersholm. Antony had given this servant more fees that he +could afford. He found a piece of money in his pocket and gave it to +Ferdinand. + +"But, monsieur," said the man, embarrassed, and handled the piece. It +was a louis. Antony waved magnificently and started away. He took a cab +back to the studio, but could not pay the cabman, for the louis was his +last piece of money. He waked Dearborn out of a profound sleep, in which +the playwright was dreaming of two hundred night performances. + +"Bob, can you let me have a few francs?" + +"In my vest pocket," said Dearborn. "Take what you like." + +Tony paid his cab out of the change and realized that it was some of the +money from Dearborn's advance royalties. It gave him pleasure to think +that he was spending money which had been made by art. It was "serious +money." He did not hesitate to use it. He sat by the table when he came +in from paying his cab and fell into a heavy sleep, his head upon his +arm. Thus the two friends slumbered until noon, Dearborn dreaming of +fame and Antony of despair. + +At two o'clock that afternoon, bathed and dressed, himself again save +for a certain bewilderment in his head, he stood in his window looking +out on the quays. Underneath, Nora Scarlet and Dearborn passed +arm-in-arm. They were going to Versailles to talk of love, of fame and +artistic struggle, under the trees. Antony heard the shuffling of his +old concierge on the stairs. He knew that the man was bringing him a +letter and that it would be from Mary. + +With the letter between his hands, he waited some few minutes before +opening it. He finally read it, sitting forward on the divan, his face +set. + + "DEAREST," it began, and then there was a long space as though the + woman could not bear to write the words, "You will never be able to + judge me fairly. I cannot ask it of you. You are too much of a + genius to understand a mere woman. I am writing you in my boudoir, + just where you came to me that day when you told me your love and + when I wept to hear it, dearest. I shall cry again, thinking of it, + many times. I have done you a great wrong in taking ever so little + of you, and taking even those few months from the work which shall + mean so much to the world. Now I am glad I have found it out before + it is too late. I have no right to you, Tony. In answer to what you + asked me yesterday, I say no. You will not believe it is for your + sake, dear, but it is. I see you could not share my life in any + way, and keep your ideals. How could I ask you to? I see I could + not share your struggle and leave you free enough to keep your + ideals. + + "I can never quite believe that love is a mistake. I shall think of + mine for you the rest of my life. When you read this letter I shall + have left Paris. Do not try to find me or follow me. I know your + pride, dear, the greatest pride I ever saw or dreamed of. I wonder + if it is a right one. At any rate, it will not let you follow me; I + am sure of that. I wish to put between us an immeasurable distance, + one which no folly on your part and no weakness on mine could + bridge. Cedersholm has returned from Russia, and I told him last + night that I would marry him.--MARY." + +Then, for the first time, Tony knew how he loved her. Crushing the +letter between his hands, he snatched up his hat and rushed out, took a +cab, and drove like mad to her house. + +The little horse galloped with him, the driver cracked his whip with +utterances like the sparks flying, and they tore up the Champs Elysées, +part of the great multitude, yet distinct, as is every individual with +their definite sufferings and their definite joys. + +Her house stood white and distinct at the back of the garden, the +windows were flung open. On the steps of the terrace a man-servant, to +whom Antony had given fat tips which he could not afford, stood in an +undress uniform, blue apron and duster over his arm; painters came out +with ladders and placed them against the wall. The old gardener, +Félicien, who had given him countless _boutonničres_, mounted the steps +with a flower-pot in his hand and talked with the man-servant; he was +joined by two maids. The place was left, then, to servants. Everything +seemed changed. She might never--he was sure she would never--return as +Mrs. Faversham. Immeasurably far away indeed, as she said--immeasurably +far--she seemed to have gone into another sphere, and yet he had held +her in his arms! The thought of his tenderness was too real to permit of +any other consideration holding its place. He sprang out of his cab, +rang the door-bell, and when the door was opened he asked the surprised +servant for Mrs. Faversham's address. + +"But I have no idea of it, monsieur," said the man with a comprehensive +gesture. "None." + +"You are not sending any letters?" + +"None, monsieur." + +Fairfax's blue eyes, his pale, handsome face, appealed very much to +Ferdinand. He liked Monsieur Rainsford. Although the chap did not know +it himself, Tony had been far more generous than were the millionaires. +Ferdinand called one of the maids. + +"Where's madame's maid stopping in London?" asked the butler. + +"Why, at the Ritz," said Louise promptly. "She is always at the Ritz, +monsieur." + +Tony had no more gold to reward this treachery. + +When Dearborn came home that night from Versailles he found a note on +the table, leaning up against the box in which the two comrades kept +their mutual fund of money. Dearborn's advance royalty was all gone but +a hundred francs. + + "I have gone to London," Fairfax's note ran. "Sell anything of mine + you like before I get back, if you are hard up.--TONY." + +He spent two pounds on a pistol. If he had chanced to meet Cedersholm +with her, he would have shot him. From the hour he had received her +letter and learned that she was going to marry Cedersholm, he had been +hardly sane. + +At five o'clock on a bland, sweet afternoon, three days after he had +left Paris, he was shown up to her sitting-room at the Whiteheart Hotel, +in Windsor. He had traced her there from the Ritz. + +Mary Faversham, who was alone, rose to meet him, white as death. + +"Tony," she said, "don't come nearer--stand there, Tony. Dear Tony, it +is too late, too late!" + +He limped across the room and took her in his arms, looking at her +wildly. Her lips trembled, her eyes filled. + +"I married him by special license yesterday, Tony. Go, go, before he +comes." + +He saw she could not stand. He put her in a chair, fell on his knees and +buried his head in her lap. He clung to her, to the Woman, to his Vision +of the Woman, to the form, the substance, the reality which he thought +at last he had really caught for ever. She bent over him and kissed his +hair, weeping. + +"Go," she said. "Go, my darling." + +Fairfax had not spoken a word. Curses, invectives, prayers were in his +heart. He crushed them down. + +"I love you for your pride," she said. "I adore you for the brave demand +you made me. I could not fulfil it, Tony, for your sake." + +Then he spoke, and meant what he said, "You have ruined my life." + +"Oh no!" she cried. "Don't say such a thing!" + +"Some day I shall kill him." He had risen, with tears in his eyes. "You +loved me," he challenged, "you did love me!" + +She did not dare to say "I love you still." She saw what the tragedy +would be. + +"We could not have been poor," she said, "could we, dear?" + +He exclaimed bitterly, "If you thought of that, you could not have +cared." And she was strong enough to take advantage of his change. + +"I suppose I could not have cared as you mean, or I should never have +done this." + +Then Fairfax cursed under his breath, and once again, this time +brutally, caught her in his arms and kissed her, crying to her as he had +cried once before-- + +"Tell him how I kissed you--tell him!" + +White as death, Mary Faversham pushed him from her. "For the love of +God, Tony, go!" + +And he went, stumbling down the stairs. Out in Windsor the bugles for +some solemn festivity were blowing. + +"The flowers of the forest are all wied away." + + + + +BOOK IV + +BELLA + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +From the Western world he heard nothing for four years. Meanwhile he +brought his new skill, his maturer knowledge, the result of seven years' +study and creation in the workshops of masters and in his own studio, to +the sculpturing of the second tomb--the Open Door. + +There were crowds around his marble in the Salon, and he mingled with +them, watching them muse, discuss, criticize, grow sad and thoughtful +before his conception of Life and Death. Some of them looked as poor Tom +Rainsford had looked, yearningly toward the door of the tomb. Others +hurried past the inscrutable beauty of the Open Door. Purely white, +stainless, slender, luminous and yet cold, Molly stood immortalized by +Antony. His conception made him famous. + +He had exhibited each year with increasing success at private +exhibitions, but never at the Salon, and had been called "poseur" +because of his reluctance to expose his work in national academies. His +bas-reliefs had made him favourably known, but nothing equalled the +solemn marble that came now from his studio. Antony's work occupied some +twenty feet in the Champ de Mars. + +His lame foot touched a pile of newspapers on the floor, in which the +critics spoke of him in terms he thought fulsome and ridiculous, and +they pained him while they dazzled him. He thought of Bella. He had +thought of Bella constantly of late, and there were no answers to his +questions. She would be twenty-three, a woman, married, no doubt, always +enchanting. How she had stood before his bas-relief in Albany, musing, +and her eyes had been wet when she had turned to him and asked, "Who is +it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful, beautiful!" He would have +liked to have led Bella to his work in the Salon, and, hand-in-hand with +her, until the crowd around them should have melted away, have stood +there with her alone. From the night her inspiring little hand had +stolen into his, Bella's hand had seemed a mate for his. + +"Who is it, Cousin Antony?" + +Indeed, who was the woman going through the Open Door? What woman's face +and form constantly inspired him, haunting him, promising to haunt him +until the end? He was always seeking to unveil the face of his visions +and find the one woman, the supplement, the mate, the companion. + +Who would inspire him now? His memories, his dead, his past, had done +their work. What fresh inspiration would urge him now to create? + +The public had no fault to find with him. The tomb made him celebrated +in twenty-four hours. At a time when all Paris was laughing at Rodin's +Balzac, there was a place for a sculptor like Antony, for the idealist +and dreamer, gifted with a strong and faultless technique. + +He read hastily and with surprise the exaggerated praise which the "Open +Door" called forth from the reviews. "It is not as good as all that," he +thought, "and it is too soon to hear thunder about my ears." + +He seemed to see the door of his future open and himself standing there, +the burden of proof upon him. What work he must continue to produce in +order to sustain such sudden fame! The _Figaro_ called him a "giant," +and several critics said he was the sculptor of the time. His mail was +full of letters from friends and strangers. By ten o'clock the night of +the "Vernissage" all his acquaintances and intimates in Paris had +brought him their felicitations. He turned back to his table where his +letters lay. He had just read an affectionate, enthusiastic expression +of praise and belief from Potowski. There was another note which he had +read first with anger, then with keen satisfaction, and then with as +much malice as his heart could hold. + + "MY DEAR SIR, + + "I have the honour to represent in France the committee for the + construction in Boston of a triumphal arch to be raised in + commemoration of the men who first fell in the battle of the + Revolution. The idea is to crown this arch with a group of figures, + either realistic or symbolical, as the sculptor shall see fit. + After carefully considering the modern work of men in France, I am + inclined to offer this commission to you if you can accept it. Your + 'Open Door' is the most beautiful piece of sculpture, according to + my opinion, in modern times. An appointment would gratify me very + much. + + "I have the honour to be, sir, etc., + "GUNNER CEDERSHOLM." + +Antony had given the appointment with excitement, and he was waiting now +to see for the first time in ten years the man who had stolen from him +fame, honour, and love. + +He had heard nothing of the Cedersholms for six years. As far as he +knew, during this time they had never returned to France. Once he +vaguely understood that they were travelling for Mrs. Cedersholm's +health. + +His eyes ached to look upon the man whom he regarded as his bitterest +enemy. Of Mrs. Cedersholm he thought now only as he thought of woman, of +vain visions which he might never, never grasp or hold. He had bitterly +torn his love out of his heart. + +After leaving her at Windsor he had remained for some time in London +where Dearborn had followed him, and where Dearborn and Nora Scarlet +were married. Fairfax had sat with them in the gallery at Regent's +Theatre when the curtain rose on Dearborn's successful play. Fairfax +took a position as professor of drawing in a girls' school in the West +End and taught a group of schoolgirls for several months. Between times +he modelled on his statues for his new conception of the "Open Door." +Then in the following spring, with a yearning in his heart and +homesickness for France, he returned into the city with the May. He +could scarcely look up at the windows of the old studio on the quays. He +rented a barren place in the Vaugirard quarter and began his work in +terrible earnestness. + +Now, as he waited for his visitor, he wondered if Mary Cedersholm had +visited the Salon, if with others she had stood before his sculpture. +His servant announced "Monsieur Cedersholm," then let in the visitor and +shut the door behind him. Cedersholm entered the vast studio in the soft +light of late afternoon with which the spring twilight, rapidly +withdrawing, filled the room. Antony did not stir from his chair, where +he sat enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke. + +The small man--Fairfax had forgotten how small he was--entered +cautiously as though he were entering the room of a foe, which, indeed, +he was doing, without being aware of it. Fairfax remembered that he had +seen Cedersholm wearing a single eyeglass, and now spectacles of +extraordinary thickness covered his eyes. He evidently saw with +difficulty. As Fairfax did not rise to greet him, Cedersholm approached, +saying tentatively-- + +"Mr. Rainsford? I believe I have an appointment with Mr. Rainsford." + +"Yes," said Fairfax curtly, "I am here. Sit down, will you?" + +His lame foot, which would have disclosed his identity, was withdrawn +under his chair. + +"I have just come from the Soudan," said Cedersholm, "where I had a +sunstroke of the eyes. I see badly." + +"Blindness," said Fairfax shortly, "is a common failing, but many of us +don't know we have anything the matter with our eyes." + +"It is, however, a tragedy for a sculptor," said Cedersholm, taking the +chair to which Fairfax had pointed. + +From the box on the table Fairfax offered his guest a cigar, which was +refused. Antony lit a fresh one; it was evident he had not been +recognized. + +"I have not touched a tool for five years," Cedersholm said. "A man like +you who must adore his work can easily imagine what this means." + +"For two or three years I did not touch a tool. I know what it means." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Cedersholm with interest. "What was your infirmity?" + +"Poverty," returned Fairfax. Then added, "You have not come to talk with +me about the short and simple annals of the poor." + +"All that which goes to make the education and career of a great man," +said Cedersholm, "is deeply interesting, especially to a confrčre. You +have executed a very great piece of work, Mr. Rainsford." + +Fairfax made no response. + +"You seem," said Cedersholm, "to doubt my sincerity. You received my +letter?" + +"Yes." + +"Would you be reluctant to undertake such a work?" + +The man who stood before Fairfax was so altered from his former self +that Tony was obliged to whip up his memories, to call up all his past +in order to connect this visitor with the man who had ruined him. Pale, +meagre, so thin that his clothes hung upon him, disfigured by his thick +glasses, he seemed to have shrunk into a little insignificant creature. +No man could connect him with the idea of greatness or success. Fairfax +answered it would depend upon circumstances. + +"I expect you are very much overrun with orders, Mr. Rainsford. I can +understand that. I do not take up a newspaper without reading some +appreciative criticism of your work." The Swedish sculptor removed his +glasses and wiped his eyes with a fragrant silk handkerchief. Then +carefully replacing his spectacles, begged Fairfax's pardon. "I have +suffered dreadfully with these infirm eyes," he said. + +Fairfax leaned forward a little, continuing to whip up his memories, +and, once goaded, like all revengeful and evil things, they came now +quickly to bring back to him his anger of the past. Hatred and malice +had disappeared--his nature was too sweet, too generous and forgiving to +brood upon that which was irrevocably gone. He had been living fast; he +had been working intensely; he had been loved, and he had shut his eyes +and sighed and tried to think he loved in return. But the walls of his +studio in the Rue Vaugirard melted away, and, instead, Cedersholm's +rich, extravagant New York workshop rose up before his eyes. He saw +himself again the young, ardent student, his blood beating with hope and +trust, and his hands busy over what he had supposed was to be immortal +labour; it had been given for this man then, the greatest living +sculptor, to adopt it for his own. Now his heart began to beat fast. He +clasped his hands strongly together, his voice trembling in his throat. + +"I should ask a tremendous price," he said slowly, "a tremendous price." + +"Quite right," returned the Swedish sculptor. "Talent such as yours +should be paid for generously. I used to think so. I have commanded my +price, Mr. Rainsford." + +"I know your reputation and your fame," said Fairfax. + +The other accepted what his host said as a compliment, and continued-- + +"The committee is very rich; there are men of enormous fortunes +interested in the monument. They can pay--in reason," he added; "of +course, in reason--and as you are an American there would be in your +mind the ideal of patriotism." + +"My demand would not be in reason," said Fairfax. + +Cedersholm, struck at length by his tone, finding him lacking in +courtesy and manners, began to peer at him keenly in the rapidly +deepening twilight. + +"In a way," he said sententiously, eager to be understood and approved +of by the man who, in his judgment, was important in the sculpture of +the time, he continued courteously, "there is no price too much to pay +for art. I have followed your work for years." + +"Have you?" said Antony. + +"Six years ago I bought a little statue in an exhibition of the works of +the pupils of Barye's studio." Cedersholm again took out his fine silk +handkerchief and pressed it to his eyes. "Since then I have looked for +comments on your work everywhere, and, whenever I saw you mentioned, I +reminded the fact to my wife, who was an admirer of your talent." + +Antony grew cold. At the mention of her name his blood chilled. Mary! +Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. He drew his breath hard, clasped one hand +across his forehead, and still back in the far remote past he did not +bid this vision of Mary Cedersholm to linger. + +"When I came back to Paris, I found you had justified my faith in your +work. The question of payment now, in case you undertake this group, for +instance, I dare say the matter would be satisfactorily adjusted." + +"I doubt it, Mr. Cedersholm." + +Cedersholm, already interested in the man as a worker, became now +interested in his personality, and found him curious, settled himself +comfortably in his chair and swung his monocle, which he still wore, by +its string. He saw the face of his host indistinctly, and his eyes +wandered around the vast, shadowy studio where the swathed casts stood +in the corners. The place gave him a twinge of jealousy and awakened all +his longings as an artist. + +"It makes me acutely suffer," he said, "to come into the workshop of the +sculptor. Four years of enforced idleness----" Then he broke in abruptly +and said, "You have apparently settled already in your mind--decided not +to accept this work for us. I think you are determined not to meet us, +Mr. Rainsford." + +"The price," said Antony, leaning fully forward, his blue eyes, whose +sight was unimpeded, fixed on Cedersholm, "must be great enough to buy +me back my lost youth." + +His companion laughed gently and said indulgently, "My dear Mr. +Rainsford." + +"To buy me back my loss of faith in men's honour, in human kindness, in +justice, in woman's love." + +"He is a true genius," Cedersholm thought to himself, "just a bit over +the line of mental balance." And he almost envied Antony this frenzy, +for he had always judged himself too sane to be a great artist. + +"It must buy me back three years of bitter struggle, of degrading manual +toil." + +"My dear man," said the sculptor indulgently. "I think I understand you, +but no material price could ever do what you ask. Money, unfortunately, +has nothing to do with the past; it can take care of the future more or +less, but the past is beyond repurchase, you know." + +It was growing constantly darker. The corners of the studio were deep +in shadows, and the forms of Antony's casts shone like spectres in their +white clothes; the scaffoldings looked ghostly and spirit-like. +Cedersholm sighed. + +"Why have you come to me?" he heard Fairfax ask in his cutting tone, and +he understood that for some reason or other this stranger was purposely +impolite and unfriendly to him. He had not even found Fairfax's face +familiar. There he sat before Antony, small, insignificant. How often he +had crossed Tony's mind in some ugly dream when he had longed to crush +him like a reptile. Now that he stood before him in flesh and blood it +was astonishing to Fairfax to see how little real he was. + +"I have been absent from France for six years," continued the Swede, and +paused.... And Antony knew he was going back in his mind over the past +six years of his married life with Mary. "I returned to Paris this week, +and wandered into the Salon and stood with a crowd before your +bas-relief. I stood for quite half an hour there, I should think, and at +least one hundred men and women passed and paused as I had paused. I +listened to their comments. I saw your popularity and your power, and +saw how you touched the mass by the real beauty of real emotion, by your +expression of feeling in plastic art. This is not often achieved +nowadays, Mr. Rainsford. Sculpture is the least emotional of all the +arts; literature, painting, and music stir the emotions and bring our +tears, but that calm, sublime marble, that cold stone awes us by its +harmonious perfection. Before sculpture we are content to marvel and +worship, and in the 'Open Door' you have made us do all this and made us +weep. I do not doubt that amongst those people many had lost their own +by death." He paused. It was so dark now that the two men saw each +other's face indistinctly. In the shadows Cedersholm's form had +softened; the shadows blurred him before Fairfax's eyes; his voice was +intensely melancholy. "To every man and woman who has lost your +bas-relief is profoundly appealing. Every one of us must go through that +door. Your conception, Mr. Rainsford, and your execution are sublime." + +Fairfax murmured something which Cedersholm did not make out. He paused +a moment, apparently groping in thought as he groped with his weak eyes, +and as Fairfax did not respond, he continued-- + +"You spoke just now of the price we must pay you, the price which you +say must buy you back--what I judge you to mean by your progress, by +these years of labour and education, by your apprenticeship to art, and, +let me say, to life. My dear man, they have already purchased for you +your present achievement, your present power. Everything we have, you +know, must be paid for. Some things are paid for in coin, and others in +flesh and blood and tears. To judge by what we know of the progress of +the world in spiritual things and in art, it is the things that are +purchased by this travail of the spirit that render eternal possessions, +the eternal impressions. No man who has not suffered as you have +apparently suffered, no man who has not walked upon thorns, could have +produced the 'Open Door.' Do not degrade the value of your past life and +the value of every hour of your agony. Why, it is above price." He +paused ... his voice shook. "It is the gift of God!" + +Antony's hands were clasped lightly together; they had been holding each +other with a grip of steel; now they relaxed a bit. He bowed his head a +little from its proud hauteur, and said-- + +"You are right; you are right." + +"Four years ago," continued the voice--Cedersholm had become to him now +only a voice to which he listened in the darkness--"four years ago, if I +had seen the 'Open Door,' I would have appreciated its art as I +recognized the value of your figure which I bought at the Exposition, +but I could not have understood it; its spiritual lesson would have been +lost upon me. You do not know me," he continued, "and I can in no way +especially interest you. But these six years of my life, especially the +last two, have been my Garden of Gethsemane." + +He stopped. Antony knew that he had taken out the silk handkerchief +again and wiped his eyes. After a second, Cedersholm said-- + +"You must have lost some one very near you." + +"My wife," said Antony Fairfax. + +The other man put out his hand, and he touched Antony's closed hands. + +"I have lost my wife as well; she died two years ago." + +Cedersholm heard Antony's exclamation and felt him start violently. + +"Your wife," he cried, "Mary ... dead ... dead?" + +"Yes. Why do you exclaim like that?" + +"Not Mary Faversham?" + +"Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. Did you know her?" + +With a supreme effort Antony controlled himself. His voice suffocated +him. + +Dead! He felt again the touch of her lips; he heard again her voice; he +felt her arms around him as she held him in Windsor--"Tony, darling, go! +It is too late." + +Oh! the Open Door! + +Cedersholm, in the agitation that his own words had produced in himself, +and in his grief, did not notice that Fairfax murmured he had known Mrs. +Cedersholm in Paris. + +"My wife was very delicate," he said. "We travelled everywhere. She +faded and my life stopped when she died. To-day, when I saw the 'Open +Door,' it had a message for me that brought me the first solace." Again +his hands sought Fairfax's. "Thank you, brother artist," he murmured; +"you have suffered as I have. You understand." + +From where he sat, Fairfax struck a match and lit the candle. Its pale +light flickered up in the big dark room like a lily shining in a tomb. +He said, with a great effort-- + +"I made a little bas-relief of Mrs. Cedersholm. Did she never speak of +me?" + +"Never," said Cedersholm thoughtfully. "She met so many people in +France; she was so surrounded. She admired greatly the little figure I +bought at the Exposition; it was always in our salon. We spoke of you as +a coming power, but I do not recall that she ever mentioned having known +you." + +To Antony this was the greatest proof she could have given him of her +love for him. That careful silence, the long silence, not once speaking +his name. He had triumphed over Cedersholm. She had loved him. +Cedersholm murmured-- + +"And you did that bas-relief--a head silhouetted against a lattice? It +never left her room, but she never mentioned it to me although I greatly +admired it. It Was a perfect likeness." Fairfax saw Cedersholm peer at +him through the candle light. "Curious," he continued, "curious." + +And Antony knew that Cedersholm would never forget his cry of +"Mary--Mary dead!" And her silence regarding his existence and his name, +and that silence and that cry would go together in the husband's memory. + +The door of the studio was opened by Dearborn, who came in calling-- + +"Tony, Tony, old man." + +Cedersholm rose, and Antony rose as well, putting out his hand, saying-- + +"I will undertake the work you speak of, if your committee will write me +confirming your suggestion. And I leave the price to you, you know; you +understand what such work is worth. I place myself in your hands." + +Dearborn had come up to them. "Tony," said Dearborn, "what are you +plotting in the dark with a single candle?" + +Fairfax presented him. "Mr. Cedersholm, Robert Dearborn, the playwright, +the author of 'All Roads Meet.'" + +Dearborn shook the sculptor's hand lightly. He wondered how this must +have been for his friend. He looked curiously from one to the other. + +"'All Roads Meet,'" he quoted keenly. "Good name, don't you think? They +all do meet somewhere"--he put his hand affectionately on Tony's +shoulder--"even if it is only at the Open Door." Then he asked, partly +smiling, "And the beautiful Mrs. Cedersholm, is she in Paris too?" + +"My wife," said Cedersholm shortly, "died two years ago." + +"Dead!" exclaimed Robert Dearborn in a low tone of regret, the tone of +every man who regrets the passing of a lovely creature that they have +admired. "Dead! I beg your pardon, I did not know. I am too heartily +sorry." + +He put out his kindly hand. Cedersholm scarcely touched it. He was +excited, overwhelmed, and began to take his leave, to walk rapidly +across the big room. + +As the three men went together toward the door of the studio, Fairfax +turned up an electric light. It shone brightly on them all, on +Dearborn's grave, charming face, touched with the news of the death of +the woman his friend had loved, on Cedersholm's almost livid face, on +his thick glasses, and on Antony limping at his side. Cedersholm saw the +limp, the unmistakable limp, the heavy boot, his stature, his beautiful +head, and in spite of his infirmity he saw enough of his host to make +him know him, to make him remember him, and his heart, which had begun +to ache at Fairfax's cry of Mary, seemed to die within him. He +remembered the man whom he had cheated out of his work and out of public +acknowledgment. He knew now what Fairfax meant by the repurchase of his +miserable youth. He had believed Antony Fairfax dead years ago. He had +been told that he was dead. Now he limped beside him, powerful, clever, +acknowledged, and moreover, there he stood beside him with memories that +Cedersholm would never know, with memories that linked him with Mary +Faversham-Cedersholm. In an unguarded moment that cry had escaped from +the heart of a man who must have loved her. He thought of the bas-relief +that hung always above her bed, and he thought of her silence, more +eloquent now to him even than Antony's cry, and that silence and that +cry would haunt him till the end, and the silence could never be broken +now that she had gone through the Open Door. + + * * * * * + +Dearborn had not been with him all day until now. He had come up radiant +to Tony, and putting his hand on his shoulder, said-- + +"My dear Tony, I had to come in to-day just to bring you a piece of +news--to tell you a rumour, rather. The 'Open Door' has been bought by +the Government. Your fame is made. I wanted to be the first to tell you. +I went into the Embassy for a little while to hear them talk about you, +and I can assure you that I did hear them. The ambassador himself told +me this news is official. Every one will know to-morrow." + +They talked together until the morning light came grey across the panes +of the atelier, and the light was full of new creations, of new ideals +of fame and life, of new ambitions and dreams for them both. Enthralled +and inspired each by the other, the two artists talked and dreamed. +Dearborn's new play was running into its two-hundredth performance. He +was a rich man. Now Antony paused on the threshold of his studio, +looking back into the deserted workroom filling with the April evening. +In every corner, one by one, the visions rose and floated. They became +new statues, new creations, indistinct and ethereal. Only the space, +where the work that had been carried away to the Salon had once stood, +was bare. As he shut the door he felt that he shut the door for ever +upon his past, upon his young manhood and upon his youth. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +In the early days of July he found himself once more alone in the empty +studio, where he had worked for twelve months at the "Open Door." + +The place where the huge marble had stood was empty; in its stead fame +remained. + +Looking back, it seemed now that his hardships had not been severe +enough. Had success really come? Would it stay? Was he only the child of +an hour? Could he sustain? He recalled the little statuettes which he +had made out of the clay of the levee when he was a boy. He remembered +his beautiful mother's praise-- + +"Why, Tony, they are extraordinary, my darling." + +And the constant fever had run through his veins all his life. He had +made his apprenticeship over theft and death. He said to himself-- + +"I shall sustain." + +As he mused there, the praise he had received ringing in his ears, he +entertained fame and saw the shadow of laurel on the floor, under the +lamplight, where his marble had stood, long and white. + +He had made warm friends and bound them to him. He loved the city and +its beauties. His refinement and sense of taste had matured. Antony knew +that in his soul he was unaltered, that he was marked by his past, and +that the scars upon him were deep. + +He was very much alone; there was no one with whom he could share his +glory. Should he become the greatest living sculptor, to whom could he +bring his honours, his joys? + +For a long time Bella went with him in everything he did. His visions +were banished by the vivid thought of her. When he came into his studio +at twilight he would fancy he saw her sitting by the table. + +She would lean there, not like a spirit-like woman under the shaded +lamp, sewing at little children's garments ... not like that! +Nevertheless, Bella sat there as a woman who waits for a return, the +charming figure, the charming head with its crown of dark hair, and the +lovely, brilliantly coloured face. Now there was nothing spirit-like in +Antony's picture. + +Then again he would imagine that he saw her in the crowd before his +bas-relief at the Salon; he would select some woman dressed in an +unusually smart spring gown and call her Bella to himself, until he saw +her turn. + +Once indeed, there, on the edge of the crowd, leaning with her hands +upon the handle of her parasol, he was sure he saw her. The pose of the +body was charming, the turn of the head almost as haughty as his own +mother's, but the slenderness and the magnetism were Bella's own. + +Antony chose this woman upon whom to fix his attention, and he thought +that when she would move the resemblance would be gone. + +The young girl suddenly altered her pose, and Antony saw her fully; he +saw the proud beautiful face, piquant, alluring, a trifle sad; the +brilliant lips, the colour in the cheeks, like a snow-set peach, the +wonderful eyes, could belong to but one woman. + +Separated from her by a little concourse of people, Antony could only +cry, "Bella!" to himself. He started eagerly toward the place where he +had seen her, but she vanished as the mirage on the desert's face. + +What had he seen? A real woman, or only a trick of resemblance? + +It was real enough to make him search the newspapers and the hotel lists +and the bankers. Now he could not think of her name without a mighty +emotion. If that were Bella, she was too lovely to be true! She _must_ +be his, no matter at what price, no matter what her life might be. + +A fortnight after he received in his mail a letter from America. The +address, "Mr. Thomas Rainsford," was in a round full hand, a handsome +hand; first he thought it a man's. He opened it with slight interest. +The paper exhaled an intangible odour; it was not perfume, but a +delicate scent which recalled to him, for some reason, or other, the +smell of the vines around the veranda-trellis in New Orleans. He read-- + + "Mr. Thomas Rainsford. + + "DEAR SIR,-- + + "This will seem to be a very extraordinary letter, I know. I hardly + know how to write such a letter. When I was in Paris a few weeks + ago, I stood before the most beautiful piece of sculpture I have + ever seen. I do not know that any one could do a more wonderful, a + more deeply spiritual thing in clay or marble. But it is not what I + think about it in that way, which is of interest. It cannot be of + any interest to you, as you do not know me, nor is it for this that + I am writing to you. Again, I do not know how to tell you. + + "Where did you get your ideas for your statue? That is what I want + to know. Years ago, a bas-relief, very much like yours--I should + almost say identically yours--was made by my cousin, Antony + Fairfax, in Albany. That bas-relief took the ten-thousand-dollar + prize in Chicago. It was, unfortunately, destroyed in a fire, and + no record of it was kept. My cousin is dead. For this reason I + write to ask you where you got your inspiration for the 'Open + Door.' It can be nothing to him that his beautiful work has been + more beautifully done by a stranger, can do him no harm, but I want + to know. Will you write me to the care of the Women's Art League, + 5th Avenue, New York? Perhaps you will not deign to answer this + letter. Do not think that I am making any reproach to you. It can + be nothing to my cousin; he is dead but it would be a comfort to + me. Once again, I hope you will let me hear from you. + + "Yours faithfully, + "BELLA CAREW." + +The man reading in his studio looked at the signature, looked at the +handwriting, held it before his eyes, to which the tears rushed. He +pressed the faintly scented pages to his lips. Gallant little Bella ... +He stretched out his arms in the darkness, called to her across three +thousand miles-- + +"Little cousin, please Heaven he can show you some day, Bella Carew." + +It was at this time that he modelled his wonderful bust of Bella Carew. + +When he finished the "Open Door," he said that he would not work for a +year, that he was exhausted bodily and mentally; certainly he had lacked +inspiration. But the afternoon of the day on which he had read this +letter--this letter that opened for him a future--he set feverishly to +work and modelled. He made a head of Bella which the critics have +likened to the busts of Houdon, Carpeaux, and other masters. He modelled +from memory, guided by his recollections of that picturesque face he had +seen under the big hat on the outskirts of the crowd before his +bas-relief. He modelled from memory, from imagination, with hope and new +love, from old love too; told himself he had fallen in love with Bella +the first night he had seen her, when she had comforted him about his +heavy step. + +Into the beautiful head and face he worked upon he put all his ideal of +what a woman's face should be. He fell in love with his creation, in +love with the clay that he moulded. Once more he had a companion in the +studio from which had been removed his study for the tomb, and this +represented a living woman. It seemed almost to become flesh and blood +under his ardent hand. "Bella!" he called to her as he smoothed the +lovely cheek and saw the peach bloom under it. + +"Little cousin," he breathed, as he touched the hair along her neck, and +remembered the wild, tangled forest that had fallen across his face when +he carried her in his arms during their childish romps. "Honey child," +he murmured as he modelled and moulded the youthful lines of the mouth +and lips and stood yearning before them, all his heart and soul in his +hands that made before his eyes a lovely woman. She became to him the +very conception and expression of what he wanted his wife to be. + +They say that men have fallen in love with that beautiful face of Bella +Carew as modelled by Fairfax. + +Arch and subtle, tender and provoking, distinguished, youthful, +alluring, it is the most charming expression of young womanhood that an +artist's hand could give to the world. + +"Beloved," he murmured like a man half in sleep and half awakening, and +he folded the lines of her bodice across her breast and fastened them +there by a single rose. + +With a sweep of her lovely hair, with an uplift of the corners of her +beautiful lips, with the rose at her breast, Bella Carew will charm the +artistic world so long as the clay endures. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +On the promenade deck of one of the big steamers, as it pushed around +into its pier, a man stood in his long overcoat, his hands in his +pockets, hoping to avoid the reporters whom he had reason to suppose +were ready to make him their prey. + +He was entering New York Harbour at an early hour in the morning. It was +November, and over the river and over the city hung the golden haze. If +the lines of the objects, if the shore and buildings were crude, their +impression was not so to him. To and fro the ferries plied from shore to +shore, and their whistles and the whistles of the tugs spoke shrilly and +loudly to the morning, but there was nothing nasal or blatant to him in +the noises. He found the scene, the light of the morning, the greeting +of the city as it stirred to life, enchanting. He had gone away from it +six years ago, a broken-hearted man, and it seemed now as though he had +made his history in an incredibly short time. Down in the hold of the +boat, in their cases, reposed his sculptures, some thirty statues and +models that he had brought for his exposition in New York. He had come +back celebrated. His visions and his dreams so far had been fulfilled. + +Once again all his past, all his emotions, his tears and aspirations, +culminated in this hour. This was his return, but not as Antony Fairfax. +He did not know that he should ever take his old name again. He had made +the name of Thomas Rainsford famous, and the fact gave him a singular +tender satisfaction, linking him with a dear man who had loved him. He +felt almost as though his friend were resurrected or given a new draught +of immortal life every time the name was said. + +A young man came up to him, pencil in hand, his look eager and +appealing, and Fairfax recognized a reporter in search of a good +newspaper story. He understood the poor clothes, the dogged +determination. + +"You want a story?" he said. "Well, sit down." + +The newspaper man, highly delighted with the sculptor's sympathy and +understanding, wrote his interview with enthusiasm. + +Fairfax talked for five minutes, and said at the close, "I had not +intended to be interviewed. But you are a rising man; you have secured +me against my will." + +The reporter put up his pad. "Thank you, Mr. Rainsford; but this is so +impersonal. I would like some of your views on art. They tell me you +have had a tough fight for success and existence." + +"Many of us have that," said Fairfax. + +"Your ideals, sir?" + +The young chap was only twenty-one. It was his first interview. Fairfax +smiled. + +"Downstairs in the hold are thirty cases of my work, the labour of the +last six years. Go to my exposition, and you will see my ideals." + +As the other took his leave Antony saw himself again, poor, unknown, as +he had set foot in New York. There was a deputation on the wharf to meet +him from the Academy of Design, and he walked down the gang-plank alone, +leaving no one behind him in France who stood to him for family, and he +would find no one in America who should mean to him hearth and home. + +They had taken rooms for him in the old Hotel Plaza overlooking 59th +Street; there, toward the afternoon of the first day, he found himself +at three o'clock, alone in his parlour overlooking Central Park. + +The trees were still in leaf. November was mild and golden. The air of +America, of the city which had once been unfriendly to him, and which +now opened its doors, blew in upon him through the open window like a +caress. He looked musingly at the little park where he had wandered with +Gardiner and Bella, on the Sunday holiday, when Bella had told him "all +things she wanted to do were wicked." + +Amongst his statues he had brought over was one lately bought by France +and presented to the Metropolitan Museum. It was the marble of a little +girl mourning over a dead blackbird. Everything in the city was +connected now with Bella Carew. + +There was a sheaf of invitations on the table from well-known New +Yorkers, invitations to dinners, invitations to lecture, and he knew +that he would be taken into the kindliest heart of New York. Well, if +work can give a man what he wants, he had worked enough for it; there +was no doubt about that. It had been nearly a year since his interview +with Cedersholm. He brought with him casts and statues for the triumphal +arch in Boston, and he intended taking a studio here and continuing his +work in America, but he had no plans. In spite of his success and the +prices he could command, his thoughts and his mind were all at sea. His +personality had not yet developed to the point where he was at peace. He +knew that such peace could only come to him through the companionship of +a woman. + +No commonplace woman would satisfy Fairfax now. + +Money and position meant absolutely nothing to him. If Bella Carew were +a rich and brilliant heiress it would probably alienate him from her. +His need called for a woman who could work at his side with a kindred +interest, a woman who knew beauty, who loved art, whose appreciation and +criticism could not leave him cold. + +What would Bella Carew, when he found her--as he should--prove herself +to be? Spoiled she was, no doubt, mistress for several years of a large +fortune, coquette, flirt; of these things he was partly sure, because +she had not married. Children with her great promise develop sometimes +into nonentities, but Bella, at sixteen, had surpassed his wildest +prophecies for her. Bella, as he had seen her on the outskirts of the +crowd, had driven him mad. He knew that it had been she; there was no +doubt about it in his mind. Now to find her, to see what she had become. + +He knew that Bella, when she opened the morning papers the next day--if +she were in New York--would discover who he was. There would be +descriptions of him as a lame sculptor; there would be reproductions of +his "Open Door"; there would be the fact that he was born in New +Orleans; that he assumed the name of Rainsford. Now that he had no +longer any secret to keep, his own name, Antony Fairfax, would appear. +Bella would not fail to know him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +He took his gloves and his hat and started out. He drove to the address +which Bella had given him, where her letters were to be sent. It was a +studio building, and the woman stenographer at the general desk knew +that Miss Carew was absent in Europe and had not returned. + +This was a blow; the woman saw the disappointment on his face. + +"Miss Carew's letters?" he asked. + +She pointed to the empty box. They were all sent to her to Europe. + +He wandered in the little office whilst the woman did her work. He +glanced around him. On the walls there were framed sketches; there were +busts in plaster on pedestals. + +It struck him as strange that Bella should have her letters sent to her +to a studio. He wanted to question the secretary, hesitated, then +asked-- + +"You know Miss Carew?" + +"Very well." + +"I reckon she patronizes this academy." + +It would not have been surprising if she had given it some large +donation. + +The stenographer repeated the word, "Patronizes? Miss Carew works here +when she is in America; she has a small studio here." + +"Works here? Do you mean she paints?" + +The woman smiled. "Yes; she has been studying in Florence. I expect her +home every day." + +Fairfax still lingered, drawing his soft gloves through his hands. + +"There's nothing to do, then, but to wait,"--he smiled on her his light +smile. He turned to go, hesitated. The temptation was too strong. + +"Miss Carew paints portraits?" + +"Yes," said the stenographer, "beautiful portraits." + +He smiled, biting his lips. He remembered the parallel lines, the +reluctant little hand drawing them across the board. + +"No more parallel lines, Cousin Antony." + +He did not believe that she painted beautiful portraits. He would have +loved to see her work, oh, how much! There must be some of it here. + +"There is nothing of hers here, I suppose?" + +He went across the little room to the door. He could hardly bear to go +from here, from the only place that had any knowledge of Bella as far as +he knew. + +He took out his card, scribbled his address upon it, handed it to the +stenographer, without asking anything of her but to let him know when +she would come back. + +The woman nodded sympathetically. + +"It is unusual for a great heiress, like Miss Carew, to paint +portraits." + +"She is not a great heiress; Mr. Carew lost all his money two years ago. +I think Miss Carew is almost quite poor." + +A radiant look came over Antony's face. "Thank you very much indeed," he +said. "I count on you to take care of this little commission for me," +and he went out of the room in ecstasy, closing the door behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +He left his hansom at the entrance of the park, at 72nd Street. + +There, on the corner, stood his uncle's house, a monument, to him, of +the past. His heart beat hard as he looked at the unfriendly dwelling +from whose doors he had rushed on the night of the winter blizzard, +when, as it had seemed to him then, little Gardiner's spirit rushed with +him out into the storm. From those windows Bella had waved her hand. + +How his spirits had risen high with hope, the night on which he had +first gone up those steps. It was on that night Bella had said to him, +"Why, you have got a light step and a heavy step, Cousin Antony. I never +heard any one walk like that before." + +He tramped into Central Park, taking his way to the Metropolitan Museum. +At the door he was informed that the museum was closed. He gave his +card, and, after a few words with the man in charge, Thomas Rainsford +the sculptor was let in and found himself, to all intents and purposes, +alone. He wandered about the sculptures, wondering where the statue of +little "Bella" would be placed. + +The rooms were delightfully restful. He chose a bench and sat down, +resting and musing. + +In front of one of the early Italian pictures stood an easel with a copy +exposed upon it to his view. A reproduction of a sixteenth-century +Madonna with a child upon her breast. The copy showed the hand of an +adept in colour and drawing. Antony looked at it with keen pleasure, +musing upon the beauty of the child. + +Afterwards he rose and went into the Egyptian room, lingering there. But +when he came back the painter was there before her easel, and Antony +stood in the doorway to watch her at work. + +She wore a long brown linen painting apron that covered her form, +evidently a slender form, evidently a young form. She painted ardently, +with confidence and absorption. As Antony watched her, her pose, her +ardour, the poise of her body, the lovely dark head, the gestures, the +fire of her, brought all of a sudden his past rushing back to him. The +sight of her came to him with a thrilling, wonderful remembrance. He +came forward, his light step and his heavy step falling on the hard wood +floors of the museum. + +She turned before he was close to her, her palette and her brushes in +her hand. She stood for a moment immovable, then gave a little cry, +dropped her palette and brushes on the floor, grew white, then blushed +deeply and held out both her hands to him. + +"Cousin Antony!" + +He took her hands in his, could not find his voice even to say her name. +He heard her say-- + +"They told me you were dead! I thought you had died long ago--I thought +another man had taken your genius and your fame." + +She spoke fast, with catching breath, in a low vibrant tone that he +remembered--how he did remember it! His very life seemed to breathe on +her lips in the sound of her voice. "Flow gently, sweet Afton"--the +music was here--here--all the music in the world! + +"I know who you are now; I saw it in the paper. I read it this morning. +I saw your picture, and I knew." She stopped to catch her breath deeply. +"Oh, I'm so glad!" + +She was more beautiful than he had dreamed she would be; brilliant, +bewitching, and the flowers of his past clustered round her. + +"I heard them falling through the rooms, the light step and the heavy +step." + +Slowly by both her hands which he held he drew her toward him, and as he +held her cheek against his lips he heard her murmur-- + +"Back from the dead! Cousin Antony.... No, just Antony!" + +"Little cousin!" he said. "Bella!" + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. + +The following misprints have been corrected: + "Miss Whitcombs'" corrected to "Miss Whitcomb's" (page 19) + "the eager Miss Whitcombs" corrected to "the eager Miss Whitcomb" + (page 23) + "succeceded" corrected to "succeeded" (page 24) + "bas relief" changed to "bas-relief" (pages 47, 54) + "bas reliefs" changed to "bas-reliefs" (pages 62,67) + "choirmaster" is standardized to "choir-master" (pages 118, 121) + "reponse" corrected "response" (page 197) + +Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in +spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Fairfax and His Pride, by Marie Van Vorst + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE *** + +***** This file should be named 32826-8.txt or 32826-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/2/32826/ + +Produced by KD Weeks, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fairfax and His Pride + +Author: Marie Van Vorst + +Release Date: June 15, 2010 [EBook #32826] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE *** + + + + +Produced by KD Weeks, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 300%; margin-top: 2em;">FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE</p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 200%; margin-top: 2em;"><i>A NOVEL</i></p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-top: 2em;">BY</p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 200%; margin-top: 2em;">MARIE VAN VORST</p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-top: 2em;">Author of "Big Tremaine," etc.</p> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-top: 2em;">BOSTON</p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-top: 2em;">SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY</p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-top: 2em;">PUBLISHERS</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%; margin-top: 2em;">Copyright, 1920,</p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-top: 2em;"><span class="smcap">By</span> SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY</p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%; margin-top: 2em;">(INCORPORATED)</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-top: 2em;">TO</p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 100%; margin-top: 2em;">B. VAN VORST</p> +<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 80%; margin-top: 2em;">IN MEMORY OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div style="background-color: #EEE; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;"> +<p class="noindent">Transcriber's Note: Typographical errors have been corrected, +and inconsistent spellings regularized. For details, please see the <a href="#TN">End Notes</a>. The original versions of any +corrections may be viewed <ins class="correction" title="original: the original text">as mouseover text</ins>.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="FAIRFAX_AND_HIS_PRIDE" id="FAIRFAX_AND_HIS_PRIDE"></a>FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead">BOOK I</h2> + +<h2 class="chapterhead">THE KINSMEN</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 1 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>One bitter day in January in the year 1880, when New York was a tranquil +city, a young man stood at the South Ferry waiting for the up-town horse +car. With a few other passengers he had just left the packet which had +arrived in New York harbour that afternoon from New Orleans.</p> + +<p>Antony Fairfax was an utter stranger to the North.</p> + +<p>In his hand he carried a small hand-bag, and by his side on the snow +rested his single valise. Before him waited a red and yellow tram-car +drawn by lean horses, from whose backs the vapour rose on the frosty +air. Muffled to his ears, the driver beat together his hands in their +leather gloves; the conductor stamped his feet. The traveller climbed +into the car, lifting his big bag after him.</p> + +<p>The cold was even more terrible to him than to the conductor and driver. +He had come from the South, where he had left the roses and magnolias in +bloom, and the warmth of the country was in his blood. He dug his feet +into the straw covering the floor of the car, buttoned his coat tight +about his neck, pushed his hands deep in his pockets and sat wondering +at the numbing cold.</p> + +<p>This, then, was the North!</p> + +<p>He watched with interest the few other passengers board the little car: +two fruit vendors and after them were amiably lifted in great bunches of +bananas. Antony asked himself the question whether this new country +would be friendly to him, what would its spirit be toward him,<!-- Page 2 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +he asked this question of the cold winter air the city suddenly took +reality and formed for him out of his dreams. Would it be kind or cruel? +The coming days would answer: meanwhile he could wait. Some places, like +some people whom we meet, at once extend to us a hand; there are some +that even seem to offer an embrace. Through the car blew a sudden icy +blast and New York's welcome to Fairfax was keen as a blow. There was an +actual physical affront in this wind that struck him in the face.</p> + +<p>Suppose the elements were an indication of what the rest would be? But +no—that was ridiculous! There would be certainly warm interiors behind +the snow-fretted panes of the windows in the houses that lined the +streets on either side. There would be warm and cordial hearts to +welcome him somewhere. There would be understanding of heart, indulgence +for youth. He would find open doors for all his ambitions, spurs to his +integrity and effort. He would know how to make use of these ways and +means of progress. For years he had dreamed of the galleries of pictures +and of the museum. It was from this wonderful city whose wideness had +the intense outreach of the unknown that Fairfax had elected to step +into the world.</p> + +<p>New York was to be his threshold. There was no limit to what he intended +to do in his special field of work. From his boyhood he had told himself +that he would become great. He was too young to have discovered the +traitors that hide in the brain and the emptiness of the deepest tears. +He was a pioneer and had the faith of the pioneer. According to him +everything was real, the beauty of form was enchanting, all hearts were +true, and all roads led to fame. His short life focused now at this +hour.</p> + +<p>Life is a series of successive stages to which point of culmination a +man brings all he has of the past and all his hopes. All along the road +these blessed visions crowd, fulminate and form as it were torches, and +these lights mark the road for the traveller. Now all Antony's life came +to a point in this hour. He had longed to go to New York from the day +when in New Orleans he had completed his first bust. He had moulded from +the soft clay on the banks of the levees the head of a famous general,<!-- Page 3 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +who had later become president. He was only twelve years old then, but +his little work bore all the indications of genius.</p> + +<p>He was an artist from the ends of the slender hands to the centre of the +sensitive heart. The childlikeness, the beauty of his nature revealed it +in everything he did; and he was only twenty-two years old.</p> + +<p>As he sat in the horse car, his heart full of hope, his brain teeming +with the ideal, he was an interesting figure to watch, and a fine old +gentleman on his way up town was struck by the brilliancy, the aspect of +the fellow passenger. He studied the young fellow from behind his +evening paper, but the old gentleman could not make up his mind what the +young man was. Aside from the valise at his feet Antony had no other +worldly goods, and aside from the twenty-five dollars in his pocket, he +had no other money. There was nothing about him to suggest the artistic +type: broad-shouldered, muscular, he seemed built for battles and feats +of physical strength, but his face was thoughtful for one so young. His +eyes were clear. "He looks," mused the gentleman, "like a man who has +come home after a very successful journey. I suspect the young fellow is +returning with something resembling the story books' bag of gold." He +humorously fancied even that the treasure might be in the valise on the +straw of the car at the traveller's feet.</p> + +<p>The car tinkled slowly through the cold. After a long while, well above +a street marked Fiftieth, its road appeared to lie in the country. There +were vacant lots on either side; there were low-roofed, ramshackle +shanties; there were stray goats here and there among the rocks. Antony +said to the conductor in a pleasant, Southern voice: "You won't forget +to let me off at 70th Street." He rose at the conductor's signal and the +ringing of the bell. The old gentleman, who was a canon of the Church, +saw as the young man rose that he was lame, that he limped, that he wore +a high, double-soled boot. As Fairfax went out he lifted his hat with a +courteous "Good evening" to his only fellow passenger, for the others +had one by one left the car to go to their different destinations. "Too +bad," thought the canon to himself, "Lame, by Jove! With a smile like +that a man can win the world."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 4 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>The little figure in the corner of the pink sofa had read away the hours +of the short winter afternoon curled up in a ball, her soft red dress, +her soft red cheeks, her soft red lips vivid bits of colour in the +lamplight. She had read through the twilight, until the lamps came to +help her pretty eyes, and like a scholar of old over some problem she +bent above her fairy tale. The volume was unwieldy, and she supported it +on her knees. Close to her side a little boy of six watched the absorbed +face, watched the lamp and the shadows of the lamp on the pink walls of +the room; watched his mother as she sat sewing, but most devotedly of +all he watched through his half-dreaming lids his sister as she read her +story. His sister charmed him very much and terrified him not a little; +she was so quick, so strong, so alive—she rushed him so. He loved his +sister, she was his illustrated library of fairy tales and wonderful +plays, she was his companion, his ruler, his dominator, and his best +friend.</p> + +<p>"Bella," he whispered at the second when she turned the page and he +thought he might venture to interrupt, "Bella, <i>wouldn't</i> you read it to +me?"</p> + +<p>The absorbed child made an impatient gesture, bent her head lower and +snuggled down into her feast. She shook her mane of hair.</p> + +<p>"Gardiner," his mother noticed the appeal, "when will you learn to read +for yourself? You are a big boy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not so vewy big," his tone was indolent, "I'm not so big as +Bella. You said yesterday that you bought me five-year-old clothes."</p> + +<p>In the distance, above the noise of the wind, came the tinkle of the +car-bell. Gardiner silently wished, as he heard the not unmusical sound, +that the eternal, ugly little cars, with the overworked horses, could<!-- Page 5 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +be turned into fairy chariots and this one, as it came ringing and +tinkling along, would stop at the front door and fetch.... A loud ring +at the front door made the little boy spring up.</p> + +<p>His sister frowned and glanced up from her book. "It isn't father!" she +flashed out at him. "He's got his key. You needn't look scared yet, +Gardiner. It is a bundle or a beggar or something or other stupid. Don't +disturb."</p> + +<p>However, the three of them listened, and in another second the door of +the sitting-room was opened by a servant and, behind the maid, on the +bare wood floor of the stairs, there fell a heavy step and a light step, +a light step and a heavy step. Bella never forgot the first time she +heard those footfalls.</p> + +<p>The lady at the table put her sewing down, and at that moment, behind +the servant, a young man came in, a tall young man, holding out his hand +and smiling a wonderful and beautiful smile.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Caroline. I'm Antony Fairfax from New Orleans. I've just reached +New York, and I came, of course, at once to you."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Not very much later, as they all stood about the table talking, Bella +uncurled and once upon her feet, astonishingly tall for twelve years +old, stood by Fairfax's side, while Gardiner, an old-fashioned little +figure in queer home-made clothes, flushed, delicate and timid, leaned +on his mother. The older woman had stopped sewing. With her work in her +lap she was looking at the seventh son of her beautiful sister of whom +she had been gently, mildly envious all her life.</p> + +<p>Bella said brusquely: "You've got an awfully light smile, Cousin +Antony."</p> + +<p>He laughed. "I suppose that comes from an awfully light heart, little +cousin!"</p> + +<p>"Bella," her mother frowned, "don't be personal. You will learn not to +mind her, Antony; she is frightfully spoiled."</p> + +<p>The little girl threw back her hair. "And you've got one light step, +Cousin Antony, and one heavy step.<!-- Page 6 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> No one ever came up our stairs like +that before. How do you do it?"</p> + +<p>The stranger's face clouded. He had been looking at her with keen +delight, and he was caught up short at her words. He put out his +deformed shoe.</p> + +<p>"This is the heavy step."</p> + +<p>Bella's cheeks had been flushed with excitement, but the dark red that +rose at Fairfax's words made her look like a little Indian.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I didn't know!" she stammered. "I didn't know."</p> + +<p>Her cousin comforted her cheerfully. "That's all right. I don't mind. I +fell from a cherry tree when I was a little chap and I've stumped about +ever since."</p> + +<p>His aunt's gentle voice, indifferent and soft, like Gardiner's +murmured—</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't listen to her, Antony, she's a spoiled, inconsiderate little +girl."</p> + +<p>But Bella had drawn nearer the stranger. She leaned on the table close +to him and lifted her face in which her eyes shone like stars. She had +wounded him, and it didn't seem to her generous little heart that she +could quite let it go. And under her breath she whispered—</p> + +<p>"But there's the <i>light</i> step, isn't there, Cousin Antony? And the +smile—the awfully light smile?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax laughed and leaned forward as though he would catch her, but +she had escaped from under his hand like an elusive fairy, and when he +next saw her she was back in her corner with her book on her knees and +her dark hair covering her face.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 7 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>He talked with his aunt for a long while. Her grace and dignity +suggested his mother, but she was not so lovely as the other woman, +whose memory was always thrilling to him. Fairfax ran eagerly on, on +fire with his subject, finally stopping himself with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"I reckon I'm boring you to death, Aunt Caroline."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," she breathed, "how can you say so? How proud she must be of +you!"</p> + +<p>Downstairs in the hall he had left his valise and his little hand +satchel, with the snow melting on them. He came from a household whose +hospitality was as large, as warm, as bright as the sun. He had made a +stormy passage by the packet <i>Nore</i>. His head was beginning to whirl. +From the sofa there was not a sign. Bella read ardently, her hand +pressing a lock of her dark hair across her burning cheek. Gardiner, his +eyes on his cousin, drank in, fascinated, the figure of the big, +handsome young man.</p> + +<p>"He's my relation," he said to himself. "He's one of our family. I know +he can tell stories, and he's a traveller. He came in the fairy cars."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carew tapped her lip with her thimble. "So you will learn to model +here," she murmured. "Now I wonder who would be the best man?"</p> + +<p>And Fairfax responded quickly, "Cedersholm, auntie, he's the only man."</p> + +<p>"My husband," his aunt began to blush, "your uncle knows Mr. Cedersholm +in the Century Club, but I hardly think...."</p> + +<p>Antony threw up his bright head. "I have brought a letter from the +President to Cedersholm and several of the little figures I have +modelled."<!-- Page 8 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, that will be better," and his aunt breathed with relief. Mrs. +Carew's mention of her husband came to Antony like a sharp chill. +Nothing that had been told him of the New York banker who had married +his gentle aunt was calculated to inspire him with a sense of kinship. +It was as though a window had been opened into the bright room. A slight +noise at the door downstairs acted like a current of alarm upon the +family. The colour left his aunt's cheeks, and little Gardiner +exclaimed, "I hear father's key." The child came over to his mother's +side. It seemed discourteous to Antony to suggest going just as his +uncle arrived, so he waited a moment in the strange silence that fell +over the group. In a few seconds Mr. Carew came in and his wife +presented. "My dear, this is Antony Fairfax, my sister Bella's only +child, you know. You remember Bella, Henry."</p> + +<p>A wave of red, which must have been vigorous in order to sweep in and +under the ruddy colour already in Carew's cheeks, testified that he did +remember the beautiful Mrs. Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"I remember her very well," he returned; "is she as handsome as ever? +You have chosen a cold day to land in the North. I presume you came by +boat? We have been two hours coming up town. The cars are blocked by +snow. It's ten degrees below zero to-night. I wish you would see that +ashes are poured on the front steps, Caroline, at once."</p> + +<p>The guest put out his hand. "I must be going. Good night, Aunt +Caroline——good night, Gardiner. Good night, sir."</p> + +<p>Fairfax marked the ineffectuality in his aunt's face. It was neither +embarrassment nor shame, it was impotence. Her expression was not +appealing, but inadequate, and the slender hand that she gave him melted +in his like the snow. There was no grasp there, no stimulus to go on. He +turned to the red figure of the huddled child in the sofa corner.</p> + +<p>"Good night, little cousin."</p> + +<p>Bella dropped her book and sprang up. "Good night," she cried; "why, +you're not going, Cousin Antony?"</p> + +<p>And as the older woman had done she extended her hand. It was only a +small child's hand, but the essential <!-- Page 9 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>was there. The same sex but with +a different hand. It did not melt in Antony's; it lay, it clasped, lost +in his big palm. He felt, nevertheless, the vital little grasp, its +warmth and sweetness against his hand.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Carew had passed out now that he had successfully eliminated from +the mind of the guest any idea that hospitality was to be extended. Once +more the little group were by themselves.</p> + +<p>"There is the Buckingham Hotel," Mrs. Carew ventured. "It's an excellent +hotel; we get croquettes from there when Gardiner's appetite flags. The +children have their hair cut there as well."</p> + +<p>Tired as Fairfax was, rebuffed as he was, he could not but be cheered by +the bright look of the little girl who stood between him and her mother. +She nodded at her cousin.</p> + +<p>"Why, the Buckingham is six dollars a day," she said. "I asked the +barber when he cut Gardiner's hair."</p> + +<p>Fairfax smiled. "I reckon that is a little steep, Bella."</p> + +<p>"It's too far away, anyhow, Cousin Antony, it's a mile; twenty blocks is +a New York mile. There are the Whitcombs." And the child turned to the +less capable woman.</p> + +<p>Her mother exclaimed: "Why, of course, of course, there are the +Whitcombs! My dear Antony," said his aunt, "if you could only stay with +them you would be doing a real charity. They are dear little old maids +and self-supporting women. They sell their work in my women's exchange. +They have a nice little house."</p> + +<p>Bella interrupted. "A dear little red-brick house, Cousin Antony, two +stories, on the next block."</p> + +<p>She tucked her book under her arm as though it were a little trunk she +was tucking away to get ready to journey with him.</p> + +<p>"The Whitcombs would be perfectly enchanted, Antony," urged his aunt, +"they want a lodger badly. It's Number 700, Madison Avenue."</p> + +<p>"It looks like the house that Jack built," murmured Gardiner, dreamily; +"they have just wepainted it bwight wed with yellow doors...."<!-- Page 10 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<p>Fairfax thanked them and went, his heavy and his light step echoing on +the hard stairway of his kinsmen's inhospitable house. Bella watched him +from the head of the stairs, her book under her arm, and below, at the +door, he shouldered his bag and went out into the whirling, whirling +snow. It met him softly, like a caress, but it was very cold. Bella had +said two blocks away to the left, and he started blindly.</p> + +<p>This was his welcome from his own people.</p> + +<p>His Southern home seemed a million miles away; but come what would, he +would never return to it empty-handed as he had left it. He had been +thrust from the door where he felt he had a right to enter. That +threshold he would never darken again—never. A pile of unshovelled snow +blocked his path. As he crossed the street to avoid it, he looked up at +the big, fine house. From an upper window the shade was lifted, and in +the square of yellow light stood the two children, the little boy's head +just visible, and Bella, her dark hair blotting against the light, waved +to him her friendly, cousinly little hand. He forged on through the snow +to "The House that Jack built."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 11 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>He was the seventh son, and his mother was tired of child-bearing when +Antony was born. The others, mediocre, fine fellows, left to their +father's control, had turned out as well as children are likely to turn +out when brought up by a man. One by one, during the interval of years +before Antony came, one by one they had died, and when Mr. Fairfax +himself passed away, he left his wife alone with Antony a baby in her +arms. She then gave herself up to her grief and the contemplation of her +beauty. Adored, spoiled, an indifferent house-keeper, Mrs. Fairfax was, +nevertheless, what is known as a charming creature, and a sincere +artist. She had her studio, her canvases, she wrote plays and songs, and +nothing, with the exception perhaps of realities, for she knew nothing +of them, nothing made less impression on her than did her only child, +until one day she suddenly remembered Antony when it was too late.</p> + +<p>He was like his mother, but she was unconscious of the fact. She only +knew him as a rowdy boy, fond of sports, an alarmingly rough fighter, +the chief in the neighbourhood scuffles, a vigorous, out-of-door boy, at +the head of a yelling, wild little band that made her nerves quiver. +Coloured servants and his Mammy soothed Antony's ills and washed his +bruises. With a feeling of shame he thrust aside his artistic +inclinations, lest his comrades should call him a milksop, but he drew +copiously in secret, when he was kept in at school or housed with a +cold. And from the distance at which she kept him, Antony worshipped his +mother. He admired her hauteur, the proud cold loveliness. His sunny +nature, incapable of morose or morbid brooding, felt no neglect. Late in +spring they too had gone north to a water cure popular <!-- Page 12--><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12</a></span>with Louisiana +people, where a more vigorous growth of trees magnetized Antony, who +climbed like a squirrel and tore his clothes to his heart's content. He +had come in from a tramp and, scandalized by his rough and tumbled +appearance as she caught a glimpse of him swinging along, Mrs. Fairfax +summoned her little son. Rocking idly on the verandah she watched him +obey her call, and there was so much buoyant life in his running step, +such a boy's grace and brightness about him that he charmed her +beauty-loving eyes.</p> + +<p>"Go, wash your face and hands and bring your school books here. I do +hope you have brought your books with you."</p> + +<p>When he reappeared with the volumes of dog-eared school books, she +fingered them gingerly, fell on his drawing portfolio and opened it.</p> + +<p>"Who drew these for you, Tony?"</p> + +<p>"Mother, no one. I did them. They are rotten."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fairfax exclaimed with excitement: "Why, they are quite +extraordinary! You must study with some one."</p> + +<p>Blushing, enraptured, Antony was tongue-tied, although a host of things +rushed to his lips that now he might be permitted to speak to her he +longed to tell everything that was on his heart.</p> + +<p>Neither of them forgot that day. The wistaria was purple in the vines, +and his mother, a shawl with trailing fringe over her shoulders, rocked +indolent and charming in her chair. She had made her husband and her +other sons her slaves, and she remembered now, with a sense of comfort, +that she had another servitor.</p> + +<p>"My shoe is unbuttoned"—she raised her small foot—"button it, Tony."</p> + +<p>The boy fell on his knees, eager to offer his first service to the +lovely woman, but his hands were awkward. He bungled and pinched the +delicate skin. The mother cried out, leaned over and smartly boxed his +ears.</p> + +<p>"Stupid boy, go; send me Emmeline."</p> + +<p>Poor Antony retired, and as Emmeline took his place he heard his mother +murmur—</p> + +<p>"Aren't the cherries ripe yet, Emmy? I'm dying to taste some cherries, +they're so delicious in the North."<!-- Page 13 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>Emmeline had fastened the shoe and lagged away with southern negligence, +leaving Antony's books as he had flung them on the porch, and though it +was an effort to lean over, Mrs. Fairfax did so, picked up the +drawing-book and studied it again.</p> + +<p>"Talented little monkey," she mused, "he has my gift, my looks too, I +think. How straight he walks! He has '<i>l'élégance d'un homme du +monde</i>.'"</p> + +<p>She called herself Creole and prided herself on her French and her +languor.</p> + +<p>She sat musing thus, the book on her knees, when half an hour later they +carried him in to her. He had fallen from a rotten branch on the highest +cherry tree in the grounds.</p> + +<p>He struck on his hip.</p> + +<p>All night she sat by his side. The surgeons had told her that he would +be a cripple for life if he ever walked again. Toward morning he +regained his senses and saw her sitting there. Mrs. Fairfax remembered +Antony that day. She remembered him that day and that night, and his cry +of "Oh, mother, I was getting the cherries for you!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Before they built him his big, awkward boot, when he walked again at +all, Antony went about on crutches, debarred from boyish games. In order +to forget his fellows and the school-yard and "the street" he modelled +in the soft delicious clay, making hosts of creatures, figures, heads +and arms and hands, and brought them in damp from the clay of the levee. +His own small room was a studio, peopled by his young art. No sooner, +however, was he strong again and his big shoe built up, than his +boy-self was built up as well, and Antony, lame, limping Antony, was out +again with his mates. He never again could run as they did, but he +contrived to fence and spar and box, and strangely enough, he grew tall +and strong. One day he came into his little room from a ball game, for +he was the pitcher of the nine, and found his mother handling his clayey +creatures.</p> + +<p>"Tony, when did you do these?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they are nothing. Leave them alone, mother. I meant to fire them +all out."<!-- Page 14 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But this is an excellent likeness of the General, Tony."</p> + +<p>He threw down his baseball mask and gloves and began to gather up +unceremoniously the little objects which had dried crisp and hard.</p> + +<p>"Don't destroy them," his mother said; "I want every one of them. And +you must stop being a rowdy and a ruffian, Antony—you are an artist."</p> + +<p>He was smoothing between his palms one of the small figures.</p> + +<p>"Professor Dufaucon could teach you something—not much, poor old +gentleman, but something elementary. To-morrow, after school, you must +go to take your first lesson."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fairfax took the boy herself, with the bust of the famous General +in her hands, and afterwards sent the bust to Washington, to its subject +himself, who was pleased to commend the portrait made of him by the +little Southern boy from the clay of the New Orleans levee.</p> + +<p>Professor Dufaucon taught him all he knew of art and something of what +he knew of other things. In the small hall-room of the poor French +drawing-master, Antony talked French, learned the elements of the study +of beauty and listened to the sweet strains of the Professor's flute +when he played, "J'ai perdu ma tourterelle...."</p> + +<p>In everything that he modelled Antony tried to portray his mother's +face. As she had been indifferent to him before, so ardently Mrs. +Fairfax adored him now. She poured out her tenderness on this crippled +boy. He had been known to say to his Mammy that he was glad that he had +fallen from the cherry tree because his mother had never kissed him +before, and her tears and her love, he thought, were worth the price. +She was as selfish with him in her affection as she had been in her +indifference. She would not hear of college, and he learned what he +could in New Orleans. But the day came when his mistress, art, put in a +claim so seductive and so strong that it clouded everything else. +Professor Dufaucon died, and in the same year Antony sent a statuette to +the New York Academy of Design. It was accepted, and the wine of that +praise went to his head.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fairfax, broken as no event in her life had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> able to break +her, saw Antony leave for the North to seek his fortune and his fame.</p> + +<p>She owned her house in Charles Street, and lived on in it, and the +little income that she had barely sufficed for her needs. She showed +what race and what pride she had when she bade Antony good-bye, standing +under the jasmine vine. She never wore any other dress than a loose +morning robe of a white or a soft mauve material. Standing there, with a +smile of serene beauty, she waved her handkerchief to him as she saw him +go limping down the walk from the garden to the street and put of sight. +True to her type then, she fainted dead away, and Emmeline and Mammy +brought her to.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He thought of things in Miss Whitcomb's front room. There was nothing +fairylike about the red-brick dwelling, although at the corner of the +New York Avenue these two stories seemed diminutive and out of place. He +made with the timid maiden ladies his own timid arrangement. He was so +poor and they were so poor that the transaction was timorous—Antony on +his part was afraid that they might not take him in, they, on theirs, +were terrified lest the lodger would not come in. When at length they +left him alone, his first feeling was gratitude for a room of any kind +that represented shelter from the Northern cold, but when he had +divested himself of his coat, he realized that the little unheated room +was as cold as the outside. A meagre bed, a meagre bureau and washstand, +two unwelcoming chairs, these few inanimate objects were shut in with +Antony, and unattractive as they were, they were appealing in their +scant ugliness. Before the window slight white curtains hung, the same +colour as the snow without. They hung like little shrouds. Around the +windows of his Southern home the vine had laid its beauty, and the +furnishings had been comfortable and tasteful. The homelessness of this +interior, to the young man who had never passed a night from under his +own roof, struck with a chill, and he thought of the sitting-room in the +vast house of his kinsmen not a block away. His kinspeople had not even +asked him to break bread. Dressed as he was, he lay down exhausted on +his bed, and when a knock came and Miss Whitcomb's voice invited him to +supper, Fairfax sprang up and answered as out of a dream.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>His fortune of twenty-five dollars he divided into five equal packets. +His weekly bill with the old ladies, to whom his aunt had begged Antony +to go <i>in charity</i>, was to be six dollars. There would of course be +extras, car-fare and so forth. With economy—it would last. Antony saw +everything on the bright side; youth and talent can only imagine that +the best will last for ever. Decidedly, before his money gave out he +would have found some suitable employment.</p> + +<p>With the summons for supper he flung on his coat, plunged downstairs and +into the dining-room, and shone upon his hostesses over their tea and +preserves. The new boarder chatted and planned and listened, jovial and +kindly, his soul's good-fellowship and sweet temper shedding a radiance +in the chill little room. Miss Eulalie Whitcomb was in the sixties, and +she fell in love with Antony in a motherly way. Miss Mitty was fifteen +years her junior, and she fell in love with Antony as a woman might. +Fairfax never knew the poignant ache he caused in that heart, virginal +only, cold only because of the prolonged winter of her maidenhood.</p> + +<p>That night he heard his aunt's praises sung, and listened, going back +with a pang to the picture the family group had made before his +home-loving eyes.</p> + +<p>Such a marvellous woman, Mr. Fairfax (she must call him Antony if he was +to live with them. Miss Mitty couldn't. She must. Well, Mr. Antony +then), such a brilliant and executive woman. Mrs. Carew had founded the +Women's Exchange for the work of indigent ladies, such a dignified, +needed charity.</p> + +<p>Miss Mitty knew a little old lady who made fifteen hundred dollars in +rag dolls alone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Dear me," said Fairfax, "couldn't you pass me off for a niece, Miss +Whitcomb? I can make clay figures that will beat rag dolls to bits."</p> + +<p>Fifteen hundred dollars! He mused on his aunt's charity.</p> + +<p>"And another," murmured Miss Eulalie, "another friend of ours made +altogether ten thousand dollars in chicken pies."</p> + +<p>"Ah," exclaimed the lodger, "that's even easier to believe. And does my +uncle Carew make pies or dolls?"</p> + +<p>"He is a pillar of the Church," said his hostess gravely, "a very +distinguished gentleman, Mr. Antony. He bowed once to one of us in the +street. Which of us was it, sister?"</p> + +<p>Not Miss Mitty, at any rate, and she was inclined to think that Mr. +Carew had made a mistake, whichever way it had been!</p> + +<p>Their lodger listened with more interest when they spoke of the +children. The little creatures went to school near the Whitcomb house. +Gardiner was always ailing. Miss Mitty used to watch them from her +window.</p> + +<p>"Bella runs like a deer down the block, you never saw such nimble legs, +and her skirts are <i>so</i> short! They <i>should</i> come down, Mr. Antony, and +her hair is quite like a wild savage's."</p> + +<p>Miss Eulalie had called Bella in once to mend a hole in her stocking +"really too bad for school."</p> + +<p>"She should have gone into the Women's Exchange," suggested her cousin, +"and employed some one who was out of orders for chicken pies or dolls!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That night, under the gas jet and its blue and ghastly light, Fairfax +tried to write to his mother, began his letter and left it as he began. +"My dearest Mother...." She had told him little of his kinspeople, the +sisters had never been friends. Nevertheless, he quite understood that, +whatever she might have thought of the eccentricities of his uncle, this +welcome to her boy would cut her cruelly. She had fully expected him to +be a guest at the Carews.</p> + +<p>"My dearest Mother...." He began to draw idly on the page. A spray of +jasmine uncurled its leaves beneath <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>his hand. Across his shoulders he +felt the coldness of the room where he sat. A few more hurried strokes +and Fairfax had indicated on the page before him a child's head—an +upturned face. As he rounded the chin, Antony saw that the sketch would +be likely to charm him, and he was tired out and cold. He threw down his +pen, dragged out his valise, opened it, took out his things and prepared +for his first night's rest in the city of his unfriendly kinsmen.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>If it had been only spring, or any season less brutal than this winter, +whose severity met him at times with a fresh rebuff and a fresh +surprise—if it had been spring, Antony would have procrastinated, hung +back, unaccustomed as he was to taking quick, decisive action, but the +ugliness of the <ins class="correction" title="original: surroundings at Miss Whitcombs'">surroundings at Miss Whitcomb's</ins> and the bitter winter +weather forced him to a decision. In the three following days he visited +every one of the few studios that existed at that period in New York. +What were his plans? What were his ideas? But, when he came face to face +with the reality of the matter-of-fact question, he had no plans. +Idealistic, impractical, untried and unschooled, he faced the fact that +he had no plan or idea whatsoever of how to forge his life: he never had +had any and his mother had given him no advice. He wanted to work at +art, but how and where he did not know. Some of the studios could use +models—Fairfax burned at the thought. He could not study as a pupil and +live on air. No one wanted practical workmen.</p> + +<p>The man he most wanted to see was Gunner Cedersholm. He had fallen in +love with the works of the Swedish master as he had seen them in +photograph and plaster cast at the exposition in New Orleans. He had +read all the accounts in the papers he could find of the great Swede. +When he learned that Gunner Cedersholm was in Europe and that he should +not be able to see him until spring, poor Antony longed to stow himself +on a ship and follow the artist.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the insignificant fact that an insignificant piece of +modelling had been accepted by an inadvertent jury and placed in the New +York Academy, began to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>appear to him ridiculous. He had not ventured to +mention this to any one, and the fact that at his fingers' ends lay +undoubted talent began to seem to him a useless thing as well. The only +moment of balm he knew came to him one afternoon in the Metropolitan +Museum. This museum was at that period sparsely dowered. Fairfax stood +before a plaster figure of Rameses, and for the first time the young +artist saw around him the effigies of an art long perfect, long retained +and long dead.</p> + +<p>Turning down through the Egyptian room, his overcoat on his arm, for, +thank Heaven, the place was warmed, his beauty-loving eyes fell on the +silent objects whose presence was meed and balm. He took in the +nourishment of the food to his senses and the colour in his cheeks +brightened, the blue deepened in his eyes. He was repeating the line: +"Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time ..." when two living objects +caught his attention, in a room beyond devoted to a collection of +shells. Before a low case stood the figure of a very little boy in a +long awkward ulster and jockey cap, and by his side, in a conspicuously +short crimson skirt and a rough coat, was a little girl. Her slender +legs and her abundant hair that showered from beneath a crimson +tam-o'-shanter recalled Miss Mitty's description of Bella; but Antony +knew her for herself when she turned.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony!" She rushed at him. Childlike, the two made no reference +to the lapse of time between his first visit and this second meeting. +Gardiner took his hand and Antony thought the little boy clung to it, +seized it with singular appealing force, as though he made a refuge of +the strong clasp. Bella greeted him with her eager, brilliant look, then +she rapidly glanced round the room, deserted save for themselves.</p> + +<p>"Something perfectly fearful happened last week, Cousin Antony. Yes, +Gardiner, I will tell. Anyhow, it's all over now, thank the stars." (He +learned to hear her thank these silent heavenly guardians often.) "What +do you think? Last week we came here, Gardiner and me, we come often. We +play with the ancient Egyptians. I'm Cleopatra and Gardiner's' different +things, and there's a guardian here that we specially like because he +taught <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>us things useful for school if you have a weak memory. This is +how you remember the poets—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Pope,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Go upstairs and get some soap.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>So you see we can't forget them like that. And Shakespeare's birth and +death I never could remember till he taught me—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Fifteen hundred and sixty-four</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Shakespeare first was heard to roar.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Sixteen hundred and sixteen</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Billy Shakespeare last was seen.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>When your memory's weak it's a great help, Cousin Antony. Then what do +you think Gardiner did?"</p> + +<p>Here Fairfax was more than ever sensible of the little boy's clinging +hand. He looked down at the sensitive, flushed face, and the fascinated +eyes of Gardiner were fixed on the vigorous, ardent little sister.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Antony, cordially, "I reckon it's not anything very bad, +little cousin."</p> + +<p>He led them to a bench under the calm serene chaperonage of Rameses who +kept sentinel over them.</p> + +<p>"Bad," whispered Bella, "why it was the worst thing you can possibly +imagine, Cousin Antony. He stole."</p> + +<p>The child's voice dropped solemnly and the silence that fell in the +museum was impressive, even though the situation was humorous. Gardiner, +whom Antony had lifted on his knee, raised his head and looked his +cousin mildly in the eyes.</p> + +<p>"It was a shell," he said slowly, "a blue and bwown shell. Nobody was +looking and I took it home."</p> + +<p>He confessed calmly and without shame, and his sister said—</p> + +<p>"The guardian was cleaning the cases. I think they trusted us, Cousin +Antony, we were alone here, and it makes it much worse. When we got home +Gardiner showed it to me, and we have had to wait a week to come back +and restore it."</p> + +<p>"I westored it," repeated the boy, "Bella made me."</p> + +<p>With his diminutive hand he made a shell and discoursed regretfully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"It was a perfectly lovely shell. It's over there in its place. Bella +made me put it back again."</p> + +<p>"The worst of it is," said the sister, "that he doesn't seem to care. He +doesn't mind being a thief."</p> + +<p>"Well," laughed Antony, "don't you trouble about it, Bella honey, you +have been a policeman and a judge and a benefactor all in one, and you +have brought the booty back. Come," said Fairfax, "there's the man that +shuts us out and the shells in, and we must go." And they were all three +at the park gate in the early twilight before the children asked him—</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony, where have you been all these days?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He saw the children to their own door, and on the way little Gardiner +complained that his shoes were tight, so his cousin carried him, and +nearly carried Bella, who, linking her arm firmly in his, walked close +to him, and, unobserved by Antony, with sympathetic gallantry, copied +his limp all the way home.</p> + +<p>Their companionship had been of the most perfect. He learned where they +roller skated, and which were the cracks to avoid in the pavement, and +which were the treasure lots. He saw where, in dreary excavations, where +plantain and goatweed grew, Bella found stores of quartz and flints, and +where she herded the mangy goat when the Irish ragpickers were out +ragpicking.</p> + +<p>Under his burden of Gardiner Antony's heart had, nevertheless, grown +light, and before they had reached the house he had murmured to them, in +his rich singing voice, Spartacus' address to the gladiators, and where +it says: "Oh, Rome, Rome, thou hast been a tender nurse to me; thou hast +given to the humble shepherd boy muscles of iron and a heart of +steel,"—where these eloquent words occurred he was obliged to stand +still on Madison Avenue, with the little boy in his arms, to give the +lines their full impressiveness.</p> + +<p>Once deposited on the steps, where Fairfax looked to see rise the +effigies of the ashes his uncle had ordered scattered, Gardiner seemed +hardly able to crawl.</p> + +<p>Trevelyan encouraged him: "Brace up, Gardiner, be a man."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>And the child had mildly responded that "his bones were tired." His +sister supported him maternally and helped him up, nodding to Antony +that she would look after her little brother, and Antony heard the boy +say—</p> + +<p>"Six and six are twelve, Bella, and you're both, and I'm only one of +them. How can you expect...?"</p> + +<p>Antony expected by this time nothing.</p> + +<p>And when that night <ins class="correction" title="original: the eager Miss Whitcombs">the eager Miss Whitcomb</ins> handed him a letter from +his aunt, with the heading 780, Madison Avenue, in gold, he eagerly tore +it open.</p> + +<p>"My dear Antony," the letter ran, "the children should have drawing +lessons, Gardiner especially draws constantly; I think he has talent. +Will you come and teach them three times a week? I don't know about +remuneration for such things, except as the school bills indicate. Shall +we say twenty dollars a term—and I am not clear as to what a 'term' is! +In music lessons, for instance—" (She had evidently made some +calculations and scratched it out, and here the price was dropped for +ever and ever.)</p> + +<p>To an unpractical woman such a drop is always soothing, and to a +sensitive pauper probably no less so. The letter ended with the +suggestion to Antony that he meet them in their own pew on Sunday +morning at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, and that he return with +them for dinner.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 24 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>He <ins class="correction" title="original: succeceded">succeeded</ins> in keeping from the kind and curious interest of the +little ladies the state of his mind and his pocket, and his intentions. +It had not been easy, for when their courteous hints brought no +satisfaction, Miss Eulalie and Miss Mitty asked Fairfax out boldly what +he "was going to do"? Miss Mitty, on whom the task of doing up the hall +room had fallen, dreamed over the sketches she found (in his valise). +Spellbound, she held in her hand a small head of a dryad, and modestly +covered up with her handkerchief a tiny figure whose sweet nudity had +startled her. Antony parried questions. He had come to seek Fortune. So +far it rolled before him with the very devil in its tantalizing wheel, +but he did not say this to Miss Whitcomb. Miss Eulalie suggested to him +that his uncle "could make a place for him in the bank," but Fairfax's +short reply cooled her enthusiasm, and both ladies took their cue. In +the first week he had exhausted his own projects and faced the horrible +thought of disaster.</p> + +<p>His nature was not one to harbour anything but sweetness, and the next +day, Sunday, when the sunlight poured upon New York, he thought of the +little cousins and decided to accept his aunt's invitation. The sky was +cloudless and under its hard blue the city looked colder and whiter than +ever. It was a sky which in New Orleans would have made the birds sing. +The steeples sang, one slender tower rocking as its early ringing bells +sang out its Sunday music on the next corner of the street, and Antony +listened as he dressed, and recognized the melody. He found it beautiful +and sang in his young voice as he shaved and tied his cravat, and made +himself impeccable for the Presbyterian Church. His own people were High +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>Church Episcopalians, and from the tone and music of these bells he +believed that they rang in an Episcopal building. There was no +melancholy in the honied tone of the chime, and it gave him a glow that +went with him happily throughout the dreary day.</p> + +<p>He found himself between the children in the deep dark pew, where the +back of the seat was especially contrived to seize the sinner in a +sensitive point, and it clutched Antony and made him think of all the +crimes that he had ever committed. Fortunately it met Bella and Gardiner +at their heads. Antony's position between the children was not without +danger. He was to serve as a quieter for Bella's nerves, spirits and +perpetual motion, and to guard against Gardiner's somnolence. He +remained deaf to Bella's clear whispers, and settled Gardiner +comfortably and propped him up. Finally the little boy fell securely +against the cousinly arm. At the end of the pew, Mr. and Mrs. Carew were +absorbed, she in her emotional interest in the pastor, a brilliant +Irishman who thundered for an hour, and Mr. Carew in his own importance +and his position. Antony remembered Miss Mitty and that his uncle was a +pillar of the Church, and he watched the pillar support in grave +pomposity his part of the edifice.</p> + +<p>But neither time nor place nor things eternal nor things present +affected the little girl at Antony's side. Sunk in the deep pew, +unobserved and sheltered by Antony's figure, she lived what she called +her "Sunday pew life," lived it as ardently as she did everything. After +a short interval in which she pored over the open hymnbook, she +whispered to him —— ——</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony, I have learned the whole hymn, ten verses in five +minutes. Hear me."</p> + +<p>He tried to ignore her, but he was obliged to hear her as with great +feeling and in a soft droning undertone she murmured the hymn through.</p> + +<p>"'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.' Isn't it perfectly beautiful, +Cousin Antony?"</p> + +<p>This done, she took off her yellow kid gloves carefully, finger by +finger, and blew them out into a shapely little hand like Zephyr's, to +the dangerous amusement of a child in the next pew. Antony confiscated +the gloves. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>By squeezing up her eyes and making a lorgnon of her pretty +bare hand, Bella scrutinized the solemn preacher. Antony severely +refused her pencils and paper and remained deaf to her soft questions, +and, thrown on her own resources, Bella extracted her father's huge +Bible from the rack and, to Fairfax's relief, with much turning of the +leaves she finally found a favourite chapter in Revelation and settled +down and immersed herself in the Apocalypse. She read with fervour, her +bonnet back on her rebellious hair, her legs crossed in defiance of +every rule of polite demeanour. Something of the sermon's eloquent, +passionate savagery was heard by Fairfax, and at the close, as the +preacher rose to his climax, Bella heard too. At the text, "There shall +be no more night there, neither candle nor light of the sun," she shut +her book.</p> + +<p>"He is preaching from my chapter, Cousin Antony," she whispered; "isn't +it perfectly beautiful?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax learned to wait for this phrase of hers, a ready approval of +sensuous and lovely and poetic things. He learned to wait for it as one +does for a word of praise from a sympathetic companion. Gardiner woke up +and yawned, and Fairfax got him on his feet; his tumbled blonde head +reached just to the hymnbook rail. He was a pretty picture with his +flushed soft cheeks, red as roses, and his sleepy eyes wide. So they +stood for the solemn benediction, "The love of God ... go with you ... +always."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 27 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>He decided not to be the one to shut doors against himself. If life as +it went on chose with backward fling to close portals behind him of its +own accord, he at least would not assist fate, and with both hands, +generously, as his heart was generous, Fairfax threw all gates wide. +Therefore with no <i>arričre pensée</i> or any rankling thought, he went on +the appointed afternoon to teach his little cousins the rudiments of +drawing.</p> + +<p>The weather continued brutal, grew more severe rather, and smartly +whipped him up the avenue and hurled him into the house. He arrived +covered with snow, white as Santa Claus, and he heard by the voices at +the stair head that he was welcome. The three were alone, the upper +floor had been assigned to the drawing party. It was a big room full of +forgotten things, tons of books that people had ceased to want to read, +the linen chest, a capital hiding-place where a soft hand beneath the +lid might prevent a second Mistletoe Bough tragedy. There were old +trunks stored there, boxes which could not travel any more, one of which +had been on a wedding journey and still contained, amongst less poetic +objects, mother's wedding slippers. There was a dear disorder in the big +room whose windows overlooked Madison and Fifth Avenues, and the +distant, black wintry trees of Central Park. A child on either side of +him, Fairfax surveyed his workshop, and he thought to himself, "I could +model here, if I only had some clay."</p> + +<p>Bella had already installed herself. Their tables and their boards and a +prodigal outlay of pencils and paper were in themselves inspiring.</p> + +<p>"There is no chair high enough for Gardiner," Bella said, "but we can +build him one up out of books."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'd wather sit on Cousin Antony's lap," said the little boy; "built-up +books shake me off so, Bella."</p> + +<p>Both children wore blue gingham play aprons. Fairfax told them they +looked like real workmen in a real studio, with which idea they were +much delighted.</p> + +<p>"Gardiner looks like a charity child," said his sister, "in that apron, +and his hair's too long. It ought to be cut, but I gave my solemn word +of honour that I wouldn't cut it again."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go to your famous Buckingham barber?" asked the cousin.</p> + +<p>"It's too far for Gardiner to walk," she returned, "and we have lost our +last ten cents. Besides, it's thirty-five cents to get a hair-cut."</p> + +<p>Fairfax had placed the boy before his drawing board, and confiscated a +long piece of kitchen bread, telling Bella that less than a whole loaf +was enough for an eraser, extracted the rubber from Gardiner's mouth, +and sat down by the little boy's side.</p> + +<p>"There's not much money in this house, Cousin Antony," Bella informed +him when the séance opened. "Please let me use the soft pencils, will +you? They slide like delicious velvet."</p> + +<p>Fairfax made an equal division of the implements, avoiding a scene, and +made Bella a straight line across the page.</p> + +<p>"Draw a line under it."</p> + +<p>"But any one can draw a straight line," said Bella, scornfully, "and I +don't think they are very pretty."</p> + +<p>"Don't you?" he answered; "the horizon is pretty, don't you think? And +the horizon is a straight line."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," said Gardiner, "the howizon is where the street cars fall +over into the sunset."</p> + +<p>"Gardiner's only six," said Bella, apologetically, "you mustn't expect +much of him, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>She curled over the table and bent her head and broke her pencils one by +one, and Fairfax guided Gardiner's hand and watched the little girl. She +was lightly and finely made. From under her short red skirt the pretty +leg in its woollen stocking swung to and fro. There was a hole in the +stocking heel, visible above the tiny, tiny slipper. Through the crude +dark collar of the gingham <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>apron came her dark head and its wild +torrent of curling hair, wonderful hair, tangled and unkempt, curling +roundly at the ends, and beneath the locks the curve of her cheek was +like ivory. She was a Southern beauty—her little red mouth twisted awry +over her drawing.</p> + +<p>"I thought dwawing was making pictures, Cousin Antony; if I'd have known +it was <i>lines</i>, I wouldn't have taken," said his youngest cousin.</p> + +<p>"You have to begin with those things, old man. I'll wipe your hands off +on my handkerchief."</p> + +<p>"Please do," said the little boy; "my hands leak awful easy."</p> + +<p>His sister laughed softly, and said to herself in an undertone—</p> + +<p>"I've drawn my lines long—long—ago, and now I'm making...."</p> + +<p>"Don't make anything, Bella, until I tell you to," commanded her +teacher, and glanced over her page where she had covered the paper with +her big formless handwriting, "Dramatiss personi, first act."</p> + +<p>"Why, I had a lovely idea for a play, Cousin Antony, and I thought I'd +just jot it down. We're the company, Gardiner and I, and we give plays +here every now and then. You can play too, if you like, and say +'Spartacus.' Ah, say it now."</p> + +<p>Trevelyan felt the appealing little hand of the boy stealing into his.</p> + +<p>"Do, please," he urged; "I don't want ever to draw again, never, never."</p> + +<p>"Hush," said his sister severely, "you mustn't say that, Gardiner; +Cousin Antony is our drawing master."</p> + +<p>Gardiner's sensitive face flushed. "I thought he was only my cousin," +said the child, and continued timidly, "I'll dwaw a howizon now and then +if you want me to, but I'd wather not."</p> + +<p>They left their tables. Fairfax said, "I'm no good at teaching, Bella." +He stretched his arms. "I reckon you're not much good at learning +either. Gardiner's too young and you're not an artist."</p> + +<p>"Say about the 'timid shepherd boy,' Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>He had taken his coat off in the furnace-heated room and stood in his +snowy shirt sleeves, glad to be released <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>from the unwelcome task of +teaching restless children. He loved the ring and the thrill of the +words and declaimed the lines enthusiastically.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"You look like a gladiator, Cousin Antony," Bella cried; "you must have +a perfectly splendid muscle."</p> + +<p>He bared his right arm, carried away by his recitation and the picture +evoked. The children admired the sinews and the swelling biceps. +Gardiner touched it with his little fingers; the muscular firm arm, +ending in the vigorous wrist, held their fascinated gaze. The sculptor +himself looked up it with pardonable approval.</p> + +<p>"Feel mine," said Gardiner, crimson with the exertion of lifting his +tiny arm to the position of his cousin's.</p> + +<p>"Immense, Gardiner!" Fairfax complimented, "immense."</p> + +<p>"Feel mine," cried Bella, and the sculptor touched between his fingers +the fine little member.</p> + +<p>"Great, little cousin!"</p> + +<p>"I'll be the gladiator's wife and applaud him from the Coliseum and +throw flowers on him."</p> + +<p>Fairfax lingered with them another hour, laughing at his simplicity in +finding them such companions. With compunction, he endeavoured to take +up his lesson again with Bella, unwilling and recalcitrant. She drew a +few half-hearted circles, a page of wobbly lines, and at the suspicion +of tears Fairfax desisted, surprised to find how the idea of tears from +her touched him. Then in the window between them, he watched as the +children told him they always did, for "mother's car to come home."</p> + +<p>"She is sharping," exclaimed Gardiner, slowly; "she has to sharp very +hard, my mother does. She comes back in the cars, only she never comes," +he finished with patient fatality.</p> + +<p>"Silly," exclaimed his sister, "she always comes at dinner-time. And we +bet on the cars, Cousin Antony. Now let's say it will be the +seventy-first. We have to put it far away off," she explained, "'cause +we're beginning early."</p> + +<p>Fairfax left them, touched by their patience in watching for the mother +bird. He promised to return soon, soon, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>to go on with his wonderful +tales. As he went downstairs Bella called after him.</p> + +<p>"But you didn't say <i>which</i> car you bet on, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>And Fairfax called back in his Southern drawl: "I reckon she'll come in +a pumpkin chariot." And he heard their delighted giggles as he limped +downstairs.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 32 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>He avoided his uncle, Mr. Carew, and made up his mind that if the master +of the house were brusque to him, he would not return, were the +threshold worn never so dear by little feet. Bella had the loveliest +little feet a fellow connoisseur of plastic beauty could wish to see, +could wish to watch twinkle in run-down slippers, in scuffled boots—in +boots where a button or two was always lacking—and once when she kicked +off her strap slipper at a lesson Fairfax saw, through a hole in the +stocking, one small perfect toe—a toe of Greek marble perfection, a +most charming, snowy, rosy bit of flesh, and he imagined how adorable +the little foot must be.</p> + +<p>To an audience, composed of a dreamy boy and an ardent, enthusiastic +little girl, Fairfax confessed his talent, spoke of his hopes, of his +art, even hinted at genius, and one day fetched his treasures, his bits +of moistened clay, to show the children.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they are perfectly <i>beautiful</i>, Cousin Antony. Wouldn't you do +Gardiner's head for mother?"</p> + +<p>On this day, with his overcoat and hat, Fairfax had laid by a paper +parcel. It was stormy, and around the upper windows the snow blew and +the winds cried. Propped up by pillows, Gardiner, in his red flannel +dressing-gown, nestled in the corner of the sofa. Antony regarded Bella, +red as a cardinal bird in her homely dress; he had seen her wear no +other dress and would have regretted the change.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll do Gardiner one of these days, but I reckon I'll make another +study to-day."</p> + +<p>"Me?" Bella shook back her mane.</p> + +<p>Her cousin considered her with an impersonal eye, whose expression she +did not understand to be the artist's gauge and measure.<!-- Page 33 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Bella," he said shortly, "I'm going to make a cast of your foot."</p> + +<p>She was sitting on the sofa and drew her feet under her.</p> + +<p>"Only just my foot, Cousin Antony, not all of me?"</p> + +<p>"Come now," said the sculptor, "it won't take long. It's heaps of +sport."</p> + +<p>He unrolled the paper parcel he had brought, unfolding a mass of snowy, +delectable looking powder.</p> + +<p>"Ask old Ann to fetch us a couple of basins, deep ones, some water and a +little oil and salt."</p> + +<p>When after toilsome journeys up and down the stairs of the four-storied +house, the things had been fetched, Fairfax mixed his plaster, eagerly +watched by the children. Perched on the edge of the divan, Bella brooded +over the foaming, marvellous concoction, into whose milky bubbles she +saw art fall like a star—a genius blossom like a flower. She gazed at +Antony's hands as they plunged in and came out dripping; gazed as though +she expected him to bring forth some peerless image his touch had called +to life. His shirt sleeves rolled up over his fine arms, his close +high-cropped and sunny hair warm upon his brow, his eyes sparkling, he +bent an impassioned face over the milky plaster.</p> + +<p>"Now," Fairfax said, "hurry along, Bella, I'm ready!"</p> + +<p>She responded quietly. "I'm here. It's like a snow pie, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>"Take off your shoe and stocking."</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony!"</p> + +<p>A painful flush of red, the drawing under her more closely of the little +legs, showed how far she had been from comprehending.</p> + +<p>"Casts are taken from life, Bella," informed her cousin practically, +"you'll see. I'm going to make a model from life, then watch what +happens. I reckon you're not afraid, honey?"</p> + +<p>Gardiner kicked his foot out from under the rugs. "Do mine."</p> + +<p>With the first timidity Antony had seen her display, Bella divested +herself of her shoe and drew off her dark stocking, and held him out the +little naked foot, a charming, graceful concession to art.<!-- Page 34 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's clean," she said simply.</p> + +<p>He took it in his big hand and it lay like a pearl and coral thing in +his palm. Bella did not hear his murmured artistic ecstasies. Fairfax +deftly oiled the foot, kneeling before it as at a shrine of beauty. He +placed it in one of the basins and poured the plaster slowly over it, +sternly bidding her to control her giggles and her "ouches" as it could +not harm.</p> + +<p>"Keep perfectly still. Do not budge till the plaster sets."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's setting already," she told him, "<i>hard</i>! You won't break off +my foot, Cousin Antony?"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense."</p> + +<p>Whilst the cast set he recited for them "St. Agnes's Eve," a great +favourite with the children, beyond their comprehension, but their +hearts nevertheless stirred to the melody. As Fairfax leant down to +break the model Bella helped him bravely.</p> + +<p>"<i>Now</i>, might I put on my stocking, Cousin Antony?"</p> + +<p>He had been pouring the warm plaster into the mould and had forgotten +her, and was reproached.</p> + +<p>The twilight gathered and made friends with the storm as they waited for +the cast to harden. Old Ann came in and lighted the gas above the group +on the old divan.</p> + +<p>"Be the hivenly powers! Mr. Fairfax, ye've here a power of a dirt."</p> + +<p>Fairfax, who had taken a fancy to the patient old creature, who had' +known his mother and was really more a slave to the children than his +own black Mammy, bore the scolding peacefully.</p> + +<p>"Ye're the childest of the three, sor."</p> + +<p>Antony caught her arm. "Wait and see, old Ann," and he kneeled before +the cooled plaster and broke his model, released his work and held up +the cast.</p> + +<p>"For the love of hiven, Mr. Antony, it's Miss Bella's foot ye've got, +sor."</p> + +<p>She stared as at a miracle, then at her little lady as though she +expected to see a missing member. Bella danced around it, pleaded for +it, claimed it. Gardiner was allowed to feel how cold it was, and +Fairfax took it home in his overcoat pocket, anxious to get safely away +<!-- Page 35 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>with it before his uncle came and smashed it, as he had the feeling +that Mr. Carew would some day smash everything for him. That night when +she undressed Bella regarded with favour the foot that had been +considered worthy of a cast and extracted sacredly a bit of plaster +which she found between the toes, and Antony Fairfax limped home to the +House that Jack Built, his heavy step lighter for the fairy foot, the +snow-white, perfect little foot he carried triumphantly in his pocket.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 36 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>He was too sincerely an artist not to make pictures of all he saw, and, +being sincere, he made his lines true, and then outlined the sketch, +softening, moulding, moulding.... His aunt's gentle inefficiency (she +was kind to him, affectionate, and called him "her dear boy") was to +Fairfax only charming, feminine softness, and he grew fond of Mrs. +Carew, indulgent to her faults, listened half convinced to her +arguments, admired her in her multitudinous toilettes, in all of which +she was original, found her lovely and graceful. Her eyes were +deer-like—not those of a startled fawn, but like a doe's who stands +gazing at a perfect park, whose bosks she takes to be real forests. Mrs. +Carew knew absolutely nothing of life. Fairfax at twenty-three, knew +less of it, and he could not criticize her vision. He saw his uncle +through Bella's eyes, but he never passed the master of the house in the +halls, taking good care to escape him. It was not easy to associate fear +with Bella; her father had not impressed her free mind with this +sentiment.</p> + +<p>"Father," she told Antony, "is the most important man in New York City, +the cook said so. He might be President, but he doesn't want to; he +likes his own work best. Father's work is making money, and he quite +understands how hard such a thing is. That is why there is so little in +the house, Cousin Antony. Even the cook hadn't a cent when I asked her +to lend me a penny. We used to have five cents a week, but now mother +has to be so careful that we're hard up. It's awful when there are +treats on, Cousin Antony, because you see, you ought to do your share. +That is why Gardiner and I always stick around together and say we don't +like children.... No," she said firmly, "I really <i>couldn't</i> <!-- Page 37 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>take five +cents, Cousin Antony; thank you ever so much. We're bound in honour not +to; we promised never to take from a stranger; yes, I know you're not a +stranger, and I forget to whom we promised, but I really couldn't, +Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carew could, however. One day, on her way to the magic car, as it +waited with its lean horses and jingle-jangle to take the lady +"sharping," that day she borrowed two dollars from Fairfax, who, being a +pauper, had always money in his pocket; having in reality nowhere else +to keep it—and having none to keep elsewhere. The two dollar bill went +to join ghostly company with the drawing lessons money, and fluttered +away to the country of unpaid bills, of forgotten obligations, of +benefits forgot, and it is to be wondered if souls are ever at peace +there.</p> + +<p>"Father," said Bella, "is the 'soul of honour.' When Ann comes to rub +Gardiner's feet at night (they are so often tired, Cousin Antony), she +told me about father's character. She's awfully Irish, you wouldn't +understand her. Father goes to 'board meetings' (I don't know what they +are, but they're very important) and they call him 'your honour,' and +Ann says it's all because of his soul. <i>He never breaks his word</i>, and +when the bills come in...."</p> + +<p>The drawing lessons went bravely and wearily on day after day. Because +his aunt wished it, Fairfax guided Gardiner's inert fingers across the +page and almost tied Bella to her chair. On drawing days he lunched with +the household, and honestly earned his food. Half fed, keen with a +healthy appetite, he ate gratefully. They had been pausing at the end of +a half-hour's torture when Bella took up her monologue on her father's +character.</p> + +<p>"When the bills come in he shuts himself in the library. I hear him walk +up and down; then he comes out with his face white, and once, long past +dinner-time, when mother didn't come in, he said to me, 'Where in +heaven's name is your mother? What can she find left in the shops to +buy?' just that, he asked me that, Cousin Antony. I felt awfully sorry. +I was just going to ask him for five cents, but I hadn't the heart."</p> + +<p>That she had heart for her father, this child of twelve, and at so +tender an age could see and comprehend, could <!-- Page 38 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>pity, struck Fairfax, and +on his part he began to see many things, but being a man and chivalrous, +he pitied the woman as well.</p> + +<p>"My aunt is out of her element," he decided; "she cannot be in love with +her husband; no woman who loved anything on earth could gad about as she +does," and he wondered, and the deer in the park gazing at an artificial +wilderness became more and more of a symbol of her.</p> + +<p>Regarding the man they called "his honour" Fairfax had not made up his +mind.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Gardiner developed scarlet fever and lay, so Mrs. Carew assured Antony, +"at the door of death," and Bella had been sent away to the country. Mr. +Carew lived at the Club, and Antony made daily visits and did countless +errands for his aunt. One day, toward the end of the little boy's +convalescence, Fairfax came in late and heard the sound of a sweet voice +singing. He entered the drawing-room quietly and the song went on. Mrs. +Carew had a lovely voice, one of those natural born voices, +heart-touching, appealing; one of those voices that cause an ache and go +to the very marrow, that make the eyes fill. As though she knew Antony +was there, and liked the entertainment, she sang him song after song, +closing with "Oh, wert thou in the cold blast," then let her hands rest +on the keys. Fairfax went over to the piano.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me you sang like this, Aunt Caroline?" The emotion +her songs had kindled remained in his voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I never sing, my dear boy, your uncle doesn't like music."</p> + +<p>"Damn," said the young man sharply; "I beg your pardon. You've got the +family talent; your voice is divine."</p> + +<p>She was touched but shook her head. "I might have sung possibly, if your +uncle had ever cared for it. He'll be back to-morrow and I thought I'd +just run these things over."</p> + +<p>As she rose and left the piano he observed how young she was, how +graceful in her trailing dress. The forced <!-- Page 39 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>housing of these weeks of +Gardiner's illness had quieted the restless spirit. Mrs. Carew was +womanly to him, feminine for the first time since his arrival. It was at +the end of his tongue to say, "Why did you ever marry that man?" He +thought with keen dislike of the husband whose appearance would close +the piano, silence the charming voice, and drive his aunt to find +occupation in the shops and in charities. He became too chivalrous.</p> + +<p>"Flow gently, sweet Afton," as sung by her, echoed thence afterwards in +his mind all his life. The melody was stored in the chambers of his +memory, and whenever, in later years, he tried not to recall 700 Madison +Avenue, and the inhospitable home, maddeningly and plaintively these +tunes would come: "Roll on, silver moon," that too. How that moon rolled +and hung in the pale sky of remembrance, whose colour and hue is more +enchanting than ever were Italian skies!</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carew had an audience composed of two people. Little Gardiner, up +and dressed in his flannel gown, and the big cousin fathering him with a +protecting arm, both in the sofa corner. Mrs. Carew's mellow voice on +those winter afternoons before Bella returned, before Mr. Carew came +back from the Club, flowed and quavered and echoed sweetly through the +room. In the twilight, before the gas came, with old-fashioned stars set +in the candelabra, the touching pathos of the ballads spoke to the +romantic Fairfax ... spoke to his twenty-three years and spoke +dangerously. He became more and more chivalrous and considered his aunt +a misunderstood and unloved woman. Long, long afterwards, a chord, a +note, was sufficient to bring before him the square drawing-room with +its columns, furnish with an agglomeration of gaudy, rich, fantastic +things expressive of her uncertain taste. He saw again the long dark +piano and the silhouette of the woman behind it, graceful, shadowy, and +felt the pressure against his arm of little Gardiner, as they two sat +sympathetically lifted to an emotional pitch, stirred as only the music +of a woman's voice in love-songs can stir a man's heart.</p> + +<p>Bella came back and there was an end of the concerts. A charm to keep +Bella silent had not yet been found, unless that charm were a book. "She +could not read <!-- Page 40 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>when mother sang," she said, "and more than that, it +made her cry." And when Mr. Carew's latchkey scratched in the door, +Bella flew upstairs to the top story, Antony and Gardiner followed more +slowly; Mrs. Carew shut her piano, and took the cars again to forget her +restlessness in the purchase of silks and dry goods and house +decorations, and was far from guessing the emotion she had aroused in +the breast of her nephew—"Flow gently, sweet Afton." Nothing flowed +gently in Fairfax's impetuous breast. Nothing flowed gently on the tide +of events that drifted past slowly, leaving him unsuccessful, without +any opening into fame.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>Cedersholm returned to New York and Fairfax presented himself again at +the studio, getting as far as the workroom of the great Swede who had +started in life the son of a tinsmith in Copenhagen. The smell of the +clay, the sight of the figures swathed in damp cloths, the shaded light, +struck Fairfax deliciously as he waited for an audience with Cedersholm. +Fairfax drew his breath deep as though he were once again in his +element. Cedersholm was out, and with no other encouragement than the +sight of the interior of the four walls, Antony was turned away. His +mother had added to his fast melting funds by a birthday gift, and +Fairfax was nearly at the end of this.</p> + +<p>Walking up from Cedersholm's to his uncle's house, a tramp of three +miles, he limped into the children's room, on his usually bright face +the first shadow they had seen. Bella was already seated at her table. +Her six weeks in the country had sent her back, longer, slimmer, her +skirt let down at the hem an inch, and some pretence to order in her +hair. The dark mass of her hair was lifted back, held by a round comb; +Bella was much transformed.</p> + +<p>"Hello, honey," cried her cousin, "what have you been changing into?"</p> + +<p>"What do you think of my back comb, Cousin Antony? It's the fourth. I've +broken three. All cheap, luckily, not the best quality."</p> + +<p>Bella took the comb from her hair and handed it to Antony, and, +unprisoned, her locks fell triumphantly around her face.</p> + +<p>"I like you better that way, little cousin," said Fairfax, "and," +continued the drawing master, "you've a wonderful new pair of shoes, +Bella!"</p> + +<p>The little leg was encased in a light blue silk stocking, <!-- Page 42 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>and the +perfect little foot, whose rosy curves and lines Fairfax knew, was +housed in a new blue kid shoe with shining white buttons, entirely out +of keeping with the dear old red dress which, to Fairfax, seemed part of +Bella Carew.</p> + +<p>"Dancing school," she said briefly; "mother promised us we might go ages +ago, long before you came, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>"About ten years ago, I fink," said Gardiner helpfully.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," corrected his sister sharply, "but long enough ago for +<i>these</i> to grow too small." She held up her pretty foot. "We got as far +as the shoes and stockings (real silk, Cousin Antony, feel). Aren't they +perfectly <i>beautiful</i>? We didn't <i>dare</i>, because of the bills, get the +dress, you know, so I guess mother's been waiting for better times. But +just as soon as I came back from the country and they let out the hem +and bought the comb, I said to Gardiner, 'There, my dancing shoes will +be too small.'" She leant down and pinched the toes. "They <i>do</i> +squeeze." She crinkled up her eyes and pursed up the little red mouth. +"They pinch awfully, but I'm going to wear them to drawing lessons, if I +can't to dancing lessons. See," she smoothed out her drawing board and +pointed to her queer lines, "I have drawn some old things for you, a +couple of squares and a triangle."</p> + +<p>Fairfax listened, amused; the problems of his life were vital, she could +not distract him. He took the rubber, erasing her careless work, sat +down by her and began to give her real instruction. Little Gardiner, +excused from all study, amused himself after his own fashion in a corner +of the sofa, and after a few moments of silence, Fairfax's pupil +whispered to him in a low tone—</p> + +<p>"I can't draw anything, Cousin Antony, when you've got that look on."</p> + +<p>Fairfax continued his work.</p> + +<p>"It's no use, you've got the heavy look like the heavy step. Are you +angry with me?"</p> + +<p>Not her words, but her voice made her cousin stop his drawing. In it was +a hint of the tears she hated to shed. Bella leant her elbow on the +table, rested her head in her hand and searched Fairfax's face with her +eloquent eyes. They were not like her mother's, doe-like and <!-- Page 43 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>patient; +Bella's were dark eyes, superb and shadowy. They held something of the +Spanish mystery, caught from the strain that ran through the Carew +family from the Middle Ages, when the Carez were nobles in Andalusia.</p> + +<p>"I am angry with myself, Bella; I am a fool."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, you're <i>not</i>," she breathed devotedly, "you're a genius."</p> + +<p>The tension of Fairfax's heart relaxed. The highest praise that any +woman could have found, this child, in her naďveté, gave him.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you make some figures and sell them, Cousin Antony? Are you +worried about money troubles?" She had heard these terms often.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said shortly, "just that."</p> + +<p>He had gone on to sketch a head on the drawing-board, touching it +absently, and over his shoulder Bella murmured—</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony, it's just like me. You just draw wonderfully."</p> + +<p>He deepened the shadows in the hair and rounded the ear, held it some +way off and looked at it.</p> + +<p>"I wish I had some clay," he murmured.</p> + +<p>He had brought the cast of the foot back to show it to his aunt when an +occasion should offer. It stood now in the little cabinet where Bella +and Gardiner kept their treasures.</p> + +<p>"I went to see Mr. Cedersholm to-day," Fairfax continued, for lack of +other confidant taking the dark-eyed child; "now, if Cedersholm would +only take me up, and give me the chance to work under him, I'd soon show +him."</p> + +<p>Bella agreed warmly. "Yes, indeed, you soon would."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 44 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>The odours of strange meats and sauces were wafted throughout the house. +Little troublesome feet pattered up and down the dingy back stairs, and +whenever Bella and Gardiner were laid hold upon they were banished. They +were inoculated with excitement and their nostrils pricked with the +delicious smells of flowers and smilax and feast meats.</p> + +<p>Mr. Carew annually gave a banquet to some twenty New Yorkers, who he was +so generous as to think were nearly as great as himself. The household +was not constructed or run on a hospitable basis and nothing was in tune +for entertaining. Sympathetic Bella, thrilling with liveliest interest, +assisted at the preparations, and to her bright cheeks and eyes her +mother bewailed—</p> + +<p>"Only <i>twenty</i> glasses, Bella, of the fine engraved deer and pheasant +pattern, and we shall be twenty-four."</p> + +<p>"Mother, give me one in a paper and I'll take it down town and match +it."</p> + +<p>Her mother laughed. "Match it, why they were made by hand years ago, and +are worth ten dollars apiece."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear," breathed the little girl, and multiplied: "Two hundred +dollars for twenty. <i>Mother!</i>"</p> + +<p>The child stole silently out from the glistening array. Ten dollars +apiece. And she and Gardiner at their last nursery tea-party.... Through +the door, as she slipped away, she looked back at her mother, standing +thoughtful over the rows of crystal. In the great mahogany cage which, +like a small dark château, surmounted the pedestal of carved wood, the +blackbird Jetty huddled on his perch. He was a superb specimen, black as +jet, whence his name, a free woodland spirit, with a yellow bill like a +crocus <!-- Page 45 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>flower, and piercing eyes. Bella passed under the cage and +called up to him, "Sing, Jetty, sing."</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Piped a blackbird from a beechwood spray,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Little maid, slow wandering this way,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What's your name?" said he.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Little Bell had wandered through the glade,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">She looked up between the beechwood's shade,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Little Bell," said she....</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The child crooned to the bird her schoolroom poem. In return, Jetty sang +a short, brilliant little roulade, his one trained tune, which Bella had +vainly tried to pick out on the piano. She never heard half so sweet a +song from any bird.</p> + +<p>"Jetty is my <i>favourite</i> singer," she had said to Antony. But as she +lingered now under his cage in order to lengthen out the time, which, +because of her aching conscience, was hanging heavy, Jetty blinked down +at her as she stood with her hands behind her back, her face uplifted; +he peered at her like a weird familiar spirit. "Listen, Jetty. Gardiner +and I took those perfectly beautiful, expensive glasses for our tea +party. He smashed all three of them. There was a glass for Gardiner, a +glass for me and one for the uninvited guest—no, I mean the unexpected +guest. Gardiner sat down on the glasses where I had put them out to wash +them. He would have been awfully cut only he had father's overcoat on +(one of father's old coats, we got it out of the camphor chest)." She +ceased, for Jetty, in the midst of the confession, hopped down to take a +valetudinarian peck at his yellow seeds.</p> + +<p>"Now," murmured Bella, "the question is, <i>shall</i> I tell mother on an +exciting day like this when she is worried and nervous, and, if I do +tell her, wouldn't it be carrying tales on poor little Gardiner?"</p> + +<p>Jetty, by his food cup, disheartened and discouraged and apparently in a +profound melancholy, depressed Bella; she left him, turned and fled.</p> + +<p>Bella picked a forbidden way up the freshly oiled stairs and joined her +little brother. There she listened to tales, danced on tiptoe to peer +through the stair rails, and hung with Gardiner over the balustrade and +watched <!-- Page 46 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>and listened. The children flew to the window to see the cabs +and carriages drive up, fascinated by the clicking of the doors, finding +magic in the awning and the carpeting that stretched down the stoop to +the curb; found music in the voices below in the hallway as the guests +arrived. Bella could hardly eat the flat and unpalatable supper prepared +for her on the tray, and, finally, she seized her little brother.</p> + +<p>"Come, let's go down and see the party, Gardiner."</p> + +<p>She dragged him after her, half-reluctant and wholly timid. On the +middle of the stairway she paused. The house below was transformed, hot +and perfumed with flowers, the very atmosphere was strange. Along the +balustrade, their hands touched smilax garlands. The blaze of light +dazzled them, the sweet odours, the gaiety and the spirit of cheer and +life and good-fellowship came up on fragrant wings. The little brother +and sister stood entranced. The sound of laughter and men's agreeable +voices came soaring in, the gaiety of guests at a feast, and, over all +rose a sound most heavenly, a low, thrilling, thrilling sound.</p> + +<p>Jetty was singing.</p> + +<p>The children knew the blackbird's idyl well, but it was different this +night. They heard the first notes rise softly, half stifled in his +throat, where Jetty caressed his tune, soothed it, crooned with it, and +then, preluded by a burst all his own of a few adorable silver notes, +the trained melody came forth.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>Gardiner</i>," breathed the little girl, "hear Jetty. Isn't it +perfectly beautiful?"</p> + +<p>They stepped softly on downstairs, hand in hand, into the lower rooms, +over to the dining-room where the thick red curtains hung before the +doorway. Gardiner wore his play apron and his worsted bed slippers. +Bella—neither the little brother nor the old nurse had observed that +Bella had made herself a toilette. The dark hair carefully brushed and +combed, was tied back with a crimson ribbon, and below her short dress +shone out her dancing school blue stockings and her tight blue shoes. +Peering through the curtains, the children could see the dinner company +to their hearts' content. Bella viewed the great New Yorkers, murmuring +under her breath the <!-- Page 47 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>names and wondering to whom they belonged. Judge +Noah Davis, famous for the breaking of the Tweed ring—him, Bella knew, +he was a frequent caller. There was a prelate of the Church and there +was some one whom Bella wanted especially to see—Cedersholm, Mr. +Cedersholm—which could he be? Which might he be? Little Gardiner's hand +was hot in hers. He whispered beseechingly—</p> + +<p>"Come, Bella, come, I'm afwaid."</p> + +<p>"Hear Jetty, Gardiner, be quiet."</p> + +<p>And the bird's voice nearly drowned the murmur and the clamour of the +dining-room. Mr. Carew, resplendent in evening clothes, displayed upon +his shirt front the badge of the Spanish Society (a golden medal hung by +a silken band). It was formed and founded by the banker and he was proud +of his creation.</p> + +<p>"Who would ever suppose that father didn't like company? Whoever would +think that you could be afraid of father!"</p> + +<p>Suave, eloquent, Carew beamed upon his guests, and his little daughter +admired him extravagantly. His hair and beard were beautiful. Touching +the medal on his breast, Carew said—</p> + +<p>"Carez is the old name, Cedersholm."</p> + +<p>Cedersholm! Bella stared and listened.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Carez, Andalusian, I believe, to be turned later in England into +Carew; and the <ins class="correction" title="original: bas relief">bas-relief</ins> is an excellent bit of sculpturing."</p> + +<p>Mr. Carew undid the medal and handed it to the guest on his right.</p> + +<p>"Here, Cedersholm, what do you think of the <ins class="correction" title="original: bas relief">bas-relief</ins>?"</p> + +<p>Cedersholm, already famous in New York, faced Bella Carew and she saw +him plainly. This was the sculptor who could give Cousin Antony his +start, "his fair chance." He did not look a great man, as Bella thought +geniuses should look; not one of the guests looked as great and +beautiful as Cousin Antony. Why didn't they have him to the dinner, she +wondered loyally. Hasn't he got money enough? Perhaps because he was +lame.</p> + +<p>Jetty was lame. He had broken his leg in the bars <!-- Page 48 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>once upon a time. How +he sang! From his throat poured one ecstatic roulade after another, one +cascade after another of liquid delicious sweetness. Fields, woods, +copses, and dells; sunlight, moonlight, seas and streams, all, all were +in Jetty's passion of song.</p> + +<p>Gardiner had left his sister's side and stood under the bird-cage gazing +up with an enraptured face. He made a pretty, quaint figure in the +deserted room, in his gingham apron and his untidy blonde hair.</p> + +<p>Bella heard some one say, "What wonderful singing, Mrs. Carew." And she +looked at her mother for the first time. The lady was all in white with +a bit of old black point crossed at her breast and a red camellia +fastened there. Her soft fine hair was unpretentiously drawn away +neatly, and her doe-like eyes rested amiably on her guests. She seemed +to enjoy her unwonted entertainment.</p> + +<p>Still Bella clung to her hiding-place, fascinated by the subdued noise +of the service, the clinking of the glasses, listening intelligently to +a clever raconteur when he told his anecdote, and clapping her hand on +her mouth to keep from joining aloud in the praise that followed, and +the bead of excitement mounted to her head like the wine that filled the +glasses, the engraved deer and pheasant glasses, three of which had been +massacred upstairs. The dinner had nearly reached its end when the +children slipped down, and the scraping of chairs and a lull made Bella +realize where she was, and when she escaped she found that Gardiner had +made his little journey upstairs without her guardianship. Bella's mind +was working rapidly, for her heart was on fire with a scheme. In her +bright dress she leaned close to the dark wainscoting of the stairway +and heard Jetty sing. How he sang! <i>That</i> was music!</p> + +<p>"Why do people sing when there are birds!" Bella thought. Low and sweet, +high and fine, the running of little country brooks, unattainable as a +weather vane in the sun.</p> + +<p>Bella was at a pitch of sensitive emotion and she felt her heart swell +and her eyes fill. She would have wept ignominiously, but instead shot +upstairs, a red bird herself, and rushed to the cabinet where her +childish treasures were stored away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 49 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>The sculptor Cedersholm had come from Sweden himself a poor boy. He had +worked his way into recognition and fame, but his experience in life had +embittered rather than softened him. He early discovered that there is +nothing but example that we can learn from the poor or take from the +poor, and he avoided everything that did not add to his fame and +everything that did not bring in immediate aids. It was only during the +late years that he had made his name known in New York. He had been +working in Rome, and during the past three years his expositions had +made him enormously talked of. He would not have dined at the Carews' +without a reason. Henry Carew was something of a figure in the Century +Club. His pretence to dilettantism was not small. But Cedersholm had not +foreseen what a wretched dinner he would be called on to eat. Cooked by +a woman hired in for the day, half cold and wholly poor, Mr. Carew's +banquet was far from being the magnificent feast it seemed in Bella's +eyes. Somewhat cheered by his cigar and liqueur, Cedersholm found a seat +in a small reception room out of earshot of his host and hostess, and, +in company with Canon Prynne of Albany, managed to pass an agreeable +half hour.</p> + +<p>The Canon agreed with the Swede—he had never heard a bird sing so +divinely.</p> + +<p>"I told Mrs. Carew she should throw a scarf over the cage. The blackbird +will sing his heart out."</p> + +<p>The sculptor took up his conversation with his friend where he had left +it in the dining-room. He had been speaking of a recent commission given +him by the city for an important piece of work to be done for Central +Park.<!-- Page 50 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You know, Canon, we have succeeded in bringing to the port of New York +the Abydos Sphinx—a marvellous, gigantic creature. It is to be placed +in Central Park, in the Mall."</p> + +<p>This, Canon Prynne had heard. "The base pedestal and fixtures are to be +yours, Cedersholm?"</p> + +<p>The sculptor nodded. "Yes, and manual labour such as this is tremendous. +If I were in France, now, or in Italy, I could find chaps to help me. As +it is, I work alone." After a pause, he said, "However, I like the sole +responsibility."</p> + +<p>"Now, I am not sure," returned his companion, "whether it is well to +like too sole a responsibility. As far as <i>I</i> am concerned, no sooner do +I think myself important than I discover half a dozen persons in my +environment to whom I am doing a wrong, if I do not invite them to share +my glory."</p> + +<p>There was no one in the small room to which the gentlemen had withdrawn, +and their chat was suddenly interrupted by a small, clear voice asking, +"Is this Mr. Cedersholm?" Neither guest had seen steal into the room and +slip from the shadow to where they sat, a little girl, slender, +overgrown, in a ridiculously short dress, ridiculous shoes and +stockings, her arms full of treasures, her dark hair falling around her +glowing cheeks, in terror of being caught and banished and punished; but +ardent and determined, she had nevertheless braved her father's +displeasure. Bella fixed her eyes on the sculptor and said rapidly—</p> + +<p>"Excuse me for coming to father's party, but I am in a great hurry. I +want to speak to you about my Cousin Antony. He is a great genius," she +informed earnestly, "a sculptor, just like you, only he can't get any +work. If he had a chance he'd make <i>perfectly beautiful</i> things."</p> + +<p>The other gentleman put out his hand and drew the child to him. Unused +to fatherly caress, Bella held back, but was soon drawn within the +Canon's arm. She held out her treasures: "He did these," and she +presented to Cedersholm the white cast of her own foot.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony explained that it is only a cast, and that anybody could +do it, but it <i>is</i> awfully natural, isn't it? only so deadly white."<!-- Page 51 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>She held out a sheet of paper Fairfax had left at the last lesson. It +bore a sketch of Bella's head and several decorative studies. Cedersholm +regarded the cast and the paper.</p> + +<p>"Who is Cousin Antony, my child?" asked the Canon.</p> + +<p>"Mother's sister's son, from New Orleans—Antony Fairfax."</p> + +<p>Cedersholm exclaimed, "Fairfax; but yes, I have a letter from a Mr. +Fairfax. It came while I was in France."</p> + +<p>The drawing and the cast in Cedersholm's possession seemed to have found +their home. Bella felt all was well for Cousin Antony.</p> + +<p>"Oh, listen!" she exclaimed, eagerly, "listen to our blackbird. Isn't it +perfectly beautiful?"</p> + +<p>"Divine indeed," replied the clergyman. "Are you Carew's little +daughter?"</p> + +<p>"Bella Carew. And I must go now, sir. Arabella is my real name."</p> + +<p>She slipped from under the detaining arm. "Nobody knows I'm up. I'll +lend you those," she offered her treasures to Cedersholm, "but I am very +fond of the foot."</p> + +<p>It lay in Cedersholm's hand without filling it. He said kindly—</p> + +<p>"I quite understand that. Will you tell your Cousin Antony that I shall +be glad to see him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you," she nodded. "And he'll be <i>very</i> glad to see you."</p> + +<p>Cedersholm, smiling, put the cast and the bit of paper back in her +hands.</p> + +<p>"I won't rob you of these, Miss Bella. Your cousin shall make me +others."</p> + +<p>As the little girl ran quickly out it seemed to the guests as if the +blackbird's song went with her, for in a little while Jetty stopped +singing.</p> + +<p>"What a quaint, old-fashioned little creature," Cedersholm mused.</p> + +<p>"Charming," murmured Canon Prynne, "perfectly charming. Now, my dear +Cedersholm, there's your fellow for the Central Park pedestal."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 52 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>The month was nearly at its end, and his money with it. Some time since, +he had given up riding in the cars, and walked everywhere. This exercise +was the one thing that tired him, because of his unequal stride. +Nevertheless, he strode, and though it seemed impossible that a chap +like himself could come to want, he finally reached his last "picayune," +and at the same time owed the week's board and washing. The excitement +of his new life thus far had stimulated him, but the time came when this +stimulus was dead, and as he went up the steps of his uncle's house to +be greeted on the stoop by a beggar woman, huddling by her basket under +her old shawl, the sculptor looked sadly down at her greasy palm which +she hopefully extended. Then, with a brilliant smile, he exclaimed—</p> + +<p>"I wonder, old lady, <i>just</i> how poor you are?"</p> + +<p>"Wurra," replied the woman, "if the wurrld was for sale for a cint, I +couldn't buy it."</p> + +<p>Beneath his breath he murmured, "Nor could I," and thought of his watch. +Curiously enough, it had not occurred to him that he might pawn his +father's watch.</p> + +<p>He now looked forward with pleasure to the tri-weekly drawing lessons, +for the friendly fires of his little cousins' hearts warmed his own. But +on this afternoon they failed to meet him in the hall or to cry to him +over the stairs or rush upon him like catapults from unexpected corners. +As he went through the silent house its unusual quiet struck him +forcibly, and he thought: "<i>What</i> a tomb it would be without the +children!"</p> + +<p>No one responded to his "Hello you," and at the entrance of the common +play and study room Fairfax paused, to see Bella and Gardiner in their +play aprons, <!-- Page 53 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>their backs to the door, motionless before the table, one +dark head and one light one bent over an object apparently demanding +tender, reverent care.</p> + +<p>At Fairfax's "Hello <i>you</i> all!" they turned, and the big cousin never +forgot it as long as he lived—never forgot the Bella that turned, that +called out in what the French call "a torn voice"—<i>une voix dechirée</i>. +Afterwards it struck him that she called him "Antony" <i>tout court</i>, like +a grown person as she rushed to him. He never forgot how the little +thing flung herself at him, threw herself against his breast. For an +answer to her appeal with a quick comprehension of grief, Antony bent +and took her hand.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony, Cousin Antony——"</p> + +<p>"Why, Bella, Bella, little cousin, what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>And above the sobs that he felt tremble through him, he asked of +Gardiner—who, young as he was, stifled his tears back and gulped his +own grief like a man—</p> + +<p>"What's the row, old chap?"</p> + +<p>But Bella told him passionately. "Jetty, <i>Jetty's dead</i>!"</p> + +<p>Soothed by her cousin's hand on her head, she calmed, buried her face in +the cool handkerchief with which he wiped her tears. In the circle of +his arms Bella stood, tearful, sobbing, nothing but a child, and yet she +appealed to Fairfax in her tears as she had not done before, and her +abandon went to the core of his being and smote a bell which from +thenceforth rang like her name—"Bella"—and he used to think that it +was from that moment.... Well, her tears at any rate stirred him as +never did any tears in the world.</p> + +<p>She wiped her eyes. "Jetty died last night; he sang himself to death. +You should have heard him sing! This morning when they came to give him +water and feed him, Jetty was dead."</p> + +<p>Gardiner pointed to the table. "See, we've made him a coffin. We're +going to his funewal now."</p> + +<p>A discarded cigar box lined with cotton was the only coffin the children +had found for the wild wood creature whose life had gone out in song.</p> + +<p>"We don't know where to buwy him, Cousin Antony."<!-- Page 54 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I tried," Bella murmured, touching the blackbird's breast with gentle +fingers, "I tried to write him a poem, an epitaph; but I cried so I +couldn't."</p> + +<p>She held Antony's handkerchief to her tear-stained cheek.</p> + +<p>"May I keep your handkerchief for just this afternoon? It smells so +delicious. You could make a cast of him, couldn't you?—like the +death-mask of great men in father's books?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax dissuaded them from the funeral, at which Gardiner was to say, +"Now I lay me," and Fairfax had been elected to read the Lord's Prayer. +He rolled the bird up in another handkerchief (he appeared to be rich in +them) and put it reverently in his overcoat pocket, promising faithfully +to see that Jetty should be buried in Miss Whitcomb's back yard, under +the snow, and, moreover, to mark the place with a stick, so that the +children could find it when spring came.</p> + +<p>Then Bella, tear-stained but resigned, suggested that they should play +"going to Siberia."</p> + +<p>"I <i>can't</i> work to-day, Cousin Antony! Don't make me. It would seem like +sewing on Sunday."</p> + +<p>Without comment, Fairfax accepted the feminine inconsistency, and +himself entered, with what spirit he might, into the children's game. +"Going to Siberia" laid siege to all the rooms in the upper story. It +was a mad rush on Fairfax's part, little Gardiner held in his arms, +pursued by Bella as a wolf. It was a tear over beds and chairs, around +tables,—a wild, screaming, excited journey, ending at last in the +farthest room in the middle of the children's bed, where, one after +another, they were thrown by the big cousin. The game was enriched by +Fairfax's description of Russia and the steppes and the plains. But on +this day Bella insisted that Gardiner, draped in a hearthrug, be the +wolf, and that Fairfax carry her "because her heart ached." And if +Gardiner's growls and baying failed to give the usual zest to the sport, +the carrying by Fairfax of Bella was a new emotion! The twining round +his neck of soft arms, the confusion of dark hair against his face, the +flower-like breath on his cheeks, Bella's excitement of sighs and cries +and giggles gave the game, for one player at least, fresh <!-- Page 55 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>charm. Chased +by Ann back into the studio, the play-mates fell on the sofa, worn out +and happy; but, in the momentary calm, a little cousin on either side of +him, the poor young man felt the cruel return of his own miseries and +his own crisis.</p> + +<p>"Misther Fairfax," said the Irish woman, "did the childhren give ye the +letter what come to-day? I thawt Miss Bella'd not mind it, what wid +funnerals and tearin' like a mad thing over the house!" (Ann's reproof +was for Fairfax.) "Yez'll be the using up of little Gardiner, sir, the +both of ye. The letther's forbye the clock. I putt it there m'self."</p> + +<p>Fairfax, to whom no news could be but welcome, limped over to the +mantel, where, by the clock, he perceived a letter addressed to him on +big paper in a small, distinguished hand. He tore it open, Ann lit the +gas, and he read—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Fairfax</span>,<br /> +<br /> +"I have not answered your letter because I was so unfortunate as to +have lost your address. Learning last night that you are a nephew +of Mr. Carew, and sure of a response if I send this to his care, I +write to ask that you will come in to see me to-day at three +o'clock.</p> +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Yours sincerely,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"<span class="smcap">Gunner Cedersholm</span>."</span><br /> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Fairfax gave an exclamation that was almost a cry, and looked at the +clock. It was past four!</p> + +<p>"When did this letter come?" His nerves were on end, his cheeks pale.</p> + +<p>Bella sat forward on the sofa. "Why, Mother gave it me to give to you +when you should come to-day, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>In the strain to his patience, Fairfax was sharp. He bit his lip, +snatched up his coat and hat.</p> + +<p>"You should have given it me at once." His blue eyes flashed. "You don't +know what you may have done. This may ruin my career! I've missed my +appointment with Cedersholm. It's too late now."</p> + +<p>He couldn't trust himself further, and, before Bella could regain +countenance, he was gone.<!-- Page 56 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>Cut to the heart with remorse, crimson with astonishment, but more +deeply wounded in her pride, the child sat immovable on the sofa.</p> + +<p>"Bella," whispered her little brother, "I don't like Cousin Antony, do +you?"</p> + +<p>She looked at her brother, touched by Gardiner's chivalry.</p> + +<p>"I fink he's a mean man, Bella."</p> + +<p>"He's dreadful," she cried, incensed; "he's just too horrid for +anything. Anyhow, it was me made Cedersholm write that letter for him, +and he didn't <i>even</i> say he was obliged."</p> + +<p>She ran to the window to watch Antony go, as he always did, on the other +side of the road, in order that the children might see him. She hoped +for a reconcilement, or a soothing wave of his hand; but Antony did not +pass, the window was icy cold, and she turned, discomfited. At her +foot—for as Antony had snatched up his coat he had wantonly desecrated +a last resting-place—at her foot lay the blackbird. With a murmured +word Bella lifted Jetty in both hands to her cheek, and on the cold +breast and toneless throat the tears fell—Bella's first real tears.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 57 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>Fairfax went into the studio of the first sculptor in the United States +with set determination to find work. Cedersholm was cool and absorbed, +occupied and preoccupied, overburdened with orders, all of which meant +money and fame, but required time. Fairfax was an hour and a half late, +and, in spite of the refusal of the manservant, came limping in, and +found the master taking a glass of hot milk and a biscuit. Cedersholm +reposed on a divan in the corner of a vast studio giving on a less +magnificent workroom. The studio was in semi-darkness, and a table near +the sofa bore a lamp whose light lit the sculptor's face. To Fairfax, +Cedersholm was a lion and wore a mane. In reality, he was a small, +insignificant man who might have been a banker. The Southerner +introduced himself, and when he was seated by the sculptor's side, began +to expose his projects, to dream aloud. He could have talked for ever, +but the sum of what he said was that he wanted to enter Cedersholm's +studio.</p> + +<p>"The old Italians took subordinates, sir," he pleaded.</p> + +<p>"There are classes at Cooper Union," Cedersholm began.</p> + +<p>But Fairfax, his clear eyes on the artist, said, "But I want to work +under a genius."</p> + +<p>The other, complimented, pushed his milk aside and wiped his lips.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, there <i>is</i> plenty of hard work to be done right here +in this studio." He spoke cautiously and in a measured tone. "I have +workmen with me, but no artists."</p> + +<p>Fairfax patiently waited. He was as verdant as the young jasmine leaves, +as inexperienced and guileless as a child.<!-- Page 58 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I had not thought of taking such an assistant as you represent, Mr. +Fairfax." The older man fixed him with clever eyes. "A man must have no +end of courage in him, no end of patience, no end of humility, to do +what you <i>say</i> you want to do."</p> + +<p>The young man bowed his head. "Courage, patience, and humility are the +attributes of genius, sir."</p> + +<p>"Yes," admitted Cedersholm, "they are, but ordinary talent will do very +well in my workshop, and it is all that I need in a subordinate."</p> + +<p>Fairfax smiled lightly. "I think I may say I am a good worker, Mr. +Cedersholm. Any hod-carrier may say that without vanity, and if you turn +me out, I'll take a mason's place at two dollars a day."</p> + +<p>Cedersholm smiled. "You don't look like a mason," he said hesitatingly, +"though you do appear muscular. What would be your suggestion with +regard to our relations?"</p> + +<p>(Fairfax's eager heart was saying, "Oh, teach me, Master, all you know; +let me come and play with the clay, finger it, handle it; set me loose +in that big, cool, silent room beyond there; let me wander where I can +see the shadow of that cast and the white draped figure from where I +sit.")</p> + +<p>"You are a fairly good draftsman?" Cedersholm asked. "Have you any taste +for decoration and applied design?"</p> + +<p>"I think I have."</p> + +<p>The Master rose. "Come to-morrow morning at ten and I'll give you +something to do. I have just accepted a contract for interior +decoration, a new house on Fifth Avenue. I might possibly make you +useful there."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Fairfax walked home on air. He walked from Ninth Street, where the +studio was, to his boarding-house, in the cold, still winter night—a +long tramp. In spite of his limp he swung along, his coat open, his hat +on the back of his head, his cheeks bright, his lips smiling. As he +passed under the gas lamps they shone like Oriental stars. He no longer +shivered at the cold and, warm with faith and confidence, his heart +could have melted a storm. He fairly floated up Madison Avenue, and by +his side the <!-- Page 59 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>spirits of his ideals kept him company. Oh, he would do +beautiful things for New York city. He would become great here. He would +garland the metropolis with laurel, leave statues on its places, that +should bear his name. At ten o'clock on the following day, he was to +begin his apprenticeship, and he would soon show his power to +Cedersholm. He felt that power now in him like wine, like nectar, and in +his veins the spirit of creation, the impulse to art, rose like a +draught. His aunt should be proud of him, his uncle should cease to +despise him, and the children—they would not understand—but they would +be glad.</p> + +<p>When he reached his boarding-house, Miss Eulalie opened the door and +cried out at the sight of his face—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Antony; you've had good news, sir."</p> + +<p>He put both hands on the thin shoulders, he kissed her roundly on both +cheeks. The cold fresh air was on his cool fresh lips, and the kiss was +as chaste as an Alpine breeze.</p> + +<p>He cried: "<i>Good</i> news; well, I reckon I have! The great Mr. Cedersholm +has given me a place in his studio."</p> + +<p>He laughed aloud as she hung up his coat. Miss Eulalie's glasses were +pushed up on her forehead—she might have been his grandmother.</p> + +<p>"The Lord be praised!" she breathed. "I have been praying for you night +and day."</p> + +<p>"I shall go to Cedersholm to-morrow. I have not spoken about terms, but +that will be all right, and if you ladies will be so good as to wait +until Saturday——"</p> + +<p>Of course they would wait. If it had not been that their means were so +cruelly limited, they would never have spoken. Didn't he think?... He +knew! he thought they were the best, dearest friends a young fortune +hunter could have. Wait, wait till they could see his name in the +papers—Antony Fairfax, the rising sculptor! Wait until they could go +with him to the unveiling of his work in Central Park!</p> + +<p>Supper was already on the table, and Antony talked to them both until +they <i>could</i> hardly wait for the wonders!</p> + +<p>"When you're great you'll not forget us, Mr. Antony?"</p> + +<p>"Forget them——!"</p> + +<p>Over the cold mutton and the potato salad, Fairfax <!-- Page 60 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>held out a hand to +each, and the little old ladies each laid a fluttering hand in his. But +it was at Miss Eulalie he looked, and the remembrance of his happy kiss +on this first day of his good fortune, made her more maternal than she +had ever hoped to be in her life.</p> + +<p>There was a note for him on the table upstairs, a note in a big envelope +with the business stamp of Mr. Carew's bank in the corner. It was +addressed to him in red ink. He didn't know the handwriting, but +guessed, and laughed, and drew the letter out.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +"<span class="smcap">Dear Cousin Antony</span>,<br /> +</p> + +<p>"I feel perfectly dreadful. How <i>could</i> I do such a selfish thing? +I hope you will forgive me and come again. I drew two whole pages +of parlel lines after you went away, some are nearly strait. I did +it for punishment. You forgot the blackbird.</p> + +<p> +"Your little <span class="smcap">Bella</span>."<br /> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>What a cad he had been! He had forgotten the dead bird and been a brute +to the little living cousin. As the remembrance of how she had flown to +him in her tears came to him, a softer look crossed his face, fell like +a veil over his eyes that had been dazzled by the visions of his art. He +smiled at the childish signature, "<i>Your little Bella.</i>" "Honey child!" +he murmured, and as he fell asleep that night the figure of the little +cousin mourning for her blackbird moved before him down the halls of +fame.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 61 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>Before Fairfax became dead to the world he wrote his mother a letter +that made her cry, reading it on her veranda in the gentle sunlight. Her +son wrote her only good news, and when the truth was too black he +disguised it. But after his interview with Cedersholm, with these first +good tidings he had to send, he broke forth into ecstasy, and his +mother, as she read, saw her boy successful by one turn of the wheel. +Mrs. Fairfax laughed and cried over the letter.</p> + +<p>"Emmy, Master Tony's doing wonders, wonders! He is working under a great +genius in the North, but it is easy to see that Tony is the spirit of +the studio. He is at work from nine in the morning till dark, poor honey +boy! and he is making all the drawings and designs and sketches for a +millionaire's palace on Fifth Avenue."</p> + +<p>"Fo' de Lawd, Mis' Bella."</p> + +<p>"Think of it, we shall soon see his name in the papers—heaven knows +where he'll stop. How proud I am of my darling, darling boy."</p> + +<p>And she dreamed over the pages of Antony's closely-written letter, +seeing his youth and his talent burn there like flame. She sent +him—selling her watch and her drop earrings to do so—a hundred +dollars, all she could get for her jewels. And the sum of money came +like manna into his famished state. His mother's gift gave him courage +to rise early and to work late, and the silver sang in his waistcoat +pockets again, and he paid his little ladies, thanking them graciously +for their patience; he sent his aunt a bunch of flowers, bought an image +of the Virgin for old Ann, a box of colours for Gardiner, and a book for +Bella.</p> + +<p>Then Antony, passing over the threshold of the workshop, was swallowed +up by art.<!-- Page 62 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>And he paid for his salt!</p> + +<p>How valuable he was to Cedersholm those days he discovered some ten +years later. Perched on his high stool at the drawing-table, his +materials before him, he drew in freehand what his ideas suggested. The +third day he went with Cedersholm to the palace of Rudolph Field on +Fifth Avenue to inspect the rooms to be decorated. Fairfax went into the +"Castle of the Chinking Guineas" (as he called it in writing to his +mother), as buoyantly as though he had not a leaking boot on one foot +and a bill for a cheap suit of clothes in his pocket. He mentally ranged +his visions on the frieze he was to consider, and as he thought, his own +stature seemed to rise gigantic in the vast salon. He was alone with +Cedersholm. The Fields were in Europe, not to return until the palace +had been made beautiful.</p> + +<p>Cedersholm planned out his scheme rather vaguely, discoursing on a +commonplace theme, indicating ceilings and walls, and Fairfax heard him +through his own meditations. He impulsively caught the Master's arm, and +himself pointing, "Just there," he said, "why not...." And when he had +finished, Cedersholm accepted, but without warmth.</p> + +<p>"Perfectly. You have caught my suggestions, Mr. Fairfax," and poor +Antony shut his lips over his next flight.</p> + +<p>In the same week Cedersholm left for Florida, and Fairfax, in the +deserted studio, sketched and modelled <i>ŕ sa faim</i>, as the French say, +as old Professor Dufaucon used to say, and as the English say, less +materially, "to his soul's content." February went by in this fashion, +and Fairfax was only conscious of it when the day came round that he +must pay his board and had nothing to do it with. Cedersholm was to +return in a few days, and he would surely be reimbursed—to what extent +he had no notion. His excitement rose high as he took an inventory of +his work, of his essays and drawings and <ins class="correction" title="original: bas reliefs">bas-reliefs</ins>, his projects for +the ceiling of the music room. At one time his labour seemed of the best +quality, and then again so poor, so abortive, that the young fellow had +more than half a mind to destroy the lot before the return of the +Master. During the last week he had a comrade, a <!-- Page 63 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>great, soft-eyed, +curly-locked Italian, who didn't speak a word of English, who arrived +gentle as an ox to put himself under the yoke of labour. Antony, thanks +to his keenness and his gift for languages, and his knowledge of French, +made out something of what he was and from where. He had been born in +Carrara and was a worker in marble in his own land, and had come to work +on the fountain for the music room in the Field palace.</p> + +<p>"The fountain!" Fairfax tumbled over his sketches and showed one to his +brown-eyed friend, who told him rapidly that it was "divinely +beautiful," and asked to see the clay model.</p> + +<p>None had been made.</p> + +<p>The same night, Fairfax wrote to Cedersholm that he had begun a model of +the fountain, and in the following days was up to his ears and eyes in +clay.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The block of marble arrived from Italy, and Fairfax superintended its +difficult entry by derrick through the studio window. He restrained +"Benvenuto Cellini," as he called his comrade, from cutting into the +marble, and the Italian used to come and sit idle, for he had no work to +do, and waited Cedersholm's orders. He used to come and sit and stare at +his block of marble and sing pleasantly—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Aria pura</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Cielo azuro</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Mia Maddelena,"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>and jealously watch Fairfax who <i>could</i> work. Fairfax could and did, in +a long blouse made for him by Miss Mitty, after his directions. With a +twenty-five cent book of phrases, Fairfax in no time mastered enough +Italian to talk with his companion, and his own baritone was sweet +enough to blend with Benvenuto Cellini's "Mia Maddelena," and other +songs of the same character, and he exulted in the companionship of the +young man, and talked at him and over him, and dreamed aloud to him, and +Benvenuto, who had only the dimmest idea of what the frenzy meant—not +so dim, possibly, for he knew it was the ravings of art—supplied the +"bellisimos" and "grandiosos," and felt the spirit of the moment, and +was young with Fairfax, if not as much of a soul or a talent.<!-- Page 64 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>The model for the fountain was completed before Cedersholm's return. +After a month's rest under the palms of Florida, the sculptor lounged +into the studio, much as he might have strolled up a Paris boulevard and +ordered a liqueur at a round table before some favourite <i>café</i>. +Cedersholm had hot milk and biscuits in a corner instead, and Fairfax +drew off the wet covering from his clay. Cedersholm enjoyed his light +repast, considering the model which nearly filled the corner of the +room. He fitted in an eyeglass, and in a distinguished manner regarded +the modelling. Fairfax, who had been cold with excitement, felt his +blood run tepid in his veins.</p> + +<p>"And your sketches, Fairfax?" asked the Master, and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>Fairfax carried him over a goodly pile from the table. Cedersholm turned +them over for a long time, and finally held one out, and said—</p> + +<p>"This seems to be in the scale of the measurements of the library +ceiling?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax's voice sounded childish to himself as he responded—</p> + +<p>"I think it's correct, sir, to working scale."</p> + +<p>"It might do with a few alterations," said Cedersholm. "If you care to +try it, Fairfax, it might do. I will order the scaffolding placed +to-morrow, and you can sketch it in, in charcoal. It can always come +out, you know. You might begin the day after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>The Master rose leisurely and looked about him. "Jove," he murmured, +"it's good to be back again to the lares and penates."</p> + +<p>Fairfax left the Master among the lares and penates, left him amongst +the treasures of his own first youth, the first-fruits of his ardent +young labour, and he went out, not conscious of how he quivered until he +was on his way up-town. What an ass he was! No doubt the stuff was +rubbish! What could he hope to attain without study and long +apprenticeship? Why, he was nothing more than a boy. Cedersholm had been +decent not to laugh in his face—Cedersholm's had been at once the +kindest and the cruelest criticism. He called himself a thousand times a +fool. He had no talent, he was marked for failure. He would sweep the +streets, however, and lay<!-- Page 65 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> bricks, before he went back to his mother in +New Orleans unsuccessful. His letters home, his excitement and +enthusiasm, how ridiculous they seemed, how fatuous his boastings before +the old ladies and little Bella!</p> + +<p>Fairfax passed his boarding-house and walked on, and as he walked he +recalled what Cedersholm had said the day he engaged him: "Courage, +patience, humility." These words had cooled his anger as nothing else +could have done, and laid their salutary touch on his flushed face.</p> + +<p>"These qualities are the attributes of genius. Mediocrity is incapable +of possessing them." He would have them <i>all</i>, every one, every one! +Courage, he was full of it. Patience he didn't know by sight. Humility +he had despised—the poor fellow did not know that its hand touched him +as he strode.</p> + +<p>"I ought to be thankful that he didn't kick me out," he thought. "I +daresay he was laughing in his sleeve at my abortions!"</p> + +<p>Then he remembered his design for the ceiling, and at the Carews' +doorstep he paused. Cedersholm had told him to draw it on the Field +ceiling. This meant that he had another chance.</p> + +<p>"It's perfectly ripping of the old boy," he thought, enthusiastically, +as he rang the door-bell. "I'll begin to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Bella opened the door to him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 66 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>The following year—in January—lying on his back on the scaffolding, +Fairfax drew in his designs for the millionaire's ceiling, freely, +boldly, convincingly, and it is doubtful if the eye of the +proprietor—he was a fat, practical, easy-going millionaire, who had +made money out of hog's lard—it is doubtful that Mr. Field's eyes, when +gazing upward, saw the things that Fairfax thought he drew.</p> + +<p>Fairfax whistled softly and drew and drew, and his cramped position was +painful to his left leg and thigh. Benvenuto Cellini came below and sang +up at him—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Cielo azuro,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Giornata splendida</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ah, Maddelena,"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>and told him in Italian about his own affairs, and Fairfax half heard +and less than half understood. Cedersholm came once, bade him draw on, +always comforting one of them at least, with the assurance that the work +could be taken out.</p> + +<p>During the following weeks, Fairfax never went back to the studio, and +one day he swung himself down when Cedersholm came in, and said—</p> + +<p>"I'm a little short of money, sir."</p> + +<p>Cedersholm put his hand in his pocket and gave Antony a bill with the +air of a man to whom money is as disagreeable and dangerous as a +contagious disease. The bill was for fifty dollars, and seemed a great +deal to Antony; then a great deal too little, and, in comparison with +his debts, it seemed nothing at all. <!-- Page 67 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>Cedersholm had followed up his +payment with an invitation to Antony to come to Ninth Street the +following day.</p> + +<p>"I am sketching out my idea for the pedestal in Central Park. Would you +care to see it? It might interest you as a student."</p> + +<p>The ceiling in Rudolph Field's house is not all the work of Antony +Fairfax. Half-way across the ceiling he stopped. It is easy enough to +see where the painting is carried on by another hand. He finished the +bas-reliefs at the end of March, and the fine frieze running round the +little music-room. Mr. Field liked music little and had his room in +proportion.</p> + +<p>Antony stood with Cedersholm in the studio where he had made his scheme +for the fountain and his first sketches. Cedersholm's design for the +base of the pedestal, designed to support the winged victory, was placed +against the wall. It was admirable, harmonious, noble.</p> + +<p>Fairfax had seen Cedersholm work. The sculptor wore no apron, no blouse. +He dressed with his usual fastidiousness; his eyeglass adjusted, he +worked as neatly as a little old lady at her knitting, but his work had +not the quality of wool.</p> + +<p>"What do you think of it, Fairfax?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax started from his meditation. "It's immense," he murmured.</p> + +<p>"You think it does not express what is intended?" Cedersholm's clever +eyes were directed at Fairfax. "What's the matter with it?"</p> + +<p>Without reply, the young man took up a sheet of paper and a piece of +charcoal and drew steadily for a few seconds and held out the sheet.</p> + +<p>"Something like this ... under the four corners ... wouldn't it give an +idea ... of life? The Sphinx is winged. Doesn't it seem as if its body +should rest on life?"</p> + +<p>If Cedersholm had in mind to say, "You have quite caught my suggestion," +he controlled this remark, covered his mouth with his hand, and +considered—he considered for a day or two. He then went to Washington +to talk with the architects of the new State Museum. And <!-- Page 68 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>Fairfax once +more found the four walls of the quiet studio shutting him in ... found +himself inhabiting with the friendly silence and with the long days as +spring began to come.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He finished the modelling of his four curious, original creatures, +beasts intended to be the supports of the Sphinx. He finished his work +in Easter week, and wrote to Cedersholm begging for his directions and +authority to have them cast in bronze.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 69 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>The four beasts were of heroic size. They came out of the moulds like +creatures of a prehistoric age. Benvenuto Cellini, who was to have met +his friend Antony at the foundry on the day Fairfax's first plaster cast +was carried down, failed to put in an appearance, and Fairfax had the +lonely joy, the melancholy, lonely joy, of assisting at the birth of one +of his big creatures. All four of them were ultimately cast, but they +were to remain in the foundry until Cedersholm's return.</p> + +<p>His plans for the future took dignity, and importance, from the fact of +his success, and he reviewed with joy the hard labour of the winter, for +which in all he had been paid one hundred dollars. He was in need of +everything new, from shoes up. He was a great dandy, or would have liked +to have afforded to be. As for a spring overcoat—well, he couldn't bear +to read the tempting advertisements, and even Gardiner's microscopic +coat, chosen by Bella, caused his big cousin a twinge of envy. Bella's +new outfit was complete, a deeper colour glowed on the robin-red dress +she wore, and Fairfax felt shabby between them as he limped along into +the Park under the budding trees, a child's hand on either arm.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony, why are there such <i>de</i>licious smells to-day?"</p> + +<p>Bella sniffed them. The spring was at work under the turf, the grass was +as fragrant as a bouquet.</p> + +<p>"Breathe it in, Cousin Antony! It makes you wish to do <i>heaps</i> of things +you oughtn't to!"</p> + +<p>On the pond the little craft of the school children flew about like +butterflies, the sun on the miniature sails.</p> + +<p>"What kind of things does the grass cutter, shearing off a few miserable +dandelions, make you want to do, <!-- Page 70 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>Bella? You should smell the jasmine +and the oleanders of New Orleans. These are nothing but weeds."</p> + +<p>"How can you say so?" she exclaimed; "besides, most of the things I want +to do are wicked, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Jove!" exclaimed Fairfax. "That <i>is</i> a confession."</p> + +<p>She corrected. "You ought not to say 'Jove' like that, Cousin Antony. +You can cut it and make it sound like 'Jovah,' it sounds just like it."</p> + +<p>"What wicked things do you want to do, Bella?"</p> + +<p>She pointed to the merry-go-rounds, where the giraffes, elephants, and +horses raced madly round to the plaintive tune of "Annie Laurie," ground +out by a hurdy-gurdy.</p> + +<p>"I'd <i>love</i> to go on."</p> + +<p>Fairfax put his hand in his pocket, but she pulled it back.</p> + +<p>"No, Cousin Antony, please. It's not the money that keeps me back, +though I haven't any. It's Sunday, you know."</p> + +<p>"Oh," her cousin accepted dismally.</p> + +<p>And Bella indicated a small boy carrying a tray of sweets who had +advanced towards the three with a hopeful grin.</p> + +<p>"I'd perfectly <i>love</i> to have some of those <i>lossingers</i>, but mother +says 'street candy isn't pure.' Besides, it's Sunday."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" exclaimed Fairfax. "Do you mean to say that out here in +God's free air you are going to preach me a sermon?"</p> + +<p>He beckoned the boy.</p> + +<p>"Oh," cried Gardiner, "can't we <i>choose</i>, Cousin Antony?"</p> + +<p>The little cousins bent above the tray and slowly and passionately +selected, and their absorption in the essence of wintergreen, sassafras, +and peppermint showed him how much this pleasure meant to these rich +children. Their pockets full, they linked their arms in his again.</p> + +<p>"I have never had such fun in all my life as I do with you, Cousin +Antony," Bella told him.</p> + +<p>"Then come along," he suggested, recklessly. "You must ride once on the +merry-go-round." And before the little Puritans realized the extent of +their impiety, Fairfax <!-- Page 71 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>had lifted Bella on a horse and Gardiner on an +elephant, paid their fare and started them away. He watched Bella, her +hat caught by its elastic, fallen off her head on the first round, her +cheeks flushed and her eyes like stars, and bravely her straight little +arm stretched out to catch the ring. There was triumph in her cry, "Oh, +Cousin <i>Antony</i>, Cousin Antony, I've won the ring!"</p> + +<p>Such flash and sparkle as there was about her, with her teeth like +grains of corn and her eyes dancing as she nodded and smiled at him! +Poor little Gardiner! Antony paid for him again and patted him on the +back. There was a pathos about the mild, sweet little face and in the +timid, ineffectual arm, too short and too weak to snap the iron ring on +to his sword. Bella rode till "Annie Laurie" changed to "Way down upon +de Swanee river," and Fairfax's heart beat for Louisiana, and he had +come to the end of his nickels. He lifted the children down.</p> + +<p>Bella now wound both arms firmly in her cousin's, and clung to him.</p> + +<p>"Think of it, I never rode before, never! All the children on the block +have, though. Isn't it perfectly delightful, Cousin Antony? I <i>wish</i> +your legs weren't so long."</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony," asked little Gardiner, "couldn't we go over to the +animals and see the seals fall off and dwown themselves?"</p> + +<p>They saw the lion in his lair and the "tiger, tiger burning bright," and +the shining, slippery seals, and they made an absorbed group at the +nettings where Antony discoursed about the animals as he discoursed +about art, and Spartacus talked to them about the wild beast show in +Cćsar's arena. His audience shivered at his side.</p> + +<p>They walked up the big driveway, and Fairfax saw for the first time the +Mall, and observed that the earth was turned up round a square some +twelve feet by twelve. He half heard the children at his side; his eyes +were fastened on the excavation for the pedestal of the Sphinx; the +stone base would soon be raised there, and then his beasts would be +poised.</p> + +<p>"Let's walk over to the Mall, children."</p> + +<p>Along the walk the small goat carriages were drawn <!-- Page 72 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>up with their teams; +little landaus, fairy-like for small folk to drive in. Fairfax stood +before the cavity in the earth and the scaffolding left by the workmen. +He was conscious of his little friends at length by the dragging on his +arms of their too affectionate weight. "Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>Fairfax waved to the vacant spot. "Oh, Egypt, Egypt," he began, in his +"recitation voice," a voice that promised treats at home, but that +palled in the sunny open, with goat rides in the fore-ground.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Out of the soft, smooth coral of thy sands,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Out of thy Nilus tide, out of thy heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Such dreams have come, such mighty splendours——"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Bella, do you see that harmonious square?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered casually, with a lack lustre. "And do you see the +<i>goats</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Goats, Bella! I see a pedestal some ten feet high, and on it at its +four corners, before they poise the Sphinx—what do you think I see, +Bella?"</p> + +<p>"... Cousin Antony, that boy there has the <i>sweetest goats</i>. They're +<i>almost</i> clean! Too dear for anything! With such cunning noses!"</p> + +<p>He dropped his arm and put his hand on the little girl's shoulder and +turned her round.</p> + +<p>"I'm disappointed in you for the first time, honey," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Cousin <i>Antony</i>."</p> + +<p>"Little cousin, this is where my creatures, my beautiful bronze +creatures, are to be eternally set—there, there before your eyes." He +pointed to the blue May air.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony," said Gardiner's slow voice, "the only thing I'm not too +tired to do is to wide in a goat carwage."</p> + +<p>Fairfax lifted the little boy in his arms. "If I lift you, Gardiner, +like this, high in my arms, you could just about see the top of the +pedestal. Wait till it's unveiled, my hearties! Wait—wait!"</p> + +<p>He put Gardiner down with a laugh and a happy sigh, and then he saw the +goats.</p> + +<p>"Do you want a ride, children?"<!-- Page 73 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>Did</i> they!"</p> + +<p>He ran his hands through the pockets that had been wantonly emptied.</p> + +<p>"Not a picayune, honey. Your poor old cousin is dead broke."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Bella, practically, "let's go right away from here, Cousin +Antony. I can't bear to look at those goats another minute. It hurts."</p> + +<p>Fairfax regarded her thoughtfully. "Bella the Desirous," he murmured. +"What are you going to be when you grow up, little cousin?"</p> + +<p>They started slowly away from temptation, away from the vision of the +pedestal and the shadowy creatures, and the apparition of the Sphinx +seemed to brood over them as they went, and nothing but a Sphinx's +wisdom could have answered the question Fairfax put: "What are you going +to be when you grow up, little Bella?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax soon carried the little boy, and Bella in a whisper said—</p> + +<p>"He is almost too small for our parties, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," said the limping cousin, stoically. "We couldn't get on +without him, could we, old chap?"</p> + +<p>But the old chap didn't answer, for he had fallen asleep as soon as his +head touched his cousin's shoulder.</p> + +<p>When Fairfax left them at their door, he was surprised at Bella's +melancholy. She held out to him the sticky remnant of the roll of +lozenges.</p> + +<p>"Please take it. I shouldn't be allowed to eat it."</p> + +<p>"But what on earth's the matter?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," she said heroically, "you don't have to bear it. You're +Episcopalian; but <i>I've got to tell</i>!" She sighed heavily. "I don't care; +it was worth it!"</p> + +<p>As the door clicked behind the children, Fairfax laughed.</p> + +<p>"What a little trump she is! She thinks the game is worth the candle!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 74 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>That miserable foot of his gave him pain. The unusual strain of standing +long at his work, the tramps he took to save car-fare, wearied him, and +he was finally laid up for ten days. No one missed him, apparently, and +the long, painful hours dragged, and he saw no one but his little +landladies. His mother, as if she knew, sent him extra money and +wonderful letters breathing pride in him and confidence in his success. +When he was finally up and setting forth again to the studio, a visitor +was announced. Fairfax thought of Benvenuto—(he would have been +welcome)—he thought of Bella, and not of his Aunt Caroline.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, why didn't you let us know you had been ill?"</p> + +<p>There is something exquisite to a man in the presence of a woman in his +sick-room, be she lovely or homely, old or young.</p> + +<p>"This is awfully, awfully good of you, Auntie. I've had a mighty bad +time with this foot of mine."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carew in her street dress, ready for an all-day's shopping, came +airily in and laid her hand on her nephew's shoulder. Fairfax thought he +saw a look of Bella, a look of his mother. He eagerly leaned forward and +kissed his visitor.</p> + +<p>"It's mighty good of you, Auntie."</p> + +<p>"No, my dear boy, it isn't! I really didn't know you were ill. We would +have sent you things from the Buckingham. Our own cook is so poor."</p> + +<p>She couldn't sit down, she had just run in on her way to shop. She had +something to say to him....</p> + +<p>"What's wrong, Aunt Caroline?"</p> + +<p>His aunt took a seat beside him on the bed. Her <!-- Page 75 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>dove-like eyes wandered +about his room, bare save for the drawings on the walls and on a chair +in the corner, a cast covered by a wet cloth. Mrs. Carew's hands clasped +over her silk bead purse hanging empty between the rings.</p> + +<p>"I have come to ask a great favour of you, Antony."</p> + +<p>He repeated, in astonishment, "Of <i>me</i>—why, Auntie, anything that I can +do...."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carew's slender figure undulated, the sculptor thought. She made +him think of a swan—of a lily. Her pale, ineffectual features had an +old-fashioned loveliness. He put his hand over his aunt's. He murmured +devotedly—</p> + +<p>"You must let me do anything there is to do."</p> + +<p>"I am in debt, Tony," she murmured, tremulously. "Your uncle gives me +<i>so</i> little money—it's impossible to run the establishment."</p> + +<p>He exclaimed hotly, "It's a <i>shame</i>, Aunt Caroline."</p> + +<p>"Henry thinks we spend a great deal of money, but I like to dress the +children well."</p> + +<p>Her nephew recalled Bella's wardrobe. Mrs. Carew, as though she +confessed a readily-forgiven fault, whispered—</p> + +<p>"I am so fond of bric-ŕ-brac, Antony."</p> + +<p>He could not help smiling.</p> + +<p>"Down in Maiden Lane last week I bought a beautiful lamp for the front +hall. I intended paying for it by instalments; but I've not been able to +save enough—the men are waiting at the house. I <i>can't</i> tell your +uncle, I really <i>can't</i>. He would turn me out of doors."</p> + +<p>Over Fairfax's mind flashed the picture of the "Soul of honour" +confronted by a debt to a Jew ironmonger. His aunt's daily pilgrimage +began to assume a picturesqueness and complexity that were puzzling.</p> + +<p>"Carew's a brute," he said, shortly. "I can't see why you married him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carew, absorbed in the picture of the men waiting in the front hall +and the iron lamp waiting as well, did not reply.</p> + +<p>"How much do you need, Auntie?"</p> + +<p>"Only fifty dollars, my dear boy. I can give it back next week when +Henry pays me my allowance."<!-- Page 76 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>He exclaimed: "I am lucky to have it to help you out, Auntie. I've got +it right here."</p> + +<p>The sense of security transformed Mrs. Carew. She laughed gently, put +her hand on her nephew's shoulder again, exclaiming—</p> + +<p>"How <i>fortunate</i>! Tony, how <i>glad</i> I am I thought of you!"</p> + +<p>He gave her all of his mother's gift but ten dollars, and as she +bestowed it carefully away she murmured—</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> a superb lamp, and a <i>great</i> bargain. You shall see it lit +to-night."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid not to-night, Aunt Caroline. I'm off to see Cedersholm now, +and I shan't be up to much, I reckon, when I get back."</p> + +<p>His visitor rose, and Fairfax discovered that he did not wish to detain +her as he had thought to do before she had mentioned her errand. She +seemed to have entirely escaped him. She was as intangible as air, as +unreal.</p> + +<p>As he opened the door for her, considering her, he said—</p> + +<p>"Bella looks very much like my mother, doesn't she, Aunt Caroline?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carew thought that Bella resembled her father.</p> + +<p>As Fairfax took his car to go down to Ninth Street, he said to himself—</p> + +<p>"If <i>this</i> is the first sentimental history on which I am to embark, it +lacks romance from the start."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 77 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>At the studio he was informed by Cedersholm's man, Charley, that his +master was absent on a long voyage.</p> + +<p>"He has left me a letter, Charley, a note?"</p> + +<p>"Posted it, no doubt, sir."</p> + +<p>Charley asked Mr. Fairfax if he had been ill. Charley was thoroughly +sympathetic with the Southerner, but he was as well an excellent +servant, notwithstanding that he served a master whom he did not +understand.</p> + +<p>"I should like to get my traps in the studio, Charley."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Fairfax." But Charley did not ask him in.</p> + +<p>"I'll come back again to-morrow.... I'll find a note at home."</p> + +<p>"Sure to, Mr. Fairfax."</p> + +<p>"Benvenuto been around?"</p> + +<p>The Italian had sailed home to Italy on the last week's steamer. +Fairfax, too troubled and dazed to pursue the matter further, did not +comprehend how strange it all was. The doors of the studio were +henceforth shut against him, and Charley obeyed the mysterious orders +given him. There reigned profound mystery at the foundry. The young man +was sensible of a reticence among the men, who lacked Charley's +kindliness. Every one waited for Cedersholm's orders.</p> + +<p>The <i>Beasts</i> were cast.</p> + +<p>"Look out how you treat those moulds," he fiercely ordered the men. +"Those colossi belong to me. What's the damage for casting them?"</p> + +<p>At the man's response, Fairfax winced and thrust his hands into his +empty pockets.</p> + +<p>Under his breath he said: "Damn Cedersholm for a cold-blooded brute! My +youth and my courage have gone into these weeks here."<!-- Page 78 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>As he left the foundry he repeated his injunction about the care of the +moulds, and his personal tenderness for the bronze creatures was so keen +that he did not appreciate the significant fact that he was treated with +scant respect. He stepped in at the Field palace on the way up-town, and +a man in an official cap at the door asked him for his card of +admission.</p> + +<p>"Card of admission? Why, I'm one of the decorators here.... I reckon +you're new, my boy. I only quit working a fortnight ago."</p> + +<p>He was nervous and pale; his clothes were shabby.</p> + +<p>"Sorry," returned the man, "my orders are strict from Mr. Cedersholm +himself. <i>Nobody</i> comes in without his card."</p> + +<p>The sculptor ground his heel on the cruel stones.</p> + +<p>He had been shut away by his concentrated work in Cedersholm's studio +from outside interests. He had no friends in New York but the children. +No friend but his aunt, who had borrowed of him nearly all he possessed, +no sympathizers but the little old ladies, no consolations but his +visions. In the May evenings, now warm, he sat on a bench in Central +Park, listlessly watching the wind in the young trees and the voices of +happy children on their way to the lake with their boats. He began to +have a proper conception of his own single-handed struggle. He began to +know what it is, without protection or home or any capital, to grapple +with life first-hand.</p> + +<p>"Why, <i>art is the longest way in the world</i>," he thought. "It's the +rudest and steepest, and to climb it successfully needs colossal +<i>genius</i>, as well as the other things, and it needs money."</p> + +<p>He went slowly back to his lodging and his hall room. Along the wall his +array of boots, all in bad condition—his unequal boots and his +deformity struck him and his failure. A mist rose before his eyes. Over +by the mirror he had pinned the sketch he liked the best.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>On Sunday afternoon, in his desire to see the children, he forgot his +distaste of meeting the master of the house, and rang the bell at an +hour when Carew was likely to be at home. He had, too, for the first +time, a wish to see the man who had made a success of his own life. +Whatever <!-- Page 79 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>his home and family were—<i>Carew</i> was a success. Fairfax often +noted his uncle's name mentioned at directors' meetings and functions +where his presence indicated that the banker was an authority on +finance. Ever since Mrs. Carew had borrowed money of him, Fairfax had +been inclined to think better of his uncle. As the door opened before +him now he heard singing, and though the music was a hymn, it rolled out +so roundly, so fully, so whole-heartedly, that he knew his uncle must +be out.</p> + +<p>The three were alone at the piano, and the young man's face brightened +at the sight of the children. On either side of their mother Bella and +Gardiner were singing with delight the little boy's favorite hymn.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"No parting yonder,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All light and song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The while I ponder</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And say 'how long</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Shall time me sunder</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">From that glad throng?'"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Curious how syllables and tones and inflections can contain and hold our +feelings, and how their memory makes a winding-sheet.</p> + +<p>Fairfax came in quietly, and the singers finished their hymn. Then the +children fell upon him and, as Gardiner said, "Cousin Antony <i>always +did</i>," he "gobbled them up."</p> + +<p>"You might have <i>told</i> us you were ill," Bella reproved him. "When I +heard I made some wine jelly for you, but it wobbled away, and Gardiner +drank it."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't <i>weal</i> wine," said the little boy, "or <i>weal</i> jelly...."</p> + +<p>Fairfax glanced toward his aunt, unconsciously looking to her for +comfort on this trying day.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carew was truly embarrassed at the sight of her creditor, but she +continued to play lightly among the hymns, and gave him up to the +children. But Fairfax was too desperate to be set aside. If there was +any comfort anywhere he was going to have it. He said to his aunt in a +voice deepened by feeling—</p> + +<p>"Aunt Caroline, I'm a little down on my luck."</p> + +<p>The lady turned her doe-like eyes on her nephew. "My dear Tony...."<!-- Page 80 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>He clenched his vigorous hands to keep down his emotion.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Cedersholm has turned his back on me, as far as I can see."</p> + +<p>With a short laugh he threw off his intense mood, thoroughly ashamed of +his weakness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Our</i> branch of the family, Aunt Caroline, are unlucky all round, I +reckon."</p> + +<p>There was one thought uppermost in his aunt's mind. <i>She had no money +with which to pay her debt to him.</i> When there weren't lamps to buy +there were rugs and figures of <i>biscuit</i> Venuses bending over <i>biscuit</i> +streams. She had confessed her vice; she "adored bric-ŕ-brac." The +jumble in her mind made her eyes more vague than ever.</p> + +<p>"Will you go back South?" she wondered.</p> + +<p>He started, spread out his empty hands. "Go back to mother like this? +Auntie!"</p> + +<p>As ineffectual as she had been on the night of his arrival, so now Mrs. +Carew sat ineffectual before his crisis. She breathed, "My poor boy!" +and her fingers strayed amongst the keys and found the melody of the +song he loved so much.</p> + +<p>The young traveller at her side was too much of a man, even in his state +of despair, to have expected a woman to lift his burden. If she did, he +did not think of the money she owed him. What he wanted was a soothing +touch to be laid on his heart, and the song in which, not six weeks +before, he had nearly loved his aunt, did what she did not.</p> + +<p>The children had gone upstairs. Mrs. Carew sang through the first verse +of the song. As far as she was concerned nothing could have been a +greater relief. The sympathy she did not know how to give, the debt she +had never discharged, the affection she had for Antony, and her own +self-pity, Mrs. Carew threw into her voice, and it shook its tremulo +through him.</p> + +<p>He breathed devotedly: "Thank you, <i>dear</i>," and raised one of his aunt's +hands to his lips.</p> + +<p>Mr. Carew had let himself in with his latchkey, and was within a few +feet of them as his wife finished her song.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 81 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p>Neither Antony nor Mrs. Carew had the presence of mind to stir. Mrs. +Fairfax said of her brother-in-law that he was a "vain creature whose +pomposity stood in place of dignity." Carew, at all events, came upon a +scene which he had never supposed would confront his eyes. Before him in +his own drawing-room, a whipper-snapper from the South was kissing his +wife's hands. To Carew the South was the heart of sedition, bad morals, +lackadaisical indolence. What the South could not do for him in arousing +his distaste, the word "artist" completed. He said to his wife—</p> + +<p>"Is <i>this</i> the way you pass your Sabbath afternoons, Mrs. Carew?"</p> + +<p>And before she could murmur, "My <i>dear</i> Henry—" he turned on Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"Can't <i>you</i> find anything better to do in New York, sir?" He could not +finish.</p> + +<p>Fairfax rose. "Don't say anything you will regret, sir. I kissed my +aunt's hand as I would have kissed my mother's. Not that I need to make +excuse."</p> + +<p>Mr. Carew's idea of his own importance, of the importance of everything +that belonged to him, was colossal, and it would have taken more than +this spectacle, unpleasant as it was, to make him fancy his wife +harboured a sentiment for her jackanapes of a nephew. If the tableau he +had had time to observe on his way across the dining-room floor had +aroused his jealousy, that sentiment was less strong that was his anger +and his dislike. Young Fairfax had been a thorn in his side for several +weeks.</p> + +<p>"You are wise to make no excuses," he said coldly. "I could not +understand your sentiments. I have my own ideas of how a young man +should employ his time <!-- Page 82 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>and carve out his existence. Your romantic ideas +are as unsympathetic to me as was this exhibition."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carew, who had never been so terrified in her life, thought she +should faint, but had presence of mind sufficient to realize that +unconsciousness would be prejudicial to her, and by bending over the +keys she kept her balance.</p> + +<p>She murmured, "My dear, you are very hard on Antony."</p> + +<p>Carew paid no attention to her. "Your career, sir, your manner of life, +are no affair of mine. I am concerned in you as you fetch your point of +view" (Carew was celebrated for his extempore speaking), "your customs +and your morals into my house."</p> + +<p>"Believe me," said Mrs. Fairfax's son, in a choked voice, "I shall take +them out of it for ever."</p> + +<p>Carew bowed. "You are at liberty to do so, Fairfax. You have not asked +my advice nor my opinions. You have ingratiated yourself with my +friends, to my regret and theirs."</p> + +<p>Antony exclaimed violently, "Now, what do you mean by <i>that</i>, sir?"</p> + +<p>"I am in no way obliged to explain myself to you, Fairfax."</p> + +<p>"But you are!" fairly shouted the young man. "With whom have I +ingratiated myself to your regret?"</p> + +<p>"I speak of Cedersholm, the sculptor."</p> + +<p>"Well, what does <i>he</i> say of me?" pursued the poor young man.</p> + +<p>"It seems you have had the liberty of his workshop for months—"</p> + +<p>"Yes,"—Antony calmed his voice by great effort,—"I have, and I have +slaved in it like a nigger—like a slave in the sugar-cane. What of +that?"</p> + +<p>The fact of the matter was that Cedersholm in the Century Club had +spoken to Carew lightly of Fairfax, and slightingly. He had given the +young sculptor scant praise, and had wounded and cut Carew's pride in a +possession even so remote as an undesirable nephew by marriage. He could +not remember what Cedersholm had really said, but it had been +unfortunate.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what Cedersholm has said to you," <!-- Page 83 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>cried Antony Fairfax, +"nor do I care. He has sapped my life's blood. He has taken the talent +of me for three long months. He is keeping my drawings and my designs, +and, by God—"</p> + +<p>"Stop!" said Mr. Carew, sharply. "How <i>dare</i> you use such language in my +house, before my wife?"</p> + +<p>Antony laughed shortly. He fixed his ardent blue eyes on the older man, +and as he did so the sense of his own youth came to him. He was twenty +years this man's junior. Youth was his, if he was poor and unlucky. The +desire to say to the banker, "If I should tell you what I thought of +<i>you</i> as a husband and a father," he checked, and instead cried hotly—</p> + +<p>"God's here, at all events, sir, and perhaps my way of calling on Him is +as good as another."</p> + +<p>He extended his hand. It did not tremble. "Good-bye, Aunt Caroline."</p> + +<p>Hers, cold as ice, just touched his. "<i>Henry</i>," she gasped, "he's +Arabella's son."</p> + +<p>Again the scarlet Antony had seen, touched the banker's face. Fairfax +limped out of the room. His clothes were so shabby (as he had said a few +moments before, he had worked in them like a nigger), that, warm as it +was, he wore his overcoat to cover his suit. The coat lay in the hall. +Bella and Gardiner had been busy during his visit on their own affairs. +They had broken open their bank. Bella's keen ears had heard Antony's +remark to her mother about being down on his luck, and her tender heart +had recognized the heavy note in his voice. The children's bank had been +their greatest treasure for a year or two. It represented all the +"serious" money, as Bella called it, that had ever been given them. The +children had been so long breaking it open that they had not heard the +scene below in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>As Fairfax lifted his coat quickly it jingled. He got into it, thrust +his hands in the pockets. They were full of coin. His sorrow, anger and +horror were so keen that he was guilty of the unkindest act of his life.</p> + +<p>"What's this!" he cried, and emptied out his pockets on the floor. The +precious coins fell and rolled on every side. Bella and her little +brother, who had hid on the stairs in order to watch the effect of their +surprise, saw the <!-- Page 84 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>disaster, and heard the beloved cousin's voice in +anger. The little girl flew down.</p> + +<p>"Cousin <i>Antony</i>, how <i>could</i> you? It was for <i>you</i>! Gardiner and I +broke our bank for you. There were ten dollars there and fifty-nine +cents."</p> + +<p>There was nothing gracious in Fairfax's face as it bent on the excited +child.</p> + +<p>"Pick up your money," he said harshly, his hand on the door. "Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Oh," cried the child, "I didn't know you were proud like <i>that</i>. I +didn't know."</p> + +<p>"Proud," he breathed deeply. "I'd rather starve in the gutter than touch +a penny in this house."</p> + +<p>He saw the flaming cheeks and averted eyes, and was conscious of +Gardiner's little steps running down the stairs, and he heard Bella call +"Cousin <i>Antony</i>," in a heart-rent voice, as he opened the door, banged +it furiously, and strode out into the street.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead">BOOK II</h2> + +<h2 class="chapterhead">THE OPEN DOOR</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 85 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>He had slept all night in a strained position between a barrel of tallow +candles and a bag of potatoes. In spite of the hardness of the potatoes +on which he lay and the odour of the candles, he lost consciousness for +a part of the night, and when he awoke, bruised and weary, he found the +car stationary. As he listened he could not hear a sound, and crawling +out from between the sacks in the car, he saw the dim light of early +dawn through a crack in the door. Pushing open the sliding door he +discovered that the car had stopped on a siding in an immense +railroad-yard and that he was the only soul in sight. He climbed out +stiffly. On all sides of him ran innumerable lines of gleaming rails. +The signal house up high was alight and the green and yellow and white +signal lamps at the switches shone bright as stars. Further on he could +see the engine-house, where in lines, their cow-catchers at the +threshold, a row of engines waited, sombre, inert horses of iron and +steel, superb in their repose. Fairfax reckoned that it must be nearly +four-thirty, and as he stood, heard a switch click, saw a light change +from green to red, and with a rattle and commotion a train rolled +in—along and away. On the other side of the tracks in front of him were +barrack-like workshops, and over the closed station ran a name in black +letters, but it did not inform Fairfax as to his whereabouts except that +he was at "West Junction." He made his way across the tracks towards the +workshops, every inch of him sore from his cramped ride.<!-- Page 86 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>He always thought that on that day he was as mentally unhinged as a +healthy young man can be. Unbalanced by hunger, despair and rage, his +kindly face was drawn and bore the pallor of death. He was dirty and +unshaven, his heavy boot weighed on his foot like lead. Without any +special direction he limped across the tracks and once, as he stopped to +look up and down the rails on which the daylight was beginning to +glimmer, in his eyes was the morbidness of despair. A signalman from his +box could see him over the yards, and Fairfax reflected that if he +lingered he might be arrested, and he limped away.</p> + +<p>"Rome, Rome," he muttered under his breath, "thou hast been a tender +nurse to me! Thou hast given to the timid shepherd-boy muscles of iron +and a heart of steel."</p> + +<p>The night before he had rushed headlong from his uncle's house, smarting +under injustice, and had walked blindly until he came to the +Forty-second Street station. His faint and wretched spirit longed for +nothing but escape from the brutal city where he had squandered his +talent, crushed his spirit and made a poor apprenticeship to +ingratitude. A baggage car on the main line, with an open door, was the +only means of transportation of which Fairfax could avail himself, and +he had crept into it undiscovered, stowed himself away, hoping that the +train's direction was westward and expecting to be thrown out at any +moment. Thus far his journey had been made undiscovered. He didn't +wonder where he was—he didn't care. Any place was good enough to be +penniless in and to jump off from! His one idea at the moment was food.</p> + +<p>"God!" he thought to himself, "to be hungry like this and not be a +beggar or a criminal, just a duffer of a gentleman of no account!"</p> + +<p>He reached the engine-house and passed before the line of iron +locomotives, silent and vigorous in their quiescent might, and full of +inert power. He set his teeth, for the locomotives made him think of his +beloved beasts. A choking sensation came in his throat and tears to his +blue eyes. He thrust his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and went +on. In front of him a city street came down to the tracks, and sharp +across it cut <!-- Page 87 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>the swinging gates which fell as Fairfax approached. +Behind him the switches snapped; another train, this time a fast +express, rushed past him. He watched it mutely; the flinging up of the +dust around the wheels, the siss and roar and wind of its passing smote +through him. It was gone.</p> + +<p>He limped on. The street leading down to the tracks was filthy with mud +and with the effects of the late rain. It was to Fairfax an avenue into +an empty and unknown town. Small, vile, cobbled with great stones, the +alley ran between lines of two-storied frame buildings, tenement houses +which were the home of the railroad employes. The shutters were all +closed, there was not a sign of life. Fairfax came up with the +signal-box by the swinging gate, and a man with a rolled red flag stood +in the doorway. He looked at Fairfax with little curiosity and the young +man decided not to ask him any questions for fear that his stolen ride +should be discovered. As he passed on and went into the empty street, he +mused—</p> + +<p>"It is curious how we are all taking pains to escape consequences to +which we say we are indifferent. What matter is it if he <i>does</i> arrest +me? I should at least have a cup of coffee at the station house."</p> + +<p>On either side of the alley through which Fairfax now walked there was +not a friendly door open, or a shutter flung back from a window. At the +head of the street Fairfax stopped and looked back upon the yards and +the tracks of the workshops. The ugly scene lay in the mist of very +early morning and the increasing daylight made its crudeness each moment +more apparent. As he stood alone in Nut Street, on either side of him +hundreds of sleeping workmen, the sun rose over the yards, filling the +dreary, unlovely outlook with a pure glory. To Fairfax's senses it +brought no consolation but the sharp suffering that any beauty brings to +the poet and the seer. It was a new day—he was too young to be crushed +out of life because he had an empty pocket, and faint as he was, hungry +as he was, the visions began to rise again in his brain. The crimson +glory, as it swam over the railroad yards, over the bridge, over the +unsightly buildings, was peopled by his ideals—his breath came fast and +his heart beat. The clouds from which the sun emerged <!-- Page 88 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>took winged +shapes and soared; the power of the iron creatures in the shed seemed to +invigorate him. Fairfax drew a deep breath and murmured: "Art has made +many victims. I won't sacrifice my life to it." And he seemed a coward +to himself to be beaten so early in the race.</p> + +<p>"Muscles of iron and a heart of steel," he murmured again, "<i>a heart of +steel</i>."</p> + +<p>He turned on his feet and limped on, and as he walked he saw a light in +an opposite window with the early opening of a cheap restaurant. The +shutters on either side of Nut Street were flung back. He heard the +clattering of feet, doors were pushed open and the workers began to +drift out into the day. Antony made for the light in the coffee house; +it was extinguished before he arrived and the growing daylight took its +place. A man from a lodging-house passed in at the restaurant door.</p> + +<p>Fairfax's hands were deep in the pockets of his overcoat, his fingers +touched a loose button. He turned it, but it did not feel like a button. +He drew it out; it was twenty-five cents. He had not shaken out quite +all the children's coins on the hall floor. This bit of silver had +caught between the lining and the cloth and resisted his angry fling. As +the young man looked at it, his face softened. He went into the +eating-house with the other man and said to himself as he crossed the +door-sill—</p> + +<p>"Little cousin! you don't know what 'serious' money this is!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 89 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>A girl who he judged by her frowzled hair and her heavy eyes had just +been aroused from sleep, stood behind the counter pouring hot and +steaming coffee into thick china cups. The smell to the hungry man was +divine. Fairfax's mouth watered. From the one pot the coffee came out +with milk added, and from another the liquid poured clear. Fairfax asked +for coffee with milk and a sandwich, and as the girl pushed the plate +with hunks of bread and ham towards him, he asked, "How much, please?" +The girl raised her heavy lids. Her gray eyes could have sparkled if she +had been less sleepy. She glanced at him and responded in a soft +brogue—</p> + +<p>"Two cints a cup. Sandwiches two cints apiece."</p> + +<p>He took his breakfast over to the table where a customer was already +seated before a huge breakfast. After watching Fairfax for a few +moments, this man said to him—</p> + +<p>"Got a rattling good appetite, Mister."</p> + +<p>"I have, indeed," Fairfax returned, "and I'm going to begin over again."</p> + +<p>The man wore a red shirt under his coat, his battered bowler was a-cock +on his head. Antony often recalled Sanders as he looked that morning. +His face from his neck up was clean. He exuded water and brown soap; he +had a bright healthy colour; he was a good-looking workman, but his +hands! Fairfax thought them appalling—grimed with coal. They could +never be washed clean, Fairfax reflected, and one finger on the left +hand was missing.</p> + +<p>"Stranger?" the man asked him. "Just going through?"</p> + +<p>And as Fairfax replied, he thought to himself, "He <!-- Page 90 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>doesn't dream <i>how</i> +strange I am and that I don't even know the name of the town."</p> + +<p>He asked the man, "Much going on here?"</p> + +<p>"Yards. Up here in West Albany it's nothing but yards and railroading."</p> + +<p>"Ah," nodded Fairfax, and to himself: "This is the capital of New York +State—<i>Albany</i>—that's where I am."</p> + +<p>And it was not far enough away to please him.</p> + +<p>The man's breakfast, which had been fed into him by his knife, was +disposed of, and he went on—</p> + +<p>"Good steady employment; they're decent to you. Have to be, good men are +scarce."</p> + +<p>A tall, well-set-up engineer came to the coffee counter, and Fairfax's +companion called out to him—</p> + +<p>"Got your new fireman yet, Joe?"</p> + +<p>And the other, with a cheerful string of oaths, responded that he had +not got him, and that he didn't want anybody, either, who wasn't going +to stay more than five minutes in his cab.</p> + +<p>"They've got a sign out at the yards," he finished, "advertising for +hands, and when I run in at noon I'll call up and see what's doing."</p> + +<p>Fairfax digested his meal and watched the entrance and exit of the +railroad hands. Nearly all took their breakfast standing at the counter +jollying the girl; only a few brakemen and conductors gave themselves +the luxury of sitting down at the table. Antony went and paid what he +owed at the counter, and found that the waitress had waked up, and, in +spite of the fact that she had doled out coffee and food to some fifty +customers, she had found time to glance at "the new one."</p> + +<p>"Was it all right?" she asked.</p> + +<p>She handed him the change out of his quarter. He had had a dime's worth +of food.</p> + +<p>"Excellent," Fairfax assured her; "first-rate."</p> + +<p>Her sleeves came only to the elbow, her fore-arm was firm and white as +milk. Her hands were coarse and red; she was pretty and her cheerfulness +touched him.</p> + +<p>He wanted to ask for a wash-up, but he was timid.</p> + +<p>"I'll be back at lunchtime," he said to her, nodding, and the girl, +charmed by his smile, asked hesitatingly—</p> + +<p>"Workin' here?"<!-- Page 91 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>And as Fairfax said "No" rather quickly, she flashed scarlet.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," she murmured.</p> + +<p>He was as keen to get out of the restaurant now as he had been to cross +its threshold. The room grew small around him, and he felt himself too +closely confined with these common workmen, with whom for some reason or +other he began to feel a curious fraternity. Once outside the house, +instead of taking his way into the more important part of West Albany, +he retraced his steps down Nut Street, now filled with men and women. +Opposite the gateman's house at the foot of the hill, he saw a sign +hanging in a window, "New York Central Railroad," and under this was a +poster which read, "Men wanted. Apply here between nine and twelve."</p> + +<p>Fairfax read the sign over once or twice, and found that it fascinated +him. This brief notice was the only call he had heard for labour, it was +the only invitation given him to make his livelihood since he had come +North. "Men wanted."</p> + +<p>He touched the muscles of his right arm, and repeated "Muscles of iron +and a heart of steel." There was nothing said on the sign about +sculptors and artists and men of talent, and poets who saw visions, and +young ardent fellows of good family, who thought the world was at their +feet; but it did say, "Men wanted." Well, he was a man, at any rate. He +accosted a fellow who passed him whistling.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me where a chap can get a shave in this neighbourhood? Any +barbers hereabouts?"</p> + +<p>The other grinned. "Every feller is his own razor in Nut Street, +partner! You can find barber shops uptown."</p> + +<p>"I want to get a wash-up," Fairfax said, smiling on him his light smile. +"I want to get hold of a towel and some soap."</p> + +<p>The workman pointed across the street. "There's a hotel. They'll fix you +up."</p> + +<p>Fairfax followed the man's indication, and he saw the second sign that +hung in Nut Street. It gave the modest information, "Rooms and board +three dollars a week. Room one dollar a week. All at Kenny's first-class +hotel. <!-- Page 92 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>Gents only." Of the proprietor who stood in the doorway, and +whose morning toilet had gone as far as shirt and trousers, Antony +asked—</p> + +<p>"How much will it cost me to wash-up? I'd like soap and a towel and to +lie down on a bed for a couple of hours."</p> + +<p>The Irish hotel-keeper looked at him. Fairfax took off his hat, and he +didn't explain himself further.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Patrick Kenny, "yez don't look very dirthy. Charge fifteen +cents. Pay in advance."</p> + +<p>"Show me up," accepted Fairfax, and put the last of Bella's charity into +the man's hand.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 93 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>That was May. Five months later, when the Hudson flowed between flaming +October shores, and the mists of autumn hung like a golden grail on the +air, Fairfax leaned out of the window of the engine-cab and cried to +another man, in another cab on the opposite track—</p> + +<p>"Hello, Sanders; how's your health?"</p> + +<p>It was the slang greeting of the time. The engineer responded that he +was fine as silk, and rang his bell and passed on his rolling way.</p> + +<p>Fairfax wore a red shirt, his trousers were thick with oil and grease. +His collar, open at the neck, showed how finely his head was set upon +his shoulders, and left free the magnificent column of his throat. Down +to his neck came his crisp fair hair, just curling at the ends; his +sleeves were up to his elbows and his bare arms were dirty, vigorous and +powerful, with the muscles standing out like cords. He never looked at +his hands any more, his clever sensitive hands. He had been Joe Mead's +fireman for five months, a record ticket for Joe Mead's cab. Fairfax had +borne cursing and raging from his chief, borne them with equanimity, +feeding into the belly of his engine whatever disgust he felt. Thrown +together with these strange men of a different class, he learned new +things of life, and at first he was as amused as a child at play. He +made two dollars a day. This amply fed him and kept him, and he put by, +with a miserliness that was out of all keeping with his temperament, +every cent he could spare from the necessities of life.</p> + +<p>Not that Fairfax had any plans.</p> + +<p>From the first opening of his eyes on West Albany, when he had crawled +out of the baggage car in the dawn, he shut out his past from himself. +He crushed back <!-- Page 94 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>even his own identity. He earned his bread by the sweat +of his brow in the real sense of the word, and for what reason he saved +his money he could not have told. He had become a day labourer, a +fireman on the New York Central road, and he was a first-rate hand. His +figure in the rude, dirty clothes, his bowler always worn on the back of +his blonde head, his limp (that big boot had gone hard with him on the +day that he applied for a job at the boss's office), all were familiar +in Nut Street by this. His voice, his smile, his rare good heart, made +him a popular companion, and he was, too, popular with the women.</p> + +<p>His miserable reception in New York, the bruises inflicted upon him by +Cedersholm and his uncle, had embittered Tony Fairfax to an extent of +which his humble Nut Street friends were ignorant. He didn't do them any +harm, however. If any harm were done at all—and there is a question +even regarding that—it was done to himself, for he crushed down his +ambitions, he thrust them out of his heart, and he bit the dust with a +feeling of vengeance. He had been a gentleman with talent, and his own +world had not wanted him; so he went down to the people. All that his +mother knew was that he had gone on to the north of the State, to +perfect certain branches of his art, and that it was better for him to +be in Albany. Reclining under the vines, she read his letters, smiling, +fanning herself with a languid hand.</p> + +<p>"Emmy, Master Tony's getting on, getting on."</p> + +<p>"Yas'm, Mis' Bella, I do speck he is."</p> + +<p>"Listen, Emmy." And Mrs. Fairfax would read aloud to the devoted negro +the letters planned, concocted, by her son in his miserable lodgings, +letters which cost him the keenest pangs of his life, kind and tender +lines; things he would have done if he could; things he had hoped for +and knew would never come true; joys he meant to bring her and that he +knew she would grow old and never see; success and fame, whose very +sound to him now was like the knell of fate. At the end of the letter he +said—</p> + +<p>"I am studying mechanics. I reckon you'll laugh at me, mother, but they +are useful to a sculptor."</p> + +<p>And she had not laughed in the way he meant as she kissed his letter and +wet it with her tears.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 95 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>No Sunday duties took him to the yards, and washed and dressed, shaved +and brushed, he became a beautiful man of the world, in a new overcoat +and a new sleek hat, and over his hands thick doeskin gloves. He could +afford to pay for his clothes, and like this he left Nut Street every +Sunday at nine o'clock, not to see West Albany again till midnight. On +the seventh day of the week he was a mystery to his chums and his +landlady, and if any one in Nut Street had had time to be suspicious and +curious they might have given themselves the trouble of following +Fairfax. There were not many idlers, however, and no saloons. Drunkards +were unwelcome, and Sunday was a day of rest for decent hard workers. +When Antony, in his elegance, came out he used to pass between fathers +of families in their shirt sleeves, if it were warm weather, and between +complacent couples, and many of the hands slept all day. The most +curious eyes were those of Molly Shannon, the girl at the restaurant, +and her eyes were more than curious.</p> + +<p>Fairfax had been courteous to her, bidding her good-morning in a way +that made her feel as though she were a lady. He had been there for his +breakfast and lunch several months until finally Molly Shannon drove him +away. This she did not do by her boldness, for she was not bold, but by +her comeliness and her sex and her smile. Fairfax fed his Pride in his +savage immolation before the monster of iron and steel; by his slavery +to work he revenged himself upon his class. His Pride grew; he stood up +against Fate, and he thought he was doing a very fine thing, when his +Pride also stood up in the restaurant when he took his cup of coffee +from the red-handed girl of the people, pretty Molly Shannon from +<!-- Page 96 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>Killarney. Fairfax went farther up the street. He found another eating +house, and later ate his sandwich on his knees at noon in the cab of his +engine.</p> + +<p>When Molly Shannon found that he was not coming there for his coffee any +more, she grew listless, and doled out food to the other men with a lack +of science and interest that won her sharp reproofs and coarse jokes. +From her window over the restaurant she watched Mister Fairfax as every +Sunday he went limping up the street. Molly watched him, her breast +palpitating under the common shirtwaist, and the freckles on the milky +white skin died out under the red that rose.</p> + +<p>"He's got a girl," she reflected; "sure, he's got a girl."</p> + +<p>One Sunday in October, a day of yellow sunlight and autumn air, when Nut +Street and the yards and West Albany fringed the country like the hem of +an ugly garment, Molly came down and out into the street, and at a +distance she followed Fairfax. Fairfax cut down a couple of blocks +further on to the main station. He went in and bought a ticket for +Albany. He boarded the cars, and Molly followed.</p> + +<p>She tracked him at a safe distance up Market Street to Eagle, and the +young man walked so slowly that it was easy to keep him in sight. The +man pursued by the Irish girl suggested nothing less than a New York +Central fireman. He looked like any other well-set-up, well-made young +gentleman out on a Sunday morning. In his fashionable coat, his +fashionable hat, Molly saw him go through the doors of a stone church +whose bells rang solemnly on the October air.</p> + +<p>The girl was very much surprised.</p> + +<p>She felt him safe even within the walls of the heathen church, and she +went directly back to Nut Street, her holiday hanging heavy on her +hands, and she went in and helped her patron wash the dishes, and +upstairs that night she stopped in her simple preparations for bed and +reddened.</p> + +<p>"Sure, ain't I a silly! He's went to church to <i>meet</i> his girl!"</p> + +<p>Her morning's outing, the tramp and the excitement, were an unusual +strain to Molly, not to speak of her emotions, and she cried herself to +sleep.<!-- Page 97 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<p>Fairfax sat every Sunday in the same pew. The seat was to the left of +the altar, and he sang with an ardour and a mellowness that was lost +neither on the people near him nor on the choir-master. All arts were +sympathetic to him: his ear was good and his voice agreeable. His youth, +his sacrifice, his dying art he put into his church singing, and once +the choir-master, who had taken pains to mark him, stopped him in the +vestibule and spoke to him.</p> + +<p>"No," Fairfax said, "I am not a musician. Don't know one note from +another, and can't learn. Only sing by ear, and not very sure at that!"</p> + +<p>He listened indifferently. As the gentleman spoke of art and success, +over Antony's handsome mouth there flitted a smile that had something of +iron in it.</p> + +<p>"I don't care for any of those things, sir," he replied. "I reckon I'm a +barbarian, a rudimentary sort of man."</p> + +<p>He took a certain pride and glory in his station as he talked. There was +a fascination in puzzling this mild, charming man, one of his own class, +whose very voice and accent were a relief after the conversations he +heard daily.</p> + +<p>"You see," he said, "I happen to be a fireman in the New York Central +yards down at West Albany."</p> + +<p>The quiet choir-master stared at him. "Oh, come, come!" he smiled.</p> + +<p>Fairfax thrust his cane under his arm, drew off his glove, and held out +his hand, looking into the other man's eyes. The musician's hand closed +over Fairfax's.</p> + +<p>"My dear young fellow," he said gravely, "you are a terrible loss to +art. You would make your way in the musical world."</p> + +<p>Fairfax laughed outright, and the choir-master watched him as others did +as he limped away, his broad, fine back, his straight figure, and +Fairfax's voice swelling out in the processional came to the musician's +mind.</p> + +<p>"There is a mystery about that chap," he thought. "He is a gentleman. +The Bishop would be interested."</p> + +<p>By contrast Sundays were delightful to Antony. Amusements possible to a +workingman with the tastes of a gentleman were difficult to obtain. +Church in the morning, a lazy stroll through the town, an excellent +dinner at the Delavan House, set Fairfax up for the week. <!-- Page 98 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>The coloured +waiter thought his new patron was a Southerner, and suspected him of +being a millionaire.</p> + +<p>"Yass, sar, Mr. Kunnell Fairfax, sar."</p> + +<p>Antony, in a moment of heart hunger for the South, had told George +Washington his name. George Washington kept the same place for him every +Sunday, and polished the stone china plates till they glistened, +displayed for Antony all his dazzling teeth, bowed himself double, his +napkin under his arm, and addressed Antony as "Kunnell"; and Antony over +his dessert laughed in his sleeve (he took great pains to keep his hands +out of sight). After luncheon he smoked and read the papers in the +lobby, lounged about, wrote a Sunday letter to his mother, and then +loitered about through old Albany. On Sunday afternoons when it was +fine, he would choose School Street and the Cathedral close, and now, +under the falling of the yellow leaves there was a beauty in the day's +end that thrilled him hour by hour. He made these pilgrimages to keep +himself from thinking, from dreaming, from suffering; to keep his hands +from pencil and design; to keep his artist soul from crying out aloud; +to keep his talent from demanding, like a starving thing, bread that he +had no means to give. Sometimes, however,—sometimes, when the stimulus +of an excellent dinner, and a restful morning, when the cheer of George +Washington's droll devotion had died, then the young man's step would +lag in the streets of Albany, and with his hands behind his back and his +bright head bowed, he would creep musing, half-seeing where he went.</p> + +<p>Taking advantage of his lassitude, like peris whose wings had been +folded against Paradise, and whose forms had been leaning hard against +the gate, his ideals, his visions, would rush in upon him, and he would +nearly sink under the beating of their wings—under their voluptuous +appeal, under their imperious demand.</p> + +<p>On these occasions Fairfax would go home oppressed, and content himself +with a glass of milk and light food at the restaurant, and dressed as he +was even to the hat on his head, he would sink by the table in his +little room and bury his face in his hands. Then he would count up his +money. Working from May until October, he had saved only fifty dollars. +After his calculations there was no <!-- Page 99 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>magnitude in the sum to inspire him +to new plans or to tempt him to make a fresh venture for art. He often +thought, in looking back on those days, that it was nothing but his +pride and his obstinacy that kept him there. The memory of his winter's +creations, of his work in the studio, and his beasts with their powerful +bodies and their bronze beauty, came upon him always with such cruel +resentment and made him feel so impotent against the injustice of the +great, that if drink had tempted Fairfax he would have gone to the +nearest saloon and made a beast of himself.</p> + +<p>The working hours were long and his employment physically exhausting, +but he embraced his duties and fell in love with the great steel and +iron creature which it was his work to feed and clean and oil. And when +he left his engine silent in the shed, the roar and the motion absent, +tranquil, breathless, and yet superb, Antony left his machine with +regret, the regret of a lover for his mistress. He was fireman to a +wild-cat engineer.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 100 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>Fairfax, used to the Southern climate, found no fault with the heat of +summer, bone-racking and blood-boiling though it was; but, remembering +his past experience of winds and snow in January, he wondered how winter +would seem in the yards, endured in the cab of the engine, but his toil +had now toughened him, roughened him, and strengthened his heart of +steel. November, with its Indian summer smoothness, with its fine, +glorious light that glowed over West Albany, passed, and the year went +out in beauty and December followed, still windless and mild. But that +was the last touch of mercy. January rushed down upon them, fierce, +tempestuous, and up and down the yards, from his window, Fairfax watched +the whirling shrouds of snow sweep over the ground, cover the tracks, +and through the veil the lights flickered like candles that the snuffers +of the storm were vainly trying to extinguish. He put on an extra +flannel shirt under his red shirt; he buttoned his vest high, got into +his coat, jammed his hat on fiercely and shook himself like a reluctant +dog before going to his work. Under his window he could hear the +soughing of the wind and it sucked under the door; he was sure that he +would never be warm here again.</p> + +<p>"Jove!" he thought, "there will be two inches of snow inside my window +when I get back at midnight." He drove his razor into the crack to +stiffen the casement, and took an old flannel shirt and laid it along +the ledge. As he did so the storm blew a whirl of snow across the pane.</p> + +<p>"Siberia," he muttered to himself; "don't talk to me about Russia. This +is far enough North for me!"</p> + +<p>He could not have said why the thought of the children <!-- Page 101 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>came, but its +spirit came back to him. For months he had fiercely thrust out every +memory of the children, but to-night, as the wind struck him, he thought +of their games and the last time they had played that romping sport +together. Like a warm garment to shield him against the cold he was just +going to fight, he seemed to feel Bella's arms around his neck as they +had clung whilst he rushed with her through the hall. It was just a year +ago that he had arrived in the unfriendly city of his kinsmen, and as he +thought of them, going down the narrow dark stairs of the shanty hotel, +strangely enough it was not the icy welcome that he remembered, but +Bella—Bella in her corner with her book, Bella with her bright red +dress, Bella with her dancing eyes and her eager face.</p> + +<p>"You've got an awfully light smile, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>The door of the hotel eating-room was open and dimly lighted. Kenny and +his wife were talking before the stove. They heard their lodger's +step—a unique step in the house—and the woman, who would have gone +down on her knees and blacked his big boot and the smaller boot, called +out to him—</p> + +<p>"Ah, don't yez go out unless ye have a cup of hot coffee, Misther +Fairfax. It's biting cold. Come on in now."</p> + +<p>Kenny's was a temperance hotel, obliged to be by the railroad. There +were two others in the room besides the landlady and Kenny: Sanders and +Molly Shannon. They sat together by the stove. As Fairfax came in Molly +drew her chair away from the engineer. Fairfax accepted gratefully Mrs. +Kenny's suggestion of hot coffee, and while she busied herself in +getting it for him, he sat down.</p> + +<p>"Running out at eight, Sanders?"</p> + +<p>"You bet," said the other shortly. "New York Central don't change its +schedule for the weather."</p> + +<p>Sanders was suspicious regarding Fairfax and the girl, not that the +fireman paid the least attention to Molly Shannon, but she had changed +in her attitude to all her old friends since the new-comer first drank a +cup of coffee in Sheedy's. Sanders had asked Molly to marry him every +Sunday since spring, and he firmly believed that if <!-- Page 102 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>he had begun his +demands the Sunday before Fairfax appeared, the girl would be Mrs. +Sanders now.</p> + +<p>Molly wore a red merino dress. According to the fashion of the time it +fitted her closely like a glove. Its lines revealed every curve of her +young, shapely figure, and the red dress stopped short at the dazzling +whiteness of her neck. Her skin and colouring were Irish, coral-like and +pure. Her hair was auburn and the vivid tint of her costume was an +unfortunate contrast; but her grey eyes with black flecks in them and +long black lashes, her piquant nose and dimples, brought back the +artistic mistake, as the French say. She was too girlish, too young, too +pretty not to score high above her dreadful dress.</p> + +<p>Fairfax, who knew why he did not eat at the coffee-house any more, +looked at the reason, and the artist in him and the man simultaneously +regarded the Irish girl.</p> + +<p>"Somebody's got on a new frock," he said. "Did you make it, Miss Molly?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," she answered, without lifting her eyes, and went all red from +her dress to her hair.</p> + +<p>Fairfax drank the hot coffee and felt the warmth at his heart. He heard +Sanders say under his breath—</p> + +<p>"Why, I bet you could make anything, Molly, you're so smart. Now I have +a rip in my coat here; if Mrs. Kenny has a needle will you be a good +girl and mend it?"</p> + +<p>And Fairfax heard her say, "Sanders, leave me be."</p> + +<p>Since Sanders had cooled to him, Fairfax took special pains to be +friendly, for his pride shrank against having any jars here in these +quarters. He could not bear the idea of a disagreement with these people +with whom he was playing a false part. He took out a couple of excellent +cigars from his waistcoat and gave one to Kenny, who stood picking his +teeth in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mister Fairfax. For a felly who don't smoke, ye smoke the +best cigars."</p> + +<p>Sanders refused shortly, and as the whistle of an engine was heard above +the fierce cry of the storm, he rose. He took the eight o'clock express +from Albany to New York. He left all his work to his fireman, jumping on +his locomotive at the last moment, always hanging round Molly Shannon +till she shook him off like a burr. Fairfax put <!-- Page 103 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>the discarded cigar +back in his pocket. He was not due for some twenty minutes at the +engine-house, and Sanders, gloomily considering his rival, was certain +that Fairfax intended remaining behind with the girl. Indeed, Antony's +impulse to do just this thing was strong. He was tempted to take +Sanders' chair and sit down by Molly. She remained quietly, her eyes +downcast, twisting her handkerchief, which she rolled and unrolled. Mrs. +Kenny cleared away the dishes, her husband lit his cigar and beamed. +Sanders got his hat off the hook, put on his coat slowly, the cloud +black on his face. Fairfax wanted to make the girl lift her eyes to him, +he wanted to look into those grey eyes with the little black flecks +along the iris. As the language of the street went, Molly was crazy +about him. He wanted to feel the sensation that her lifted lashes and +her Irish eyes would bring. Temptations are all of one kind; there are +no different kinds. What they are and where they lead depends upon the +person to whom they come.</p> + +<p>"Good-night," said Sanders, shortly. "Give up the door, Kenny, will you? +You're not a ghost."</p> + +<p>"I'm going with you, Sanders," Fairfax said; "hold on a bit."</p> + +<p>Sanders' heart bounded and his whole expression changed. He growled—</p> + +<p>"What are you going for? You're not due. It's cold as hell down in the +yards."</p> + +<p>Fairfax was looking at Molly and instinctively she raised her head and +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Better give this cigar to your fireman, Sandy," Fairfax said to him as +the two men buttoned up their coats and bent against the January wind.</p> + +<p>"All right," muttered the other graciously, "give it over here. Ain't +this the deuce of a night?"</p> + +<p>The wind went down Sandy's throat and neither man spoke again. They +parted at the yards, and Sanders went across the track where his fireman +waited for him on his engine, and Fairfax went to the engine-house and +found his legitimate mistress, his steel and iron friend, with whom he +was not forbidden by common-sense to play.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 104 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>By the time he reached the engine-house he was white with snow, and wet +and warm. There was no heating in the sheds where the locomotives waited +for their firemen, and the snow and wind beat in, and on the +cow-catchers of the two in line was a fringe of white like the +embroidery on a woman's dress. The gas lamps lit the big place +insufficiently, and the storm whistled through the thin wooden shed.</p> + +<p>Number Ten at the side of Antony's engine was the midnight express +locomotive, to be hitched at West Albany to the Far West Limited. His +own, Number Forty-one, was smaller, less powerful, more slender, +graceful, more feminine, and Antony kept it shining and gleaming and +lustreful. It was his pride to regard it as a living thing. Love was +essential to any work he did; he did not understand toil without it, and +he cared for his locomotive with enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>He did not draw out for half an hour. His machine was in perfect order; +the fire had already been started by one of the shed firemen, and +Fairfax shook down the coals and prepared to get up steam. They were +scheduled to leave West Albany at nine and carry a freight train into +the State as far as Utica. He would be in the train till dawn. It was +his first night's work in several weeks, and the first ever in a +temperature like this. Since morning the thermometer had fallen twenty +points.</p> + +<p>His thoughts kindled as his fire kindled—a red dress flashed before his +eyes. Sometimes it was vivid scarlet, too vivid and too violent, then it +changed to a warm crimson, and Bella's head was dark above it. But the +vision of the child was too young to hold Antony, now desirous and +gloomy. His point of view had changed <!-- Page 105 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>and his face set as he worked +about in the cab and his adjustable lamp cast its light upon a face that +was grave and stern.</p> + +<p>He hummed under his breath the different things as they came to him.</p> + +<p>"<i>J'ai perdu ma tourterelle.</i>"</p> + +<p>Dear old Professor Dufaucon, with his yellow goatee and his broken +English. And the magnolias were blooming in the yard, for the professor +lived on the veranda and liked the open air, and in the spring there +were the nightingales.</p> + +<p>"<i>J'ai perdu ma tourterelle.</i>"</p> + +<p>"First catch your hare," Antony said. "I have never had a turtle-dove, +never had a sweetheart since I fell from the cherry-tree."</p> + +<p>Sounds that were now familiar to him came from outside, the ringing of +the bells as the locomotives drew through the storm, the high scream of +the whistles, the roll and rumble of the wheels and the calling of the +employer to the railroad hands as they passed to their duties outside +the shed. Fairfax left Louisiana and stopped singing. He threw open the +door of his furnace, and the water hissed and bubbled in the boiler. He +opened the cock and the escaping steam filled the engine-house and mixed +with the damp air.</p> + +<p>Looking through the window of the cab, Fairfax saw a figure pass in +under the shed. It was a woman with a shawl over her head. He climbed +down out of the cab; the woman threw the shawl back, he saw the head and +dress.</p> + +<p>"Why, Miss Molly!" he exclaimed. He thought she had come for Sanders.</p> + +<p>She held out a yellow envelope, but even though she knew she brought him +news and that he would not think of her, her big eyes fastened on him +were eloquent. Fairfax did not answer their appeal. He tore open the +telegram.</p> + +<p>"I brought it myself," she murmured. "I hope it ain't bad news."</p> + +<p>He tore it open with hands stained with grease and oil. He read it in +the light of his cab lamp, read it twice, and a man who was hanging +around for a job felt the fireman of Number Forty-one grasp his arm.<!-- Page 106 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Tell Joe Mead to take you to-night to fire for him—tell him I've got +bad news. I'm going to New York."</p> + +<p>"It's too bad," said the other cheerfully. "I'll tell him."</p> + +<p>Fairfax had gone flying on his well foot and his lame foot like a +jackdaw. He was out of the shed without a word to Molly Shannon.</p> + +<p>"Your felly's got bad news," said the man, and, keenly delighted with +his sudden luck, climbed agilely into the cab of Number Forty-one, and, +leaning out of the window, looked down on Molly.</p> + +<p>"He ain't my felly," she responded heavily, "he boards to Kenny's. I +just brought him the despatch, but I think it's bad news, sure enough."</p> + +<p>And wrapping the shawl closer over her head, she passed out into the +storm whose fringe was deepening on the cow-catchers of Number Ten and +Number Forty-one.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Sanders' big locomotive ran in from the side to the main track as +smoothly as oil, and backed up the line to the cars of the night mail. +Sanders was to start at eight o'clock, and it was a minute before the +hour. The ringing of his bell and the hiss of the steam were in his +ears. He was just about to open the throttle when a voice on the other +side called to him, and Fairfax climbed up into the cab.</p> + +<p>"Take me in, Sanders, old man; let me hang on here, will you? I've got +to get to New York as fast as you can take me."</p> + +<p>Sanders nodded, the station signal had been given. He started out, and +Antony made himself as small as possible in the only available place +between the fireman, who was one of his special pals, and the engineer. +Sanders' face was towards his valves and brakes. He pulled out into the +driving sleet, scanning the tracks under the searchlight.</p> + +<p>"What's up, Tony?" the fireman at his side asked him as they rolled out +into the night to the ringing of the bell. Fairfax handed him his +despatch and the fireman read it, and Fairfax answered him—</p> + +<p>"A little cousin. One of my little cousins. What time are we due in New +York?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 107 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>It was past midnight when Antony rushed out of the Forty-second Street +station into a blizzard of sleet and snow. He stood a second looking up +and down Madison Avenue, searching vainly for a car. There were no cabs +at the station, there was nothing in sight but the blinding storm, and +he began on foot to battle his way with the elements. It had been +snowing in New York for twelve hours. The same fierce challenge met him +that he had received the year before, and he pushed his way through the +dim streets where the storm veils wrapped the gas lamps like shrouds. He +had been on duty since six that morning, except for a few hours in the +afternoon. Every now and then he had to stop for breath and to shake the +weight of snow off his collar. He was white as wool. The houses on +either side were dark with a stray light here and there, but he knew +that farther on he should find one house lit with the light that burns +for watchers. He glowed like a gladiator, panted like a runner, and he +reached the door and leaned for breath and waited for an answer to his +ring. Like a gladiator! How he had mouthed Spartacus for them! He could +see the dancing eyes, and little Gardiner touched the muscles of his +arm.</p> + +<p>"Feel mine, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>Heart of steel! Well, he would need it now.</p> + +<p>The door was opened, he never knew by whom, and a silence met him that +was profound after the voices of the storm. He stamped his feet and +shook off the drift from without, threw off his coat, caked thick and +fairly rattling with its burden, threw off his hat, heavy and dripping, +and as he was, his heart of steel beating in him like a tender human +heart, he limped up the quiet stairs. Even then he noticed that there +were signs of a feast <!-- Page 108 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>in the house. It should have been the annual +dinner of Mr. Carew. The odours of flowers that had died were sickening +in the heat. Smilax twisted around the balustrade of the stairs met his +work-stained hand that trembled in the leaves. On the second floor, some +one, he was not clear, but afterwards he thought it must have been Miss +Eulalie, met him and took him in.</p> + +<p>In the feeble sick-room light, grouped a few people whose forms and +faces go to make part of the sombre pictures of watchers; that group in +which at some time or other each inhabitant of the world takes his +place. There was one kneeling figure; the others stood round the bed. +The little bark, quite big enough to carry such a small freight thus far +on the voyage, was nearly into port.</p> + +<p>Bella lay close to her little brother, her dark hair and dress the only +shadow on the white bed covers. Gardiner's hair was brushed back from +his brow, he looked older, but still very small to go so far alone. +Gardiner was travelling, travelling—climbing steep mountains, white +with snow, and his breath came in short laboured sighs, fast, fast—it +was the only sound in the room. Bella had not left his side for hours, +her cheek pressed the pillow by his restless head. Her tears had fallen +and dried, fallen and dried. Bella alone knew what Gardiner tried to +say. His faltering words, his halting English, were familiar to the +sister and she interpreted to the others, to whom Gardiner, too small to +reach them, had never been very near. Twenty times the kneeling figure +had asked—</p> + +<p>"What does he say, Bella? What does he want?"</p> + +<p>"He thinks it is a game," the little sister said; "he says it's cold, he +says he wants Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>Since his summons, when Gardiner found that he must gird his little +loins for the journey, his mind had gone to the big cousin who had so +triumphantly carried him over the imaginary steeps.</p> + +<p>From the door, where he had been standing on the edge of the group, a +tall figure in a red flannel shirt came forward, bent down, and before +any one knew that he had come, or who he was, he was speaking to the +sick child.</p> + +<p>"Gardiner, little cousin, here's your old cousin Antony come back."<!-- Page 109 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>Gardiner was travelling hard, but his head stopped its restless turning. +He looked up into the beloved face, whose smile shone on him and lit his +dark journey. Gardiner tried to answer the brightness of that smile, he +tried to hold out his little arms. In a sob Bella whispered—</p> + +<p>"He wants Cousin Antony to carry him."</p> + +<p>Without removing his look of tender brightness from the traveller's +face, Fairfax murmured—</p> + +<p>"I reckon I'll take him in my arms, Aunt Caroline."</p> + +<p>And as the steepest, coldest place came in sight to little Gardiner, he +was lifted in a warm embrace. He opened his eyes upon Antony's and with +a radiant look gave up the painful climbing to the rescuer.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 110 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>Fairfax himself made many cruel Siberian journeys and voyages through +hellish tropics, on his own narrow bed in the hall room overlooking the +New York Central yards. He had something close to pneumonia and turned +and cried out on his bed, too small for his big form, and in his +delirium he kicked away the footboard. His uncle's house, which he had +left as brusquely this time as before, haunted him in his mind troubled +by sickness. He cried out that it was a cursed place and that Gardiner +had been killed by neglect, and that he shook the dust of New York from +his feet. From wild blue eyes that flamed under his hair grown long, he +stared into the space peopled by delirium and called his solitary +attendant "Bella," and begged her to come away with him before it was +too late, for, as many sick people seem to be, he was travelling. In his +case he journeyed back to his boarding-house and laid his visions down +and waked up in the same old world that had treated him badly, but which +he was not ready to leave.</p> + +<p>It was a sunny, brilliant January day. The snow had frozen on his window +and the light played upon gleaming bands, and through the dingy yellow +shade the sunlight came determinedly. On the table by his bedside were +his medicines and milk, and he was covered by counterpanes lent by the +other lodgers.</p> + +<p>He felt the perspiration pour off him as his mind found its balance, and +he saw how weak he was; but though it hurt him to breathe, he could do +so, and the crisis was past. He had fallen on his bed when he came from +New York and here he had remained. He wet his cracked lips, said +"Water," and from behind him, where she had been sitting, a girl came +and held a glass to his <!-- Page 111 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>lips. Fairfax drank, closed his eyes, made no +sign of recognition, for he knew Molly Shannon. She wiped the sweat from +his brow and face tenderly, and though her hand had not trembled before +in her ministrations, it trembled now. Her heart was beating with +gratitude for she knew he was saved. She gave him milk and brandy, after +a few moments, then sat down to her work. Fairfax, speaking each word +distinctly, said—</p> + +<p>"I reckon I've been pretty sick, haven't I?"</p> + +<p>"You're all right now, Misther Fairfax."</p> + +<p>He smiled faintly. He was indifferent, very weak, but he felt a kind of +mild happiness steal over him as he lay there, a sense of being looked +after, cared for, and of having beaten the enemy which had clutched his +throat and chest. He heard the voices of Molly and the doctor, heard her +pretty Irish accent, half-opened his eyes and saw her hat and plaid +red-and-black shawl hanging by the window. The plaid danced before his +eyes, became a signal flag, and, watching it, he drowsed and then fell +into the profound sleep which means recovery.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 112 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>Fairfax took Molly Shannon's presence for granted, accepted her +services, obeyed her docilely and thanked her with his smile which +regained its old radiance as he grew stronger. Lying shaven, with his +hair cut at last—for she had listened to his pleading and sent for a +barber—in clean sheets and jacket, he looked boyish and thin, and to +the Irish girl he was beautiful. She kept her eyes from him for fear +that he should see her passion and her adoration, and she effaced +herself in the nurse, the mother, the sister, in the angel.</p> + +<p>Sure, she hadn't sent word to any one. How should she? Sorry an idea she +had where he came from or who were his folks.</p> + +<p>"I am glad. I wouldn't have worried my mother."</p> + +<p>And answering the question that was bounding in Molly's heart, he said—</p> + +<p>"There's no one else to frighten or to reassure. I must write to my +mother to-day."</p> + +<p>As he said this he remembered that he would be obliged to tell her of +little Gardiner, and the blood rose to his cheek, a spasm seized his +heart, and his past rushed over him and smote him like a great wave.</p> + +<p>Molly sat sewing in the window, mending his shirts, the light outlining +her form and her head like a red flower. He covered his face with his +hand and a smothered groan escaped him, and he fell back on the pillow. +Molly ran to him, terrified: "a relapse," that's what it was. The doctor +had warned her.</p> + +<p>"God in heaven!" she cried, and knowing nothing better to do, she put +her arms round him as if he had been a boy. She saw the tears trickle +through his thin hands that in his idleness had grown white, though the +dark ridges around the broken nails were blackened still.<!-- Page 113 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<p>Fairfax quickly regained his control and made the girl go back to her +work. After a little he said—</p> + +<p>"Who's been paying for all these medicines, and so forth?"</p> + +<p>"Lord love ye, that's nothing to cry about."</p> + +<p>"There is money in my vest pocket, Molly; get it, will you?"</p> + +<p>She found a roll of bills. There were twenty dollars.</p> + +<p>She exclaimed—</p> + +<p>"That's riches! I've only spent the inside of a five-dollar bill."</p> + +<p>"And the doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he'll wait. He's used to waiting in Nut Street."</p> + +<p>Fairfax fingered the money. "And your work at Sheedy's?"</p> + +<p>Molly stood by the bed, his shirt in her hand, her brass thimble on one +finger, a bib apron over her bosom.</p> + +<p>"Don't bother."</p> + +<p>"You've lost your place, Molly; given it up to take care of me."</p> + +<p>She took a few stitches, the colour high in her face, and with a rare +sensitiveness understood that she must not let Antony see her sacrifice, +that she must not put her responsibility on Fairfax. She met his eyes +candidly.</p> + +<p>"If you go on like this, you'll be back again worse nor ye were. +Sheedy's afther me ivery day at the dure there, waitin' till I'm free +again. He is that. Meanwhile he's payin' me full time. He is that. He'll +keep me me place!"</p> + +<p>She lied sweetly, serenely, and when the look of relief crept over +Fairfax's face, she endured it as humble women in love endure, when +their natures are sweet and honey-like and their hearts are pure gold.</p> + +<p>She took the five dollars he paid her back. He was too delicate in +sentiment to offer her more, and he watched her, his hands idly on the +sheets.</p> + +<p>"I reckon Joe Mead's got another fireman, Molly?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, no," she laughed, "Joe's been here every day to see when you would +be working, and when Joe don't come the other felly comes to see when +you'll let <i>him</i> off!"</p> + +<p>Life, then, was going on out there in the yards. He <!-- Page 114 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>heard the shriek of +the engines, the fine voices of the whistles, and the square of his +sunny window framed the outer day. People were going on journeys, people +were coming home. He had come back, and little Gardiner....</p> + +<p>"Sit down," he said brusquely to the girl who stood at his side; "sit +down, for God's sake, and talk to me; tell me something, anything, or I +shall go crazy again."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 115 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>He recovered rapidly; his hard work had strengthened his constitution, +and Molly Shannon modestly withdrew, and Mary Kenny, the landlady, who +had disputed the place from the first, took it and gave Antony what +further care he needed. He missed Molly the first day she left him, +missed her shawl and hat and the music of her Irish voice. He had sent +for books through Joe Mead, and read furiously, realizing how long he +had been without intellectual food.</p> + +<p>But the books made him wretched.</p> + +<p>Not one of them was written for an artist who had been forced by hard +luck to turn into a day labourer. All the beautiful things he read made +him suffer and desire and long, and worse still, made him rebel. One +phrase out of Werther lingered and fascinated him—</p> + +<p>"The miseries of mankind would be lighter if—God knows why this is +so—if they would not use all their imagination to remember their +miseries and to recall to themselves the souvenirs of their unhappy +past."</p> + +<p>The unhappy past! Well, was it not sad at his age to have a past so +melancholy that one could not recall it without tears?</p> + +<p>Every one but Sanders came to see him, and jolly him up. Joe Mead gave +him to understand that he only lived for the time when Tony should come +back to feed "the Girl," as he called his engine. Tony looked at his +chief out of cavernous eyes. Joe Mead had on his Sunday clothes and +would not light his cigar out of deference to Tony's sick-room.</p> + +<p>"You're forty, Mead, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"About that, I guess."</p> + +<p>"And I am only twenty-three," returned Fairfax. <!-- Page 116 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>"Is that going to be a +picture of me at forty?" he thought, and answered himself violently: "My +mother's pride and mine forbid."</p> + +<p>"Sanders doesn't come to see me, Joe?"</p> + +<p>"Nope," returned the other, "you bet your life. If he ain't waiting for +you at the door with a gun when you come down it's only because he is +off on his job."</p> + +<p>When his chief got up to leave him, Fairfax said, "I want you to get me +a book on mechanics, Joe, practical mechanics, and don't pay over a +dollar and a half."</p> + +<p>He owed Molly Shannon more than he could ever return. The doctor told +him, because he imagined that it would give the young fireman +satisfaction, that the nursing had saved his life. Sanders was not at +the stair-foot when Fairfax finally crept down to take his first +outing. It was the middle of February and a mild day. Indeed, he had +been at work over a fortnight when he caught sight of Molly and Sanders +standing at the head of Nut Street, talking.</p> + +<p>As he came up to them, Sanders turned a face clouded with passion on +Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"You cursed hound!" he growled under his breath, and struck out, but +before he could reach Fairfax Molly threw herself on Sanders and caught +the blow on her arm and shoulder. In spite of her courage she cried out +and would have fallen but for Fairfax. The blow, furiously directed by +an able-bodied man, had done worse work than Sanders intended, and the +poor girl's arm hung limp and she fainted away.</p> + +<p>"Mother of God," muttered Sanders, "I have killed you, Molly darling!"</p> + +<p>Her head lay on Fairfax's shoulder. "Let's get her into the coffee +house," he said shortly.</p> + +<p>Sanders was horrified at the sight of the girl he adored lying like +death from his blow, and with a determination which Fairfax could not +thwart the engineer took the girl in his own arms.</p> + +<p>"Give her to me," he said fiercely, "I'll settle with you later. Can't +take her into the coffee house: they've turned her out on account of +you. There's not a house that would take her but the hotel. I'm going to +carry her to my mother."<!-- Page 117 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>Followed by a little group of people whom Fairfax refused to enlighten, +they went down the street, and Sanders disappeared within the door of +the shanty where his family lived.</p> + +<p>The incident gave Antony food for thought, and he chewed a bitter cud as +he shut himself into his room. He couldn't help the girl's coming to him +in his illness. He could have sent her about her business the first day +that he was conscious. She would not have gone. She had lost her place +and her reputation, according to Sanders, because of her love for him. +There was not any use in mincing the matter. That's the way it stood. +What should he do? What could he do?</p> + +<p>He took off his heavy overcoat and muffler, rubbed his hands, which were +taking on their accustomed dirt and healthy vigour, poured out a glass +of milk from the bottle on his window sill, and drank it, musing. The +Company had acted well to him. The paymaster was a mighty fine man, and +Antony had won his interest long ago. They had advanced him a month's +pay on account of his illness. He brushed his blonde hair meditatively +before the glass, settled the cravat under the low rolling collar of his +flannel shirt. He was a New York Central fireman on regular duty, no +further up the scale than Molly Shannon—as far as Nut Street and the +others knew. Was there any reason why he should not marry her? She had +harmed herself to do him good. He was reading his books on mechanics, a +little later he was going to night school when his hours changed; he was +going to study engineering; he had his yard ambitions, the only ones he +permitted himself to have.</p> + +<p>It was four o'clock of the winter afternoon, and the sunset left its red +over the sky. Through his little window he saw the smoke of a locomotive +rise in a milky column, cradle and flow and melt away. The ringing of +the bells, the crying note of the whistles, had become musical to +Fairfax.</p> + +<p>There was no reason why he should not marry the Irish girl who doled out +coffee to railroad hands.... Was there none? The figure of his mother +rose before him, beautiful, proud, ambitious Mrs. Fairfax. She was +waiting for his brilliant success, she was waiting to crown <!-- Page 118 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>him when he +should bring his triumphs home. The ugly yards blurred before his eyes, +he almost fancied that a spray of jasmine blew across the pane.</p> + +<p>He would write—</p> + +<p>"Mother, I have married an Irish girl, a loving, honest creature who +saved my life and lost her own good name doing so. It was my duty, +mother, wasn't it? I am not striving for name or fame; I don't know what +art means any more. I am a day labourer, a common fireman on an engine +in the Albany yards—that's the truth, mother."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" He turned brusquely from the window, paced his room a +few times, limping up and down it, the lame jackdaw, the crippled bird +in his cage, and his heart swelled in his breast. No—he could not do +it. The Pride that had led him here and forced him to make his way in +spite of fate, the Pride that kept him here would not let him. He had +ambitions then? He was not then dead to fame? Where were those dreams? +Let them come to him and inspire him now. He recalled the choir-master of +St. Angel's church. He could get a job to sing in St. Angel's if he +pleased. He would run away to Albany. He had run away from New York; now +he would run from Nut Street like a cad and save his Pride. He would +leave the girl with the broken arm, the coffee-house door shut against +her, to shift for herself, because he was a gentleman. Alongside the +window he had hung up his coat and hat, and they recalled to him her +things as they had hung there. There had been something dove-like and +dear in her presence in his room of sickness. His Pride! He could hear +his old Mammy say—</p> + +<p>"Massa Tony, chile, you' pride's gwine to lead yo thru black waters some +day, shore."</p> + +<p>He said "Come in" to the short, harsh rap at the door, and Sanders +entered, slamming the door behind him. His face was hostile but not +murderous; as usual his bowler was a-cock on his head.</p> + +<p>"See here, Fairfax, she sent me. She ain't hurt much, just a damned +nasty bruise. I gave her my promise not to stick a knife into you."</p> + +<p>Fairfax pushed up his sleeves; his arms were white as snow. He had lost +flesh.<!-- Page 119 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll fight you right here, Sanders," he said, "and we'll not make a +sound. I'm not as fit as you are, but I'll punish you less for that +reason. Come on."</p> + +<p>Molly's lover put his hand in his pockets because he was afraid to leave +them out. He shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I gave the girl my word, and I'd rather please Molly than break every +bone in your —— body, and that's saying a good deal. And here on my +own hook I want to ask you a plain question."</p> + +<p>"I shan't answer it, Sandy."</p> + +<p>The other with singular patience returned, "All right. I'm going to ask +just the same. Are you ... will you ... what the hell...!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Don't go on," said Fairfax; "shut up and go home."</p> + +<p>Instead, Sanders took off his hat, a sign of unusual excitement with +him. He wiped his face and said huskily—</p> + +<p>"Ain't got a chance in the world alongside you, Fairfax, and I'd go down +and crawl for her. That's how <i>I'm</i> about her, mate." His face broke up.</p> + +<p>Fairfax answered quietly, "That's all right, Sanders—that's all right."</p> + +<p>The engineer went on: "I want you to clear out and give me my show, +Tony. I had one before you turned up in Nut Street."</p> + +<p>"Why, I can't do that, Sanders," said Fairfax gently; "you oughtn't to +ask a man to do that. Don't you see how it will look to the girl?"</p> + +<p>The other man's face whitened; he couldn't believe his ears.</p> + +<p>"Why, you don't mean to say...?" he wondered slowly.</p> + +<p>The figure under the jasmine vine, the proud form and face of his +mother, grew smaller, paler as does the fading landscape when we look +back upon it from the hill we have climbed.</p> + +<p>"The doctor told me Molly had saved my life," Fairfax said. "They have +turned her out of doors in —— Street. Now you must let me make good as +far as I can."</p> + +<p>The young man's blue eyes rested quietly on the blood-shot eyes of his +visitor. Sanders made no direct answer; <!-- Page 120 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>he bit his moustache, +considered his companion a second, and clapping his hat on his head, +tore the door open.</p> + +<p>"You are doing her a worse wrong than any," he stammered; "she ain't +your kind and you don't love her."</p> + +<p>His hand whitened in its grip on the door handle, then giving one look +at his companion as though he meditated repeating his unfortunate attack +upon him, he flung himself out of the door, muttering—</p> + +<p>"I've got to get out of here.... I don't dare to stay!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 121 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>By the time the sublime spring days came, Fairfax discovered that he +needed consolation. He must have been a very stubborn, dull animal, he +decided, to have so successfully stuffed down and crushed out Antony +Fairfax. Antony Fairfax could not have been much of a man at any time to +have gone down so uncomplainingly in the fight.</p> + +<p>"A chap who is uniquely an artist and poet," he wrote to his mother, "is +not a real man, I reckon."</p> + +<p>But he had not described to her what kind of a fellow stood in his +stead. Instead of going to church on Sundays he exercised in the free +gymnasium, joined a base-ball team—the firemen against the +engineers—and read and studied more than he should have done whenever +he could keep his eyes open. Then spring came, and he could not deny +another moment, another day or another night, that he needed +consolation.</p> + +<p>The wives and daughters of the railroad hands and officials—those he +saw in Nut Street—were not likely to charm his eyes. Fairfax waited for +Easter—waited with a strange young crying voice in his heart, a +threatening softness around his heart of steel.</p> + +<p>He went on rapidly with his new studies; his mind grasped readily +whatever he attacked, and his teacher, less worldly than the choir-master +at St. Angel's, wondered at his quickness, and looked at his disfigured +hands. Joe Mead knew Tony's plans and his ambitions; by June they would +give Fairfax an engine and Mead would look out for another fireman to +feed "the Girl." The bulky, panting, puffing, sliding thing, feminine as +the machine seemed, could no longer charm Fairfax nor occupy all his +thoughts.<!-- Page 122 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>He had been sincere when he told Sanders that he would look out for +Molly Shannon. The pinnacle this decision lifted him to, whether felt to +be the truth or purely a sentimental advance, nevertheless gave him a +view which seemed to do him good. The night after Sanders' visit, +Fairfax slept in peace, and the next day he went over to Sanders' mother +and asked to see Molly Shannon. She had left Nut Street, had run away +without leaving any address. Fairfax did not push his chivalry to try to +find her. He slept better than ever that night, and when during the +month Sanders himself went to take a job further up in the State and the +entire Sanders family moved to Buffalo, Fairfax's slumbers grew sounder +still. At length his own restless spirit broke his repose.</p> + +<p>April burst over the country in a mad display of blossoms, which +Fairfax, through the cab of his engine, saw lying like snow across the +hills. He passed through blossoming orchards, and above the smell of oil +and grease came the ineffable sweetness of spring, the perfume of the +earth and the trees. Just a year ago he had gone with Bella and Gardiner +to Central Park, and he remembered Gardiner's little arm outstretched +for the prize ring he could never secure, and Bella's sparkling success. +The children had been in spring attire; now Fairfax could buy himself a +new overcoat and did so, a grey one, well-made and well-fitting, a straw +hat with a crimson band, and a stick to carry on his Sunday +jauntings—but he walked alone.</p> + +<p>He flung his books in the bottom drawer of his bureau, locked it and +pitched the key out of the window. He would not let them tempt him, for +he had weakly bought certain volumes that he had always wanted to read, +and Nut Street did not understand them.</p> + +<p>"It's the books," he decided; "I can't be an engineer if I go on, nor +will I be able to bear my lonely state."</p> + +<p>Verse and lovely prose did not help him; their rhythm and swell drew +away the curtains from the window of his heart, and the golden light of +spring dazzled the young man's eyes. He eagerly observed the womenkind +he passed, and Easter week, with its solemn festival, ran in hymn and +prayer toward Easter Day. New frocks, new jackets, new hats were bright +in the street. On <!-- Page 123 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>Easter Sunday Fairfax sat in his old place by the +choir and sang. The passion and tenderness brooding in him made his +voice rich and the choir-master heard him above the congregation. From +the lighted altar and the lilies, from the sunlight streaming through +the stained windows, inspiration came to him, and as Fairfax sat and +listened to the service he saw in imagination a great fountain to the +left of the altar, a fountain of his building that should stand there, a +marble fountain held by young angels with folded wings, and he would +model, as Della Robbia modelled, angels in their primitive beauty, their +bright infancy. The young man's head sank forward, he breathed a deep +sigh. He owed every penny that he had laid by to Mrs. Kenny, to the +tailor and the doctor, and in another month he would be engineer on +probation. His inspiration left him at the church door. He walked +restlessly up to the station and with a crowd of excursionists took his +train to West Albany. Luncheon baskets, crying babies, oranges, peanuts, +and the rest of the excursion paraphernalia filled the car. Fairfax +looked over the crowd, and down by the farther door caught sight of a +familiar face and figure.</p> + +<p>It was Molly Shannon coming back to Nut Street for Easter. For several +months the girl had been working in the Troy collar factory, and drawn +by the most powerful of magnets was reluctantly returning to Nut Street +on her holiday. Molly had no new dress for Easter. She hadn't even a new +hat. Her long hours in the factory and her state of unhappy, unrequited +love, had worn away the crude brilliance of her form. She was pale, +thinner, and in her cheap dress, her old hat with its faded ribbon, with +her hands clasped over a little imitation leather handbag, she sat +utterly alone, as youth and beauty should never be.</p> + +<p>Fairfax limped down the car and took his place by her side.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 124 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Kenny, with prodigal hospitality, took Molly in for over Sunday. +Fairfax walked alongside of her to his boarding-house, carrying the +imitation leather bag, talking to her, laughing with her, calling the +colour back and making her eyes bright. He found himself, with his young +lady, before the threshold of Kenny's hotel. "Gents only." Whether this +was the rule or an idea only, Fairfax wondered, for Molly was not the +first one of the gentler sex who had been cordially entertained in the +boarding-house! Mrs. Kenny's sister and her sister's child, her mother +and aunts three, had successively come down on the hotel during +Fairfax's passing, and been lavishly entertained, anywhere and +everywhere, even under Fairfax's feet, for he had come out one morning +from his door to find two little girls sleeping on a mattress in the +hall.</p> + +<p>All his lifelong Fairfax retained an adoration for landladies. They had +such tempting opportunities to display qualities that console and +ennoble, and the landladies with whom he had come in contact took +advantage of their opportunities! It didn't seem enough to wait five +weeks for a chap to pay up, when one's own rent was due, but the +landlady must buy chicken at ruinous prices when a chap was ill, and +make soup and put rice in it, and carry it steaming, flecked with rich +golden grease, put pot-pie balls in it and present it to a famishing +fireman who could do no more than kiss the hand, the chapped hand, that +brought the bowl.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Now <i>wud</i> ye, Misther Fairfax?"</p> + +<p>He would, as if it had been his mother's!</p> + +<p>Nut Street was moral, domestic and in proportion <!-- Page 125 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>severe. Mary Kenny had +not been born there; she had come with her husband from the +happy-go-lucky, pig-harbouring shanties of County Cork. She was the +most unprejudiced soul in the neighbourhood. Between boarders, a lazy +husband, six children and bad debts, she had little time to gossip, but +plenty of time in which to be generous.</p> + +<p>"I <i>wull</i> that!" she assured Molly. "Ye'll sleep in the kitchen on a +shakedown, and the divil knows where it'll shake <i>from</i> for I haven't a +spare bed in the house!"</p> + +<p>Molly would only stay till Monday.... Fairfax put her little bag on the +kitchen table, where a coarse cloth was spread, and the steam greeted +them of a real Irish stew, and the odour of less genuine coffee tickled +their appetites.</p> + +<p>Molly Shannon considered Fairfax in his new Easter Sunday spring +clothes. From his high collar, white as Nut Street could white it, to +his polished boots—he was a pleasant thing to look upon. His cravat was +as blue as his eyes. His moustache was brushed carefully from his young, +well-made mouth, and he beamed with good humour on every one.</p> + +<p>"Shure, dinner's dished, and the childer and Kenny are up to the +cemetery pickin' vi'lets. Set right down, the rest will be along. Set +down, Misther Fairfax and Molly Shannon."</p> + +<p>After dinner, up in his room, the walls seemed to have contracted. The +kitchen's smoky air rose even here, and he flung his window wide to the +April sweetness. The atmosphere was too windless to come in and wrestle +with the smell of frying, but he saw the day was golden as a draught +waiting to be quaffed. The restricted schedule of Sunday cast a quiet +over the yards, and from the distance Fairfax heard sounds that were not +distinguishable in the weekday confusion, the striking of the hour from +the Catholic Church bell, the voices of the children playing in the +streets. There was a letter lying on his bureau from his mother: he had +not had the heart to read it to-day. The gymnasium was shut for repairs, +there was no ball game on for Easter Day, and, after a second's +hesitation, he caught up his hat from where he <!-- Page 126 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>had dropped it at his +feet and rushed downstairs into the kitchen.</p> + +<p>Molly, her sleeves rolled up, was washing dishes for Mrs. Kenny.</p> + +<p>"Don't you want to come out with me for a walk?" Fairfax asked her.</p> + +<p>"Go along," said Mrs. Kenny, giving her a shove with her bare elbow. +"I'll make out alone fine. The suds is elegant. If you meet Kenny and +the children, tell them there's not a bit left but the lashins of the +stew, and to hurry up."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 127 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>There was a divine fragrance in the air. Fairfax stopped to gather a few +anemones and handed them to his silent companion.</p> + +<p>"Since you have grown so pale in the collar factory, Miss Molly, you +look like these flowers."</p> + +<p>He stretched out his, arms, bared his head, flung it up and looked +toward the woodland up the slope and saw the snow-white stones on the +hill, above the box borders and the cedar borders of the burial place: +above, the sky was blue as a bird's wing.</p> + +<p>"Let me help you." He put his hand under her arm and walked with her up +the hill. They breathed together; the sweet air with its blossomy scent +touched their lips, and the ancient message of spring spoke to them. He +was on Molly's left side; beneath his arm he could feel her fluttering +heart and his own went fast. At the hill top they paused at the entrance +to a pretentious lot, with high white shafts and imposing columns, +broken by the crude whiteness of a single marble cross. Brightly it +stood out against the air and the dark green of cedar and box.</p> + +<p>"This is the most perfect monument," he said aloud, "the most +harmonious; indeed, it is the only relief to the eye."</p> + +<p>On every grave were Easter garlands, crosses and wreaths; the air was +heavy with lilac and with lily.</p> + +<p>Except for a few monosyllables Molly said nothing, but now, as they +paused side by side, she murmured—</p> + +<p>"It's beautiful quiet after the racket of the shops; it's like heaven!"</p> + +<p>Fairfax's glance wandered over the acres of monuments, marking the +marble city, and came back to the living girl at his side.<!-- Page 128 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's a strange place for two young people to stroll about in, Miss +Molly."</p> + +<p>Molly Shannon stood meekly, her work-stained hands clasped loosely +before her and in her form were the beauties of youth, virginity, +chastity, promise of life and fecundity, and, for Fairfax, of passion.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I don't know," she answered him slowly, "I think it's lovely and +quiet here. Back in Troy next week when we work overtime and the boss +gets mad, I'll think of it likely, I guess."</p> + +<p>He talked to her as they strolled, realizing his need of companionship, +and his pent-up heart poured itself forth as they walked between the +graves, and he told the Irish girl of Bella and little Gardiner, and of +his grief.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I did that day," he finished. "I was a brute to my +aunt and to the little girl. I laid him down on his bed and rushed out +like a crazy man; the house seemed to haunt me. I must have been ill +then. I recall that my aunt called to me and that Bella hung on my arm +and that I shook her off. I recall that my uncle followed me downstairs +and stood by me while I got into my overcoat, but I was too savage and +too miserably proud to answer him. I left him talking to me and the +little girl crying on the stairs."</p> + +<p>She asked him timidly, "What had they done to make you hate them so?" +She told herself in her humility that he was a gentleman and not for +her.</p> + +<p>He continued, carried away by the fact of a good listener, and, although +she listened, she understood less than Benvenuto Cellini, less, even, +than the children. He came up against so many things that were +impossible to tell her that he stopped at length, laughing.</p> + +<p>"You see how a chap runs on when he has a friend by him, Miss Molly. Why +do you go back to the collar factory?"</p> + +<p>He stopped short, remembering what Sanders had said, and that Nut Street +had shut its doors against her. They had come down through the cemetery +to the main avenue that stretched, spacious and broad, between the +dwellings of the dead. They sauntered slowly side by side, an +incongruous, appealing couple. He saw her worn shoes, the poor skirt, +the hands discoloured as were his, through <!-- Page 129 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>toil, and his glance +followed up the line of her form and his artistic sense told him that it +was lovely. Under her coarse bodice the breast gently swelled with her +breath, her eyes were downcast, and there was an appealing charm about +her that a young man in need of love could not gainsay. Pity for her had +been growing long in Fairfax—since the first day he saw her in the +coffee house, since the time when he had decided to go elsewhere for his +meals.</p> + +<p>She stopped at the foot of the avenue and said something was beautiful, +and he looked up. The marble figure of an angel on a grey pedestal rose +at the gate, a colossal figure in snowy marble, with folded wings and +one uplifted hand. There was a solemn majesty in the creation, a fine, +noble, holy majesty, and the sculptor halted before it so long, his face +grave and his eyes absorbed, that when Molly sighed, he started. Along +the base ran the words—</p> + +<p>"<i>Why seek ye the living among the dead?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Come," he said brusquely to his companion; "come. This is no place for +us." And he hurried her out of the grounds.</p> + +<p>On the way home his silence was not flattering to his companion, who was +too meek to be offended. Already the pleasure of being by his side was +well-nigh too much for her swelling heart to bear. The lengthening +twilight filled Nut Street as they turned into it, and very nearly every +member of the little working colony was out of doors, including the +Sheedys and the new tenants of Sanders' old room. Walking alongside of +Molly Shannon, Fairfax understood what his promenade would mean. He +glanced at his companion and saw her colour, and she raised her head +with a dignity that touched him, and as they passed the Sheedys he said +"Good-evening" in his pleasant Southern voice, lifting his hat as though +they had been of his own kind. He drew the Irish girl's arm within his +own.</p> + +<p>For Molly, she walked a gamut of misery, and the sudden realization of +the solemnity of the thing he was doing made the young man's heart beat +heavily.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 130 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>He had been gone from home more than a year, his mother wrote. "One +cannot expect to carve a career in twelve months' time, Tony, and yet I +am so impatient for you, my darling, I am certain you have gone far and +have splendid things to show me. Are you sure that Albany is the place +for you? Would it not have been better to have stayed on with +Cedersholm? When will you run down to your old mother, dearest? I long +for the sound of your footstep, the dear broken footstep, Tony...." Then +she went on to say not to mind her foolishness, not to think of her as +mourning, but to continue with his beautiful things. She had not been +very well of late—a touch of fever, she reckoned: Emmeline took the +best of care of her. She was better.</p> + +<p>He let the pages fall, reading them hastily, eagerly, approaching in his +thought of her everything he had longed to be, had yearned to be, might +have been, and the letter with its elegant fine writing and the +fluttering thin sheets rustled ghost-like in his hand. As he turned the +pages a leaf of jasmine she had put between the sheets fell unseen to +the floor.</p> + +<p>He would go to New Orleans at once: he would throw himself at his +mother's knees and tell her his failures, his temptations, his griefs: +he would get a transfer to some Southern train, he would steal a ride, +but he would go. His mother's pride would suffer when she saw what he +had become, but he was not bringing her home a shameful story. She would +ask to see his beautiful creations—alas! even his ideals were buried +under grime and smoke, their voices drowned in whistles and bells! He +folded his arms across his breast, the last sheet of the long letter in +his hand, and again his room stifled him as it had done <!-- Page 131 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>before when he +had flown out to walk with the Irish girl. The walls closed in upon him. +The ceiling seemed to confine him like a coffin lid, and the flickering +gas jet over his bureau burned pale like a burial candle....</p> + +<p>He groaned, started forward to the door as though he would begin his +journey home immediately, but like many a wanderer who starts on his +voyage home and finds the old landmarks displaced, before Fairfax could +take the first step forward, his course was for ever changed.... He had +not heard Molly's knock at the door. The girl came in timidly, holding +out a telegram; she brought it as she had brought the other, without +comment, but with the Irish presentiment of ill, she remained waiting +silently, knowing in her humble breast that she was all he had.</p> + +<p>Fairfax opened the despatch, held it transfixed, gave a cry and said to +Molly, staring her wildly in the eyes: "My mother, my mother!" and went +and fell on his knees by his bed and flung his arms across it as though +across a beloved form. He shook, agonized for a few moments, then sprang +up and stared at the desertion before him, the tears salt on his face +and his heart of steel broken. And the girl by the door, where she had +clung like a leaf blown there by a wind of grief, came up to him. He +felt her take his arm between her hands, he felt her close to him.</p> + +<p>"It cuts the heart o' me to see ye. It's like death to see ye. Is it +your mother gone? The dear mother ye must be like? God knows there's no +comfort for that kind, but," she breathed devotedly, "I'd give the life +o' me to comfort ye."</p> + +<p>He hardly heard her, but her presence was all he had. Her human +companionship was all that was left him in the world. He put his hand on +her shoulder and said brokenly—</p> + +<p>"You don't know what this means. It is the end of me, the end. To think +I shall never see her again! Oh, <i>Mother</i>!" he cried, and threw up his +arms. The loving woman put hers about him as the gesture left him shorn +of his strength, and when his arms fell they were around her. He held +her for a moment as a drowning man holds to that which is flung out to +him to save his life; then he <!-- Page 132 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>pushed her from him. "Let me get out of +this. I must get out of the room."</p> + +<p>"You'll not do anything to yourself? Ah, tell me that."</p> + +<p>He snatched up his hat and fled from her without reply.</p> + +<p>He wandered like a madman all night long. Whither he did not know or +care. He was walking down his anguish, burying his new grief deep, deep. +His nails clenched into his palms, the tears ran over his face. One by +one as the pictures of his mother came to him, imperious, graceful, +enchanting, one by one he blessed them, worshipped before them until the +curtain fell at the end—he could not picture that. Had she called for +him in vain? Had she watched the open door to see him enter? In God's +name why hadn't they sent for him? "Suddenly of heart disease ..." the +morning of this very day—this very day. And on he tramped, +unconsciously going in the direction he had taken that morning, and at a +late hour found himself without the gates of the cemetery where he and +Molly Shannon had spent the late afternoon. The iron gates were closed; +within stretched the shining rows of the houses and palaces of the dead, +and on their snowy portals and their marble doors fell the first tender +glimmer of the day. Holding the gate between his convulsive hands, +staring in as though he begged an entrance as a lodger, Fairfax saw rise +before him the angel with the benign uplifting hand, and the lettering, +large and clear, seemed written that day for him as much as for any +man—</p> + +<p>"<i>Why seek ye the living among the dead?</i>"</p> + +<p>He raised his eyes to the angel face on whose brow and lips the light of +his visions had gathered for him that morning; and as he looked the +angelic figure brightened in the dawn; and after a few moments in which +he remained blotted against the rails like an aspirant at Heaven's gate, +he turned and more quietly took his way home.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 133 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>He did not go South. There was nothing for him to go for. The idea of +his home uninhabited by her made him a coward. Emmeline sent him her +thimble, her lace collar, her wedding ring and a lock of her hair, +shining still and without a touch of grey. The packet, wrapped up in +soft paper and folded by jasmine leaves and buds, whose withered petals +were like a faded dress, Fairfax put away in his trunk and did not +untie; he did not wish to open his wound. And his face, thinner from his +illness and his loss, looked ten years older. The early happy ecstasy of +youth was gone, and a bitter, mature recklessness took its place, and +there was no hand to soothe him but Molly's, and she had gone back to +Troy. He tried what ways were open to a man of his age and the class he +had adopted, and he turned for distraction and relief and consolation to +their doors. But at those portals, at the threshold of the houses where +other men went in, he stopped. If his angel had deserted him, at any +rate the beast had not taken its place. The vast solitude and the cruel +loneliness, the isolation from his kind, made him an outcast too +wretched not to cry for help and too clean to wallow in order to forget +his state. His work saved his health and his brain. He made a model of +an engine in plaster and went mad over it; he set it on a shelf in his +room and when in June he drove his own engine and was an engineer on the +New York Central, he knew his locomotive, body and soul and parts, as no +other mechanic in the Company knew it. His chiefs were conscious of his +skill and intelligence. There were jealousies and enmities, and instead +of driving the express as he had hoped, he was delegated to a local on a +branch line, with an Italian for fireman who could not speak a word of +any but his own language.<!-- Page 134 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You speak Italian, don't you, Fairfax?" his boss at the office asked +him.</p> + +<p>("Cielo azuro ... Giornata splendida...!") and he smelt the wet clay.</p> + +<p>"I can <i>point</i>," laughed the engineer, "in <i>any</i> language! and I reckon +I'll get on with Falutini."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 135 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>The boss was a Massachusetts man and new to Nut Street, and Fairfax, +when he took the paper with his orders from Rainsford's hand, saw for +the first time in months a man of his own class, sitting in the +revolving chair before the desk where his papers and schedules and +ledgers were filed. The man's clothes were too thin for the season, his +linen was old and his appearance meagre, and in his face with its sunken +cheeks, the drooping of the eyes and the thinness of the brow, were the +marks of the sea of life and its waste, and the scars of the storm. A +year ago Fairfax would have passed Rainsford by as a rather +pitiful-looking man of middle age.</p> + +<p>The boss, his thin hand opening and shutting over a small book which +looked like a daily ledger, regarded the engineer in his red shirt as +Fairfax paused.</p> + +<p>"Irish, I expect? Your name, Fairfax, is Irish. I understand you've had +a hard blow this year, been sick and lost your mother."</p> + +<p>At the quiet statement of this sacred fact Fairfax started painfully, +his face flushed.</p> + +<p>"He would not have spoken to me like that," he thought, "if he had not +imagined me a working man."</p> + +<p>"Work is the best friend a young man can have," Rainsford went on; "it +is a great safeguard. I take it that you are about thirty?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-three," said Fairfax, shortly.</p> + +<p>His report was brief. Just then his fireman came in, a black-haired, +tall young fellow with whom Fairfax knew he should never sing "Mia +Maddelena."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 136 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>He avoided Rainsford, gave himself up to his engine and his train, and +took a dislike to his black-headed fireman, who dared to be Italian and +to recall the aurora of days he had buried fathoms deep. The heat +pouring on him in summer time made him suffer physically. He rather +welcomed the discomfort; his skin grew hardened and tanned and oiled and +grimed, and his whole body strong and supple; and his devotion to his +work, the air that filled him as he flew, made him the perfect, splendid +animal that he was.</p> + +<p>At night, when the darkness blotted out the steel rails, and the breeze +blowing through the car-window fluttered his sleeve till it bellied, and +the cinders, red and biting, whirled by, and on either side the country +lay dark and fragrant with its summery wealth—at night his eyes, fixed +on the track under the searchlight, showed him more than once a way to +end his unhappy life, but his confused reveries and his battle, +spiritual and physical, helped him, and he came out of it with a love +for life and a stronger hold upon it each time than the last. He gave up +wearing his Sunday clothes, he went as the others did; he had not been +for months to Albany or to Troy.</p> + +<p>One Sunday in midsummer his local did not run on the seventh day. He +considered his own image in the glass over his bureau and communed with +his reflection. The result of his musings was that he opened his trunk +and took out the precious packet; started to unfold it, turned it over +in his uncertain hands, thrust it back, set his teeth and went out to +the junction and took the train for Troy.</p> + +<p>He found her in the boarding-house where she was passing her Sunday, +rocking the landlady's teething baby. <!-- Page 137 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>He bade her to come as she was, +not to fix up. The idea of a toilet which would end in a horrible frock +rasped his nerves. She detected a great change in him, simple-minded +though she was, and she tried to get him to talk and failed. Down at the +Erie Canal, by the moored boats and the motionless water, he seized her +arm and facing her, said, his lips working—</p> + +<p>"I have come to ask you to marry me, Molly."</p> + +<p>She grew as white as the drying linen on the windless air, as the family +wash hung on the canal boat lines behind her. Her grey eyes opened wide +on Antony.</p> + +<p>"I'm making a good living: too much for me alone."</p> + +<p>He saw her try to find her voice and her senses, and with something of +his old radiance, he said—</p> + +<p>"I'm a brute. I reckon I don't know how to make love. I've startled +you."</p> + +<p>"Ah, shure, ye don't know what ye're saying," she whispered; "the likes +o' me ain't good enough."</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush," he answered, "don't say foolish things."</p> + +<p>She gasped and shook her head. "Ye shouldn't tempt me so. It's crool. Ye +shouldn't tempt me so."</p> + +<p>With a self-abandonment and a humility which he never afterward forgot, +as her life and colour came back Molly said under her breath—</p> + +<p>"Take me as I am, shure, if I'm the least bit of good to ye. I love ye +enough for both."</p> + +<p>He exclaimed and kissed her.</p> + +<p>Dreams of women! Visions of the ecstasy of first love, ideals and +aspirations, palpitating, holy, the young man's impassioned dream of The +Woman, the Only Woman, the notion and conception that the man of nature +and of talent and of keen imagination sleeps upon and follows and seeks +and seeks and follows all his life, from boyhood to the grave—where +were they then?</p> + +<p>He had brushed his aunt's cheek, he had touched her hand and trembled; +now he kissed fresh young lips that had yearned for his, and he gave his +first embrace to woman, put his arms round Molly Shannon and her young +body filled them. As she had said, she had love enough for both. He felt +a great gratitude to her, a relaxation of his tense senses, a melting of +his heart, and his tenderness was deep for her when his next kiss met +her tears.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 138 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>He returned to Nut Street dazed, excited but less sentimentally +miserable and more profoundly touched. He had made himself a mechanical +career; he had assumed the responsibilities of a man. He might have been +a miserable failure as a sculptor, perhaps he would be a good mechanic. +Who knows where any flight will carry a man? Making his life, married +and founding a home, he would be a factor in the world's progress, and a +self-supporting citizen. He tried to fire himself with this sacrifice. +At any rate, in order to save his body he had lost his soul—that is, +his spiritual soul. "Is not the life more than the meat?" In the +recesses of his artist's mind a voice which he had strangled tried to +tell him that he had done his soul a great, great wrong. Nevertheless, a +solemn feeling of responsibility and of manhood came upon him, a grave +quiet strength was his, and as he journeyed back to his lodgings, he did +not then regret.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kenny and her husband and the children were in the kitchen as he +passed and the landlady called out something, but he did not hear for he +was half-way upstairs. As he opened the door and went into his room he +saw some one was standing by the window—no, leaning far out of the +window, very far; a small figure in a black dress.</p> + +<p>"Bella!" he cried.</p> + +<p>She flashed about, rushed at him, and for the first time since "Going to +Siberia" he felt the entwining arms. He suffered the dashing embrace, +then, freeing himself, saw her hair dark under her black hat, and that +she had grown in eighteen months, and he heard—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Cousin Antony, how long you have been coming home! I have been +waiting for your engine to come <!-- Page 139 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>under the window, but I didn't see you. +How did you get here without my seeing you?"</p> + +<p>If the sky had opened and shown him the vision of his own mother he +could not have been more overwhelmed with surprise.</p> + +<p>"Where did you come from, Bella? Who is with you?"</p> + +<p>She took her hat off, dropped it easily on the floor, and he saw that +her hair was braided in a great braid. She sat on the ledge of the open +window and swung her feet. Her skirts had been lengthened, but she was +still a little girl. The charming affectionate eyes beamed on him.</p> + +<p>"But you are like anybody else, Cousin Antony, to-day. When I saw you in +your flannel shirt I thought you were a fireman."</p> + +<p>At the remembrance of when she had seen him, a look of distress crossed +her mobile face. She burst out crying, sprang up and ran to him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Cousin Antony, I want him so, my little brother, my little +playmate."</p> + +<p>He soothed her, made her sit on his bed and dried her tears, as he had +dried them when she had cried over the blackbird.</p> + +<p>"Who is with you, honey? Who brought you here?"</p> + +<p>As though she had stored up all her sorrow, as though she had waited +with a child's loyal tenderness for this moment, she wound her arms +around Fairfax's neck and brought her face close to his cheek.</p> + +<p>"I miss him perfectly dreadfully, Cousin Antony. Nobody took care of him +much but me. Now father is broken-hearted. You loved him, didn't you? He +perfectly worshipped you."</p> + +<p>"There, Bella, you choke me, honey. I can't breathe. Now tell me who let +you come. Is Aunt Caroline here?"</p> + +<p>She had no intention of answering him, and wiped her eyes briskly on the +handkerchief that he gave her.</p> + +<p>"Tobacco," she sniffed, "your handkerchief has got little wisps of +tobacco on it. I think it is perfectly splendid to be an engineer! I +wouldn't have thought so though, if I hadn't seen you in the flannel +shirt. Wouldn't you <!-- Page 140 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>rather be a <i>genius</i> as you used to think? Don't +you make casts any more? Isn't it <i>sweet</i> in your little room, and +aren't the tracks mixing? How do you ever know which ones to go on, +Cousin Antony? And <i>which</i> is your engine? Take me down to see it. How +Gardiner would have loved to ride!"</p> + +<p>She was a startling combination of child and woman. Her slenderness, her +grace, her tender words, the easy flow of speech, the choice of words +caught and remembered from the varied books she devoured, her ardour and +her rare brilliant little face, all made her an unusual companion.</p> + +<p>"Now answer me," he ordered, "who came with you to Albany?"</p> + +<p>"No one, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I came alone."</p> + +<p>"From New York? You're crazy, Bella!"</p> + +<p>She sat up with spirit, brought her heavy braid around over her shoulder +and fastened the black ribbon securely.</p> + +<p>"I lose my hair ribbons like anything," she said. "Why, I've done things +alone for years, Cousin Antony. I've been all over New York matching +things. I used to buy all Gardiner's things alone and have them charged. +I know my way. I'm going on fourteen. You dropped your telegram, the one +Miss Mitty sent you, when you rushed out that night. I found it on the +stairs." She fished it out of her pocket. "Mr. Antony Fairfax, 42, Nut +Street, West Albany. I had to watch for a good chance to come, and when +I got to Forty-second Street I just took a ticket for West Albany, and +no one ever asked me my name or address, and the people in the cars gave +me candy and oranges. At the station down here I asked the ticket man +where Nut Street was, and he said: 'Right over those tracks, young +lady,' and laughed at me. Downstairs the woman gave me a glass of +milk—and aren't the children too sweet, Cousin Antony, with so many +freckles? And doesn't she speak with a brogue just like old Ann's?"</p> + +<p>"This is the wildest thing I ever heard of," said her cousin. "I must +telegraph your mother and take you home at once."<!-- Page 141 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>She gasped. "Oh, you wouldn't do that? I'm not going home. I have run +away for good."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a goose, little cousin."</p> + +<p>"I hate home," she said hotly, "it's lonely, and I miss my little +brother. They won't let me go to school, and mother takes lessons from +an opera singer, and there is no quiet place to read. I never go to the +Top Floor where we used to play." She clung to his hand. "Let me stay, +Cousin Antony," she pleaded, "I want to live with you."</p> + +<p>She coloured furiously and stopped. And Fairfax saw that she was like +his mother, and that the promises were fulfilled. Her low collar, edged +with fine lace, fell away from the pure young throat. Her mouth, piquant +and soft, half-coaxing and half-humorous, and her glorious eyes fast +losing the look of childhood, were becoming mysterious.</p> + +<p>"You are too big a girl," he said sternly, "to talk such nonsense. You +are too old to be so silly, Bella. Why, your people must be insane with +anxiety."</p> + +<p>But her people, as it turned out, were at Long Branch for the summer, +and Bella, presumably to go to the dentist, had come up to stay for a +day or two with the little Whitcomb ladies. She had chosen her time +well.</p> + +<p>"No one knows where I am. The Whitcombs don't know I am coming to New +York, and the family think I am with Miss Eulalie and Miss Mitty."</p> + +<p>"There is a train to New York," he said, "in half an hour."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, "Cousin Antony, how horrid! You've changed perfectly +dreadfully. I see it now. You used to be fond of me. I thought you were +fond of me. I don't want to force myself on you, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>Fairfax was amazed, charmed and bewildered by her. What did Mrs. Kenny +think? He opened the door and called her, and said over his shoulder to +Bella—</p> + +<p>"What did you tell the woman downstairs?"</p> + +<p>Bella picked her hat up from the floor and wound the elastic around her +fingers. Her face clouded.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," Antony urged, "what did you say to Mrs. Kenny?" He saw her +embarrassment, and repeated seriously: "For heaven's sake, Bella, tell +me."<!-- Page 142 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," she whispered, "I can't."</p> + +<p>He shrugged in despair. "Come, it can't be anything very dreadful. I've +got to know, you see."</p> + +<p>The bell of the Catholic Church tolled out eight o'clock.</p> + +<p>"Come, little cousin."</p> + +<p>Half-defiantly and half-shamefacedly, she raised her eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's rather hard to tell you," she stammered, "you seem to be so mad at +me." She put a brave face on it. "I just told them that I was engaged to +you and that I had come to marry you." And she stood her ground, her +little head held up.</p> + +<p>Fairfax stifled a shout, but was obliged to laugh gently.</p> + +<p>"Why, Bella, you are the most ridiculous little cousin in the world. You +have read too much. Now, please don't cry, Bella."</p> + +<p>He flung the door open and called: "Mrs. Kenny, Mrs. Kenny! Will you +come up-stairs?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 143 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>Those five hours were short to him travelling back to New York. Bella +talked to Fairfax until she was completely talked out. Leaning on him, +pouring out her childish confidences, telling him things, asking him +things, until his heart yearned over her, and he stored away the tones +of her sweet gay voice, exquisite with pathos when she spoke of +Gardiner, and naďvely tender when she said—</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony, I love you better than any one else. Why can't I stay +with you and be happy? I want to work for my living too. I could be a +factory girl."</p> + +<p><i>A factory girl!</i></p> + +<p>Then she fell asleep, her head on his shoulder, and was hardly awake +when they reached Miss Mitty's house and the cab stopped.</p> + +<p>He said, "Bella, we are home."</p> + +<p>She did not answer, and, big girl as she was, he carried her in asleep.</p> + +<p>"I wish you could make her believe it's all a dream," he said to the +Whitcombs. "I don't want the Carews to know about it. It would be far +better if she could be induced to keep the secret."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid you can't make Bella believe anything unless she likes, Mr. +Antony."</p> + +<p>No one had missed her. From the Long Branch boat she had gone directly +to the Forty-second Street station, and started bravely away on her +sentimental journey.</p> + +<p>The little ladies induced him to eat what they could prepare for him, +and he hurried away. He was obliged to take his train out at nine Monday +morning.</p> + +<p>He bade them look after bold Bella and teach her reason, and before he +left he went in and looked at the little girl <!-- Page 144 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>lying with her face on +her hand, the stains of tears and travel on her face.</p> + +<p>"I told her that I had come to marry you, Cousin Antony...."</p> + +<p>"Little cousin! Honey child!"</p> + +<p>His heart was tender to his discarded little love.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 145 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>Bella Carew's visit did disastrous work for Fairfax. The day following +he was like a dead man at his engine, mechanically fulfilling his +duties, his eyes blood-shot, his face worn and desperate. The fireman +Falutini bore Fairfax's rudeness with astonishing patience. Their run +was from nine until four, with a couple of hours lying off at Fonda, and +back again to Albany along in the night.</p> + +<p>The fatality of what he had been doing appeared to Antony Fairfax in its +full magnitude. He had cut himself off from his class, from his kind for +ever. Bella Carew, baby though she was, exquisite, refined, brilliant, +what a woman she would be! At sixteen she would be a woman, at eighteen +any chap, who had the luck and the fortune, could marry her. She would +be the kind of woman that a man would climb for, achieve for, go mad +for. As far as he was concerned, he had made his choice. He was engaged +to be married to an Irish factory girl, and her words came back to him—</p> + +<p>"If I'm any good, take me as I am. You couldn't marry the likes o' me."</p> + +<p>Why had he ever been such a short-sighted Puritan, so little of a +worldling as to entangle himself in marriage? More terribly the sense of +his lost art had come in with the little figure he had admitted.</p> + +<p>When he flung himself into his room Monday morning his brain was beyond +his usual control, it worked like magic, and one by one they passed +before him, the tauntingly beautiful aerial figures of his visions, the +angelic forms of his ideals, and if under his hands there had been any +tools he would have fallen upon them and upon the clay like a famished +man on bread. He threw <!-- Page 146 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>himself down on his lonely bed in his room +through which magic had passed, and slept heavily until Mrs. Kenny +pounded on the door and roused him an hour before his train.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At Fonda, in the shed, he climbed stiffly from his cab, his head aching, +his eyes drunk with sleep. All there was of brute in him was rampant, +and anything that came in his way would have to bear the brunt of his +unbalanced spleen.</p> + +<p>Falutini, a great bunch of rags in his hand, was at the side of the +engine, wiping the brass and softly humming. Fairfax heard it—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Azuro puro,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Cielo azuro,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Mia Maddalena..."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Stop that infernal bellow," he said, "will you?"</p> + +<p>The Italian lifted himself upright and responded in his own tongue—</p> + +<p>"I work, I slave, I endure. Now I may not sing? Macché," he cried +defiantly, "I will sing, I will."</p> + +<p>He threw his chest out, his black eyes on Tony's cross blue ones. He +burst out carolling—</p> + +<p>"Ah Mia Maddalena."</p> + +<p>Fairfax struck his face; the Italian sprang at him like a cat. Falutini +was as tall as Fairfax, more agile and with a hard head. However, with +one big blow, Fairfax sent him whirling, and as he struck and felt the +flesh and blood he discovered how glorious a thing a fight is, how nerve +relaxing, and he received the other's assault with a kind of ecstasy. +They were not unequally matched. Falutini's skin and muscles were like +toughened velvet; he was the cock of his village, a first-rate boxer; +and Tony's muscles were of iron, but Fairfax was mad and gloomy, and the +Italian was desperate and disgusted, and he made the better show.</p> + +<p>A few men lounged in and one called out: "You darned cusses are due to +start in ten minutes."</p> + +<p>Fairfax just then had his arm round the Italian's neck, the close +cropped head came under his chin, and as Fairfax panted and as he smelt +the garlic that at first <!-- Page 147 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>had nauseated him in his companion, he was +about to lay his man when the same voice that called before, yelled in +horror—</p> + +<p>"Look out, for God's sake, Fairfax, he's got a knife."</p> + +<p>At the word, Fairfax gave a wrench, caught his companion's right hand +with his left and twisted the wrist, and before he knew how he had +accomplished it, he had flung the man and knife from him. The knife hit +Number Twenty-four and rattled and the fireman fell in a lump on the +ground. Fairfax stood over him.</p> + +<p>"What a mean lout you are," he said in the jargon he had learned to +speak, "what a mean pup. Now you get up, Tito, and clear out."</p> + +<p>The fellow rose with difficulty, white, trembling, punched a little +about the face, and breathing like a saw-mill. Some one handed the knife +to Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"It never was made in America. It's a deadly weapon. Ugh, you onion!"</p> + +<p>The Italian wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shirt sleeve and +spat out on the floor.</p> + +<p>Fairfax felt better than he had felt for years. He went back to his +engine.</p> + +<p>"Get up, Tito," he commanded his fireman; "you get in quickly or I'll +help you up. Give me the oil can, will you?" he said. And Tito, +trembling, his teeth dry between his lips, obeyed.</p> + +<p>Fairfax extended his hand, meeting his companion's eyes for the first +time, and said frankly—</p> + +<p>"My fault. No hard feeling, Tito. Bene benissimo."</p> + +<p>He smiled and slapped the Italian on the back almost affectionately. +Tito saw that radiant light for the first time—the light smile. The old +gentleman had said a man could win the world with an expression like +that upon his face.</p> + +<p>"Keep your knife, Falutini; cut up garlic with it: don't use it on me, +amico—partner."</p> + +<p>They went to work without a word further on the part of either, and +Number Twenty-four slipped out on to the switch and was wedded to the +local on the main line.</p> + +<p>Fairfax was relieved in mind, and the morbid horror of his crisis had +been beaten and shaken out.</p> + +<p>"What brutes we are," he thought, "what brutes <!-- Page 148 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>and animals. It is a +wonder that any spirit can grow its wings at any time."</p> + +<p>He drew up into a station and stopped, and, leaning out of his window, +watched the passengers board the train. Pluff, pluff, pant, pant. The +steal and flow and glide, the run and the motion that his hand on the +throttle controlled and regulated, became oftentimes musical to him, and +when he was morose he would not let the glide and the roll run to +familiar melodies in his head, above all, no Southern melodies. "Tramp, +tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," that was the favourite with Number +Twenty-four. He had used to whistle it as he modelled in his room in New +Orleans, where the vines grew around his window and Maris made molasses +cake and brought it up hot when the syrup was thick on the side, and +downstairs a voice would call, "Emmeline, oh, Emmeline." That sacred +voice...! When Number Twenty-four was doing her thirty miles an hour, +that was the maximum speed of the local, her wheels were inclined to +sing—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Flow gently, sweet Afton,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Among thy green braes:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Flow gently, I'll sing thee</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A song in thy praise.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My Mary's asleep</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By thy murmuring stream,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Flow gently, sweet Afton,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Disturb not her dream."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And little Gardiner leaned hard against his arm and Bella ran upstairs +to escape the music because she did not like to cry, and his aunt's +dove-like eyes reproached him for his brutal flight. He would not hear +any ballads; but to-night, no sooner had he rolled out again into the +open country than he began to hum unconsciously the first tune the +wheels suggested. They were between the harvest fields and in the +moonlight lay the grain left by the reapers.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Cielo azuro</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Giornata splendida,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Mia Maddalena."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Fairfax laughed when he recognized it. He glanced over at Falutini who +was leaning out of his window <!-- Page 149 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>dejectedly. At the next station, whilst +the engine let off steam, Fairfax called to his fireman, and the man, as +he turned his face to his chief, looked more miserably homesick than +revengeful.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> used to know a chap from Italy!" Fairfax said in his halting +Italian, "a molto bravo diavolo. Shake her down, Tito, and brace her up +a little, will you?"</p> + +<p>The fireman bent to the furnace, its blast red on his face; from under +the belly of the engine the sparks sang as they fell into the water +gutter along the track.</p> + +<p>"My chap was a marble cutter from Carrara."</p> + +<p>Tito banged the door of the furnace. "<i>I</i> too am from Carrara."</p> + +<p>"Good!" cried Fairfax, "good enough." And to himself he said: "I'll be +darned if I ever knew Benvenuto Cellini's real name!"</p> + +<p>"Carrara," continued his companion, "is small. He may have been a +cousin. What was his name?"</p> + +<p>"Benvenuto Cellini," replied Tony, easily, and rang his bell.</p> + +<p>Once more they rolled out into the night. As they drove through the +country Fairfax saw the early moonlight lie along the tracks, sifting +from the heavens like a luminous snow. No breeze stirred and over the +grain fields the atmosphere hung hot and heavy, and they rushed through +a sea of heat and wheat and harvest smells. The wind of their going made +a stir, and as Fairfax peered out from his window his head was blown +upon by the wind of the speed.</p> + +<p>Falutini from his side of the cab said, "Benvenuto Cellini. That is not +a Carrara man, no, no."</p> + +<p>"I never knew him by any other name," said the engineer. "I like +Italians." He threw this cheerfully over his shoulder at his inferior.</p> + +<p>There was a childlike and confiding smile on the Italian's face; brutal +as all Italian peasants are, brutal but kindly and unsuspicious as a +child, ready to love and ready to hate.</p> + +<p>"Only you mustn't use your knife; it's not well thought of in America. +You'll get sent to gaol."</p> + +<p>The Limited whistled from around a curve, came roaring toward them, tore +past them, cutting the air, and <!-- Page 150 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>Fairfax's local plugged along when the +mile-a-minute left them. Tony was conscious that as he hummed the sound +grew full and louder; he was accompanied by a voice more assured than +his own, and in melodious fraternity the two men sang together. So they +took their train in.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 151 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p>The Kennys did not know what had happened to Misther Fairfax. He sang on +the stairs now and again as he had done when he first came to Nut +Street. He bought the children sweet Jackson balls and the baby nearly +died from "wan in its troat," and his mother picked him up by his socks +and rattled the sticky sweet out of the child's larynx, and the cat +finished it.</p> + +<p>Tony's foreman was asked in to have supper and a late cup of coffee, and +Miss Cora Kenny, whom "Pop" had sent to the Troy convent the first week +of Antony's appearance in the Gents' Boarding and Lodging House, came +home for a Catholic holiday, and she helped her mother. They made +macaroni for Tito Falutini—"high Falutini," as Mrs. Kenny called him. +The name stuck, and the macaroni stuck as well, fast to the plate; but +the Italian, in bashful gratitude, his eyes suffused with smoke and +tears, ate gratefully, gesticulating his satisfaction, and Cora Kenny +studied him from the stove where she slaved to tempt the appetites of +Fairfax and his friend.</p> + +<p>Fairfax was proud of Falutini: he was not an ordinary acquaintance; he +sang after supper, standing stiffly in a corner of the kitchen, his red +shirt well opened at the throat, and his moustache like black velvet +above his red lips.</p> + +<p>"He sings betther than the theayter, Misther Fairfax," Mr. Kenny said; +"it makes yer eyes thrick ye," and blew his nose, and Cora asked the +singer softly if he could give them "When the band begins to play," or +"Gallagher's Daughter Belle." Tito smiled hopefully, and when Fairfax +laughingly translated, assured Cora Kenny by means of Fairfax again, +that if determination could make a man <!-- Page 152 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>learn a foreign song, he would +sing her "Gallagher's Daughter Belle" next Saturday night.</p> + +<p>"Ah," she breathed, "she'd not be home then!"</p> + +<p>"No," said Kenny, who was a lazy husband but a remarkable father, "that +she <i>wud</i> not!"</p> + +<p>The Italian fireman and the Irish lodging-house keeper's daughter gazed +in each other's eyes. "Gallagher's Daughter Belle" ... dum ... dum ... +Fairfax hummed it, he knew it. Kenny's daughter Cora—<i>that</i> would be +more to the point: and he thought of Molly. He had not seen her since he +had kissed her a fortnight before. Cora said she had never been bold +before, had never let herself think how jealous she was, but to-night +Mr. Tito High-Falutini's eyes made her a new woman. Cora said to her +mother over her shoulder—</p> + +<p>"Shure, Molly Shannon's the onlucky gurl."</p> + +<p>"How's that, Cora?"</p> + +<p>"Lost her job."</p> + +<p>"No!" exclaimed Mrs. Kenny, sympathetically, "and with what doin'?"</p> + +<p>Shure, the foreman's daughter was a chum with Cora. The boss had made +the girl prisents of collars, and it seemed, so Bridget said—Cora with +exquisite subtlety dropped her voice, and after a second Mrs. Kenny +exclaimed—</p> + +<p>"Cora, you're a bad gurl to hark to such goings on, much less belave +thim," and pushed her daughter back and brought out herself the crowning +delicacy of the feast, a dish that needed no foreign help to compose, +steaming praties cooked in their shimmies, as she expressed it. Cora sat +down by High-Falutini, Mrs. Kenny went into the next room to her +littlest children, and Kenny lit a fresh pipe, held the bowl in his +hand, and opposite his distractingly pretty little daughter kept a +thoughtful eye upon the pair. And Fairfax went upstairs two steps at a +time.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was after eleven, dense and hot, but he had gone up eagerly. Of late, +whenever he had a few spare moments he took them, and all Sundays he +remained in his room. There was an odour in the apartment, one that +persistently rose above the tenement smells, a damp, moist, earthy +<!-- Page 153 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>perfume, to Fairfax delicious beyond words. Mosquitoes were rampant, +but he had been brought up in a mosquito-ridden country, and he had +rigged a bit of muslin across his window, and burned Mrs. Kenny's gas +with heartless inconsideration.</p> + +<p>On a small wooden stool stood something covered with cloths damped night +and morning by Fairfax, and during the day by Matty Kenny, a +public-school girl of twelve years of age, a pretty, half-witted little +creature, whom of all Nut Street Fairfax liked and whom he blindly +trusted. Between school hours the little girl ran up and patted with a +sponge the mysterious image in Misther Fairfax's hall room. Tell? Ah, +shure, Misther Fairfax, cross her heart and hope to die but she'd not. +As her duties consisted in tidying Antony's room, her visits were not +remarked. Now Antony lifted off the first cloth; he drew out the stool +under the light, flung off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, loosened his +cravat, got from his drawer a small spatular instrument, and looking at +his unveiled work, meditatively wiped the dried clay from his tool. Then +he drew off the last bit of cheesecloth, uncovering a statuette modelled +in clay with great delicacy and great assurance. The gaslight fell +yellow on it and the little statue seemed to swim, to oscillate and +illumine. It was the figure of a little girl, her hair loose around her +face, holding to her cheek a dead blackbird. The art of the work was its +great sincerity, the calm, assured modelling, the tender truthfulness; +the form of the child, her dress, even her strapped shoes were only +indicated, nevertheless it was a perfect bit of realism, though crude. +But the head, the attitude, the cheek and the face, the little caressing +enfolding hands, were Greek in their perfect execution.</p> + +<p>A flush rose on the young man's face, his eyes brightened, he gave a +soft touch here and there with the little instrument, but he had done +all he could to this creation. It was only in perishable clay, it must +crumble and dry; how could he perpetuate it? He thought of having it +cast in terra-cotta, but how and where? The figure vacillated in the +gaslight, and taunted him with its perishability, its evanescence, +frail, transient as childhood is transient. "Bella," he mused before it, +"little <!-- Page 154 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>cousin." His right hand had not quite lost its cunning, then? +He could construct and direct a locomotive, but he had not lost all his +skill. For what the statue proved to him, for its evidence of his living +art and his talent, he loved it, he turned it and viewed it on all +sides, whistling softly under his breath, not morbid about his tunes +now.</p> + +<p>Tito High-Falutini pushed the door open. "Goin' home, Tony, la Signora +Kenni has turned me out."</p> + +<p>Fairfax pointed to his statue. "Look. If we were in Carrara somebody +would lend me a quarry or I would steal one, and turn little Bella into +a snow image." He spoke in English, entirely uncomprehended by his +companion. He put his hand on Tito's arm.</p> + +<p>"Did you do that, Tony? It is valuable. In Italy we make terra-cotta +figures like that and sell them."</p> + +<p>"Do you think, Tito," his companion replied, "that I would sell little +Bella for a few lire, you commercial traveller?"</p> + +<p>Tito was acquainted with the Italian quarter, he would find some one who +baked in terra-cotta. They had brought their trades with them. Tony +could do others: a Savoyard with a hand-organ, those things were very +gentile, very brave indeed, and money, said Tito, gloating, money,—why +that would cost a dollar at least.</p> + +<p>Fairfax covered up the clay and pushed the stool back in its corner.</p> + +<p>"You can make a fool of yourself, too," he said good-humouredly, and +pushed Falutini out. "Go home and dream of Kenny's daughter Cora, and +don't forget to buy a can of crude oil and order a half dozen of those +cock-screws. Good-night." He banged the door.</p> + +<p>He undressed, still softly whistling, unpinned the curtain from the +window, and what there was of heat and freshness came into the room with +the mosquitoes that had huddled at the glass and the sill. He had heard +Cora Kenny's information: Molly had lost her place because she would not +do what the boss wanted. They always wanted one thing in the collar +factories. The boss was a beast. He heaved a deep sigh. He had not been +lonely the last fortnight, his work had absorbed him. There was no way +for him to go on with it, he had no time, nor means. It had brought him +near <!-- Page 155 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>to his people, to his mother, to his kinsmen, to the child who had +died, to the one that remained. But he knew his loneliness would return, +his need of companionship, of expression and life, and he was too +healthy, too strong to be nourished by his sentimental thought of the +child-woman or to live on the sale of terra-cotta statues. He cradled +his young head with its fair hair on his arm and fell asleep, and over +the yards the harvest moon rose yellow and shone through the small +window and on Antony. He might have been a boy asleep at school, his +face looked so young and so unstained, and the same light shone on the +angel of the resurrection at the gate of the rural cemetery, on +Gardiner's little grave in Woodlawn, and on his mother's grave in New +Orleans, where the brick walls keep the coffins high above the +Mississippi's tide and silt.</p> + +<p>The moonlight could not penetrate to the corner where, under the damp +cloths, Bella wept over the blackbird pressed against her cheek.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 156 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p>Fairfax expected to find a melancholy, wet-eyed little creature with a +hard-luck story when he went to Troy, and although he knew that Molly +would never reproach him, he knew as well that he had treated her very +badly. From the day he had asked her to become Mrs. Antony Fairfax, and +heard Cora Kenny's news, he had not been near his sweetheart. His +sweetheart! Since he had read "The Idylls of the King" in his boyhood, +no woman had seemed too high or too fine for him: he had been Lancelot +to Guinevere, the Knight to the Lady: Molly Shannon had not been in any +romance he had ever read.</p> + +<p>He found her sitting among her lodging-house keeper's children in a room +tidied by her own hands. During her leisure, she had made herself a pink +gingham dress with small white rosebuds on it, and around her neck a low +white collar she had pinned with a tortoise-shell brooch. Her dress was +the simplest Fairfax had ever seen her wear. It was cool and plain, and +the Irish girl's milk-white skin, her auburn hair, her eyes with the +black flecks in them, her young round breast, her bare fore-arm, as she +rocked Patsy O'Brien, were charming, and her cry, as Fairfax came in, +and the hands she pressed to her heart were no less charming.</p> + +<p>She sprang up, her work fell to the floor: she stood deathly white and +trembling. Her emotion, her love, affected the young man very deeply. He +did not think of the obstacles between them, of her station, or of +anything as he came into Mrs. O'Brien's parlour-bedroom amongst her six +ubiquitous children and disturbed the cradle to get to Molly Shannon. He +thought of one fact only, that he had kissed her: how had he forgotten +the honey of it for a fortnight? Without so much as bidding <!-- Page 157 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>her +good-morning, he repeated the ecstasy and kissed her. She had time to +grow faint and to regain her life in his arms, and under her happy +breath she whispered: "Ah, I must quiet Patsy. Ah, let me go, he'll hurt +his throat." And she bent, blooming and heart-breakingly happy, over the +cradle.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Mrs. Kenny called him as he went past the door. "Shure," she said, "I've +got bad news for ye, Misther Fairfax, dear."</p> + +<p>He stopped on the threshold. "There is only one death on the earth that +could give me any pain, Mrs. Kenny. I reckon it's——"</p> + +<p>"It's not death then," she hastened, "shure it's a little thing, but +poor Matty's that crazy that the child has gone out to her aunty's and +wurra a bit will she come home."</p> + +<p>"Matty!" Fairfax exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Shure, the moniment in your bedroom, Misther Fairfax."</p> + +<p>He flew upstairs. The corner inhabited for him by a fairy companion was +empty. The image of his talent, of his little love, of his heart's hope, +had disappeared. Mrs. Kenny did not follow him upstairs as one would +have supposed that she would do. He locked his door, the cloths lay in a +pile, damp and soggy. Why had they not left the fragments—the precious +morsels? His eyes filled with impotent, angry grief; he tore his table +drawer open and found the designs which he had made for the figure. The +sketches seemed crude and poor beside the finished work whose execution +had been inspired. This destruction unchained again his melancholy. He +was overwhelmed; the accident seemed like a brutal insistence of +Destiny, and he seemed bound to the coarse, hard existence to which he +had taken in desperation. With this destruction he saw as well the +wiping out of his life of Bella.</p> + +<p>Ah, at Troy that day he had done more than break a clay image of her. He +opened the door as if he would have called to Mrs. Kenny, then slammed +it, unable to speak from excitement, and a dogged look crossed his face. +The night was muggy, his throat burned with a <!-- Page 158 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>sudden thirst, and he +exulted that it did so. On his empty room, empty to him for ever, for +the figure in the corner had disenchanted it of all its horrors for +fourteen happy days and nights, he looked once and then he fled. He +threw himself down the stairs and out into the late mid-summer night.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The coloured porter at the Delavan put him to bed at one o'clock in a +comfortable room. As the fellow's black face bent above him, Tony, who +saw it blur and waver before his intoxicated eyes, murmured—</p> + +<p>"Emmy, Emmy, don't tell my mother, and wake me at seven, for I run out +at nine sharp."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 159 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p>The paymaster, Peter Rainsford, had found little in West Albany to +excite the tepid interest he still retained in life, but Tony Fairfax, +the driver of Number Twenty-four, had attracted his attention. Each time +that Fairfax came to report Rainsford made a vain effort to engage him +in conversation. The agent wondered what the engine-driver's story was, +and having one of his own, hoped for Fairfax's sake that there was +anything but a class resemblance between them.</p> + +<p>Detained late this night at his desk, he pushed back his lamp to +contemplate Tito Falutini, who, his hat pressed against his red flannel +breast, his teeth sparkling, came in to report. Tito told a tale in a +jargon which only an etymologist could have sifted into words.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you think has become of him?" Rainsford asked.</p> + +<p>The Italian gesticulated with his hat far and wide.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> took the train to Fonda alone, without an engineer, Falutini? How +was it the fellows didn't stop you at Fonda? It doesn't seem possible."</p> + +<p>The official opened a ledger and ran his eye over the names.</p> + +<p>"I can put Steve Brodie on Number Twenty-four to-morrow morning. You +should have reported at once in West Albany, Falutini."</p> + +<p>The name of Steve Brodie was intelligible to Tito. "Nota io," he said, +"not a fire for any man, only Toni."</p> + +<p>Rainsford wrote a few moments in his ledger. "Want me to strike your +name right off the books now, Falutini? I've a good mind to do it +anyway. You should have reported at nine this morning."</p> + +<p>"Want to find Fairfax," said the Italian.<!-- Page 160 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>The disappearance did not speak well for the young man in whom the boss +had taken an interest.</p> + +<p>"Has he paid up at Kenny's?" Rainsford asked hopelessly.</p> + +<p>Falutini did not understand. "Signora Kenni," informed the fireman, +"mutche cri, kids mutche cri, altro." Fairfax, the fellow made Rainsford +understand, had left his clothes and belongings.</p> + +<p>"Ah," Rainsford thought, "it looks worse than at first."</p> + +<p>"No," Falutini explained, "no fight." Then he broke forth into an +explanation from which Rainsford vainly tried to create some order. +Statues and terra-cotta figures mingled with an explanation of theft of +some property of Fairfax's and his flight in consequence.</p> + +<p>"I'll close up here in a quarter of an hour, and go over and see Mrs. +Kenny. Steve Brodie will take your engine, and you look out for +yourself, my man, and don't get bounced when you come in to report +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Rainsford saw Mrs. Kenny in the kitchen-bedroom-parlour of the +first-class hotel (Gents only). When he came in and sat down in the +midst of the Irish family Rainsford did not know that he was the second +gentleman that had crossed the threshold since the sign had swung in the +window. Mary Kenny was intelligible, charmingly so, and her account was +full of colour; and the young man's character was drawn by a woman's +lips, with a woman's tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Ah, wurra sor," she finished, "Oi cud go down on me knees to him if it +wasn't for Pathrick Kenny. It was an evil day when that Hitalian came to +the dure. Wud ye now?" she offered, as though she suggested that he +should view sacred relics, "wud ye feel like goin' up to his room and +castin' an eye?"</p> + +<p>Peter Rainsford did so, feeling that he was taking a man at a +disadvantage, but consoling himself with the thought that Fairfax's +disappearance warranted the invasion. Mrs. Kenny, the baby on her arm, +stood by his side, and called over the objects as though she were a +showman at a museum.</p> + +<p>"That's his bury, sor, and the best wan in the hotel, and them's his +little ornyments an' foolin's in order on <!-- Page 161 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>the top. Matty reds his room +up, an' never a hand but mine puts his wash to rights." She pulled a +drawer open. "His beautiful starched shirts, I doos them with me own +hands and charges him as though he was me son; an' there is his +crayvats, an' over there," she pointed with her thumb, "stud the image, +bad cess to the Hitalian an' his likes, Mr. Rainsford, an' many's the +time I've stud beyont the dure an' heard him sing and whustle beautiful, +whilst he was a-carvin' of it."</p> + +<p>Rainsford looked at a small design pinned against the wall: he +considered it long.</p> + +<p>"Do ye think that he's kilt then?" asked the Irish woman.</p> + +<p>The paymaster returned briskly. "No, I don't think so. I hope he has not +come to any harm."</p> + +<p>"His readin' buks, sor," she said, "wud ye cast an eye?"</p> + +<p>But here Rainsford refused, and returning to his own lodgings higher up +in the town, and on a better scale, went home thoughtful, touched, and +with a feeling of kinship with the truant engineer. Before, however, he +could take any steps to look for Fairfax, a coloured man from somewhere +appeared with the request that Mrs. Kenny send all Fairfax's things. The +mysterious lodger enclosed, moreover, a week's board in advance, but no +address; nor had the coloured man any information for Nut Street, and a +decided antipathy existed between George Washington and Mary Kenny. She +was pale when she packed up Fairfax's belongings and cried into his +trunk, as she laid the drawing of Bella Carew next to the unopened +packet of his mother's treasures. She was unconscious of what sacred +thing she touched, but she was cut to the heart, as was poor Falutini. +Peter Rainsford, who had not gone far in his friendship with the elusive +Fairfax, was only disappointed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At the close of the following Sunday afternoon, Rainsford was reading in +his room when Fairfax himself came in.</p> + +<p>"Why, hello, Fairfax," the paymaster's tone was not that of a +disaffected patron to a delinquent engineer. "You are just two weeks +late in reporting Number <!-- Page 162 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>Twenty-four. But I'm sincerely glad you came, +whatever the reason for the delay."</p> + +<p>Rainsford's greeting was that of a friend to a friend. Fairfax, +surprised, lifted his eyebrows and smiled "thanks." He took the chair +Rainsford offered. "Why <i>thank</i> you, Rainsford." He took a cigar which +Rainsford handed him. He was in the dress of a railroad man off duty.</p> + +<p>"Now I don't know anybody I've been more curious about," said the +paymaster. "Where on earth did you go to, Fairfax? You don't know how +you have mystified us all here, and in fact, me from the first."</p> + +<p>"There are no end of mysteries in life," said the young man, still +smiling; "I should have wondered about you, Mr. Rainsford, if I had had +either the time or the courage!"</p> + +<p>"Courage, Fairfax?"</p> + +<p>"Why yes," returned the engineer, twisting his cigar between his +fingers, "courage to break away from the routine I've been obliged to +follow."</p> + +<p>Fairfax saw before him a spare man of about forty years of age. The thin +hair, early grey, came meekly around the temples of a finely made and +serious brow, but the features of Rainsford's face were delicate, the +skin was drawn tightly over the high cheek-bones. There was an extreme +melancholy in his expression; when defeat had begun to write its lines +upon his face, over the humiliating stain, Resignation had laid a hand.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll spare you wondering about me, Fairfax," the agent said; "I +am just a plain fellow, that's all, and for that reason, when I saw that +one of the hands on my pay-roll was clearly a gentleman, and a very +young one too, it interested me, and since I have been to Kenny's"—he +hesitated a little—"since I have heard something about you from that +good soul, why, I am more than interested, I am determined!"</p> + +<p>Fairfax, his head thrown back, smoked thoughtfully, and Rainsford noted +the youthfulness of the line of his neck and face, the high idealism of +the brow, the beautiful mouth, the breeding and the sensitiveness there.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's a crime, that's what it is. You are young, you're a boy. +Thank God for it, it is not too late. Would you care to tell me what +brought you here like this? <!-- Page 163 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>I won't say what misfortune brought you +here, Fairfax,"—he put his nervous hand to his lips—"but what folly on +your part."</p> + +<p>Rainsford took for granted the ordinary reasons for hard luck and the +harvest of wild oats.</p> + +<p>Fairfax said, "I have no people, Rainsford; they are all dead."</p> + +<p>"But you have influential friends?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Fairfax, "not one."</p> + +<p>"You have extraordinary talent, Fairfax."</p> + +<p>The young man started. "But what makes you think that?"</p> + +<p>"Falutini told me."</p> + +<p>Fairfax laughed harshly. "Poor Tito. He's a judge, I daresay." His face +clouded, grew quite stern before Rainsford's intent eyes. "Yes," he said +slowly, "I think I have talent; I think I must have a lot somewhere, but +I have got a mighty dangerous Pride and it has driven me to a sort of +revenge on Fate, an arrogant showing of my disdain—God knows of what +and of whom!" More quietly he said: "Whilst my mother lived I could not +beg, Rainsford, I couldn't starve, I couldn't scratch and crawl and live +as a starving artist must when he is making his way. I wanted to make a +living first, and I was too proud to take the thorny way an artist +must."</p> + +<p>Fairfax got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked across +Rainsford's small room. It was in excellent order, plainly furnished but +well supplied with the things a man needs to make him comfortable. There +were even a few luxuries, like pillows on the hard sofa, bookshelves +filled with books and a student's lamp soft under a green shade. As he +turned back to the paymaster Fairfax had composed himself and said +tranquilly—</p> + +<p>"I reckon you've got a pretty bad note against me in the ledger, haven't +you, Rainsford?"</p> + +<p>"Note?" repeated the other vaguely. "Oh, your bad conduct report. Well, +rather."</p> + +<p>"Who has got my job on Number Twenty-four?"</p> + +<p>"Steve Brodie."</p> + +<p>Fairfax nodded. "He surely does know how to drive an engine all right, +and so do I, Rainsford."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't run any more engines, Fairfax."<!-- Page 164 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't want to come back to West Albany and to the yards," said the +engineer.</p> + +<p>"I haven't much influence now," Rainsford said musingly, "but I have +some friends still. I want you to let me lend you some money, a very +small sum."</p> + +<p>The blood rushed to Fairfax's face. He extended his hand impulsively.</p> + +<p>"There, Rainsford, you needn't go on. You are the first chap who has put +out a rope to me. I did have twenty-five cents given me once, but +otherwise——"</p> + +<p>"I mean it sincerely, Fairfax."</p> + +<p>"Rainsford," said the young man, with emotion in his voice, "you are a +fine brand of failure."</p> + +<p>"Will you let me stand by you, Fairfax?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," said the other, "I will, but not in the way you mean. I +reckon I must have felt what kind of a fellow you were or I wouldn't be +here. At any rate you're the only person I wanted to see. I quite +understand you can't take me back at the yards, and I don't want to +drive in and out from West Albany. Could you do anything for me at the +general company, Rainsford? Would they give me a job in Albany? I'd take +a local though I'm up to an express."</p> + +<p>"No," said Rainsford, "you mustn't think of driving engines; I won't +lift my hand to help you."</p> + +<p>"It is all I can do," returned the engineer quietly, after a second, +"all I want." Then he said, "I've <i>got</i> to have it...."</p> + +<p>"Why I'll <i>lend</i> you enough money, Fairfax, to pay your passage to +France!"</p> + +<p>"Stop!" cried the young man with emotion, "it's too late."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said the other warmly, Fairfax's voice and personality +charming him as it charmed others. "Why, you are nothing but a big, +headlong boy! You have committed a tremendous folly; you've got art at +your finger tips. Are you going to sweat and stew all your life in the +cab of an engine? Why, you are insane."</p> + +<p>"Stop," cried Fairfax again, "for the love of heaven...."</p> + +<p>Rainsford regarded him, fascinated. He saw in him <!-- Page 165 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>his own lost +promises, his own lost chance; it seemed to him that through this young +man he might in a way buy back the lost years.</p> + +<p>"I'll <i>not</i> stop till I have used every means to make you see the +hideous mistake you're making."</p> + +<p>"Rainsford," said Antony, paling, "if you had made me this offer the day +before I left Nut Street, I would have been in France by this. My God!" +he murmured beneath his breath. "<i>How</i> I would have escaped!"—checked +himself with great control for so young a man and so ardent a man. He +was a foot taller than his desk-bowed pale companion, and he laid his +hand impulsively on his chief's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"If you can give me a <i>job</i>, Rainsford, do so, will you? I know I have +no right to ask you, after the way I have treated the Company, but I am +married. I have married Molly Shannon. You know her, the girl at +Sheedy's." He waited a second, looking the other man in the eyes, then, +with something of his old humour, he said, "There are two of us now, +Rainsford, and I have got to make our living."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 166 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p>Death does not always make the deepest graves. His art was buried +deepest of all, and there was just one interest in his life, and that +was not his wife. He was kind to her, but if he had beaten her she would +have kissed his hand; she could not have loved him better. Her life was +"just wrapped round him." He treated her as a lady, and he was a +gentleman. Her manners were always soft and gentle, coming from a sweet +good heart. She grew thinner, and her pride in him and her love for him +and her humility made Molly Fairfax beautiful. There was a great deal of +cruelty in the marriage and in their mating. It was no one's fault, and +the woman suffered the most. Their rooms were in a white frame building +with green blinds, one of the old wooden houses that remained long in +Albany. It did not overlook the yards, for Fairfax wanted a new horizon. +From her window, Molly could see the docks, the river, the night and day +boats as they anchored, and she had time to watch and know them all. +Nothing in his working life or in his associations coarsened Antony +Fairfax; it would have been better for him had it done so. She was not +married to an engineer, but to a gentleman, and he was as chivalrous to +her as though she had been the woman of his dreams; but she spent much +of the time weeping and hiding the traces from him, and in the evenings, +when he came home to the meal that she prepared each day with a greater +skill and care, sometimes after greeting her he would not break the +silence throughout the evening, and he did not dream that he had +forgotten her. His new express engine became his life. He drove her, +cared for her, oiled and tended her with art and passion. There were no +bad notes against him at the office. His records <!-- Page 167 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>were excellent, and +Rainsford had the satisfaction of knowing that the man whom he had +recommended was in the right place. The irony of it all was that his +marrying Molly Shannon did not bring him peace, although it +tranquillized him, and kept part of his nature silent. He had meditated +as he drove his engine, facing the miles before him as the machine ate +them up, and these miles began to take him into other countries. There +was a far-awayness in the heavens to him now, and as he used to glance +up at the telegraph wires and poles they became to him masts and +riggings of vessels putting out to sea, and from his own window of his +little tenement apartment of two bedrooms and a kitchen, he watched the +old river boats and the scows and the turtle-like canal boats that +hugged the shore, and they became vessels whose bows had kissed ports +whose names were thrilling, and in the nest he had made his own, +thinking to rest there, his growing wings began to unprison and the nest +to be too small. There was no intoxication in the speed of his +locomotive to him, and he felt a grave sense of power as he regulated +and slowed and accelerated, and the smooth response of his locomotive +delighted him. She flew to his hand, and the speed gave him joy.</p> + +<p>At lunch time Falutini had told him of Italy, and the glow and the +glamour, the cypress and the pines, the azure skies, olive and grape +vines brought their enchantment around Fairfax, until No. 111 stood in +an enchanted country, and not under the shed with whirling snows or +blinding American glare without. He exchanged ideas with Rainsford. The +agent became his friend, and one Sunday Fairfax led him into the Delavan +House, and George Washington nearly broke his neck and spilled the soup +on the shoulder of the uninteresting patron he was at the moment +serving, in his endeavour to get across the floor to Antony.</p> + +<p>"Yas, <i>sah</i>, Mistah Kunnell Fairfax, sah! Mighty glad to see yo', and +the Capting?—Hyah in de window?"</p> + +<p>"Rainsford," said the young man, "isn't it queer? I feel at home here. +This dingy hotel and this smiling old nigger, they are joys to me—joys. +To this very table I have brought my own bitter food to eat and bitter +water to drink, and half forgotten their tastes as I have eaten <!-- Page 168 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>the +Delavan fare, and been cheered by this faithful old darkey. Perhaps all +the chaps round here aren't millionaires or Depuysters, but there are no +railroad men such as I am lunching here, and I breathe again."</p> + +<p>The two ate their tomato soup with relish. Poor Molly was an indifferent +cook, and the food at Rainsford's hash-house was horrible.</p> + +<p>"Don't come here often now, Fairfax, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Every Sunday."</p> + +<p>"<i>Really?</i> And do you bring Mrs. Fairfax?"</p> + +<p>"No," frowned the young man, "and I wonder you ask. Don't you understand +that this is my holiday? God knows I earn it."</p> + +<p>Rainsford finished his soup. The plate was whisked away, was briskly +replaced by a quantity of small dishes containing everything on the bill +of fare from chicken to pot-pie, and as Rainsford meditated upon the +outlay, he said—</p> + +<p>"She's a gentle, lovely creature, Fairfax. I don't wonder you were +charmed by her. She has a heart and a soul."</p> + +<p>Fairfax stared. "Why when did you see her?"</p> + +<p>He had never referred to his wife since the day he had announced his +marriage to his chief.</p> + +<p>"She came on the day of the blizzard to the office to bring a parcel for +you. She wanted me to send it up the line by the Limited to catch you at +Utica."</p> + +<p>"My knit waistcoat," nodded Fairfax. "I remember. It saved my getting a +chill. I had clean forgotten it. She's a good girl."</p> + +<p>Rainsford chose amongst the specimens of food.</p> + +<p>"She is a sweet woman."</p> + +<p>Here George Washington brought Fairfax the Sunday morning <i>Tribune</i>, and +folded it before his gentleman and presented it almost on his knees.</p> + +<p>"Let me git ye a teenty weenty bit mo' salid, Kunnell?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax unfolded the <i>Tribune</i> leisurely. "Bring some ice-cream, George, +and some good cigars, and a little old brandy. Yes, Rainsford, it isn't +poison."</p> + +<p>Fairfax read attentively, and his companion watched him patiently, his +own face lightened by the companionship <!-- Page 169 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>of the younger man. Fairfax +glanced at the headlines of the <i>Tribune</i>, said "By George!" under his +breath, and bent over the paper. His face underwent a transformation; he +grew pale, read fixedly, then laughed, said "By George!" again, folded +the paper up and put it in his pocket.</p> + +<p>The ice-cream was brought and described as "<i>Panillapolitan</i> cream, +sah," and Fairfax lit a cigar and puffed it fast and then said +suddenly—</p> + +<p>"Do you know what hate is, Rainsford? I reckon you don't. Your face +doesn't bear any traces of it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Fairfax," said the other, "I know what it is—it's a disease which +means battle, murder, and sudden death."</p> + +<p>The young man took the paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, and +Rainsford was surprised to see his hands tremble, the beautiful clever +hands with the stained finger ends and the clean, beautiful palm. +Falutini did more work than Fairfax now. He slaved for his master.</p> + +<p>"Read that, Rainsford." He tapped a headline with his forefinger. "It +sounds like an event."</p> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">The Unveiling of the Abydos Sphinx in Central Park</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Cedersholm's Wonderful Pedestal.</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Difficult Transportation of the Egyptian</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Monument from the Port to the Park.</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Unveiling to take place next Saturday.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The article went on to speak of the dignified marble support, and hinted +at four prehistoric creatures in bronze which were supposed to be the +masterpieces of modern sculpture.</p> + +<p>Rainsford read it through. "Very interesting. An event, as you say, +Tony. Cedersholm has made himself a great reputation."</p> + +<p>"<i>Damn him!</i>" breathed the engineer. His heart was beating wildly, he +felt a suffocation in his breast. A torrent of feeling swept up in him. +No words could say what a storm and a tempest the notice caused.</p> + +<p>"Jealous," Rainsford thought. "Cedersholm has all that poor Fairfax +desires."</p> + +<p>Overcome by the memories the headlines recalled, <!-- Page 170 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>overcome by his anger +and the injustice, Fairfax's face grew white.</p> + +<p>"Take a little more coffee, Kunnell," said George Washington at his +elbow.</p> + +<p>"No." Antony repulsed him rudely. "Did you read it all, Rainsford?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. I dare say this will bring Cedersholm close on a hundred +thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"It will pave his way to hell one day, Rainsford," said the engineer, +leaning across the table. "It will indeed! Why, it is a monument of +injustice and dishonour. Do you know what that Sphinx rests on, +Rainsford, do you know?"</p> + +<p>For a moment the railroad agent thought his friend had lost his senses +brooding over his discarded art, his spoiled life.</p> + +<p>"Four huge prehistoric creatures," Rainsford read mildly.</p> + +<p>Fairfax's lips trembled. "It rests on a man's heart and soul, on his +flesh and blood, on his bleeding wounds, Rainsford. I worked in +Cedersholm's studio, I slaved for him night and day for eighteen months. +I spilled my youth and heart's blood there, I did indeed." His face +working, he tapped his friend's arm with his hand. "I made the moulds +for those beasts. I cast them in bronze, right there in his studio. +Every inch of them is mine, Rainsford, mine. By ... you can't take it +in, of course, you don't believe me, nobody would believe me, that's why +I can do nothing, can't say anything, or I'd be arrested as a lunatic. +But Cedersholm's fame in this instance is mine, and he has stolen it +from me and shut me out like a whipped dog. He thinks I am poor and +unbefriended, and he knows that I have no case. Why, he's a <i>hound</i>, +Rainsford, the meanest hound on the face of the earth."</p> + +<p>Rainsford soothed his friend, but Fairfax's voice was low with passion, +no one could overhear its intense tone.</p> + +<p>"Don't for a moment think I have lost my senses. If you don't believe +me, give me a pencil and paper and I'll sketch you what I mean."</p> + +<p>Rainsford was very much impressed and startled. "If what you say is +true," he murmured.<!-- Page 171 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<p>And Fairfax, who had regained some of his control—he knew better than +any one the futility of his miserable adventure—exclaimed—</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's true enough; but there is nothing to do about it. Cedersholm +knows that better than any one else."</p> + +<p>He sat back, and his face grew dark and heavy with its brooding. His +companion watched him helplessly, only half convinced of the truth of +the statement. Fairfax lifted his eyes and naďvely exclaimed—</p> + +<p>"Isn't it cruel, Rainsford? You speak of failures; did you ever see such +a useless one as this? Cedersholm and his beasts which they say right +here are the best things in modern sculpture, and me with my engine and +my—" He stopped. "Give me the bill," he called to George Washington.</p> + +<p>The old darkey, used as he was to his gentleman's moods, found this one +stranger than usual.</p> + +<p>"Anythin' wrong with the dinner, Kunnell?" he asked tremulously. "Very +sorry, Capting. Fust time yo'—"</p> + +<p>Fairfax put the money in his hand. "All right, George," he assured +kindly, "your dinner's all right—don't worry. Good-bye." And he did not +say as he usually did, "See you next Sunday." For he had determined to +go down to New York for the unveiling of the monument.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 172 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p>The May afternoon, all sunshine and sparkle, had a wine to make young +hope spring from old graves and age forget its years, and youth mad with +its handicaps; a day to inspire passion, talent, desire, and to make +even goodness take new wings.</p> + +<p>With the crowd of interested and curious, Antony Fairfax entered Central +Park through the Seventy-second Street gate. Lines of carriages extended +far into Fifth Avenue, and he walked along by the side of a smart +victoria where a pretty woman sat under her sunshade and smiled on the +world and spring. Fairfax saw that she was young and worldly, and +thought for some time of his mother, of women he might have known, and +when the victoria passed him, caught the lady's glance as her look +wandered over the crowd. A May-day party of school children spread over +the lawn at his left, the pole's bright streamers fluttering in the +breeze. The children danced gaily, too small to care for the unveiling +of statues or for ancient Egypt. The bright scene and the day's gladness +struck Antony harsh as a glare in weakened eyes. He was gloomy and +sardonic, his heart beating out of tune, his genial nature had been +turned to gall.</p> + +<p>The Mall was roped off, and at an extempore gate a man in uniform +received the cards of admission. Fairfax remembered the day he had +endeavoured to enter the Field Palace and his failure.</p> + +<p>"I'm a mechanic," he said hastily to the gateman, "one of Mr. +Cedersholm's workmen."</p> + +<p>The man pushed him through, and he went in with a group of students from +Columbia College.</p> + +<p>In a corner of the Mall, on the site he had indicated to the little +cousins, rose a white object covered by a <!-- Page 173 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>sheeting, which fell to the +ground. Among the two hundred persons gathered were people of +distinction. There was to be speech-making. Fairfax did not know this or +who the speakers were to be. All that he knew or cared was that at three +o'clock of this Saturday his Beasts—his four primitive creatures—were +to be unveiled. He wore his workday clothes, his Pride had led him to +make the arrogant display of his contempt of the class he had deserted. +His hat was pushed back on his blond head. His blue eyes sparkled and he +thrust his disfigured hands into his pockets to keep them quiet. The +lady beside whose carriage he had stood came into the roped-off +enclosure, and found a place opposite Fairfax. Once more her eyes fell +on the workman's handsome face. He looked out of harmony with the people +who had gathered to see the unveiling of Mr. Cedersholm's pedestal.</p> + +<p>For the speakers, a desk and platform had been arranged, draped with an +American flag. Antony listened coldly to the first address, a <i>résumé</i> +of the dynasty in whose dim years the Abydos Sphinx was hewn, and the +Egyptologist's learning, the dust he stirred of golden tombs, and the +perfumes of the times that he evoked, were lost to the up-state engineer +who only gazed on the veiled monument.</p> + +<p>His look, however, returned to the desk, when Cedersholm took the place, +and Fairfax, from the sole of his lame foot to his fair head, grew cold. +His bronze beasts were not more hard and cold in their metallic bodies, +nor was the Sphinx more petrified. Cedersholm had aged, and seemed to +Fairfax to have warped and shrunk and to stand little more than a +pitiful suit of clothes with a <i>boutonničre</i> in the lapel of the +pepper-and-salt coat. There was nothing impressive about the sleek grey +head, though his single eye-glass gave him distinction. The Columbia +student next to Fairfax, pushed by the crowd, touched Antony Fairfax's +great form and felt as though he had touched a colossus.</p> + +<p>Cedersholm spoke on art, on the sublimity of plastic expression. He +spoke rapidly and cleverly. His audience interrupted him by gratifying +whispers of "Bravo, bravo," and the gentle tapping of hands. He was +clearly a favourite, a great citizen, a great New Yorker, and a <!-- Page 174 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>great +man. Directly opposite the desk was a delegation from the Century Club, +Cedersholm's friends all around him. To Fairfax, they were only brutes, +black and white creatures, no more—mummers in a farce. Cedersholm did +not speak of his own work. With much delicacy he confined his address to +the past. And his adulation of antiquity showed him to be a real artist, +and he spoke with love of the relics of the perfect age. In closing he +said—</p> + +<p>"Warm as may be our inspirations, great as may be any modern genius, +ardent as may be our labour, let each artist look at the Abydos Sphinx +and know that the climax has been attained. We can never touch the +antique perfection again."</p> + +<p>Glancing as he did from face to face, Cedersholm turned toward the +Columbia students who adored him and whose professor in art he was. +Searching the young faces for sympathy, he caught sight of Fairfax. He +remembered who he was, their eyes met. Cedersholm drank a glass of water +at his hand, bowed to his audience, and stepped down. He moved briskly, +his head a little bent, crossed the enclosure, and joined the lady whom +Fairfax had observed.</p> + +<p>"That," Fairfax heard one of his neighbours say, "is Mr. Cedersholm's +fiancée, Mrs. Faversham."</p> + +<p>Fairfax raised his eyes to the statue. There was a slight commotion as +the workmen ranged the ropes. Then, very gracefully, evidently proud as +a queen, the lady, followed by Mr. Cedersholm, went up to the pedestal, +took the ropes in her gloved hands, and there was a flutter and the +conventional covering slipped and fell to the earth. There was an +exclamation, a murmur, the released voices murmured their praise, +Cedersholm was surrounded. Fairfax, immovable, stood and gazed.</p> + +<p>The pedestal was of shell-pink marble, carved in delicate bas-relief. +Many of the drawings Antony had made. Isis with her cap of Upper and +Lower Egypt, Hathor with the eternal oblation—the Sphinx.... God and +the Immortals alone knew who had made it.</p> + +<p>On its great, impassive face, on its ponderous body, there was no +signature, no name. Under the four corners, between Sphinx and pedestal, +crouched four bronze <!-- Page 175 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>creatures, their forms and bodies visible between +the stones of the pink pedestal and the soft blue of the Egyptian +granite. The bold, severe modelling, their curious primitive conception, +the life and realism of the creatures were poignant in their suggestion +of power. The colour of the bronze was beautiful, would be more +beautiful still as the years went on. The beasts supported the Egyptian +monument. They rested between the pedestal and the Sphinx; they were the +support and they were his. They seemed, to the man who had made them, +beautiful indeed. Forgetting his outrage and his revenge, in the artist, +Fairfax listened timidly, eagerly, for some word to be murmured in the +crowd, some praise for his Beasts.</p> + +<p>He heard many.</p> + +<p>The students at his side were enthusiastic, they had made studies from +the moulds; moulds of the Beasts were already in the Metropolitan +Museum. The young critics were lavish, profuse. They compared the +creatures with the productions of the Ancients.</p> + +<p>"Cedersholm is a magician, he is one of the greatest men of his +time...."</p> + +<p>The man in working clothes smiled, but his expression was gentler than +it had been hitherto. He lifted his soft hat and ran his fingers through +his blond hair and remained bareheaded in the May air that blew about +him; his fascinated eyes were fastened on the Abydos Sphinx, magnetized +by the calm, inscrutable melancholy, by the serene indifference. The +stony eyes were fixed on the vistas of the new world, the crude Western +continent, as they had been fixed for centuries on the sands of the +pathless desert, on the shifting sands that relentlessly effaced +footsteps of artist and Pharaoh, dynasty and race.</p> + +<p>Who knew who had made this wonder?</p> + +<p>How small and puny Cedersholm seemed in his pepper-and-salt suit, his +<i>boutonničre</i> and single eye-glass, his trembling heart. His heart +trembled, but only Fairfax knew it; he felt that he held it between his +hands. "He must have thought I was dead," he reflected. "What difference +did it make," Fairfax thought, "whether or not the Egyptian who had hewn +the Sphinx had murdered another man for stealing his renown? After four +thousand years, all the footsteps were effaced." His heart grew +<!-- Page 176 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>somewhat lighter, and between himself and the unknown sculptor there +seemed a bond of union.</p> + +<p>The students and the master had drifted away. Cedersholm was in the +midst of his friends. Fairfax would not have put out his hand to take +his laurel. His spirit and soul had gone into communion with a greater +sculptor of the Sphinx, the unknown Egyptian. Standing apart from the +crowd where Cedersholm was being congratulated, Fairfax remarked the +lady again, and that she stood alone as was he. She seemed pensive, +turning her lace parasol between her hands, her eyes on the ground. The +young man supposed her to be dreaming of her lover's greatness. He +recalled the day, two years ago, when with Bella and Gardiner he had +come up before the opening in the earth prepared for the pedestal. +"Wait, wait, my hearties!" he had said.</p> + +<p>Well, one of them had gone on, impatient, to the unveiling of greater +wonders, and Antony had come to his unclaimed festival alone....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 177 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + + +<p>He said to Rainsford at luncheon, over nuts and raisins, and coffee as +black as George Washington's smiling face—</p> + +<p>"I reckon you think I've got a heart of cotton, don't you? I reckon you +think I don't come up to the scratch, do you, old man? I assure you that +I went down to New York seeing scarlet. I had made my plans. Afterward, +mind you, Rainsford, not of course before a whole lot of people,—but in +his own studio, I intended to tell Cedersholm a few truths. Upon my +honour, I believe I <i>could</i> have killed him."</p> + +<p>Rainsford held a pecan nut between the crackers which he pressed slowly +as he listened to his friend. Antony's big hand was spread out on the +table; its grip would have been powerful on a man's throat.</p> + +<p>"We often get rid of our furies on the way," said Rainsford, slowly. "We +keep them housed so long that they fly away unobserved at length. And +when at last we open the door, and expect to find them ready with their +poisons, they've gone, vanished every one."</p> + +<p>"Not in this case," Fairfax shook his head. "I shall call on them all +some day and they will all answer me. But yesterday wasn't the time. +You'll think me poorer-spirited than ever, I daresay, but the woman he +is going to marry was there, a pretty woman, and she seemed to love +him."</p> + +<p>Fairfax glanced up at the agent and saw only comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Quite right, Tony." Rainsford returned Fairfax's look over his +glistening eyeglasses, cracked the pecan nut and took out the meat. "I +am not surprised."</p> + +<p>Antony, who had taken a clipping from his wallet, held it out.<!-- Page 178 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Read this. I cut it out a week ago. Yesterday in the Central Park old +ambitions struck me hard. Read it."</p> + +<p>The notice was from a Western paper, and spoke in detail of a +competition offered to American sculptors by the State of California, +for the design in plaster of a tomb. The finished work was to be placed +in the great new cemetery in Southern California. The prize to be +awarded was ten thousand dollars and the time for handing in the design +a year.</p> + +<p>"Not a very cheerful or inspiring subject, Tony."</p> + +<p>On the contrary, Fairfax thought so. He leaned forward eagerly, and +Rainsford, watching him, saw a transfigured man.</p> + +<p>"Death," said the engineer, "has taken everything from me. Life has +given me nothing, old man. I have a feeling that perhaps now, through +this, I may regain what I have lost.... I long to take my chance."</p> + +<p>The other exclaimed sympathetically, "My dear fellow, you must take it +by all means."</p> + +<p>Fairfax remained thoughtful a moment, then asked almost appealingly——</p> + +<p>"Why, how can I do so? Such an effort would cost my living, <i>her</i> +living, the renting of a place to work in...." As he watched Rainsford's +face his eyes kindled.</p> + +<p>"I offered to lend you money once, Tony," recalled his friend, "and I +wish to God you'd taken the loan then, because just at present—"</p> + +<p>The Utter Failure raised his near-sighted eyes, and the look of +disappointment on the bright countenance of the engineer cut him to the +heart.</p> + +<p>"Never mind." Fairfax's voice was forced in its cheerfulness. "Something +or other will turn up, I shall work Sundays and half-days, and I reckon +I can put it through. I am bound to," he finished ardently, "just bound +to."</p> + +<p>Rainsford said musingly, "I made a little investment, but it went to +pot. I hoped—I'm always hoping—but the money didn't double itself."</p> + +<p>The engineer didn't hear him. He was already thinking how he could +transform his kitchen into a studio, although it had an east light. Just +here Rainsford leaned over and put his hand on Antony's sleeve.<!-- Page 179 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> "I want +to say a word to you about your wife. I don't think she's very well."</p> + +<p>"Molly?" answered his companion calmly. "She's all right. She has a +mighty fine constitution, and I never heard her complain. When did you +see her, Rainsford?" He frowned.</p> + +<p>"Saturday, when you were in New York. You forgot to send your pass-book, +and I went for it myself."</p> + +<p>"Well?" queried Antony. "What then?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Fairfax gave me the book, and I stopped to speak with her for a +few moments. I find her very much changed."</p> + +<p>The light died from the young man's illumined face where his visions had +kindled a sacred fire. The realities of life blotted it out.</p> + +<p>"I'm not able to give Molly any distractions, that you know."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't want them, Tony." Rainsford looked kindly and +affectionately, almost tenderly, at him, and repeated gently: "She +doesn't want amusement, Tony."</p> + +<p>And Fairfax threw up his head with a sort of despair on his face—</p> + +<p>"My God, Rainsford," he murmured, "what can I do?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid she's breaking her heart," said the older man. "Poor little +woman!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 180 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + + +<p>In the little room they used as parlour-kitchen and which to one of the +inhabitants at least was lovely, Fairfax found Molly sitting by the +window through which the spring light fell. The evening was warm. Molly +wore a print dress, and in her bodice he saw that she had thrust a spray +of pink geranium from the window-boxes that Antony had made and filled +for her. Nothing that had claim to beauty failed to touch his senses, +and he saw the charm of the picture in the pale spring light. He had +softly turned the door-handle, and as there was a hand-organ playing +without and Molly listening to the music, he entered without her hearing +him.</p> + +<p>"Is it yourself?" she exclaimed, startled. "You're home early, Tony."</p> + +<p>He told her that he had come to take her for a little walk, and as she +moved out of the light and came toward him, he thought he knew what +Rainsford had meant. She was thin and yet not thin. The roundness had +gone from her cheeks, and there was a mild sadness in her eyes. +Reproached and impatient, suffering as keenly as she, he was +nevertheless too kind of heart and nature not to feel the tragedy of her +life. He drew her to him and kissed her. She made no response, and +feeling her a dead weight he found that as he held her she had fainted +away. He laid her on the bed, loosened her dress, and bathed her icy +temples. Before she regained consciousness he saw her pallor, and that +she had greatly changed. He was very gentle and tender with her when she +came to herself; and, holding her, said—</p> + +<p>"Molly, why didn't you tell me, dear? Why didn't you tell me?"<!-- Page 181 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>She had thought he would be angry with her.</p> + +<p>He exclaimed, hurt: "Am I such a brute to you, Molly?"</p> + +<p>Ah, no; not that. But two was all he could look out for.</p> + +<p>He kneeled, supporting her. Oh, if he could only be glad of it, then she +would be happy. She'd not let it disturb him. It would be sure to be +beautiful and have his eyes and hair.</p> + +<p>He listened, touched. There was a mystery, a beauty in her voice with +its rich cadence, her trembling breath, her fast beating pulse, her +excitement. Below in the street the organ played, "Gallagher's Daughter +Belle," then changed to—ah, how could he bear it!—"My Old Kentucky +Home." Tears sprang to his eyes. Motherhood was sacred to him. Was he to +have a son? Was he to be a father? He must make her happy, this modest, +undemanding girl whom he had made woman and a wife. He kissed her and +she clung to him, daring to whisper something of her adoration and her +gratitude.</p> + +<p>When after supper he stood with her in the window and looked out over +the river where the anchored steamers were in port for over Sunday, and +the May sunset covered the crude brick buildings with a garment of +glory, he was astonished to find that the stone at his heart which had +lain there so long was rolled a little away. He picked up the geranium +which Molly had worn at her breast and which had fallen when she +fainted, and put it in his button-hole. It was crushed and sweet. Molly +whispered that he would kill her with goodness, and that "she was heart +happy."</p> + +<p>"Are you, really?" he asked her eagerly. "Then we'll have old Rainsford +to supper, and you must tell him so!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 182 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + + +<p>Fairfax, stirred as he had been to the depths by his visit to New York, +awake again to the voices of his visions, could give but little of +himself to his home life or to his work. The greatest proof of his +kindly heart was that he did not let Molly see his irritation or his +agony of discontent. If he were only nothing but an engineer with an +Irish wife! Why, why, was he otherwise? In his useless rebellion the +visions came and told him why—told him that to be born as he was, +gifted as he was, was the most glorious thing and the most suffering +thing in the world.</p> + +<p>To the agent who had accepted the Fairfax hospitality and come to +supper, Tony said—</p> + +<p>"To ease my soul, Peter, I want to tell you of something I did."</p> + +<p>Molly had washed the dishes and put them away, and, with a delicate +appreciation of her husband's wish to be alone with his friend, went +into the next room.</p> + +<p>"After mother died my old nigger mammy in New Orleans sent me a packet +of little things. I could never open the parcel until the other day. +Amongst the treasures was a diamond ring, Rainsford, one I had seen her +wear when I was a little boy. I took it to a jeweller on Market Street, +and he told me it was worth a thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>Here Tony remained silent so long that his companion said—</p> + +<p>"That's a lot of money, Tony."</p> + +<p>"Well, it came to me," said the young man simply, "like a gift from her. +I asked them to lend me five hundred dollars on it for a year. It seems +that it's a peculiarly fine stone, and they didn't hesitate."</p> + +<p>Rainsford was smoking a peaceful pipe, and he held<!-- Page 183 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> the bowl +affectionately in his hand, his attention fixed on the blond young man +sitting in the full light of the evening. The night was warm, Fairfax +was in snowy shirt-sleeves, his bright hair cropped close revealed the +beautiful lines of his head; he was a powerful man, clean in habits of +body and mind, and his expression as he talked was brilliant and +fascinating, his eyes profound and blue. Around his knees he clasped the +hands that drove an engine and ached to model in plaster and clay. His +big shoe was a deformity, otherwise he was superb.</p> + +<p>"I've taken a studio, Rainsford," he smiled. "Tito Falutini found it for +me. It is a shed next to the lime-kiln in Canal Street. I've got my +material and I'm going to begin my work for the California competition."</p> + +<p>The older, to whom enthusiasm was as past a joy as success was a dim +possibility, said thoughtfully—</p> + +<p>"When will you work?"</p> + +<p>"Sundays, half-holidays and nights. God!" he exclaimed in anticipation, +holding out his strong arms, "it seems too good to be true!"</p> + +<p>And Rainsford said, "I think I can contrive to get Saturdays off for +you. The Commodore is coming up next week. He owes me a favour or two. I +think I can make it for <i>you</i>, old man."</p> + +<p>There was a little stir in the next room. Fairfax called "Molly!" and +she came in. She might have been a lady. Long association with Fairfax +and her love had taught her wonders. Her hair was carefully arranged and +brushed until it shone like glass. Her dress was simple and refined; her +face had the beauty on it that a great and unselfish love sheds.</p> + +<p>"It means," said Rainsford to himself as he rose and placed a chair for +her, "that Molly will be left entirely alone."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 184 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + + +<p>What Rainsford procured for him in the Saturday holidays was worth the +weight of its hours in gold. This, with Sundays, gave him two working +days, and no lover went more eagerly to his mistress than Antony to the +barracks where he toiled and dreamed. He began with too mad enthusiasm, +lacking the patience to wait until his conceptions ripened. He roughly +made his studies for an Angel of the Resurrection, inspired by the +figure in the West Albany Cemetery. As he progressed he was conscious +that his hand had been idle, as far as his art was concerned, too long; +his fingers were blunted and awkward, and many an hour he paced his shed +in agony of soul, conscious of his lack of technique. He was too +engrossed to be aware of the passing months, but autumn came again with +its wonderful haze, veiling death, decay and destruction, and Fairfax +found himself but little more advanced than in May, when he had shut +himself in his studio, a happy man.</p> + +<p>He grew moody and tried to keep his despair from his wife, for not the +least of his unrest was caused by the knowledge that he was selfish with +her for the sake of his art. By October he had destroyed a hundred +little figures, crushed his abortive efforts to bits, and made a clean +sweep of six months' work and stood among the ruins. He never in these +moments thought of his wife as a comforter, having never opened his +heart to her regarding his art. He shrank from giving her entrance into +his sanctuaries. He was alone in his crisis of artistic infecundity.</p> + +<p>On this Sunday morning he left his studio early, turned the key and +walked up Eagle Street toward the church he had not entered since he was +married. Led<!-- Page 185 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> by discontent and by a hope that beneath the altar in his +old place he might find peace and possibly hear a voice which would tell +him as every creator must be told—HOW. He listened to the music and to +the Litany, the rich, full voices singing their grave, solemn pagan +appeal; but the sensuous ecstasy left Fairfax indifferent and cold. +To-day there were no visions around the altar through whose high windows +came the autumn glory staining the chancel like the Grail. His glance +wandered to the opposite side of the church where in the front pew were +the young scholars of Canon's School, a bevy of girls; and he thought +with a pang of Bella. She wouldn't be little Bella Carew much longer, +for she was nearly sixteen, charming little Bella. He thought of the +statue he had made and which had been so wantonly destroyed, and with +this came the feeling that everything he touched had been warped and +distorted. Ashamed of this point of view, he sighed and rose with the +others at the Creed. He repeated it with conviction, and at the words, +"Resurrection and the Life Everlasting," he dwelt upon "Everlasting +Life" as though he would draw from the expression such consolation as +should make him belittle the transient show with its mass of failures +and unhappy things, and render immortal only that in him which was still +aspiring, still his highest. He was glad to see instead of the curate a +man with a red hood mount the pulpit steps, and he knew it was the Canon +himself. With a new interest in his mind he sat erect.</p> + +<p>For the first time since he had come to the North a man whom he could +revere and admire stood before him. The Canon's clear-cut heavenly face, +his gracious voice, his outstretched hand as he blessed his people, made +an agreeable impression on the young man out of his element, nearly +shipwrecked and entirely alone. It occurred to him to speak to the Canon +after service; but what should he say? What appeal could he make? He was +an engineer married to a Roman Catholic woman of the other class, too +poor a specimen of his own class to remain in it. Since his marriage he +had felt degraded in society, out of place. If the Canon had advice to +give him, it would be to shut up his studio and devote himself to his +wife.<!-- Page 186 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>He wandered slowly out of the building amongst the others into the +golden autumn day, and the music of the organ rolled after him like a +rich blessing. He waited to let the line of schoolgirls pass him, and +all of a sudden as he looked at them their ranks broke, he heard a cry, +an exclamation, and a call—</p> + +<p>"<i>Cousin Antony!</i>"</p> + +<p>Before she could be prevented she had flown to him. Not throwing herself +against him in the old mad sweetness of her impulsive nature,—both +pretty gloved hands were held out to him and her upturned face lifted +all sparkle and brilliance, her red lips parted. "Oh, Cousin Antony!"</p> + +<p>Both Fairfax's hands held hers.</p> + +<p>"Quick!" she cried, "before Miss Jackson comes out. Where do you live? +When will you come to see me? But you can't come! We're not allowed to +have gentlemen callers! When can I come to see you? Dear Cousin Antony, +how glad I am!"</p> + +<p>"Bella!" he murmured, and gazed at her.</p> + +<p>The rank-and-file of schoolgirls, giggling, outraged and diverted, +passed them by, and the stiff teachers were the last to appear from the +church.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," Bella repeated, "where do you live? I'll write you. I've +composed tons of letters, but I forgot the number in Nut Street. Here's +Miss Jackson, the horrid thing! Hurry, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>He said, "Forty, Canal Street," and wondered why he had told her.</p> + +<p>Miss Jackson and Miss Teeter passed the two, and were so absorbed in +discussing the text of the sermon that neither saw Mistress Bella Carew.</p> + +<p>"I'm safe," she cried, "the old cats! The girls will never tell—they're +all too sweet. But I must go; I'll just say I've dropped my Prayer-book. +There, you take it!"</p> + +<p>And she was gone.</p> + +<p>Antony stood staring at the flitting figure as Bella ran after the +others down the steps like an autumn leaf blown by a light wind. She +wore a brown dress down to her boot tops (her boots too were brown with +bows at the tops); her little brown gloves had held his hand in what had +been the warmest, friendliest clasp imaginable.<!-- Page 187 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> She wore a brown hat +with a plume in it that drooped and dangled, and Antony had looked into +her brown eyes and seen their bright affection once more.</p> + +<p>Well, he had known that she was going to be like this! Not quite, +though; no man ever knows what a woman can be, will be, or ever is. He +felt fifty years old as he walked down the steps and turned towards +Canal Street to the door he had fastened four hours before on his +formless visions.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 188 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXX</h2> + + +<p>He did not go home that day.</p> + +<p>Towards late evening he sat in the twilight, his head in his hands, a +pile of smoked cigarettes and Bella's Prayer-book on the table before +him.... In the wretched afternoon he had read, one after another, the +services: Marriage ... for better or for worse, till death do us +part.... The Baptismal service, and the Burial for the Dead.</p> + +<p>At six he rose with a sigh, and, though it was growing dark, he began to +draw aimlessly, and Rainsford, when he came in, found Tony sketching, +and the young man said—</p> + +<p>"You don't give a fellow much of your company these days, Peter. Have a +cigarette? I've smoked a whole box myself."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to see you working, Fairfax."</p> + +<p>"You don't know how glad I am," Fairfax exclaimed; "but the light's +bad."</p> + +<p>Putting aside his drawing-board, he turned to his friend, and, with an +ardour such as he had not displayed since the old days at the Delavan, +began to tell of his conception.</p> + +<p>"I have given up my idea of a single figure. I shall make a bas-relief, +a great circular tablet, if you understand, a wall with curving sides, +and emblematic figures in high relief. It will be a mighty fine piece of +work, Rainsford, if it's ever done."</p> + +<p>"What will your figures be, Tony?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, they won't let me see their forms or faces yet." He changed the +subject. "What have you done with your Sunday, old man? Slept all day?"</p> + +<p>"No, I've been sitting for an hour or two with Mrs. Fairfax."<!-- Page 189 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>Molly's husband murmured, "I'm a brute, and no one knows it better than +I do."</p> + +<p>Rainsford made no refutation of his friend's accusation of himself, but +suggested—</p> + +<p>"She might bring her sewing in the afternoons, Tony; it would be less +lonely for her?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax noticed the flush that rose along the agent's thin cheek.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" Fairfax reflected. "I wonder if old Rainsford is in love with +Molly?" The supposition did not make him jealous.</p> + +<p>The two men went home together, and Rainsford stayed to supper as he had +taken a habit of doing, for Fairfax did not wish to be alone. But when +at ten o'clock the guest had gone and the engineer and his wife were +alone together in their homely room, Fairfax said—</p> + +<p>"Don't judge me too harshly, Molly."</p> + +<p>Judge him? Did he think she did?</p> + +<p>"You might well, my dear."</p> + +<p>He took the hand that did all the work for his life and home and which +she tried to keep as "ladylike" as she knew, and said, his eyes full on +her—</p> + +<p>"I do the best I can. I'm an artist, that's the truth of it! There's +something in me that's stronger than anything else in the world. I +reckon it's talent. I don't know how good it is or how ignoble; but it's +brutal, and I've got to satisfy it, Molly."</p> + +<p>Didn't she know it, didn't Mr. Rainsford tell her? Didn't she want to +leave him free?</p> + +<p>"You're the best girl in the world!" he cried contritely, and checked +the words, "You should never have married me."</p> + +<p>She couldn't see the struggle in him, but she could observe how pale he +was. She never caressed him. She had long since learned that it was not +what he wanted; but she laid her hand on his head, for he was sitting on +the bed, and it might have been his mother who spoke—</p> + +<p>"You're clear tired out," she said gently. "Will I fix up a bed for you +in the kitchen to-night? You'll lie better."</p> + +<p>He accepted gratefully. To-morrow, being Monday, was the longest day in +the week for him.<!-- Page 190 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> + +<p>He could not permit himself to go to church again, but during the next +few days he half expected to hear a knock at the door which should +announce Bella. But she did not come, and he was glad that she did not, +and more than once, in the evening, he walked around the school +building, up —— Street, looking at the lighted windows of the house +where the doves were safely coted, and thought of the schoolgirl, with +her books and her companions.</p> + +<p>"... Not any more perfectly straight lines, Cousin Antony ..."</p> + +<p>And the leaves fell, piles of them, red and yellow, and were swept and +burned in fires whose incense was sweet to him, and the trees in the +school garden grew bare.</p> + +<p>In the first days of his Albany life, his Visions had used to meet him +in those streets; now there seemed to be no inspiration for him +anywhere, and he wondered if it were his marriage that had levelled all +pinnacles for him or his daily mechanical work? His associations with +Tito Falutini? Or if it were only that he was no sculptor at all, not +equal to his dreams!</p> + +<p>In the leaf-strewn street, near the Canon's School, he called on the +Images to return, and, half halting in his walk, he looked up at one +lighted window as if he expected to see a girlish figure there and catch +sight of a friendly little hand that waved to him; but there was no such +greeting.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That afternoon, as he went into his studio, some one rose from the sofa, +and his wife's voice called to him—</p> + +<p>"Don't be startled, Tony. I just came for awhile to sit with you."</p> + +<p>He was amazed. Molly had never crossed the threshold of the workroom +before, not having been invited. She had brought her sewing. It was so +lonely in the little rooms, she wondered if it wasn't lonesome in the +studio as well?</p> + +<p>Smoking and walking to and fro, his hands in his pockets, Fairfax +glanced at his wife as she took up the little garments on which she was +at work. Her skin was stainless as a lily save here and there where the +golden fleck of a freckle marred its whiteness. Her reddish hair, +braided in strands, was wound flatly around her head.<!-- Page 191 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> There was a +purity in her face, a Mystery that was holy to him. He crossed over to +her side and lit the lamp for her.</p> + +<p>"Who suggested your coming? Rainsford?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody. I wanted to come, just."</p> + +<p>He threw himself down on the sofa near her. "I can't work!" he +exclaimed. "I've not been able to do anything for weeks. I reckon I'm no +good. I'm going to let the whole thing go."</p> + +<p>Molly folded her sewing and laid it on the table. "Would you show me +what you've been workin' at, Tony?"</p> + +<p>The softness of her brogue had not gone, but she had been a rapid pupil +unconsciously taught, and her speech had improved.</p> + +<p>"I've destroyed most of my work," he said, hopelessly; "but this is +something of the new scheme I've planned."</p> + +<p>He went over to the other part of the studio and uncovered the clay in +which he had begun to work, and mused before it. He took some clay from +the barrel, mixed it and began to model. Molly watched him.</p> + +<p>"I get an idea," he murmured; "but when I go to fix it it escapes and +eludes me. It has no form. I want a group of figures in the foreground +and the idea of distance and far-away on the other side."</p> + +<p>"It will be lovely, Tony," she encouraged him. "I mind the day we walked +in the cemetery for the first time and you looked at the angel so long."</p> + +<p>"Yes." He was kneeling, bending forward, putting the clay on with his +thumb.</p> + +<p>"Ever since then"—Molly's tone was meditative—"that angel seems like a +friend to me. Many's the time when there's a hard thing to do he seems +to open the door and I go through, and it's not so hard."</p> + +<p>She was imaginative, Fairfax knew it. She was superstitious, like the +people of her country. The things she said were often full of fancy, +like the legends and stories of the Celts; but now he hardly heard her, +for he was working, and she went back to her task by the lamp, and, +under the quiet of her presence and its companionship, his modelling +grew. He heard her finally stir, and<!-- Page 192 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> the clock struck seven, and they +had had no supper. Until she crossed the floor, he did not speak. Then +he turned—</p> + +<p>"I'll work on a little longer. I want to finish this hand."</p> + +<p>"Take your time, Tony. I'll be going home slowly, anyway."</p> + +<p>She was at the door, stood in it, held it half-open, her arm out along +the panel looking back at him. Her figure was in the shadow, but the +light fell on her face, on her hair and on her hand. The unconscious +charm of her pose, her slow pause, her attitude of farewell and waiting, +the solemnity of it, the effect of light and shadow, struck Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"Molly," he cried, "wait!"</p> + +<p>But she had dropped her arm. "You'll be coming along," she said, +smiling, "and it's getting late."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He found that the spell for work was broken after she left, though a +fleeting idea, a picture, an image he could not fix, tantalized him. He +followed his wife. He had passed the most peaceful hour in his Canal +Street studio since he had signed the lease with the money of his +mother's ring. He would have told Molly this, but Rainsford was there +for supper.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 193 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + + +<p>Molly came and sat with him Saturday afternoons and Sundays. Fairfax +made studies of his wife as she sewed, a modern conception of a woman +sitting under a lamp, her face lifted, dreaming. He told Rainsford that +when the lease was up he should vacate the studio, for he could not go +on with his scheme for the monument. He had the memories of Molly's +coming to him during the late autumn and winter afternoons. The +remembrance of these holidays soothed and pardoned many faults and +delinquencies. She seemed another Molly to the Sheedy counter girl, the +Troy collar factory girl, and an indefinable Presence came with her, +lingered as she sewed or read some book she had picked up, and if +Fairfax the artist watched the change and transformation of her face as +it refined and thinned, grew more delicate and meditative, it was +Fairfax the man who recalled the picture afterward.</p> + +<p>She was exceedingly gentle, very silent, ready with a word of +encouragement and admiration if he spoke to her. She knew nothing of the +art he adored, but seemed to know his temperament and to understand. She +posed tranquilly while the short days met the early nights; she +disguised her fatigue and her ennui, so that he never knew she grew +tired, and the Presence surrounded her like an envelope, until Antony, +drawing and modelling, wondered if it were not the soul of the child +about to be born to him, and if from the new emotion his inspiration +would not stir and bless him at the last?</p> + +<p>What there was of humour and fantasy in her Irish heart, how imaginative +and tender she was, he might have gathered in those hours, if he had +chosen to talk with her and make her his companion. But he was reserved, +mentally and spiritually, and he kept the depths of himself<!-- Page 194 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> down, nor +could he reveal his soul which from boyhood he had dreamed to give to +One Woman with his whole being. He felt himself condemned to silence and +only partially to develop, and no one but Molly Fairfax, with her +humility and her admiration, could have kept him from unholy dreams and +unfaithfulness.</p> + +<p>His life on the engine was hard in the winter. He felt the cold +intensely, and as his art steadily advanced, his daily labour in the +yards grew hateful, and he pushed the days of the week through till +Sunday should come and he be free. His face was set and white when +Rainsford informed him that it would be impossible to give him +"Saturdays off" any longer. Antony turned on his heel and left the +office without response to his chief, and thought as he strode back to +his tenement: "It's Peter's personal feeling. He's in love with Molly, +and those days in the studio gall him."</p> + +<p>Molly, who was lying down when he came in, brushed her hand across her +eyes as if to brush away whatever was there before he came. She took his +hat and coat; his slippers and warm jacket were before the stove.</p> + +<p>"Rainsford has knocked me off my Saturdays," he said bitterly.</p> + +<p>She stopped at the hook, the things in her hand. "That's hard on you, +Tony, and you getting on so well with your work."</p> + +<p>She didn't say that she could not have gone on any more ... that the +walk she took the week before to Canal Street had been her last; but +Fairfax, observing her, rendered keen by his own disappointment, +understood. He called her to him, made her sit down on the sofa beside +him.</p> + +<p>"Peter has been better to you than I have," he said sadly. "I've tired +you out, my dear, and I've been a selfish brute to you."</p> + +<p>He saw that his words gave her pain, and desisted. He was going to be +nothing more from henceforth but an engineer. He would shut the studio +and take her out on Sundays. She received his decision meekly, without +rebuffing it, and he said—</p> + +<p>"Molly, if I had not come along, I reckon you would have married Peter +Rainsford. There! Don't look like that!"<!-- Page 195 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Tony," she replied, "I'd rather be wretched with you—if I were, and +I'm not, dear. I'd rather be unhappy along of you than the happiest +queen."</p> + +<p>He kissed her hand with a gallantry new to her and which made her +crimson, and half laugh and half cry.</p> + +<p>She went early to bed, and Antony, alone in the kitchen, raked down the +coals, covered the fire in the stove, heard the clock tick and the +whistles of the boat on the river. In the silence of the winter night, +as it fell around him, he thought: "I reckon I'll have to try to make +her happy, even if I cut out my miserable talent and kill it." And as he +straightened himself he felt the Presence there. The solemn Presence +that had come with her to his workshop and kept him company, and it was +so impressive that he passed his hand across his forehead as though +dazed, and opened the door of his bedroom to see her and be assured. She +was already asleep; by her side, the little basket prepared, waited for +the life to come. He stepped in softly, and his heart melted. He knelt +down and buried his face in the pillow by her side, and without waking +she turned her face toward him in her sleep.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 196 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + + +<p>He did not go to the studio for a month, but though he remained with her +the poor girl profited little by his company. He smoked countless +cigarettes, in spite of the fact that he had doctor's bills to look +forward to. In the long winter evenings he read books that he fetched +from the library while the blizzards and storms swept round the window, +and the next day his duties stared him in the face. He dreamed before +the stove, his cigarette between his fingers, and Molly watched him; but +Rainsford, when he came, did not find her any more alone.</p> + +<p>Finally, in the last Sunday of January, after the noon dinner, she +fetched him his coat and muffler.</p> + +<p>"I can't let you stay home any more like this, Tony," she told him. +"Take your things and go to the studio; I'm sure you're dying to, and +don't hurry back. I'm feeling fine."</p> + +<p>He caught her suggestion with an eagerness that made her bite her lip; +she kept her face from him lest he should see her disappointment. He +exclaimed joyously—</p> + +<p>"Why, I reckon you're right, Molly. I <i>will</i> go for awhile. I'll work +all the better for the holiday."</p> + +<p>He might have said "sacrifice."</p> + +<p>As he got into his things he asked her: "You're sure you'll not need +anything, Molly? You think it's all right for me to go?"</p> + +<p>She assured him she would rest and sleep, and that the woman "below +stairs" would come up if she wanted anything. He mustn't hurry.</p> + +<p>He took the studio key. He was gone, his uneven step echoed on the +narrow stairs. She listened till it died away.</p> + +<p>Fairfax before his panel during the afternoon worked as though Fate were +at his heels. When he came in the room was bitter cold, and it took the +big fire he built long<!-- Page 197 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> to make the shed inhabitable; but no sooner had +the chill left the air, and he unwrapped his plaster, than a score of +ideas came beating upon him like emancipated ghosts and shades, and he +saw the forms, though the faces were still veiled. He sang and whistled, +he declaimed aloud as the clay he mixed softened and rolled under his +fingers.... It let him shape it, its magic was under his thumb, its +plasticity, <ins class="correction" title="original: its reponse fascinated the sculptor">its response fascinated the scupltor</ins>. He tried now with the +intensity of his being to fix his conception for the gate of Death and +Eternal Life. He had already made his drawing for the new scaffolding, +and it would take him two Sundays to build it up. Falutini would help +him.</p> + +<p>It seemed strange to work without Molly sitting in her corner. He +wondered how long the daylight would last; he had three months still +until spring; that meant twelve Sundays. He thought of Molly's +approaching illness, and a shadow crossed his face. Why had he come back +only to tempt and tantalize himself with freedom and the joy of +creation?</p> + +<p>Sunday-Albany outside was as tranquil as the tomb, and scarcely a +footstep passed under his window. The snow lay light upon the +window-ledge and the roof, and as the room grew warmer the cordial light +fell upon him as he worked, and a sense of the right to labour, the +right to be free, made him take heart and inspired his hand. He began +the sketch of his group on a large scale.</p> + +<p>As he bent over his board the snow without shifted rustling from the +roof, and the slipping, feathery shower fell gleaming before his window; +the sound made him glance up and back towards the door. As he did so he +recalled, with the artist's vivid vision, the form of his wife, as she +had stood in the opened door, her arm along the panel, in the attitude +of waiting and parting.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he murmured, gazing as though it were reality. Half +wondering, but with assurance, he indicated what he recalled, and was +drawing in rapidly, absorbed in his idea, when some one struck the door +harshly from without, and Rainsford called him.</p> + +<p>Fairfax started, threw down his pencil, and seized his hat and +muffler—he worked in his overcoat because he was cold—to follow the +man who had come to fetch him in haste.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 198 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + + +<p>Over and over again that night in his watch that lasted until dawn, as +he walked the floor of his little parlour-kitchen and listened, as he +stood in the window before the soundless winter night and listened, +Fairfax said the word he had said to her when she had paused in the +doorway—</p> + +<p>"Wait...!"</p> + +<p>For what should she wait?</p> + +<p>Did he want her to wait until he had caught the image of her on his mind +and brain that he might call upon it for his inspiration?</p> + +<p>He called her to "wait!"</p> + +<p>Until he should become a great master and need her with her simplicity +and her humble mind less than ever? Until he should be honoured by his +kind and crowned successful and come at last into his own, and she be +the only shadow on his glory? Not for that!</p> + +<p>Until Fairfax one day should need the warmth of a perfectly unselfish +woman's heart, a self-effacing tenderness, a breast to lean upon? She +had given him all this.</p> + +<p>He smelled the ether and strange drugs. The doctor came and went. The +nurse he had engaged from the hospital, "the woman from below stairs" as +well, came and went, spoke to him and shut him out.</p> + +<p>He was conscious that in a chair in a corner, in a desperate position, +his head in his hands, Rainsford was sitting. Of these things he was +conscious afterward, but he felt now that he only listened, his every +emotion concentrated in the sense of hearing. What was it he was so +intent to hear? The passing of the Irrevocable or the advent of a new +life? He stood at length close to her door, and it was nearly morning. A +clock somewhere<!-- Page 199 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> struck four presently, and the whistle of the Limited +blew; but those were not the sounds he waited to hear.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock, whilst it was still dark in the winter morning, he +started, his heart thumping against his breast, a sob in his throat. Out +of the stillness which to him had been unbroken, came a cry, then +another, terribly sweet and heart-touching—the cry of life. He opened +the door of his wife's room and entered softly in his stocking feet. +There seemed to be a multitude between him and his wife and child. He +did not dare to approach, but stood leaning against the wall, cold with +apprehension and stirred to his depths. He seemed to stand there for a +lifetime, and his knees nearly gave way beneath him. His hand pressed +against his cheek. He leaned forward.</p> + +<p>"<i>Wait!</i>"</p> + +<p>He almost murmured the word that came to his lips.</p> + +<p>For what should Molly Fairfax wait? Life had given her a state too high. +She had brought much grace to it and much love. She had given a great +deal. To wait for return, for such gifts, was to wait for the +unattainable.</p> + +<p>She went through the open door that she saw open, perhaps not all +unwillingly; and she was not alone, for the child went with her, and +they came to Fairfax and told him that she had gone through gently +murmuring his name.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 200 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + + +<p>As Nut Street, with the destruction of his little statue, had been wiped +out of his history, so the two rooms overlooking the river and +steamboats knew Antony Fairfax no more. He turned the key in the door +the day they carried away the body of his wife, and when he came back +from the snowy earth and the snowy white city where he left her with his +hour-old child, he went to the Delavan House as he had done before, and +buried his head in his arms on his lowly bed in a hotel room and wept.</p> + +<p>The following day he sent word to Rainsford to look out for another +engineer in his place. He had driven his last trip.</p> + +<p>Tito Falutini wrung his friend's hand, and told Fairfax, in his broken +Italian-English, that he knew a fellow would take the rooms as they +stood. "Would Tony give the job to him?" Save for his clothes and +Molly's things, and they were few, he took nothing, not even the +drawings decorating the wall on which other Irish eyes should look with +admiration.</p> + +<p>He interviewed the jewellers again. They gave him four hundred dollars +and took his mother's ring. He paid his doctor's bills and funeral +expenses, and had fifty dollars left until he should finish his +bas-relief. He went to live at the Canal Street studio and shut himself +up with his visions, his freedom, his strange reproach and his sense of +untrammelled wings.</p> + +<p>He worked with impassioned fervour, for now he <i>knew</i>. He modelled with +assurance, for now he <i>saw</i>. His hands were so eager to create the idea +of his brain that he sighed as he worked, fairly panted at his task as +though he ran a race with inspiration. Half-fed, sometimes quite +sleepless, he lost weight and flesh. He missed the open-air<!-- Page 201 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> life of the +engine and the air at his ears. But now at his ears were the audible +voices of his conceptions. February and March passed. His models were, a +mannequin, his studies of Molly Fairfax, and once the daughter of the +man who rented him the workshop stood before him draped in the long +garment; but he sent her away: she was too <i>living</i> for his use. He ate +in little cheap restaurants down by the riverside, or cooked himself +coffee and eggs over his lamp, and wondered who would be the first to +break the silence and isolation, for it was six weeks before he saw a +single human being save those he passed in the street.</p> + +<p>"Rainsford," he said to the agent, who on the last day of March came +slowly in at noon, walking like a man just out of a long illness, "I +reckoned you'd be along when you were ready. I've waited for you here."</p> + +<p>Fairfax's hand was listlessly touched by his friend's, then Rainsford +went over and took Molly's place by the lamp. Fairfax checked the words, +"Not <i>there</i>, for God's sake, Rainsford!" He thought, "Let the living +come. Nothing can brush away the image of her sitting there in the +lamplight, no matter how many fill the place."</p> + +<p>Rainsford's eyes were hollow, and his tone as pale as his face, whose +sunken cheeks and hollows, to Fairfax, marked the progress of a fatal +disease. His voice sounded hoarse and strained; he spoke with effort.</p> + +<p>"I've come to say good-bye. I've given up my job here in West Albany. +I'm going to try another country, Tony."</p> + +<p>The sculptor sat down on the lounge where he had used to sit near his +wife, and said solicitously—</p> + +<p>"I see you're not well, old man. I don't wonder you're going to try a +better climate. I hope to heaven I shall never see another snow-flake +fall. I assure you I feel them fall on graves."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence. The agent passed his hand across his face +and said, as if reluctant to speak at all—</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am going to try another country." He glanced at Fairfax and +coughed.</p> + +<p>"California?" questioned Antony. "I hope you'll get a job in some such +paradise. Do you think you will?"<!-- Page 202 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>The other man did not reply. He looked about the studio, now living-room +and workshop, and said—</p> + +<p>"I should like to see what you have been doing, Fairfax. How are you +getting on?"</p> + +<p>Tony, however, did not rise from the sofa nor show any inclination to +comply, and his friend irrelevantly, as though he took up the young +man's problems where he had left them, before his own sentiment for +Molly had estranged him from her husband—</p> + +<p>"You must be pretty hard up by now, Tony." He drew from his waistcoat +pocket his wallet, and took out a roll of bills which he folded +mechanically and held in his transparent hand. "Ever since the day you +came in to take your orders from me in West Albany, I've wanted to help +you. Now I've got the money to do so, old man."</p> + +<p>"No, my kind friend."</p> + +<p>"Don't refuse me then, if I am that." The other's lip twitched. "Take +it, Tony."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't ask me to, Peter."</p> + +<p>"I made a turnover last week in N. Y. U. I can afford it. I ask you for +the sake of old times."</p> + +<p>Fairfax covered the slender hand with his. He shook it warmly.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, old man. I can't do it."</p> + +<p>The near-sighted eyes of the paymaster met those of Fairfax with a +melancholy appeal, and the other responded to his unspoken words—</p> + +<p>"No, Rainsford, not for anything in the world."</p> + +<p>"It's your <i>Pride</i>," Rainsford murmured, and he put on his shining +glasses and looked through them fully at Fairfax. "It's your Pride, +Tony. What are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>For answer, Fairfax rose, stretched out his arms, walked toward his +covered bas-relief and drew away the curtain.</p> + +<p>His friend followed him, stood by his side, and, with his thin hand +covering his eyes, looked without speaking at the bas-relief. When he +finally removed his hand and turned, Fairfax saw that his friend's face +was transformed. Rainsford wore a strangely peaceful look, even an +uplifted expression, such as a traveller might wear who sees<!-- Page 203 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> the door +open to a friendly shelter and foretastes his repose.</p> + +<p>Rainsford held out his hand. "Thank you, Tony," and his voice was clear. +"You're a great artist."</p> + +<p>When he had gone, Fairfax recalled his rapt expression, and thought, +sadly, "I'm afraid he's a doomed man, dear old Rainsford! Poor old +Peter, I doubt if any climate can save him now." And went heavy-hearted +to prepare his little luncheon of sandwiches and milk.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 204 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + + +<p>Fairfax had finished his lunch and was preparing to work again when, in +answer to a knock, he opened the door for Tito Falutini, who bore in in +his Sunday clothes, behind him a rosy, smiling, embarrassed lady, whom +Fairfax had not seen for a "weary while."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mrs.</i> Falutini," grinned his fireman. "<i>I</i> married! Shakka de han."</p> + +<p>"Cora!" exclaimed Fairfax, kissing the bride on both her cheeks; "I +would have come to see your mother and you long ago, but I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"Shure," said the Irish girl tenderly, her eyes full of tears. "I know, +Mr. Fairfax, dear, and so does the all of us."</p> + +<p>He realized more and more how well these simple people knew and how +kindly is the heart of the poor, and he wondered if "Blessed are the +poor in spirit" that the Canon had spoken of in church on Sunday did not +refer to some peculiar kind of richness of which the millionaires of the +world are ignorant. He made Falutini and his bride welcome, and Cora's +brogue and her sympathy caused his grief to freshen. But their +boisterous happiness and their own content was stronger than all else, +and when at last Cora said, "Och, show us the statywary 't you're +makin', Misther Fairfax, dear," he languidly rose and uncovered again +his bas-relief. Then he watched curiously the Irish girl and the Italian +workman before his labour.</p> + +<p>"Shure," Cora murmured, her eyes full of tears, "it's Molly herself, Mr. +Fairfax, dear. It's <i>living</i>."</p> + +<p>He let the covering fall, and its folds suggested the garments of the +tomb.</p> + +<p>The young couple, starting out in life arm-in-arm, had<!-- Page 205 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> seen only life +in his production, and he was glad. He let them go without reluctance, +eager to return to his modelling, and to retouch a line in the woman's +figure, for the bas-relief was still warm clay, and had not been cast in +plaster, and he kept at his work until five o'clock in the afternoon, +when there was another knock at his door. He bade the intruder absently +"Come in," heard the door softly open and close, and the sound jarred +his nerves, as did every sound at that door, and with his scalpel in his +hand, turned sharply. In the door close to his shadow stood the figure +of a slender young girl. There was only the space of the room between +them, and even in his surprise he thought, "<i>Now</i>, there is nothing +else!"</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony," she said from the doorway where he had seen the vision, +"aren't you going to speak to me? Aren't you glad to see me?"</p> + +<p>Her words were the first Fairfax had heard in the rich voice of a woman, +for the child tone had changed, and there was a "timbre" now in the tone +that struck the old and a new thrill. Her boldness, the bright assurance +seemed gone. He thought her voice trembled.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you speak to me, Cousin Antony? Do you think I'm a <i>ghost</i>?"</p> + +<p>(A ghost!)</p> + +<p>Bella came forward as she spoke, and he saw that she wore a girlish +dress, a long dress, a womanly dress. With her old affectionate gesture +she held out her hand, and on her dark hair was a little red bonnet of +some fashion too modish for him to find familiar, but very bewitching +and becoming, and he saw that she was a lovely woman, nearly seventeen.</p> + +<p>"I lost the precious little paper you gave me, Cousin Antony, that day +at church, and I only found it to-day in packing. I'm going home for the +Easter holidays."</p> + +<p>He realized that she was close to him, and that she innocently lifted up +her face. Fairfax bent and kissed her under the red hat on the hair.</p> + +<p>"Now," she cried, nodding at him, "I've hunted you down, tracked you to +your lair, and you <i>can't</i> escape. I want to see your work. Show me +everything."<!-- Page 206 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>But Fairfax put his hand up quickly, and before her eyes rested on the +bas-relief he had let the curtain fall.</p> + +<p>"You're not an engineer any more, then, Cousin Antony?"</p> + +<p>"No, Bella."</p> + +<p>"Tell me why you ran away from us as you did? Oh!" she exclaimed, +clasping her pretty hands, "I've thought over and over the questions I +wanted to ask you, things I wanted to tell you, and now I forget them +all. Cousin Antony, it wasn't <i>kind</i> to leave us as you did,—Gardiner +and me."</p> + +<p>He watched her as she took a chair, half-leaning on its back before his +covered work. Bella's pose was graceful and elegant. Girl as she was, +she was a little woman of the world. She swung her gloves between her +fingers, looking up at him.</p> + +<p>"It's nearly five years, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>"I know it."</p> + +<p>She laughed and blushed. "I've been running after you, <i>shockingly</i>, +haven't I? I ran away from home and found you in the queer little street +in the queer little home with those <i>angel</i> Irish people! How are they +all, Cousin Antony, and the freckled children?"</p> + +<p>"Bella," her cousin asked, "haven't they nearly finished with you in +school? You are grown up."</p> + +<p>She shook her head vehemently. "Nonsense, I'm a dreadful hoyden still. +Think of it! I've never been on the roll of honour yet at St. Mary's."</p> + +<p>"No?" he smiled. "They were wrong not to put you there. How is Aunt +Caroline?"</p> + +<p>The girl's face clouded, and she said half under her breath—</p> + +<p>"<i>Why, don't you know?</i>"</p> + +<p>Ah, there was another grave, then? What did Bella mean?</p> + +<p>She exclaimed, stopped swinging her gloves, folded her hands gravely—</p> + +<p>"Why, Cousin Antony, didn't you read in the papers?"</p> + +<p>He saw a rush of colour fill her cheeks. It wasn't death, then? He +hadn't seen any papers for some time,<!-- Page 207 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> and he never should have expected +to find his aunt's name in the papers.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe I can tell you, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>He drew up a chair and sat down by her. "Yes, you can, little cousin."</p> + +<p>Her face was troubled, but she smiled. "Yes, that was what you used to +call me, didn't you? You see, I'm hardly supposed to know. It's not a +thing a girl <i>should</i> know, Cousin Antony. Can't you guess?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly, Bella."</p> + +<p>Fairfax wiped his hands on a bunch of cloths, and the dry morsels of +clay fell to the floor.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what it is about Aunt Caroline."</p> + +<p>"She is not my mother any more, Cousin Antony, nor father's wife +either."</p> + +<p>He waited. Bella's tone was low and embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how to tell it. She had a lovely voice, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>"She had indeed, Bella."</p> + +<p>"Well," slowly commented the young girl, "she took music lessons from a +teacher who sang in the opera, and I used to hear them at it until I +nearly lost my mind sometimes. I <i>hate music</i>—I mean that kind, Cousin +Antony."</p> + +<p>"Well," he interrupted, impatient to hear the <i>dénouement</i>. "What then, +honey?"</p> + +<p>"One night at dinner-time mother didn't come home; but she is often +late, and we waited, and then went on without her.... She never came +home, and no one ever told me anything, not even old Ann. Father said I +was not to speak my mother's name again. And I never have, until now, to +you."</p> + +<p>Fairfax took in his Bella's hands that turned the little rolled kid +gloves; they were cold. He bent his eyes on her. Young as she was, she +saw there and recognized compassion and human understanding, qualities +which, although she hardly knew their names, were sympathetic to her. He +bent his eyes on her.</p> + +<p>"Honey," Fairfax said, "you have spoken your mother's name in the right +place. Don't judge her, Bella!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed the young girl, crimsoning. She<!-- Page 208 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> tossed her proud, dark +head. "I do judge her, Cousin Antony, I do."</p> + +<p>"Hush!" he exclaimed sternly, "as you say, you are too young to +understand what she has done, but not too young to be merciful."</p> + +<p>She snatched her hands away, and sprang up, her eyes rebellious.</p> + +<p>"Why should I not judge her?" Her voice was indignant. "It's a disgrace +to my honourable father, to our name. How can you, Cousin Antony?" +Fairfax did not remove his eyes from her intense little face. "She was +never a mother to us," the young girl judged, with the cruelty of youth. +"Think how I ran wild! Do you remember my awful clothes? My things that +never met, the buttons off my shoes? Think of darling little Gardiner, +Cousin Antony...!"</p> + +<p>Her cousin again bade her be silent. She stamped her foot passionately.</p> + +<p>"But I will speak! Why should you take her part?"</p> + +<p>With an expression which Bella felt to be grave, Fairfax repeated—</p> + +<p>"You must not speak her name, as your father told you. It's a mighty +hard thing for one woman to judge another, little cousin. Wait until you +are a woman yourself."</p> + +<p>Fairfax understood. He thought how the way had opened to his weak, +sentimental aunt; he fancied that he saw again the doe at the gate of +the imposing park of the unreal forest; the gate had swung open, and, +her eyes as mild as ever, the doe had entered the mystic world. To him +this image of his aunt was perfect. Oh! mysterious, dreadful, wonderful +heart of woman!</p> + +<p>Bella stood by his side, looking up at him. "Cousin Antony," she +breathed, "why do you take her part?"</p> + +<p>"I want her daughter to take it, Bella, or say nothing."</p> + +<p>Her dark eyes were on him intently, curiously. His throat was bare, his +blond hair cut close around his neck; the marks of his recent grief and +struggle had thinned and saddened his face. He had altered very much in +five years.</p> + +<p>"I remember," Bella said sharply, "you used to seem fond of her;" and +added, "I loved my father best."<!-- Page 209 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<p>Fairfax made no reply, and Bella walked slowly across the studio, and +started to sit down under the green lamp.</p> + +<p>"No," cried Fairfax, "not there, Bella!"</p> + +<p>Her hand on the back of the chair, the young girl paused in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why, why not, Cousin Antony?"</p> + +<p>Why not, indeed! He had not prevented Rainsford from sitting there.</p> + +<p>"Is the chair weak in its legs?" she laughed. "I'm light—I'll risk it," +and, half defiantly, she seated herself by the table, leaning both +elbows on it. She looked back at him. "Now, make a little drawing of me +as you used to do. I'll show it to the girls in school to prove what a +genius we have in the family; and I must go back, too, or I'll have more +bad marks than ever."</p> + +<p>Fairfax did not obey her. Instead, he looked at her as though he saw +through her to eternity.</p> + +<p>Bella sprang up impulsively, and came toward him. "Cousin Antony," she +murmured, "I'm perfectly dreadful. I'm selfish and inconsiderate. It's +only because I'm a little wild. I don't mean it. You've told me +nothing." She lifted his cravat from the chair. "You wear a black cravat +and your clothes are black. Is it for Aunt Arabella still?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax seemed to himself to look down on her from a height. Her +brilliance, her sparkle and youth were far away. His heart ached within +him.</p> + +<p>"One goes mighty far in five years, Bella.... One loses many things."</p> + +<p>"I know—Gardiner and your mother. But who else?"</p> + +<p>He saw her face sadden; the young girl extended her hand to him, her +eyes darkened.</p> + +<p>"Who else?" she breathed.</p> + +<p>Fairfax put out his arms toward her, but did not enfold her. He let his +hands rest on her shoulders and murmured, "Bella, little Bella," and +choked the other words back.</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "I'm not little Bella any more. Please answer me, Cousin +Antony."</p> + +<p>He could not have told her for his life. He could tell her nothing; her +charm, her lifted face, beautiful, ardent,<!-- Page 210 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> were the most real, the most +vital things the world had ever held for him. The fascination found him +under his new grief. He exclaimed, turning brusquely toward his covered +scaffolding—</p> + +<p>"Don't you want to see my work, Bella? I've been at it nearly a year."</p> + +<p>He rapidly drew the curtain and exposed his bas-relief.</p> + +<p>There was in the distance a vague indication of distant sky-line—a far +horizon—upon which, into which, a door opened, held ajar by a woman's +arm and hand. The woman's figure, draped in the clinging garment of the +grave, was passing through, but in going her face was turned, uplifted, +to look back at a man without, who, apparently unconscious of her, gazed +upon life and the world. That was all—the two figures and the feeling +of the vast illimitable far-away.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Fairfax as he unveiled his work that he looked upon it +himself for the first time; it seemed to him finished, moreover, +complete. He knew that he could do nothing more with it. He heard Bella +ask, "Who is it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful!" her old +enthusiasm soft and warm in her voice.</p> + +<p>At her repeated question, "Who is it?" he replied, "A dream woman." And +his cousin said, "You have lovely dreams, but it is too sad."</p> + +<p>He told her for what it was destined, and she listened, musing, and when +she turned her face to him again there were tears in her eyes. She +pointed to the panel.</p> + +<p>"There should be a child there," she said, with trembling lips. "They go +in too, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he responded, "they go in too."</p> + +<p>He crossed the floor with her toward the door, neither of them speaking. +She drew on her gloves, but at the door he said—</p> + +<p>"Stop a moment. I'm going a little way with you."</p> + +<p>"No, Cousin Antony, you can't. Myra Scutfield, my best friend, is +waiting for me with her brother. I'm supposed to be visiting her for +Sunday. You mustn't come."</p> + +<p>Her hand was on the door latch. He gently took her hand and pushed it +aside. He did not wish her to open<!-- Page 211 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> that door or to go through it alone. +As they stood there silent, she lifted her face and said—</p> + +<p>"I'm going away for the Easter holidays. Kiss me good-bye."</p> + +<p>And he stooped and kissed her—kissed Bella, the little cousin, the +honey child—no, kissed Bella, the woman, on her lips.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 212 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + + +<p>From the window he watched her fly up the street like a scarlet bird, +and realized what a child she was still, and, whereas he had felt a +hundred that day at church, he now felt as old as the ancient Egyptians, +as the Sphinx, a Sage in suffering and knowledge of life, beside his +cousin. He called her little, but she was tall and slender, standing as +high as his shoulder.</p> + +<p>He turned heavily about to his room which the night now filled. The +street lamps were lit, and their frail glimmer flickered in, like the +fingers of a ghost. His money was nearly gone. There was the expense of +casting his work in plaster, the packing and shipping of the bas-relief. +He lit his lamp, and, as he adjusted the green shade, under which Molly +had used to sit and sew, he saw on the table the roll of bills which +Rainsford had offered to him that morning. He picked up the money with a +smile.</p> + +<p>"Poor old Rainsford, dear old chap. He was determined, wasn't he?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax wrapped up the heavy roll of money, marked it with Rainsford's +name, and stood musing on his friend's failing health, his passion for +Molly, and the fruitless, vanishing story that ended, as all seemed to +end for him, in death. Suddenly, over his intense feelings, came the +need of nourishment, and he wanted to escape from the room where he had +been caged all day.</p> + +<p>At the Delavan, George Washington welcomed him with delight.</p> + +<p>"Yo' dun forgit yo' ol' friends, Massa' Kunnell Fairfax, sah. Yo doan +favour dis ol' nigger any moh."</p> + +<p>Fairfax told him that he was an expensive luxury, and enjoyed his quiet +meal and his cigar, took a walk in a<!-- Page 213 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> different direction from Canal +Street, and at ten o'clock returned to find a boy waiting at the door +with a note, whistling and staring up and down the street, waiting for +the gentleman to whom he was to deliver his note in person.</p> + +<p>Fairfax went in with his letter, knowing before he opened it that +Rainsford had something grave to tell him. He sat down in Molly's chair, +around which the Presence had gathered and brooded until the young man's +soul had seemed engulfed in the shadow of Death.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"<span class="smcap">My dear Tony</span>,</span><br /> +</p> + +<blockquote><p>"When you read this letter, it will be of no use to come to me. +Don't come. I said my final word to you to-day when I went to make +my will and testament. You will discover on your table all my +fortune. It counts up to a thousand dollars. I have a feeling that +it may help you to success. You know what a failure I have been. I +should have been one right along. Now that I have found out that a +mortal disease is upon me, my last spurt of courage is gone. When I +stood before your work to-day, Tony, it was a benediction to me. +Although I had fully decided to <i>go out</i>, I should have gone +hopelessly; now there is something grand to me in the retreat. The +uplift and the solemnity of the far horizon charm me, and though I +open the door for myself and have no right to any claim for mercy, +nevertheless I think that I shall find it there, and I am going +through the open door. God bless you, Fairfax. Don't let the +incidents of your life in Albany cloud what I believe will be a +great career.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"<span class="smcap">Thomas Rainsford.</span>"</span><br /></p> +</blockquote> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 214 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + + +<p>He was too young to be engulfed by death.</p> + +<p>But he did not think or understand then that the great events which had +racked his nerves in suffering were only incidents. Nor did he know that +neither his soul nor his heart had suffered all they were capable of +enduring. In spite of his deep heart-ache and his feelings that quivered +with the memories of his wife, he was above all an artist, a creator. +Hope sprang from this last grave. Desire in Fairfax had never been fully +born; how then could it be fully satisfied or grow old and cold before +it had lived!</p> + +<p>Tony Fairfax was the sole mourner that followed Rainsford's coffin to +the Potter's Field. They would not bury him in consecrated ground. Canon +Prynne had been surprised by a visit at eight o'clock in the morning.</p> + +<p>Fairfax was received by the Bishop in his bedroom, where the Bishop was +shaving. Fairfax, as he talked, caught sight of his own face in the +glass, deathly white, his burning eyes as blue as the heavens to which +he was sure Rainsford had gone.</p> + +<p>"My friend," the ecclesiastic said, "my friend, I have nothing to do +with laws, thank God. I am glad that no responsibility has been given me +but to do my work. But let me say, to comfort you, is not every whit of +the earth that God made holy? What could make it more sacred than the +fact that He created it?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax thought of these words as he saw the dust scatter and heard the +rattle of the stones on the lid of Rainsford's coffin, and in a clear +and assured voice of one who knows in whom he has believed, he read from +Bella's Prayer-book (he had never given it back to her), "I am<!-- Page 215 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> the +Resurrection and the Life." He could find no parson to go with him.</p> + +<p>On the way back to Albany he met the spring everywhere; it was just +before the Easter holidays. Overhead the clouds rolled across a +stainless sky, and they took ship-like forms to him and he felt a strong +wish to escape—to depart. Rainsford had set him free. It would be +months before he could hear from his competition. There was nothing in +this continent to keep him. He had come North full of living hope and +vital purpose, and meekly, solemnly, his graves had laid themselves out +around him, and he alone stood living.</p> + +<p>Was there nothing to keep him?</p> + +<p>Bella Carew.</p> + +<p>He had, of all people in the world, possibly the least right to her. She +was his first cousin, nothing but a child; worth, the papers had said, a +million in her own right. The heiress of a man who despised him.</p> + +<p>But her name was music still; music as yet too delicate, sweet as it +was, not to be drowned by the deeper, graver notes that were sounding +through Fairfax. There was a call to labour, there was the imperious +demand of his art. In him, something sang Glory, and if the other tones +meant struggle and battle, nevertheless his desire was all toward them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead">BOOK III</h2> + +<h2 class="chapterhead">THE VISIONS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 216 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>The sea which he had just crossed lay gleaming behind him, every lovely +ripple washing the shores of a new continent.</p> + +<p>The cliffs which he saw rising white in the sunlight were the Norman +cliffs. Beyond them the fields waved in the summer air and the June sky +spread blue over France.</p> + +<p>As he stepped down from the gang-plank and touched French soil, he gazed +about him in delight.</p> + +<p>The air was salt and indescribably sweet. The breeze came to him over +the ripening fields and mingled with the breath of the sea.</p> + +<p>They passed his luggage through the Customs quickly, and Antony was free +to wonder and to explore. Not since he had left the oleanders and +jasmines of New Orleans had he smelled such delicious odours as those of +sea-girdled Havre. A few soldiers in red uniforms tramped down the +streets singing the Marseillaise. A group of fish-wives offered him +mussels and crabs.</p> + +<p>In his grey travelling clothes, his soft grey hat, his bag in his hand, +he went away from the port toward the wide avenue.</p> + +<p>The bright colour of a red awning of a café caught his eye; he decided +to breakfast before going on to Paris.</p> + +<p>Paris! The word thrilled him through and through.</p> + +<p>At a small table out of doors he ordered "boeuf ŕ la<!-- Page 217 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> mode" and "pommes +de terre." It seemed agreeable to speak French again and his soft Creole +accent charmed the ear of the waiter who bent smiling to take his order.</p> + +<p>Antony watched with interest the scene around him; those about him +seemed to be good-humoured, contented travellers on the road of life. +There was a neat alacrity about the waiters in their white aprons.</p> + +<p>A girl with a bouquet of roses came up to him. Antony gave her a sou and +in exchange she gave him a white rose.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Monsieur the Englishman."</p> + +<p>He had never tasted steak and potatoes like these. He had never tasted +red wine like this. And it cost only a franc! He ordered his coffee and +smoked and mused in the bland June light.</p> + +<p>He was happier than he had been for many a long day.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Eventful, tremulous, terrible and expressive, his past lay behind him on +another shore. He felt as though he were about to seek his fortune for +the first time.</p> + +<p>As soon as Rainsford's generous gift became his own, the possession of +his little fortune, even at such a tragic price, made a new man of +Fairfax. He magnified its power, but it proved sufficient to buy him a +gentlemanly outfit, the ticket to France, and leave him a little +capital.</p> + +<p>His plans unfolded themselves to him now, as he sat musing before the +restaurant. He would study in the schools with Cormon or Julian. He had +brought with him his studies of Molly—he would have them criticized by +the great masters. All Paris was before him. The wonders of the +galleries, whose masterpieces were familiar to him in casts and +photographs, would disclose themselves to him now. He would see the +Louvre, Notre Dame de Paris....</p> + +<p>His spirits rose as he touched the soil of France. Now Paris should be +his mistress, and art should be his passion!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>His ticket took him second-class on a slow train and he found a seat +amongst the humble travelling world; between a priest and a soldier, he +smoked his cigarettes and offered them to his companions, and watched +the river flowing between the poplars, the fields red with<!-- Page 218 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> poppies, +yellow with wheat. The summer light shining on all shone on him through +the small window of the carriage, and though it was sunset it seemed to +Fairfax sunrise. The hour grew late. The darkness fell and the motion of +the cars made him drowsy, and he fell asleep.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He was awakened by the stirring of his fellow-passengers, by the rich +Norman voices, by the jostling and moving among the occupants of the +carriage, and he gathered his thoughts together, took his valise in his +hand and climbed down from the car.</p> + +<p>He passed out with the crowd through the St. Lazare station. He had in +Havre observed with interest the novel constructions of the engines and +the rolling stock. The crowd of market-women, peasants, curés, was +anonymous to him, but as he passed the engine which had brought him from +Havre, he glanced up at the mechanician, a big, blond-moustached fellow +in a blue blouse. The engineer's face streamed with perspiration and he +was smoking a cigarette.</p> + +<p>He had shunned engines and yards, and everything that had to do with his +old existence, for months; now he nodded with a friendly sympathetic +smile to the engine-driver.</p> + +<p>"Bien le bonjour," he said cheerfully, as he had heard the people in the +train say it, "Bien le bonjour."</p> + +<p>The Frenchman nodded and grinned and watched him limp down and out with +the others to the waiting-room called, picturesquely, the Hall of the +Lost Footsteps—"La Salle des Pas Perdus."</p> + +<p>And Antony's light step and his heavy step fell among the countless +millions that come and go, go and come, unmarked, forgotten—to walk +with the Paris multitudes into paths of obscurity or fame—"<i>les pas +perdus</i>."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 219 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>It was the first beginning of summer dawn when he turned breathlessly +into the Rue de Rome and stood at length in Paris. He shouldered his big +bag and took his bearings. At that early hour there were few people +abroad—here and there a small open carriage, drawn by a limp, +melancholy horse and dominated by what he thought a picturesque cabby, +passed him invitingly. A drive in a cab in America is not for a man of +uncertain means, and the folly of taking a vehicle did not occur to him. +Along the broad avenue at the street's foot, lights were still lit in +the massive lamps, shops and houses were closed, and by a blue sign on +the wall he read that he was crossing a great avenue. The Boulevard +Haussmann was as tranquil as a village street. A couple of good-looking +men, whom he thought were soldiers, caught his eye in their uniforms of +white trousers and blue coats. He asked them, touching his hat, the +first thing that came to his mind: "La Rue Mazarine, Messieurs—would +they direct him?"</p> + +<p>When he came out on the Place de la Concorde at four o'clock he was +actually the only speck visible in the great circle. He stopped, +enchanted, to look about him. The imaginative and inadequate picture of +the Place de la Concorde his idea had drawn, faded. The light mists of +the morning swept up the Avenue des Champs Elysées, and there stood out +before his eyes the lines of the Triumphal Arch, which to Antony said: +Napoleon!</p> + +<p>On the left stretched gardens toward a great palace, all that has been +left to France and the glory which was her doom.</p> + +<p>From the spectral line of the Louvre, his eyes came back to the +melancholy statues that rose near him<!-- Page 220 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>—Strassburg, Luxemburg, Alsace +and Lorraine. Huge iron wreaths hung about their bases, wreaths that +blossomed as he looked, like flowers of blood and lilies of death.</p> + +<p>Then in front of him the calm, rose-hued obelisk lifted its finger, and +once again the shadow of Egypt fell across the heart of a modern city. +To Antony, the obelisk had an affinity with the Abydos Sphinx, but this +obelisk did not rest on the backs of four bronze creatures!</p> + +<p>The small cabs continued to tinkle slowly across the Place; a group of +young fellows passed by, singing on their way to the Latin Quarter, from +some fęte in Montmartre—they were students going home before morning. +In the distance, here and there, were a few foot passengers like +himself, but to Antony it seemed that he was alone in Paris. And in the +fresh beginning of a day untried and momentous, the city was like a +personality. In the summer softness, in the tender, agreeable light, the +welcome to him was caressing and as lovely as New York had been brutal.</p> + +<p>Antony resumed his way to the river, followed the quays where at his +side the Seine ran along, reddening in the summer's sunrise. Along the +river, when he crossed the Pont des Arts, he saw the stirring of +Parisian life. He went on down the quays, past quaint old houses whose +traditions and history he wanted to know, turned off into a dark +street—la Rue Mazarine. He smiled as he read the sign. What had this +narrow Parisian alley to do with him? He had adopted it out of caprice, +distinguished it from all Paris.</p> + +<p>He scanned the shops and houses; many were still closed, neither +milk-shops nor antiquity dealers suggested shelter. A modest sign over a +dingy-looking building caught his eye. In the courtyard, in green wooden +tubs, flourished two bay-trees.</p> + +<p>"Hotel of the Universe"—Hotel de l'Univers.</p> + +<p>That was hospitable enough, wide enough to take Antony Fairfax in. +Behind the bay-trees a dirty, discouraged looking waiter, to whom the +universe had apparently not been generous, welcomed, or at least +glanced, at Fairfax. The fellow wore a frayed, colourless<!-- Page 221 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> dress-suit; +his linen was suspicious, but his head at this early hour was sleekly +brushed and oiled.</p> + +<p>"No, the hotel is not yet full," he told the stranger, as though he +said, "The entire universe, thank God, has not yet descended upon us."</p> + +<p>For one franc fifty a room could be had on the sixth floor. Antony +yielded up his bag and bade the man show the way.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 222 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>He could hardly wait to make his hasty toilet and set forth into the +city. He saw something of it from the eave-window in his microscopic +room. Chimney-pots, stained, mossy roofs, the flash of old spires, the +round of a dome, the river, the bridges, all under the supernal blue of, +to him, a friendly sky—he felt that he must quaff it all at a draught. +But the fatigue of his lame limb began to oppress him. There was the +weight of sleep on his eyelids, and he turned gratefully to the small +bed under the red rep curtains. It was ridiculously small for his six +feet of body, but he threw himself down thankfully and slept.</p> + +<p>Dreams chased each other through his brain and he stretched out his +hands toward elusive forms in his sleep. He seized upon one, thinking it +was Bella, and when he pressed his cheek to hers, the cheek was cold and +the form was cold. He slept till afternoon and rose still with the daze +upon him of his arrival and his dreams, and the first excitement +somewhat calmed. He had enough change for his lodging and dinner, but +nothing more.</p> + +<p>He walked across the bridge and the light and brilliance of the city +dazzled him. He went into the Louvre, and the coolness and breadth of +the place fell on him like a spell. He wondered if any in that vast +place was as athirst as he was and as mad for beauty. He wandered +through the rooms enthralled, and made libations to the relics of old +Egypt; he sent up hymns to the remains of ancient Greece, and before the +Venus of Milo gave up his heart, standing long absorbed before the +statue, swearing to slave for the production of beauty. He found himself +stirred to his most passionate depths, musing on form and artistic +creation, and when the pulse in his heart became<!-- Page 223 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> too strong and the +Venus oppressed his sense, he wandered out, limped up the staircase and +delivered up his soul at the foot of the pedestal of the Winged Victory. +He did not go to the paintings; the feast had been tremendous—he could +bear no more.</p> + +<p>On his way out of the Louvre he passed through the Egyptian room. Ever +since the Abydos Sphinx had been brought to America, from the Nile, +Egypt had charmed him. He had read of Egypt, its treasures, in the +Albany library now and then on Sunday afternoons. It had a tremendous +attraction for him, and he entered the room where its relics were with +worship of the antique in his soul.</p> + +<p>He turned to go, when his foot touched something on the floor and he +stooped to pick it up—a fine chain purse heavy with pieces of gold. He +balanced it in his hand and looked around for the possible owner, but he +was the only sightseer. He went, however, quickly from the museum, not +knowing in just what manner to restore this property, and in front of +him, passing out on to the gallery above the grand staircase, he saw a +lady leisurely making her exit. She was beautifully dressed and had such +an air of riches about her that he thought to himself, with every +reason, why should she not be the possessor of a gold purse? He went up +to her.</p> + +<p>"I beg pardon," he began, and as she turned he recognized her in a +moment as the woman by whose carriage he had stood in the crowd on the +day of the unveiling of his statue—he recognized her as the woman who +had drawn the veil of the Sphinx. She was Cedersholm's fiancée. "Have +you lost anything, Madame?"</p> + +<p>She exclaimed: "My purse! Oh, thank you very much." Then looked at him, +smiling, and said, "But I think I have seen you before. Whom must I +thank?"</p> + +<p>He had his hat in his hand. His fine, clear brow over which the hair +grew heavily, his beautiful face, his strength and figure, once seen and +remembered as she had remembered them in that brief instant in New York, +were not to be forgotten. Still the resemblance puzzled her.</p> + +<p>"My name is Rainsford," he said quietly, "Thomas Rainsford. I am one of +Mr Cedersholm's pupils."<!-- Page 224 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If that is so," she said, "you are welcome at my house at any time. I +am home Sundays. Won't you give me the pleasure of calling, Mr. +Rainsford?"</p> + +<p>He bowed, thanked her, and they walked down the stairs together, and she +was unable to recall where she had seen this handsome young man.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 225 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>In his little hotel that night he lighted a candle in a tall nickel +candlestick, and, when he was ready for bed, he peered into his mirror +at his own face, which he took pains to consider thoughtfully. Like a +friend's it looked back at him, the marks of Life deep upon it.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock he was in a heavy sleep when he was roused by the turning +of the handle of his door. Some one had come into the room and Antony, +bolt upright, heard the door drawn and the key turned. Then something +slipped and fell with a thud. He lit his candle, shielded it, and to his +amazement saw sitting on the floor, his big form taking up half the +little room, a young fellow in full evening dress, an opera hat on the +back of his head.</p> + +<p>"Don't squeal," said the visitor gently with a hiccough; "I see I'm too +late or too early, or shomething or other."</p> + +<p>He was evidently a gentleman out of his room and evidently drunk. Antony +laughed and got half-way out of bed.</p> + +<p>"You're in the wrong room, that's clear, and how are you going to get +out of it? Can you get up with a lift?"</p> + +<p>"Look here"—the young man who was an American and who would have been +agreeable-looking if he had not been drunk and hebetated, sat back and +leaned comfortably against the door—"roomsh all right, good roomsh, +just like mine; don't mind me, old man, go back to bed."</p> + +<p>Antony came over and tried to pull him up, but the stranger was immense, +as big as himself, and determined and happy. He had made up his mind to +pass his night on the floor.</p> + +<p>Antony rang his bell in vain, then sighed, himself overcome with sleep. +To the young man who barricaded<!-- Page 226 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> the door, and who was already beginning +to drowse, he said pleasantly—</p> + +<p>"Give us your hat, anyway, and take off your coat."</p> + +<p>"Now you go back to bed, sir," ordered the other with solemn dignity, +"go back to bed, don't mind me. I'm nothing but a little mountain +flower," he quoted pathetically. His head fell over, his big body +followed it.</p> + +<p>Antony took one of his pillows, put it under the fellow's head, and +turned in himself, amused by his singularly companioned night.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"What the deuce!" he heard the next morning from a voice not unpleasant, +although markedly Western. And he opened his eyes to see bending over +him a ruffled, untidy, pasty-looking individual whom he remembered to +have last seen sprawling on the floor.</p> + +<p>"Say, are you in my bed or am I only out of my own?" asked the young +man.</p> + +<p>Antony told him.</p> + +<p>"George!" exclaimed the other, sitting down on the bed and taking his +head in his hands, "I was screwed all right, and I fell like a barrel in +the Falls of Niagara. I'm ever so much obliged to you for not kicking up +a row here. My room is next or opposite or somewhere, I guess—that is, +if I'm in the Universe."</p> + +<p>Antony said that he was.</p> + +<p>"I feel," said the young man, "as though its revolutions had +accelerated."</p> + +<p>"There's water over there," said Antony; "you're welcome to have it."</p> + +<p>"See here," said the total stranger, "if you're half the brick you +seem—and you are or you wouldn't have let me snore all night on the +carpet—ring for Alphonse and send him out to get some bromo seltzer. +There's a chemist's bang up against the hotel, and he's got that line of +drugs."</p> + +<p>Fairfax put out his arm and rang from the bed. The young man waited +dejectedly; having taken off his coat and collar, he looked somewhat +mournfully at his silk hat which, the worse for his usage of it, had +rolled in a corner of Fairfax's room.</p> + +<p>Alphonse, who for a wonder was within a few steps<!-- Page 227 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> of the room, answered +the bell, his advent announced by the shuffling of his old slippers; but +before he had knocked the young man slid across the room and stood flat +behind the door so that, when it opened, his presence would not be +observed by the valet.</p> + +<p>The man, for whom Fairfax had not yet had occasion to ring, opened the +door and stood waiting for the order. He was a small, round-faced fellow +in a green barege apron, that came up and down and all over him. In his +hand he carried a melancholy feather duster.</p> + +<p>"Le déjeuner, Monsieur?" smiled Alphonse cordially, "un café complet?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," acquiesced Antony eagerly, "and as well, would you go to the +pharmacy and get me a bottle of bromo seltzer?"</p> + +<p>"Bien, Monsieur." The valet looked much surprised and considered +Fairfax's handsome, healthy face. "Bien, Monsieur," and he waited.</p> + +<p>Fairfax was about to say: "Give me my waistcoat," but remembering his +secluded friend, sprang out of bed and gave to Alphonse a five-franc +piece.</p> + +<p>"You're a brick," said the young man, coming out from behind the door. +"I'm awfully obliged. Now let me get my head in a basin of water and +I'll be back with you in a jiffy." And he darted out evidently into the +next room, for Fairfax heard the door bang and lock.</p> + +<p>Fairfax threw back his head and laughed. He was not utterly alone in +France, he had a drunken neighbour, a fellow companion on the sixth +floor of the Universe, which, after all, divides itself more or less +into stories in more ways than one. He opened his window and let in the +June morning, serene and lovely. It shone on him over chimney-pots and +many roofs and slender towers in the far distance. He heard the dim +noise of the streets. He had gone as far in his toilet as mixing the +shaving water, when the valet returned with a tray and presented Fairfax +with his first "petit déjeuner" in France. The young man thought it +tempting—butter in a golden pat, with a flower stamped on it. The +little rolls and something about the appearance of the little meal +suggested his New Orleans home—he half looked to see a dusky face beam +on him—"Massa Tony, chile"—and the vines at the window.<!-- Page 228 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Voici, Monsieur." Alphonse indicated the bromide. "I think everything +is here." The intelligent servant had perceived the crushed silk hat in +the corner and gave a little cough behind his hand.</p> + +<p>Fairfax, six feet and more in his stockings, blond and good to look at, +his bright humour, his charm, his soft Creole accent, pleased Alphonse.</p> + +<p>"I see Monsieur has not unpacked his things. If I can serve Monsieur he +has only to ask me." Alphonse picked up the opera hat, straightened it +out and looked at it. "Shall I hang this up, Monsieur?"</p> + +<p>"Do, behind the door, Alphonse."</p> + +<p>The man did so and withdrew, and no sooner his rapid, light footsteps +patted down the hall-way than Fairfax eagerly seated himself before his +breakfast and poured out his excellent café au lait. The door was softly +pushed in again, shut to and locked—the dissipated young gentleman +seemed extremely partial to locked doors—and Fairfax's companion of the +night before said in an undertone—</p> + +<p>"Go slow, nobody in the hotel knows I'm in it."</p> + +<p>Fairfax, who was not going slow over his breakfast, indicated the opera +hat behind the door and the bromide.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah for you and Alphonse," exclaimed the young fellow, who prepared +himself a pick-me-up eagerly, and without invitation seated himself at +Fairfax's table.</p> + +<p>A good-looking young man of twenty-five, not more, with a cheerful, +intelligent face in sober moments, now pale, with parched lips and eyes +not clear yet. He had washed and his hair was smoothly brushed. He had +no regularity of features such as Fairfax, being a well-set-up, ordinary +young fellow, such as one might see in any American college or +university. But there was a fineness in the lines of his mouth, a +drollery and wit in his eyes, and he was thoroughly agreeable.</p> + +<p>"I'm from the West," he said, putting his glass down empty. "Robert +Dearborn, from Cincinnati—and I'm no end obliged to you, old chap, +whoever you are. You've got a good breakfast there, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"Have some," Antony offered with real generosity, for he was famished.</p> + +<p>"Well," returned Dearborn, "to tell you the truth,<!-- Page 229 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> I feel as if I were +robbing a sleeping man to take it, for I know how fiendishly hungry you +must be. But, by Jove, I haven't had a thing to eat since"—and he +laughed—"since I was a child."</p> + +<p>He rinsed the glass that had held the bromide, poured out some black +coffee for himself and took half of Fairfax's bread and half of his +flower-stamped butter, and devoured it eagerly. When he had finished he +wiped his mouth and genially held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Ever been hungry?"</p> + +<p>Antony did not tell him how lately.</p> + +<p>"Good," nodded Dearborn, "I understand. Passing through Paris?"</p> + +<p>"Just arrived."</p> + +<p>"Well, I've been here for two whole years. By the way," he questioned +Antony, "you haven't told me your name."</p> + +<p>Fairfax hesitated because of a fancy that had come into his mind when he +had discovered the loss of his fortune.</p> + +<p>"Thomas Rainsford," he said; then, for he could not deny his home, "from +New Orleans."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" exclaimed his companion, "that's why you speak such ripping +French. Now, do you know, to hear me you wouldn't think I'd seen a +gendarme or a Parisian pavement. My Western accent, you must have +remarked it, refuses to mix with a foreign language. I can speak +French," he said calmly, "but they can't understand me yet; I have been +here two years."</p> + +<p>There was a knock at the door. Dearborn started and held up his hand.</p> + +<p>"If Monsieur will give me his boots," suggested the mellow voice of +Alphonse, "I will clean them."</p> + +<p>Fairfax picked up his boots, the big shoe and the smaller one, and +handed out the pair through a crack in the door.</p> + +<p>When once again the rabbit steps had pattered away—"Go on dressing," +Dearborn said, "don't let me stop you. You don't mind my sitting here a +minute until Alphonse does with his boot-cleaning operations. He's a +magician at that. They keep their boots clean, here, if they don't +wash."</p> + +<p>Dearborn made himself comfortable, accepted a cigarette from the packet +the landlady had given Fairfax, and put his feet on the chair that +Fairfax had vacated.<!-- Page 230 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I went out last night to a little supper with some friends of mine. The +banquet rather used me up."</p> + +<p>He smiled, and Fairfax saw how he looked when he was more himself. His +hair, as the water dried on it, was reddish, he was clean-shaven, his +teeth were white and sound, his smile agreeable.</p> + +<p>"Now, if I hadn't been drunk, I shouldn't have come back to the +Universe. I was due a quarter of a mile away from here. They'll keep me +when they find me. I haven't paid my bill here to Madame Poulet for six +weeks. But they are decent, trustful sort of people and can't believe a +chap won't ever pay. But I was fool enough to leave my father's cable in +my room and Madame Poulet had it translated. I grant you it wasn't +encouraging for a creditor, Rainsford."</p> + +<p>Antony heard his name used for the first time, the R's rolled and made +the most of. It seemed to bring back the dead.</p> + +<p>"Listen to the cable," said the communicative young man: "'You can go to +the devil. Not a cent more from me or your mother.'"</p> + +<p>Fairfax, who was tying his cravat, turned around and smiled, and he +limped over to his visitor.</p> + +<p>"It's not the most friendly telegram I ever heard," he said.</p> + +<p>"Step-father," returned the other briefly. "She knows nothing about +it—my mother, I mean. I've been living on her money here for two years +and over and it's gone; but before I take a penny from him ..."</p> + +<p>"I understand," said Fairfax, going back to the mirror and beginning to +brush his hair.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever have a mother?" asked the red-haired young man with a +queer look on his face, and added, "I see you have. Well, let's drop the +subject, then, but you may discuss step-fathers all you choose."</p> + +<p>Fairfax, for he was not Rainsford, yet, took a fancy to his visitor, a +fancy to his rough, deep voice; he liked the eyes that were clearing +fast, liked the kindly spirited face and the ready, boy-like confidence.</p> + +<p>"What are you up to in Paris?" he asked Dearborn, regarding him with +interest.</p> + +<p>"I'm a playwright," said the other simply.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 231 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>"A playwright," Fairfax repeated softly. If Dearborn had said "Ali +Baba," Fairfax would scarcely have been more surprised.</p> + +<p>"You must know the Bohemian life here?" he asked, "even possibly know +some artists?"</p> + +<p>"Well, rather," drawled his companion; "I live among them. I don't know +a single chap who isn't doing something, burning the midnight oil or +using the daylight in a studio."</p> + +<p>As Dearborn spoke, Fairfax, looking at him more observantly, saw +something in his countenance that responded to his own feelings.</p> + +<p>"What are you over here for, Rainsford?" asked the Westerner.</p> + +<p>"I am a sculptor."</p> + +<p>"Delightful!" exclaimed his companion. "Where are you going to work? +With Carrier-Belleuse or Rude?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, I don't know—I don't know where I can go or what I can do."</p> + +<p>His companion, with an understanding nod, said, "Didn't bring over a +gold-mine with you, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>As he said this he laughed, extended both his hands and jumped up from +his seat.</p> + +<p>"I like you exceedingly," he exclaimed heartily. "The governor had +telegraphed me to go to the devil and I thought I'd take his advice. The +little supper I was giving last night was to say good-bye to a +hundred-franc note, some money that I won at poker. I might have paid +some of this hotel bill, but I didn't. I wish you had been there, +Rainsford! But, never mind, you<!-- Page 232 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> had the afterglow anyway! No," he +laughed, "let us surprise them at home. I don't quite know how, but +let's surprise them."</p> + +<p>Fairfax shook his head as though he didn't quite understand.</p> + +<p>"Is there no one who thinks you an insane fool for going in for art? +Nobody that your success will be gall to?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm all alone."</p> + +<p>"Come," urged the other, too excited to see the sadness on his +companion's face. "Come, isn't there some one who will cringe when your +statues are unveiled?"</p> + +<p>"Stop!" cried Fairfax eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Come on then," cried the boy; "whoever it may be, your enemy or my +stepfather—we will surprise them yet!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 233 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>In January of the following year he leaned out of the window and smelled +Paris, drank it in, penetrated by its fragrance and perfume. He saw the +river milkily flowing between the shores, the stones of the quay +parapet, the arches of the bridges, the wide domain of roofs and towers.</p> + +<p>The Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre had not yet begun to rise, though they +were laying its foundation stones, and his eyes travelled, as they +always did, through the fog to the towers of Notre-Dame with its black, +mellow front and its melancholy beauty. The bourdon of the bells smote +sympathetically through him. No matter what his state of mind might be, +Paris took him out of himself, and he adored it.</p> + +<p>He was looking upon the first of the winter mists. The first grey +mystery had obscured the form of the city. Paris had a new seduction. He +could not believe now that he had not been born in France and been +always part of the country he had adopted by temperament and spirit. +Like all artists, his country was where he worked the best. For him now, +unless the place were a workshop, it could never be a hearthstone, and +he took satisfaction in recalling his ancestry on his mother's +side—Debaillet, or, as they called it in New Orleans, Ballet. As +Arabella Ballet his mother had been beautiful; as Mrs. Fairfax she had +given him Irish and French blood.</p> + +<p>"Atavism," he said to Dearborn, "you cannot love this place as I do, +Bob. My grandfather escaped in the disguise of a French cook to save his +head in 1793. I seem to see his figure walking before me when I cross +the Place de la Concorde, and the shadow of the guillotine falls across +his path."<!-- Page 234 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<p>From his corner of the room Dearborn drawled, "If the substance of the +guillotine had fallen across his neck, Tony, where would you be in our +mutual history?"</p> + +<p>Antony had asked his companion to call him Tony. He had not been able to +disassociate himself with everything that recalled the past.</p> + +<p>Fairfax's figure as he turned was dark against the light of the window +and the room was full of the shadows of the early January twilight. He +wore a pair of velveteen breeches whose original colour might have been +a dark, rich blue. His flannel shirt (no longer red) was fastened +loosely at the neck by a soft black cravat under a rolling collar. It +was Sunday and he was working, the clay white upon his fingers and +nails. He wore an old pair of slippers, and Dearborn on a couch in a +corner watched him, a Turkish drapery wound around his shoulders, for +the big room was chilly and it smelled of clay and tobacco smoke. The +studio was an enormous attic, running the length of an hotel once of +some magnificence, now a tumble-down bit of still beautiful +architecture. The room was portioned off for the use of two people. Two +couches served in the night-time as their beds, there was a small stove +guiltless of fire, a few pieces of studio property, a skylight, a desk +covered with papers and books and manuscripts, and in the part of the +room near the window and under the skylight, Tony Fairfax, now Thomas +Rainsford, worked among his casts and drawings, amidst the barrels of +clay and plaster. To him, in spite of being almost always hungry, in +spite of the discomfort, of the constant presence and companionship of +another when he often longed for solitude, in spite of this, his domain +was a heaven. He had come into the place in June with Dearborn.</p> + +<p>Tony had paid a year's rent in advance. He was working as a common +journeyman in the studio of Barye, and early in the morning, late at +night, and on Sundays, worked for himself eagerly, hungrily, like the +slave of old in Albany, and yet, with what a difference! He had no one +but himself to consider, but had the interest of the atelier where he +studied, even as he sold his skill that it might be lost in the +creations of more advanced<!-- Page 235 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> artists, and there, during the days of his +apprenticeship, his visions came to him, and what conceptions he then +had he tried to work out and to mature, when he had the chance, in his +own room.</p> + +<p>Dearborn, who never left the studio except to eat, smoked and worked and +read all day.</p> + +<p>The two men were sufficiently of a size to wear each other's clothes. +They had thought it out carefully and had preserved from the holocaust, +of the different financial crises, one complete out-of-door outfit, from +hat to boots—and those boots!</p> + +<p>It was "déplorable" the bookseller, whose little shelf of books lay on +the stone wall of the quay, said, it was "déplorable" that such a fine +pair of men should be lame and in exactly the same fashion. Fairfax +could not walk at all in the other man's shoes, so his normal friend +made the sacrifice and the proper shoes were pawned, and Robert Dearborn +and Tony Fairfax had shared alternately the big boot and the small one, +the light and the heavy step. And they were directed by such different +individuals, the boots went through Paris in such diverse ways!</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" exclaimed Dearborn, examining the boots carefully, "it isn't +fair. You're walking these boots of ours to death! Who the deuce will +take them out in his bare feet to be repaired?"</p> + +<p>They were just as absurdly poor as this. Nobody whose soul is not +absorbed in art can ever understand what it is to be so stupidly poor.</p> + +<p>Dearborn, when he could be forced out of the house, put on the shoes +with reluctance; he was greatly annoyed by the clatter of the big boot. +The shoes didn't fit him in the least. He would shuffle into the nearest +café, if his credit was good enough to permit it, and there, under the +small table on which he wrote page after page over his cigarette and cup +of black coffee, he hid the big awkward shoe for as long as he could +endure exile from the studio. Then he came home.</p> + +<p>Fairfax swung the boot down the stairs, he swung it along the pavements +of Paris! What distance he took it! It seemed to have a wing at the +heel. It tramped through the quarters of the city from the quays to +fine<!-- Page 236 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> old streets, to forgotten alleys, to the Cité on the Ile, then +again by the fresh gay avenues of the Champs Elysées to the Bois, again +to the quays, and, when well up the river, he would sometimes board the +boat and come back down the Seine, dreaming, musing, creating, and, +floating home, would take the big boot upstairs.</p> + +<p>"By Jove, Tony!" Dearborn remarked, examining the boots closely, "it's +not fair! One of us will have to <i>drive</i> if you don't let up, old man!"</p> + +<p>Dearborn, when he did not haunt his café and when inspiration failed, +would haunt the Bibliothčque Nationale, and amongst the "Rats de +littérature"—savant, actor, poet, amongst the cold and weary who lounge +in the chairs of the library to dream, to get warm, and to imagine real +firesides with one's own books and one's own walls around them—Dearborn +would sit for hours poring over old manuscripts from which he had hoped +to extract inspiration, listening, as do his sort, for "the voices."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 237 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>It was a year of privation, but there were moments spent on the +threshold of Paradise.</p> + +<p>His materials, barrels of clay and plaster, were costly. Dearborn said +that he thanked God he had a "métier" requiring no further expenditure +than a pot of ink and a lot of paper.</p> + +<p>"The ideas," he told Fairfax, "are expensive, and I think, old man, that +I shall have to <i>buy</i> some. I find that they will not come unless I +invite them to dinner!"</p> + +<p>Neither of the young men had made a hearty meal for an unconsciously +long time. The weather grew colder and they lived as they could on +Fairfax's day wage.</p> + +<p>At this time, when during the hours of his freedom he was housed with +his companion, Fairfax was overwhelmed by the rush of his ideas and his +desire to create. He would not let himself long for solitude, for he was +devoted to his friend and grateful for his companionship and affection, +but a certain piece of work had haunted him since his first Sunday +afternoon at the Louvre, and he was eager to finish the statue he had +begun and to send it to the Salon.</p> + +<p>The Visions no longer eluded him—ever present, sometimes they +overpowered him by their obsession. They flattered the young man, +seeming to embrace him, called to him, uplifted him until heights +levelled before his eyes and became roads upon which he walked lightly, +and his pride in his own power grew. Antony forgot to be humble. He was +his own master—he had scorned the Academies. For several weeks, when he +first came to Paris, he had posed as a model. Sitting there before the +students, glowing with shame and pride, his heart was defiant, and not +one of the students, who modelled the<!-- Page 238 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> fine bust and head, imagined how +ardent his heart was or what an artist posed for them. Often he longed +to seize a tool from inefficient hands and say, "Here, my children, like +this, don't you see?"</p> + +<p>He learned much from the rare visits of the Master and his cursory, +hasty criticism, but he welcomed the impersonal labour in the atelier of +Barye, where he was not a student but a worker, mechanical supposedly, +yet creative to his fingertips. And as he watched Barye work, admiring +him profoundly, eager for the man's praise, crushing down his own +individuality, careful to do nothing but the technical, mechanical +things he was given to do there—before his hand grew tired, while his +brain was fresh, he would plan and dream of what he would do in his own +attic, and he went back as a thirsty man to a source.</p> + +<p>There came the dead season. Barye shut his atelier and went to Spain. +There was nothing to do for Antony Fairfax and he was without any means +of making his bread. After a few days of idleness, when his hands and +feet were chilblained and he could hardly pass the cafés and +restaurants, where the meals were cooking, without a tightening of the +chest, he thought to himself, "Now is the time for the competition money +to fall among us like a shower of gold"; but he had not heard one word +from America or from Falutini, to whom the result was to have been +written and who had Fairfax's address.</p> + +<p>Dearborn, in a pair of old tennis trousers, a shabby black velvet +jacket, sat Turkish fashion on his divan, his writing tablet on his +knees. For weeks past he had been writing a five-act play—</p> + +<p>"Too hungry, Tony, by Jove, to go on. Every time I start to write, the +lines of some old-time menu run across the page—Canards ŕ la presse, +Potage ŕ la Reine. Just now it was only pie and yellow cheese, such as +we have out in Cincinnati."</p> + +<p>Fairfax was breaking a mould. By common consent a fire had been built in +the stove. Tony had taken advantage of the warm water to mix his +plaster. Dearborn came over from his sofa.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't care to have a barrel of plaster roll on<!-- Page 239 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> those chilblains +of mine, Tony. It's a toss up with us now, isn't it, which of us <i>can</i> +wear the boots?"</p> + +<p>Pinched and haggard, his hands in his pockets, the young fellow watched +the sculptor. Fairfax skilfully released his statue from the mould. He +had been working on this, with other things, for a month. He unprisoned +the little figurine, a little nude dancer, her arms above her head, the +face and smile faun-like.</p> + +<p>"Pleine de malice," said Dearborn, "extręmement fine, my dear Tony. As +an object of 'luxe' I find it as exquisite as an article of food, if not +as satisfying. It's not good enough to <i>eat</i>, Tony, and those are the +only standards I judge by now."</p> + +<p>Fairfax turned the figure between his fingers lovingly—lily-white, +freshly cold, bits of the mould clinging to it, small and fine, it lay +in the palm of his shapely hand.</p> + +<p>"If you don't want the boots, Bob," he said, "I think I'll go out in +them."</p> + +<p>The legal owner of the boots went out in them into the damp, bitter +cold. His big figure cut along through the mist and he limped over the +Pont des Arts towards the Louvre. All Paris seemed to him blue with +cold. The river flowed between its banks with suppressed intent and +powerful westward rush, and its mighty flow expressed indifference to +the life and passion of existence along its shores.</p> + +<p>He leaned a moment on the bridge. Paris was personal to him and the +river was like its soul. He was faint from lack of food and overstrain.</p> + +<p>In the Louvre, other men of conglomerate costumes as well as he sought +the warm rooms. Tramps, vagrants in pitiful rags, affected interest in +the works of art, resting their worn figures on the benches, exulting in +the public welcome of the museum. Fairfax was more presentable, if as +poor. He wore a soft black hat of good make and quality, bought in a +sporting moment by Dearborn early in his career. Tony wore his own +clothes, retained because they were the newest and a soft black scarf, +the vogue in the quarter, was tied under his collar in rather an +extravagant bow. He wandered aimlessly through the rooms, glanced at the +visitors and saw that they were many, and when he had become thoroughly +warm,<!-- Page 240 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> screwed his courage to the sticking point and went out of the +front entrance. A little way from the guides he took his place, and from +his pocket his figurine. It showed quite as a lily in the foggy light, +pale and ashamed. Its nudity appealed more to the sculptor because of +this wanton exposure to the vulgar herd. He trembled, began to regret, +but offered it, holding it out for sale.</p> + +<p>Some dozen people passed him, glanced at him and his small statue, but +he would have passed unnoticed had a lady not come slowly down the steps +and seen him, stopped and looked at him, though he did not see her until +she had approached. He flamed scarlet, covered his statuette and wished +that the cobbles of the pavement would open and swallow him.</p> + +<p>She was—he thought of it afterward a hundred times—a woman of singular +tact and an illumined sympathy, as well as a woman of exquisite +comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rainsford!" she exclaimed. "You have something to sell?" she added, +and simply, as though she spoke to an ordinary vendor, yet he saw that +as she spoke a lovely colour rose in her cheek under her veil, and he +found that he was not ashamed any more.</p> + +<p>She put out her hand. It came from a mantle of velvet and a cuff of +costly fur—he couldn't have dreamt then how costly. He lifted his hat, +bareheaded in the cold, and laid the little figure in her hand.</p> + +<p>"How perfectly charming!" she murmured, holding it. And the dryad-like +figure, with its slender arms above its head and the faun-like, +brilliant little face, seemed perfection to her. She said so. "What a +perfect thing! Of course, you have the clay original?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax could not speak. The sight of this woman so worldly, elegant, +sumptuous, at the first praise of his little statue, he realized that he +was selling it, and it struck him as a crime—his creation, his vision, +hawking it as a fish-wife might hawk crabs in the public street!</p> + +<p>He felt a great humiliation and could have wept—indeed, tears did +spring to his eyes and the cold dried them.</p> + +<p>Two "sergents de ville" came up to them.</p> + +<p>"Pardon, Monsieur," asked one of them, "have you a license?"<!-- Page 241 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>Fairfax started, but the lady holding the little statue turned quickly +to the officials—</p> + +<p>"A license? <i>Pourquoi faire, mes amis?</i>"</p> + +<p>"It is against the rules to sell anything in the streets of Paris +without a license," said the policeman.</p> + +<p>"Well," she exclaimed, "my friend has just made me a gift. This +gentleman is a friend of mine for whom I am waiting to take me to my +carriage. Allez vous en," she smiled at them, "I will excuse you, and so +will Monsieur."</p> + +<p>She was so perfectly mistress of the situation that he had nothing to do +but leave himself in her hands.</p> + +<p>"You will let me take you home," she said, "in whatever direction you +are going," and he followed her to her little carriage, waiting before +the curb.</p> + +<p>She got in, gave the address of his studio to her coachman, and the next +thing he knew was that he was rolling over the pavement he had so +painfully traversed a few hours before.</p> + +<p>She talked to him of the master, Cedersholm, and Antony listened. She +talked enthusiastically, admiringly, and he parried her questions as to +when and where he had worked with the Swedish sculptor. The statuette +lay on her lap.</p> + +<p>At the studio door, when Fairfax left her, she said, taking up the +self-same gold purse that he had restored to her in the Louvre seven +months ago—</p> + +<p>"I hope that I have enough money to pay for this treasure, Mr. +Rainsford. It's so beautiful that it must be very dear. What is the +price?"</p> + +<p>And Fairfax, hot all over, warm indeed for the first time in long, +stammered—</p> + +<p>"Don't speak of price—of course, I don't know you well enough, but if +you really like it, please take it."</p> + +<p>"Take it!" Mrs. Faversham had cried, "but I mean to—I adore it. Mr. +Cedersholm will tell you how valuable it is, but I must pay you for it, +my dear Mr. Rainsford."</p> + +<p>Holding the carriage door open, his fine face on fire and his blue eyes +illumined, he had insisted, and Antony's voice, his personality, his +outstretched hand bare, cold, shapely, charmed her and impressed her, +and he saw her slowly, unwillingly accept his sudden gift. He had seen<!-- Page 242 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +her embarrassed suddenly, as he was. Then she had driven away in her +carriage, to be lost in the mists with other people who did not matter +to him, and poor as he had started out, poorer, for he had not the +statuette, he limped down the stairs again and into the street to forage +for them both.</p> + +<p>He thought whimsically: "I must feed up the whole dramatis personć of +old Bob's play, for he can't get on until he's fed up the cast!"</p> + +<p>He limped along the Rue du Bac, his cold hands in his pockets, his head +a little bent. But no battle with life now, be it what it would, could +compare with his battle in New York. Now, indeed, though he was cold and +hungry and tired, he was the inhabitant of a city that he loved, he was +working alone for the art he adored. He believed in himself—not once +had he yet come to the period of artistic despair.</p> + +<p>During these seven months the little personal work he had been able to +do had only whetted his desire; he was young, possessed of great talent +and of brilliant imagination, and he was happy and hopeful and +determined; the physical wants did not weigh on his spirit nor did the +long period of labour injure his power of production. He chafed, indeed, +but he felt his strength even as he pulled against the material things +from which he had to free himself.</p> + +<p>And as Fairfax, part of the throng, walked aimlessly up the Rue du Bac +with his problems, he walked less alone that night than ever in his +life, for he was absorbed in the thought of the woman.</p> + +<p>He realized now how keenly he had observed her, that she was very +charming and very beautiful. He could have drawn those dear features, +the contour of her neck and chin, the poise of her head, the curve of +her shoulder, and, imperceptible, but no less real and strong, her grace +and charm made her an entity to him, so much so that she actually seemed +to have remained by his side, and he almost fancied, as he breathed the +misty air, that he breathed again the odour of the scent that she used, +sweet and delicate, and that he felt the touch of her velvet sleeve +against his coat.</p> + +<p>He still had in his possession one object, which, if<!-- Page 243 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> pawned, might +furnish enough money to pay for a meal. It was a little seal, belonging +to his mother, set in old gold.</p> + +<p>This afternoon, before leaving the studio, he had thrust it in his +waistcoat pocket, in case the little statuette did not sell.</p> + +<p>They gave him five francs for it, and he laid in a stock of provisions, +and with his little parcel once more he limped up the studio stairs to +Dearborn, who, wrapped in the coverlet, waited by the stove.</p> + +<p>He told his story, and Dearborn listened delightedly, his literary and +dramatic sense pleased by the adventure.</p> + +<p>They were talking of the lady when the concierge, toward nine o'clock, +tapped at the door and handed Antony a thick blue envelope, inscribed +"Mr. Thomas Rainsford" by a woman's hand.</p> + +<p>"Tony, old man," said the playwright, as Antony's fingers trembled +turning the page, "the romance of a poor young man has begun."</p> + +<p>The letter ran as follows:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"<span class="smcap">My dear Mr. Rainsford</span>,</span><br /> +</p> + +<blockquote><p>"I am anxious to have a small bas-relief of me, to give to Mr. +Cedersholm when he shall come over. Would you have time to +undertake this work? I can pose when you like.</p> + +<p>"I know how many claims a man of talent has upon his time, and I +want to secure some of yours and make it mine. I venture to send +this sum in advance. I hope you will not refuse it. Perhaps you +will dine with me to-morrow and we will talk things over.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Yours faithfully,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"<span class="smcap">Mary Faversham</span>."</span><br /> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Fairfax read this letter twice—the second time the words were not quite +clear. He handed it across the table to his companion silently. The +five-hundred-franc bill lay between the plate where the veal had been +and the empty coffee cup.</p> + +<p>Dearborn, when he had eagerly read the note, glanced up to speak to +Fairfax and saw that he had turned away from him. In his figure, as he +bowed over, leaning his<!-- Page 244 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> head upon his hands, there were the first marks +of weariness that Dearborn had ever seen. There had been weariness in +the step that limped up the stairs and crossed the room when Fairfax had +entered with the meagre bundle of food. Dearborn leaned over and saw his +friend's fine profile, and there was unmistakably the mark of fatigue on +the face, flushed by fire and lamp-light. Dearborn knew of his companion +very little. The two had housed together, come together, bits of +driftwood on the river of life, drawn by sympathy in the current, and +few questions had been asked. He knew that Rainsford was from New +Orleans, that he had studied in New York. Of Antony's life he knew +nothing, although he had wondered much.</p> + +<p>He said now, lightly, as he handed the letter back, "You haven't been +playing perfectly square with me, Tony. I'm afraid you have been wearing +the boots under false pretences, but, nevertheless, I guess you will +have to wear them to-morrow night, old man."</p> + +<p>As Fairfax did not move, Dearborn finished more gravely—</p> + +<p>"I would be glad to hear anything you are willing to tell me about it."</p> + +<p>Fairfax turned slowly and put the letter back in his pocket. Then +leaning across the table, in an undertone, he told Dearborn +everything—everything. He spoke quietly and did not linger, sketching +for him rapidly his life as far as it had gone. Twice Dearborn rose and +fed the stove recklessly with fuel. Once he stood up, took a coverlet +and wrapped it around him, and sat blinking like a resurrected mummy. +And Fairfax talked till Bella flashed like a red bird across the +shadows, lifted her lips to his and was gone. Molly shone from the +shadows and passed like light through the open door. And, last of all, +Mrs. Faversham came and brought a magic wand and she lingered, for +Fairfax stopped here.</p> + +<p>He had talked until morning. The dawn was grey across the frosty pane +when he rose to throw himself down on his bed to sleep. The +five-hundred-franc note lay where he had left it on the table between +the empty plate and the empty cup. The fire was dead in the stove and +the room was cold.<!-- Page 245 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dearborn, excited and interested, watched with the visions of Antony's +past and the visions of his own creations for a long time. And Fairfax, +exhausted by the eventful day, troubled by it, touched by it, watched +the vision of a woman coming toward him, coming fatally toward him, +wonderfully toward him—but he was tired, and, before she had reached +him, he fell asleep.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 246 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>Antony waited in the drawing-room of her hotel in the Avenue du Bois de +Boulogne some quarter of an hour before she came downstairs. He thought +later that she had purposely given him this time to look about and grow +accustomed to the atmosphere, to the room in which he afterward more or +less lived for several months.</p> + +<p>There was not a false note to disturb his beauty-loving sense. He stood +waiting, on one side a long window giving on a rose garden, as he +afterward discovered, on the other a group in marble by Cedersholm. He +was studying this with interest when he heard Mrs. Faversham enter the +room. She had foreseen that he would not be likely to wear an evening +dress and she herself had put on the simplest of her frocks. But he +thought her quite dazzling, and the grace of her hands, and her welcome +as she greeted him, were divine to the young man.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Rainsford."</p> + +<p>Instantly he bent and kissed her hand. She saw him flush to his fair +hair. He felt a gratitude to her, a thankfulness, which awakened in him +immediately the strongest of emotions.</p> + +<p>She seemed to consider him a distinguished guest. She told him that she +was going to Rome when Mr. Cedersholm came over—there would be a little +party going down to Italy.</p> + +<p>Fairfax's eyes kindled, and in the few moments he stood with her there, +in her fragrant drawing-room, where the fire in the logs sang and +whispered and the lamp-light threw its long, fair shadows on the crimson +floors and melted in the crimson hangings, he felt that he stood with an +old friend, with some one he had known his life long and known well, +even before he had known—and<!-- Page 247 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> there was a poignancy in his +treason—even before he had known his mother.</p> + +<p>When the doors were thrown open and another visitor was announced, he +was jealous and regretful and glanced at Mrs. Faversham as though he +thought she had done him a wrong.</p> + +<p>"My vife, oui," said the gentleman who came in and who was of a +nationality whose type was not yet familiar to Fairfax. "My wife is +horsed to-night, chčre Madame; she cannot come to the dinner—a thousand +pardons."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry the Countess is ill."</p> + +<p>Potowski, who had been told by his hostess not to dress, had made up for +the sacrifice as brilliantly as he could. His waistcoat was of +embroidered satin, his cravat a flaming scarlet, and in his button-hole +an exotic flower which went well with his dark, exotic face. He was a +little ridiculous: short and fat, with a fashion of gesticulating with +his hands as though he were swimming into society, but his expression +was agreeable and candid. His near-sighted eyes were naďve, his voice +sweet and caressing. Rainsford saw that his hostess liked Potowski. She +was too sweet a lady to be annoyed by peculiarities.</p> + +<p>In a few moments, the lame sculptor on one side and the flashy Slav on +the other, she led them to the little dining-room, to an exquisite +table, served by two men in livery.</p> + +<p>There was an intimacy in the apartment shut in by the panelling from +floor to ceiling of the walls. The windows were covered with yellow +damask curtains and the footfalls made no sound on the thick carpet.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rainsford is a sculptor," his hostess told Potowski. "He has +studied with Cedersholm, but we shall soon forget whose pupil he is when +he is a master himself."</p> + +<p>"Ah," murmured the young man, who was nevertheless thrilled.</p> + +<p>"He is going to do a bas-relief of me, Potowski—that is, I hope he will +not refuse to make my portrait."</p> + +<p>"Ah, no," exclaimed Potowski, clasping his soft hands, "not a +bas-relief, chčre Madame, but a statuary, all of it. The figure, is not +it, Mr. Rainsford? You hear people say of the face it is beautiful, or +the hand, or the<!-- Page 248 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> head of a woman. I think it is all of her. It should +be the entirety always, I think. I think it is monstrous to dissect the +parts of the human body even in art. When I go to the <i>Museo</i> and see a +hand here, a foot there, a torso somewhere else—you will laugh, I am +ridiculous, but it makes me think I look at a <i>haccident</i>.</p> + +<p>"<i>Therefore</i>," exclaimed Potowski, gaily swimming toward the fruit and +flowers with his soft hand, "begin, cher Monsieur, by making a whole +woman! I never, never sing part of a <i>hopera</i>. I sing a lyric, a little +complete song, but in its entirety."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Potowski," Mrs. Faversham laughed, "a bas-relief or a bust +is complete."</p> + +<p>"But why," cried the Pole, "why behead a lady? As for a profile, it is +destruction to the human face." He turned to Fairfax. "You think I am a +pagan. In France they have an impolite proverb, 'Stupid as a musician,' +but don't think it is true. We see harmony and melody in everything."</p> + +<p>Apparently Potowski's lunacy had suggested something to Fairfax, for he +said seriously—</p> + +<p>"Perhaps Mrs. Faversham will let me make a figure of her some day"—he +hesitated—"in the entirety," he quoted; and the words sounded madness, +tremendously personal, tremendously daring. "A figure of her standing in +a long cloak edged with fur, holding a little statuette in her hand."</p> + +<p>"Charming," gurgled Potowski—he had a grape in his mouth which he had +culled unceremoniously from the fruit dish. "That is a very modern idea, +Rainsford, but I don't understand why she should hold a statuette in her +hand."</p> + +<p>"For my part," said the hostess, "I only understand what I have been +taught. I am a common-place public, and I prefer a classic bas-relief, a +profile, just a little delicate study. Will you make it for me, Mr. +Rainsford?"</p> + +<p>The new name he had chosen, and which was never real to him, sounded +pleasantly on her lips, and it gave him, for the first time, a +personality. His past was slipping from him; he glanced around the oval +room with its soft lights and its warm colouring. It glowed like a +beautiful setting for the pearl which was the lady. The<!-- Page 249 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> dinner before +him was delicious. It ceased to be food—it was a delicate refreshment. +The perfume of the flowers and wines and the cooking was intoxicating.</p> + +<p>"You eat and drink nothing," Mrs. Faversham said to him.</p> + +<p>"No," exclaimed Potowski, sympathetically, peering across the table at +Rainsford. "You are suffering perhaps—you diet?"</p> + +<p>Antony drank the champagne in his glass and said he was thinking of his +bas-relief.</p> + +<p>Potowski, adjusting a single eye-glass in his eye, stared through it at +Rainsford.</p> + +<p>"You should do everything in its entirety, Mr. Rainsford. Eat, drink, +sculpt and sing," and he swam out again gently toward Rainsford and Mrs. +Faversham, "and love."</p> + +<p>Antony smiled on them both his radiant smile. "Ah, sir," he said, "is +not that just the thing it is hard for us all not to do? We mutilate the +rest, our art and our endeavours, but a young man usually once in his +life loves in entirety."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said the Pole thoughtfully, "I think perhaps not. +Sometimes it's the head, or the hands, or the figure, something we call +perfect or beautiful as long as it lasts, Mr. Rainsford, but if we loved +the entirety there would be no broken marriages."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Faversham, whom the musician entertained and amused, laughed softly +and rose, and, a man on each side of her, went into the drawing-room, to +the fire burning across the andirons. Coffee and liqueurs were brought +and put on a small table.</p> + +<p>"Potowski is a philosopher, is he not, Mr. Rainsford? When you hear him +sing, though, you will find that his best argument."</p> + +<p>Potowski stirred six lumps of sugar into his small coffee cup, drank the +syrup, drank a glass of liqueur with a sort of cheerful eagerness, and +stood without speaking, dangling his eyeglass and looking into the fire. +Mrs. Faversham took a deep chair and her dark, slim figure was lost in +it, and Antony, who had lit his cigarette, leaned on the chimney-piece +near her.</p> + +<p>She glanced at him, at the deformed shoe, at his shabby<!-- Page 250 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> clothes. He had +made his toilet as carefully as he could; his linen was spotless, his +cravat new and fashioned in a big bow. His fine, thoughtful face, lit +now by the pleasure of the evening, where spirit and courage were never +absent if other marks were there; his fine brow with the slightly +curling blond hair bright upon it, and the profound blue of his eyes—he +was different from any man she had seen, and she had known many men and +been a great favourite with them. It pleased her to think that she knew +and understood them fairly well. She was thinking what she could do for +this man. She had wondered this suddenly, the day Fairfax had met her +and left her in the Louvre; she had wondered more sincerely the evening +she left him at his door. She had asked him to her house in a spirit of +real kindness, although she had already felt his charm. Looking at him +now, she thought that no woman could see him and hear him speak, watch +him for an hour, and not be conscious of that charm. She wondered what +she could do for Mr. Rainsford.</p> + +<p>"Sit there, won't you?"—she indicated the sofa near her—"you will find +that a comfortable place in which to listen. Count Potowski is the one +unmaterial musician I ever knew. Time and place, food or feast, make no +difference to him."</p> + +<p>Potowski, without replying, turned abruptly and went toward the next +room, separated from the salon by glass doors. In another moment they +heard the prelude of Bohm's "Still as the Night," and then Potowski +began to sing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 251 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>The studio underwent something of a transformation. Dearborn devoted +himself to its decoration. The crisp banknote was divided between the +two companions.</p> + +<p>Fairfax ordered a suit of clothes on trust, a new pair of boots on +trust, and bought outright sundry necessaries for his appearance in the +world.</p> + +<p>And Dearborn spent too much in making the studio decent, and bought an +outfit of writing materials, a wadded dressing-gown with fur collar and +deep pockets, the cast-off garment of some elegant rastaquoučre, in a +second-hand clothing shop on the boulevard. He had no plans for +enjoying Paris. He philosophically looked at the cast-off shoes that had +gallantly limped with the two of them up and down the stairs and here +and there in the streets on such devious missions. If he should be +inclined to go out he would wear them. His slippers were his real +comfort. He devoted himself to the interior life and to his play. He had +the place to himself, and after a long day's work he would read or plan, +looking out on the quays and the Louvre, biting his fingers and weaving +new plots and making youthful reflections upon life.</p> + +<p>In the evenings Fairfax would limp home. Five days of the week he went +to Barye's studio and worked for the master. Twice a week he went to the +Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. Just how his friend spent his time when he +was not in the studio Dearborn wondered vainly. The sculptor grew less +and less communicative, almost morose. Tony took to smoking countless +cigarettes and sitting in the corner of the big divan, his arms folded +across his chest, his eyes fixed on some object which Dearborn could not +see. He would listen, or appear to, whilst Dearborn read his play; or +draw for him the scenario<!-- Page 252 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> for a new play; or the young man would read +aloud bits of verse or prose that he loved and found inspiring. And +Antony, more than once, could hear his own voice as he had declaimed +aloud to the little cousins on a winter's afternoon, "St. Agnes' Eve, +how bitter chill it was," or some other favourite repeated to shining +eyes and flushed attention. Very often what Dearborn read was neither +familiar nor distinguishable, for Fairfax was thinking about other +things. They were not always alone in the workroom. Dearborn had +friends, and those of them who had not gone away on other quests or been +starved out or pushed out, would come noisily in of an evening, bringing +with them perhaps a man with a fiddle and a man with a flute, and they +would dance and there would be beer and "madeleines" and gay amusement +of a very inoffensive kind, of a youthful kind. There would be dancing +and singing, and sometimes Fairfax would take part in it all and sing +with them in his pleasant baritone and smile upon them; but he liked it +best when they were alone, and Dearborn did too; and in Fairfax's +silence and the other man's absorption they nevertheless daily grew +firmer and faster friends.</p> + +<p>"Bob," Fairfax said—and as he spoke he abruptly interrupted Dearborn in +the most vital scene of his act—"I can't take a penny from her for this +portrait."</p> + +<p>Dearborn dropped his manuscript on his knee. His expression was that of +a slightly hurt egotism, for he had sat up all night working over this +scene and burned all day to read it to Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"Well, anyhow, don't ask me to cough up the two hundred and fifty +francs. That's all I ask," he said a little curtly.</p> + +<p>"I shall give her some study, one of these other statuettes," Fairfax +said moodily, "some kind of return for the five hundred francs."</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't care for anything I have got, would she, Tony?" Dearborn +put his hands in the ample pockets and displayed his voluminous wrapper. +"I'm crazy about this dressing-gown," he said affectionately. "It has +warmed and sheltered my best thoughts. It has wrapped around and +comforted my fainting heart. It's hatched ideas for me; it's been a +plaidie to the angry<!-- Page 253 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> airs. Tony, she wouldn't take the dressing-gown, +would she?"</p> + +<p>"Rot!" exclaimed his friend fiercely. "Don't be an ass. Don't you see +how I feel?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't," said the other simply. "I am not a mind reader. I'm an +imaginator. I can make up a lot of stuff about your feeling. I daresay I +do invent. You will see this in my play some day. You are really an +inspiration, old man, but as for having an accurate idea of your +feelings...! For three weeks, ever since that banknote fluttered amongst +the crumbs of our table, you have scarcely said a word to me, not a +whole paragraph." He shook his finger emphatically. "If I were not +absorbed myself, no doubt I should be beastly, diabolically lonesome."</p> + +<p>Antony seemed entirely unmoved by this picture. "I think I shall go to +Rome, Bob," he began, then cried: "No, I mean to St. Petersburg."</p> + +<p>"It will be less expensive," Dearborn suggested dryly, "and considerably +less travel, not to go to the Bois de Boulogne."</p> + +<p>"I shall finish this portrait this week," Fairfax went on. "Now I can't +scrape it out and begin again. I have done it twice. It would be +desecration, for it's mightily like her, and my reason for my going +there is over."</p> + +<p>"Well, how about that full-length figure of her in furs and velvets, +holding a little statuette in her hands, that you used to rave about +doing? If at first you make a bas-relief, begin and begin again! There +are busts and statues, as there are odes and sonnets and curtain-raisers +and five-act tragedies."</p> + +<p>"Yes," returned Fairfax, "there are tragedies, no doubt about it."</p> + +<p>Fairfax, smoking, struggled with the emotions rising in him and which he +had no notion of betraying to his friend. In the corner where Dearborn +had rolled it, for he made the whole studio pretty much his own now, was +the statue Fairfax was making of his mother. It was covered with a white +cloth which took the lines and form of the head and shoulders. It stood +ghostly amongst the shadows of the room and near it, on a stool, were +Antony's<!-- Page 254 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> sculpting tools, his broad wooden knives and a barrel of +plaster. His gaze wandered to these inanimate objects, nothing in +themselves, but which suggested and made possible and real his art—the +reason for his existence. Now, when he stopped modelling Mrs. Faversham, +he would go on with the bust of his mother. He turned his eyes to +Dearborn.</p> + +<p>"I have been up there for five weeks; I have been entertained there like +a friend; I have eaten and drunk; I have accepted her hospitality; I +have gone with her to the plays and opera. I have pretty well lived on +her money."</p> + +<p>"All men of the world do that," Dearborn said reasonably. "It's an +awfully nice thing for a woman to have a handsome young man whom she can +call on when she likes."</p> + +<p>Fairfax ignored this and went on. "I have met her friends, delightful +and distinguished people, who have invited me to their houses. I have +never gone, not once, not even to see Potowski. Now I shall go up next +Sunday and finish my work, and then I'm going away."</p> + +<p>Dearborn crossed his thin legs, his beloved knit slippers, a remnant of +his mother's affection, dangling on the toe of his foot. He made a +telescope of his manuscript and peered through it as though he saw some +illumination at the other end.</p> + +<p>"You are not serious, Tony?"</p> + +<p>Antony left the sofa and came over to his friend. Five weeks of +comparative comfort and comparative release from the anxiety of +existence—that is, of material existence—had changed him wonderfully. +His contact with worldly people, the entertainments of Paris, the +stimulant to his mind and senses, his pleasures, had done him good. His +face was something fuller. He had come home early from dining with Mrs. +Faversham, and in his evening dress there was an elegance about him that +added to his natural distinction. In the lapel of his coat drooped a few +violets from the <i>boutonničre</i> that had been placed by his plate.</p> + +<p>"Cedersholm is coming next week." He lit a fresh cigarette.</p> + +<p>"Well," returned Dearborn, coolly, "he is neither the<!-- Page 255 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> deluge nor the +earthquake, but he may be the plague. What has he got to do with you, +old man?"</p> + +<p>"She is going to marry him."</p> + +<p>"That," said Dearborn with spirit, "is rotten. Now, I will grant you +that, Tony. It's rotten for her. Things have got so mixed up in your +scenario that you cannot frankly go and tell her what a hog he is. That +is what ought to be done, though. She ought to know what kind of a cheat +and poor sort she is going to marry. In real life or drama the simple +thing never happens." Dearborn smiled finely. "She ought to know, but +you can't tell her."</p> + +<p>"No," said his friend slowly, "nor would I. But neither can I meet him +in her house or anywhere else. I think I should strike him."</p> + +<p>"You didn't strike him, though," said Dearborn, meaningly, "when you had +a good impersonal chance."</p> + +<p>"I wish I had."</p> + +<p>"I thought you told me they were all going to Rome?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Faversham doesn't want to go."</p> + +<p>"Ah," murmured Dearborn, nodding, "she doesn't."</p> + +<p>"No." Fairfax did not seem to observe his friend's tone. "She is +mightily set on having me meet Cedersholm. She wants to have him +patronize me, help me!" He laughed dryly and walked up and down the +studio into the cold, away from the fire, and then back to Dearborn in +his dressing-gown and slippers. "Patronize me, encourage me, pat me on +the back—put me in the way of meeting men of the world of art and +letters, possibly work with him. She has all sorts of kindly patronizing +schemes. But she doesn't know that I have been hungry and cold, and have +been housed and fed by her money. Perhaps she does, though," he cried +furiously to Dearborn. "No doubt she does. Do you think she does, Bob?"</p> + +<p>"No, no—don't be an ass, Tony, old man."</p> + +<p>"You see, now don't you, that I can't stay in Paris, that I can't meet +that man and knock him down—not tell her that I am not the poor +insignificant creature that she thinks, that without me Cedersholm could +not have whipped up his old brain and his tired imagination to have done +the work that brought him so marked a success.<!-- Page 256 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> I would have to tell her +what I did, and that, crude and unschooled as I was, she would have to +see that he was afraid of me, afraid of my future and my talent. Oh, +Dearborn!" he cried, throwing up his arms.</p> + +<p>Dearborn left his chair and went to Fairfax and put his hand on his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"That's right," he said heartily, "blurt it all out, old man. Some day, +when the right time comes, you will let it out to him."</p> + +<p>Fairfax leaned on Dearborn's arm. "There were eight of us at dinner +to-night," he said, "and Cedersholm was the general topic. He is much +admired. He is to have the Legion of Honour. Much of what they said +about him was just, of course, perfectly just and fair, but it sickened +me. They were enthusiastic about his character, his generosity to his +pupils, his sympathy with struggling artists, and one man, who had been +at the unveiling of the Sphinx, spoke of my Beasts."</p> + +<p>Dearborn felt Antony's hand trembling on his arm.</p> + +<p>"The gall rose up in my throat, Bob. I saw myself working in a sacred +frenzy in his studio, sweating blood, and my joy over my creations. I +saw myself eager, hopeful, ardent, devoted, with a happy, cheerful +belief in everybody. I had it then, I did indeed. Then I saw my ruined +life, my wasted years as an engineer in Albany, my miserable, my cruel +marriage, the things I stooped to and the degradation I might have +known. My mother, whom I never saw again, called me—my wife, my child, +passed before me like ghosts. If I could have had a little encouragement +from him then, only just my due, well.... I was thinking of all those +things whilst they spoke of him, and then I looked over to her...." As +he spoke Mrs. Faversham's name, Antony's voice softened. "... And she +was looking at me so strangely, strangely, as though she felt something, +knew something, and my silence seemed ungracious and proof of my +jealousy; but I could not have said a warm word in praise of him to save +my character in her eyes. When we were alone after dinner she asked me, +in a voice different to any tone I have heard from her, 'Don't you like +Mr. Cedersholm? You don't seem to admire him. I have never heard you<!-- Page 257 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +speak his name, or say a friendly word about him,' and I couldn't answer +her properly, and she seemed troubled."</p> + +<p>Fairfax stopped speaking. The two friends stood mutely side by side. +Then Antony said more naturally—</p> + +<p>"You see a little of how I feel, Bob."</p> + +<p>And the other replied, "Yes, I see a little of how you feel"; but he +continued with something of his old drollery: "I would like to know a +little of how <i>she</i> feels."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>Antony's voice was so curt, and his words were so short, that Dearborn +was quick to understand that it would not be wise to touch on the +subject of the woman.</p> + +<p>"Why, I mean, Tony, that it is a valuable study for a playwright. I +should like to understand the psychology of all characters."</p> + +<p>Fairfax shrugged impatiently. "Confound you, you are a brute. All +artists are, I reckon. You drive your chariot over human hearts in order +to get a dramatic point."</p> + +<p>Here the post came and with it a blue letter whose colour was familiar +to Dearborn now, and he busied himself with his own mail under the lamp. +Fairfax opened his note. It had no beginning.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"If it does not rain to-morrow, will you take me to Versailles? Unless +you send me word that you cannot go, I will call for you at ten o'clock. +We will drive through the Bois and lunch at the Reservoirs."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>For a moment it seemed as though Antony would hand over his note to +Dearborn, as he had handed Mrs. Faversham's first letter the night it +came. But he replaced it in its envelope and put it in his pocket.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 258 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>He wrote her that he should not be able to go to Versailles. He deserted +his day's work at Barye's and remained at home modelling. And Dearborn, +seeing Fairfax's distraction, went out early and did not return until +dark. Fairfax found himself alone again, alone with his visions, alone +with his pride, alone with powerful and new emotions.</p> + +<p>Sometimes in January, in the middle of the month, days come that +surprise the Parisians with their inconstancy and their softness. The +sun shone out suddenly and the sky was as blue as in Italy.</p> + +<p>Fairfax could see the people strolling along the quays, with coats open, +and the little booksellers did a thriving business and the "<i>bateaux +mouche</i>" shot off into the sunlight bound toward the suburbs which +Fairfax had learned in the summer time to know and love. Versailles +would be divine on such a day.</p> + +<p>His hours spent at the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne must have been +impersonal. His first essay he destroyed and began again. He did not +want to bring these intimate visits suddenly to an end. But when his +sitter very courteously began to question him, he was uncommunicative. +He could not tell her the truth. He did not wish to romance or to lie to +her. Mrs. Faversham, both sensitive and "fine," respected his reticence. +But she found out about him. They talked of art and letters and life in +general, circling around life in particular, and Fairfax revealed +himself more than he knew, although of his actual existence he told +nothing. He enjoyed the charm of the society of a worldly woman, of a +clever woman. He fed his mind and cultivated his taste, delighted his +eyes with the graceful picture she made, sitting, her head on her hand, +posing for her portrait.<!-- Page 259 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> Her features were not perfect, but the +ensemble was lovely and he modelled with tenderness and pleasure until +the little bas-relief was magically like her. He was forced to remember +that the study was intended as a present for Cedersholm. He was very +silent and very often wondered why she asked him so constantly to her +house, why she should be so interested in so ungracious a companion. +This morning, in his studio on the Quai, he unwrapped his statue of his +mother. It was a figure sitting in her chair, a book in her hand, as he +had seen her countless times on the veranda of the New Orleans house, +dreaming, her face lifted, her eyes looking into the distance. He went +back to his work with complicated feelings and a heart at which there +was a new ache. He had hardly expected that this statue, left when he +had gone to take up the study of another woman, would charm him as it +did. He began to model. As he worked, he thought the face was singularly +like Bella's—a touch to the head, to the lips, and it was still more +like the young girl. Another year was gone. Bella was a woman now. +Everything, as he modelled, came back to him vividly—all the American +life, with its rush and struggle. So closely did it come, so near to +him, that he threw down his tools to walk up and down in the sunlight +pouring through the big window. He took up his tools and began modelling +again. The statuette was tenderly like his mother. He smoothed the folds +at her waist—and saw under the clay the colour of the violet lawn with +its sprinkling flowers of darker violet. He touched the frills he had +indicated around the throat—and felt the stirring of the Southern +breeze across his hand and smelled the jasmine. He paused after working +for two hours, standing back, resting his lame limb and musing on the +little figure. It grew to suggest all womanhood: Molly, as he had seen +her under the lamp-light—Mrs. Faversham, as he had watched her leaning +on her hand—not Bella. He looked and thought. Bella was a child, a +little girl. There was nothing reposeful or meditative about Bella, yet +he had seen her pore over a book, her hair about her face. Would she +ever sit like this, tranquil, reposeful, reading, dreaming? The face was +like her, but the resemblance passed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 260 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Faversham's dresses and jewels, her luxuries, her carriages and her +horses, the extravagance of her life, had not dazzled Antony; his eyes +had been pleased, but her possessions were a distinct envelope +surrounding her and separating them. After watching Potowski's +natatorial gestures, Fairfax had longed to swim out of the elegance into +a freer sea.</p> + +<p>He had told her nothing of his companion or of his life. He often longed +to stuff some of the dainties of the table into his pockets for +Dearborn, to carry away some of the fire in his hands, to bring +something of the comfort back, but he would not have spoken for the +world. Once she had broached the subject of further payment, and had +seen by his tightening lips that she had made a mistake. In spite of the +fact of his reserve and that he was proud to coldness and sometimes not +quite kind, intimacy grew between them. Mrs. Faversham was engaged to be +married, but Fairfax did not believe that she loved Cedersholm. What her +feelings were, or why she wanted to marry him, he could not guess. The +intimacy between them was caused by what they knew of each other as +human beings, unknown, unexplained, unformulated. There was a tremendous +sympathy, and neither the man nor the woman knew how real it was. And +although there was her life—she was five years his senior—and his life +with its tragedies, its depths and its ascensions, although there was +all this unread and unspoken between them, neither of them, when they +were together, was conscious of any past. A word, a touch, a look, a +hazard chance would have revealed to them how near they stood.</p> + +<p>As he went on modelling, he found that he was beginning<!-- Page 261 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> to think of her +as he had not let himself do during the weeks when she had sat for him. +He found that he could not go on with his work now and think of her. He +had voluntarily denied himself this day at Versailles where he might +have enjoyed her for hours. When she had told him that she had written +to Cedersholm about him he had smiled.</p> + +<p>"He will not recall my name. I was an obscure pupil with others. He will +not remember Tom Rainsford."</p> + +<p>Evidently Cedersholm had not remembered him. The subject was never +mentioned between them again. Except as he heard it in general +conversation, Cedersholm's name was no longer frequently on Mrs. +Faversham's lips. He stopped working, wrapped his plaster carefully and +pushed the stool back into the corner. Near it was a pile of books which +he had carefully done up to return to Mrs. Faversham. She had obtained +orders for him from her friends, none of which he had accepted. Why +should he be so churlish? Why should he refuse to take advantage of her +kindness and generosity? Why should not her influence help him on his +stony way? What part did his pride play in it? Was it on account of +Cedersholm, or was it something else?</p> + +<p>At noon he went out to eat his luncheon in a little café where he was +known and popular. The little room was across a court-yard filled with +potted plants on which the winter had laid icy fingers, but which to-day +in the sunshine seemed to have garbed themselves with something like +spring. The little restaurant was low, noisy, filled with the clatter +and bustle of the noon meal served to hungry students and artists. The +walls were painted by the brush of different skilful craftsmen, young +artists who could not pay their accounts and had settled their scores by +leaving paintings on the walls, and one could read distinguished names. +When Fairfax came here, as he sometimes did, he always took a little +table in the second and darker room by another window which gave on a +quiet court on whose stones were heaped up the statues and remains of an +old Louis XV palace. This room was reserved for the older and quieter +clients, and here, at another table in the corner, a pretty girl with a<!-- Page 262 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +shock of curly hair under a soft hat and an old cape and an old +portfolio, always ate, and she sometimes smiled at him. He would catch +her eye, and she was, as Fairfax, always alone.</p> + +<p>Girl-students and grisettes, and others less respectable, had eyed him +and elbowed him, but not one had tempted him. There was no merit in his +celibacy, but to-day, as he glanced over at the English girl-student, +something about her caught his attention as never before. She was half +turned to him; her portfolio lay on the table at her side with the +remains of a scanty lunch. Her head was bowed on her hands. She looked +dejected, forlorn, bringing her little unhappiness to the small +restaurant where so many strugglers and aspirants brought their hopes +and their inspirations. This little bit of humanity seemed on this day +uninspired, cast down, and he had remarked her generally before because +of her gaiety, her eagerness, and he had avoided her because he knew +that she would be sympathetic with him.</p> + +<p>In a sort of revenge possible on himself, and feeling his own +loneliness, he permitted himself to look long at her and saw how +miserably poor her dress was, how rusty and dusty her cape, how trodden +down were her little shoes. She was all in brown, from the old beaver +hat to her boots, in a soft, old-faded note of colour, and her hair was +gloriously golden like a chrysanthemum. As Antony looked at her she took +out her handkerchief and wiped something off her cheek and from her +eyes. His luncheon of steak and potatoes had been served him. He took up +his napkin and his dinner and limped over to the table where the English +girl sat bowed over.</p> + +<p>"Would you like a comrade for luncheon? Say so, if you don't want me." +He saw her start, wipe her eyes and look up with a sob on her lips.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I don't mind." Her voice was stifled. "Sit down, it is good of +you."</p> + +<p>The girl covered her face with her hands for a second and then wiped her +eyes determinedly, as if she fetched herself out of stony depths. She +smiled tremulously and her lips were as red and full and sweet as a +rose.</p> + +<p>"Garcon," he ordered, "fetch two bocks. Yes, mademoiselle, it will do +you good."<!-- Page 263 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I say," she fluttered, "were you lonely over there in your corner?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax nodded. She put out her little hand, stained with paint and oil, +and it was cold and delicate as it touched his. It seemed to need the +strength of the man's big, warm grasp.</p> + +<p>"I have always liked your face, do you know—always," she said. "I knew +that you could be a real pal if you wanted. You are not like the others. +I expect you are a great swell at something. Writing?"</p> + +<p>"No, I am a workman in Barye's studio—a sculptor."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said incredulously. "You look '<i>arrivé</i>,' awfully +distinguished. I expect you really <i>are</i> something splendid."</p> + +<p>The beer came foaming. The girl lifted her glass with a hand which +trembled. Tears hung on her lashes still, ready to fall, but she was a +little sport and full of character and life. She nodded at Fairfax and +murmured—</p> + +<p>"Here's to our being friends."</p> + +<p>Her voice was sweet and musical. They drank the draught to friendship.</p> + +<p>Fairfax asked cruelly: "What made you cry?"</p> + +<p>She touched her portfolio. "There," she said, "that is the reason. My +last fortnight's work. I draw at Julian's, and I had a fearful criticism +this morning, most discouraging. I am here on my own." She stopped and +said rather faintly: "Why should I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"We drank just now to the reason why you should."</p> + +<p>"That's true," she laughed. "Well, then, this is my last week in Paris. +I will have to go back to England and drop painting, unless they tell me +that I am sure to have a career and that it is worth while."</p> + +<p>A career! She was a soft, sweet, tender little creature in spite of her +good comradeship and the brave little tilt to her hat, and she was fit +for a home nest, and no more fit to battle with the storm of a career +than a young bird with a tempest.</p> + +<p>"Let me see your portfolio, will you?"</p> + +<p>"First," she said practically, "eat your steak and your potatoes." +Touching her eyes, she added: "I thought of what Goethe said as I cried +here—'Wer nie sein Brot<!-- Page 264 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> mit Thraenen ass'—only it's not the first +bread and tears that have gone together in this room, I expect."</p> + +<p>"No," returned Fairfax, "I reckon not, and you are lucky to have the +bread, Mademoiselle. Some have only tears."</p> + +<p>"I know," she returned softly, "and I have been most awfully lucky so +far."</p> + +<p>When they had finished he made the man clear away the things, and she +spread out the contents of her portfolio before him, watching his face, +as he felt, for every expression. He handled thoughtfully the bits of +cardboard and paper, seeing on them only the evidence of a mediocre +talent, a great deal of feeling, and the indications of a sensitive +nature. One by one he looked at them and turned them over, and put them +back and tied up the green portfolio by its black tapes. Then he looked +at her, saw how white her little face had grown, how big and blue her +eyes were, how childlike and inadequate she seemed to life.</p> + +<p>"You need not speak," she faltered. "You were going to say I'm no good. +I don't want to hear you say it."</p> + +<p>Impulsively, he put out his strong hands and took hers that fluttered at +her coat.</p> + +<p>"Why should you care for what I say? You have your masters and your +chiefs."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she nodded, "and they have been awfully encouraging, all of them, +until to-day."</p> + +<p>Fairfax looked at her earnestly. "You must not mind if you feel that you +have got it in you. Don't seek to hear others' opinions, just go boldly, +courageously on. What I say has no meaning."</p> + +<p>He dropped her hands and the colour came back somewhat into her face.</p> + +<p>"What you say has importance, though," she answered. "I have the feeling +that you are somebody. Anyhow, I have watched you every time you came. I +think you know things. I believe you must be a great artist. I should +believe you—I do believe you. I see you don't think I'm any good. +Besnard didn't think so when he came to-day. I don't want to go on being +a fool."</p> + +<p>As she spoke, from the other restaurant came the<!-- Page 265 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> notes of a fiddle and +a flute, for two wandering musicians, habitués of these smaller cafés, +had wandered in to earn the price of their luncheon. They were playing, +not very well, but very plaintively, an old French song, one in vogue in +the Latin Quarter. The sun, still magnificently brilliant, had found its +way around to the back of the place, and over the court with the ruined +marbles the light streamed through the window and fell on Fairfax and +the little girl.</p> + +<p>"What do you say," he suggested abruptly, "to coming with me for the +afternoon? Let's go on the top of a tram and ride off somewhere."</p> + +<p>He rose, paid the man who came for his luncheon (the girl's score had +already been settled), and stood waiting. She fingered the tapes of her +closed portfolio, her lips still trembled. The sunlight was full on her, +shining on her hair, on her old worn cape, on the worn felt hat, on the +little figure which had been so full of courage and of dreams. Then she +looked up at Antony and rose.</p> + +<p>"I will go," she said, and he picked up the portfolio, tucked it under +his arm, and they walked out together, through the smoky larger room +where part of the lunchers were joining in the chorus of the song the +musicians played. And this little handful of the Latin Quarter saw the +two pass out together, as two pass together often from those Bohemian +refuges. Some one, as the door opened and shut on Antony and the girl, +cried: "Vive l'amour!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 266 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>On the way out to Versailles from the top of the tram, lifted high above +Paris and the river, alongside of the vulgar head, alongside of the +strange little English girl, Fairfax listened to the outpouring of her +heart. She took his interest for granted. With an appreciative +understanding of human nature, and as though she had been bearing a +burden for years which she had never let slip, she rested it now, and +her blue eyes on his, her hands in the old woollen gloves, which she had +slipped on before they started, clasped in her lap, she talked to +Fairfax. By the time the tram stopped before the Palace of Versailles, +he had heard her story. She was the daughter of an Irish clergyman. Nora +Scarlet was her name.</p> + +<p>Nora and Molly!</p> + +<p>But they were very different. This girl was as gay as a lark. She +laughed frankly aloud, musically, and put her hand on his with a free +"camaraderie." She made sparkling little faces at him and called him +softly, "Ami."</p> + +<p>"My name is Nora, Nora Scarlet, but I don't want you to tell me your +name until the end of the day, please. It is just a silly idea, but I +will call you 'Ami.' I daresay it is a great name you have got, and I +would rather feel that I don't want to know it too soon."</p> + +<p>She had shown talent in the school where she had started in Ireland, and +had taken a scholarship and had come to Paris to study, to venture +unprepared and quite wildly into the student life, to struggle on small +means and insufficient food uphill toward art. She displayed in talking +a touching confidence in herself and worship of beauty, as well as a +simple and loyal attitude toward life<!-- Page 267 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> in general. She occupied a +furnished room near the studio and, as she expressed it, "fished for +herself." She was the oldest of seven children, with a weight of +responsibility on herself. Her father's salary was ridiculous, she told +him, not enough to bring up one hungry child well, much less half a +dozen.</p> + +<p>"I thought that I could support myself with my art," she told Fairfax, +"and that I should soon be <i>arrivée, lancée</i>, but to-day, when the +criticism discouraged me and I knew that I should have to write home for +money soon, well ... I'd not like to tell you what strange fancies +came." She lifted up her finger and pointed at the river as it lay +between its shores. "And now," she glanced at him, "when you tell me, +too, that I am no good at painting!"</p> + +<p>"I haven't said that," remonstrated Fairfax; "but don't let's talk about +work now, what do you say? Let's have a holiday."</p> + +<p>They walked up the Palace over the cobbles of the courtyard and paused +to look back at the Route de Paris, that Miss Nora Scarlet might +thoroughly picture the procession of the fish-wives and the march of the +Paris populace up to Versailles, where the people swept its violent sea +over the royal courts and the foam rose to the windows where royal faces +whitened against the panes. Nora Scarlet and Fairfax wandered through +the great rooms, part of the tourist crowd. The handsome man limped, a +student's stoop across his shoulders, by the side of the small blond +girl with her student cape and her soft hat, her hair like chrysanthemum +petals. Fairfax took occasion in the portrait room to tell her that she +looked like a Greuze. Nora Scarlet was an appreciative sightseer.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if I could only paint," she murmured, "if I could only paint!" and +she clasped her woollen gloves prayerfully before the portraits of the +Filles de France. But the Nattiers and the Fragonards mocked her, and +the green portfolio under Fairfax's arm mocked her still more. Side by +side, they penetrated into the little rooms where a Queen lived, +intrigued, loved, and played her part. And Fairfax had his envies before +Houdon's head of Marie Antoinette.<!-- Page 268 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<p>The wide, sweet, leaf-strewn alleys were very nearly deserted where they +stood, for the day had grown colder and the winter sunlight left early +to give place to a long still winter evening. Their footsteps made no +sound on the brown carpet of the park. Antony had not stopped to ask +what kind of a woman the girl student was when he spontaneously left his +lonely seat in the restaurant to take his place at her side, but +everything she said to him revealed a frank, innocent mind. He saw that +she had come with him without thinking twice, and he should have been +touched by it. He drew her arm within his as they passed the great +fountain. The basin was empty and its curve as round and smooth as human +lips.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said, "the time has come to talk of you and what you want to +do and can do, and how you can do it."</p> + +<p>"That's awfully kind."</p> + +<p>"No, those are just the questions that I have to ask myself every day +and find on some days that I haven't got the answer. It's a riddle, you +know. We don't every day quite find the answer to it. I reckon we would +never go on if we did, but it's good sport to ask and try to find out, +and, believe me, Miss Nora Scarlet, two are better than one at a riddle, +aren't they?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, very much." They went along leisurely and after a second she +continued: "It's lonely in Paris for a girl who doesn't want to go in +for lots of things, and I have been getting muddled. But the worst +muddle is pounds, shillings and pence"—she laughed musically—"it's +reduced to pence at last, but I don't find the muddle reduced a bit."</p> + +<p>"You want to do portraits?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I haven't an idea about anything else."</p> + +<p>The trees above their heads made leafy bowers in summer, but now between +the fine bare branches, they saw the delicate wintry sky, pale with the +fading light of what had been a rare January day.</p> + +<p>"Suppose I get an order for you to paint a portrait and you are paid in +advance."</p> + +<p>She stopped, holding him back by the arm, and exclaimed, joyously<!-- Page 269 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you could not!"</p> + +<p>"Suppose that I can. If I do succeed and you paint the portrait, will +you do something for me?"</p> + +<p>She looked up at him quickly. He was much above her. Nora Scarlet had +seen Fairfax several times a week for many months. She knew him as well +as any person can know another by sight—she knew his clothes, the way +he wore them. It had been easy to study his face attentively, for he was +so absorbed in general that he was unconscious of scrutiny. She had +learned every one of his features pretty well by heart. Solitary as she +was, without companions or friends except for her studio mates, she had +grown to think as women do of a man they choose, to surround him with +fancies and images. She had idealized this unknown artist, and her +thoughts kept her company, and he had become almost part of her life +already. She looked up at him now and blushed. He put his hand down over +hers lightly.</p> + +<p>"I mean that when the portrait is finished, we will have it criticized +by the subject first, then by some one in whom you have great +confidence, and if you are certain then that you have a vocation, we +will see what can be done—some way will open up. There is always sure +to be a path toward the thing that is to be. But if the criticism is +unfavourable, I want you to promise me to go back to England and to your +people, and to give up art as bravely as you can—I mean, courageously, +like a good soldier who has fought well and lost the battle. Perhaps," +Fairfax said, smiling, "if I were not an artist my advice would be worth +less, but the place is too full of half-successes. If you can't be at +the top, don't fill up the ranks. Get down as soon as you can and be +another kind of success."</p> + +<p>The advice was sound and practical. She listened to his agreeable voice, +softened by the Southern accent. She watched him as he talked, but his +face was not that of an adviser. It was charmingly personal and his +smile the sweetest she had ever seen. She murmured—</p> + +<p>"You are awfully kind. I promise."</p> + +<p>"Good," he exclaimed heartily, "you are a first-rate sort; however it +turns out, you are plucky."<!-- Page 270 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> + +<p>The most delicious odours of moist earth, blessed with the day's +unexpected warmth, rose on the winter air. Their footfalls were lost in +the leaves. Far down at the end of the alley they could see other +strollers, but where they stood they were quite alone. The excitement of +the unusual outing, the pleasure of companionship, brought the colour to +their cheeks, a light to their eyes. The girl's helplessness, the human +struggle so like to his own, her admiration and her frankness, appealed +to him greatly. His late agitation, useless, hopeless, perilous +moreover, and which he felt he must overcome because it could have +neither issue nor satisfaction, made Fairfax turn here for satisfaction +and repose. They wandered slowly down the alley, her hand within his +arm, and he said, looking down at her—</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile, you belong to me."</p> + +<p>The words passed his lips before he realized what they meant, or their +importance. He did so as soon as he spoke. He felt her start. She +withdrew the hand from his arm. He stopped and said—</p> + +<p>"Did I frighten you?" He took her little hand.</p> + +<p>"A little," Nora Scarlet said. Her eyes were round and wide.</p> + +<p>Antony held her hand, looking at her, trying to see a deeper beauty in +her face than was there, greater depths in her eyes than they could +contain, more of the woman to fill his need and his loneliness. He +realized how great that loneliness was and how demanding. She seemed +like a child or a bird that he had caught ruthlessly.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you drink just now to our friendship?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, bit her lips, smiled, and her humour returned.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I drank to our friendship."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, and hesitated, "well...." He drew her a little toward +him; she resisted faintly, and Fairfax stopped and quickly kissed her, a +feeling of shame in his soul. He kissed her again, murmured something to +her, and she kissed him. Then she pushed him gently away, her face +crimson, her eyes full of tears.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she murmured, "you shouldn't have done it. It is too awful. +It's unworthy. Ami," she gasped, "do you know you are the first man I +ever let do that?<!-- Page 271 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> Do you believe me?" She was clinging to his hands, +half laughing, half sobbing, and the kiss was sweet, sweet, and the +moment was sweet. To one of them it was eternal, and could never come in +all her lifetime like that again.</p> + +<p>He stifled his self-reproach. He would have taken her in his arms again, +but she ran from him, swiftly, like the bird set free.</p> + +<p>"Wait," he called; "Nora Scarlet, I promise." He hurried to her. "You +forget I am a lame jackdaw."</p> + +<p>Then she stood still. They were walking together, his arm around her +waist, when they came out at the alley's end. Standing by a marble bust +on its pedestal, quite alone and meditative, as if she had just looked +up, seen something and nevertheless decided to wait, Fairfax saw Mrs. +Faversham.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 272 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>His first sensation, as he saw her, was as if a sudden light had broken +upon a soul's darkness which until this moment had blinded him, +oppressed him, condemned him; then there came a great revulsion against +himself. Mrs. Faversham was very pale, as white as the bust by whose +side she stood. She held out her hand, in its delicate glove, and tried +to greet him naturally.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mr. Rainsford?"</p> + +<p>He was conscious of how kind she was, how womanly. He had refused her +invitation and flaunted in her sight a vulgar pastoral. His cheeks were +hot, his lips hardly formed a greeting. This was the work he had offered +as an excuse to her when he had said that he could not go to Versailles. +"Then what is it to her?" he thought; "she is engaged to be married to +Cedersholm. What am I or my vulgarities to her?" There was a fresh +revulsion.</p> + +<p>"Will you let me present Miss Scarlet," he said quietly, "Mrs. +Faversham?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Faversham, who had recovered herself, gave her hand into the +woollen glove of Nora Scarlet, and, looking at the young girl, said that +perhaps they had been sketching.</p> + +<p>"Not in January," replied Nora with perfect self-possession. From the +crown of Mrs. Faversham's fur hat to the lady's shoes, the girl's honest +eyes had taken in her elegance and her grace. "We have been walking a +bit after Paris."</p> + +<p>Fairfax felt as though he had been separated from this lady for a long +time, as though he had just come back, after a voyage whose details were +tiresome. She seemed too divine to him and at once cruelly near and +cruelly removed, in her dark dress, her small walking hat with a<!-- Page 273 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> spray +of mistletoe shining against the fur, her faultless shoes, her face so +sweet and high-bred under her veil, her aloofness from everything with +which he came in contact, her freedom from care and struggle, from +temptation, from the sordidness of which he had long been a part. He +suffered horribly; short as the moment was, the acuteness of its +sensations comprised for him a miserable eternity.</p> + +<p>"I have my carriage here, Mr. Rainsford. Will you not let me drive you +both back to Paris?"</p> + +<p>He wanted nothing but to go with her then, any way, the farther the +better, and for ever. It came upon him suddenly, and he knew it. He +refused, of course, angry to be obliged to do so, angrier still at what +he was sure she would think was the reason for his doing so. She bade +them both good-bye, now thoroughly mistress of herself, and reminded him +that she would expect him the next day at three. She asked Miss Scarlet +many questions about her work and the schools, as they walked along a +little together, before Mrs. Faversham took the path that led to the +gate where her carriage waited.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When they were together again alone, Fairfax and his companion, in the +tram, he felt as though he had cut himself off once again, by his folly, +from everything desirable in the world. The night was cold. He did not +realize how silent he was or how silent she was. When they had nearly +reached Paris, Miss Scarlet said—</p> + +<p>"Is it her portrait you thought I might get to paint?"</p> + +<p>The question startled him, the voice as well. It was like being spoken +to suddenly by a perfect stranger.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered, "she is wonderfully generous and open-hearted. I am +sure that she would give you an order."</p> + +<p>"Please don't bother," said the girl proudly. "I would not take the +order."</p> + +<p>Her tone was so curt and short that it brought Fairfax back to +realities.</p> + +<p>"Why, pray, don't you find her paintable?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The girl's voice was contemptuous. "I don't know. I didn't look at her +with that idea."<!-- Page 274 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> + +<p>Fairfax had nothing left him but his self-reproach, his humiliation, his +sense of degradation, though God knows the outing was innocent enough! +The Thing had happened. The Event had transpired. The veil had been +drawn away from his heart when he saw her there in the park and spoke to +her. The idea that she must think him light and vulgar-minded, an +ordinary Bohemian, amusing himself as is the fashion in the Latin +Quarter, was unbearable to him. He would have given his right hand to +have been alone in the park and to have met her alone. Under the spell +of his suffering, he said cruelly to the girl whom he had so wantonly +captured—</p> + +<p>"If you won't let me help you in my way, I'm afraid I can't help you at +all."</p> + +<p>And she returned, controlling her voice: "No, I am afraid you cannot +help me."</p> + +<p>He was unconscious of her until they reached the centre of Paris and he +found himself in the street by her side, and they were crossing the Pond +des Arts on foot. The lamps were lit. The tumult and stir of the city +was around them, the odour of fires and the perfume of the city pungent +to their nostrils. They walked along silently, and Fairfax asked her +suddenly—</p> + +<p>"Where shall I take you? Where do you live?" and realized as he spoke +how little he knew of her, how unknown they were to each other, and yet +what a factor she had been in his emotional life. He had held her in his +arms and kissed her not three hours ago.</p> + +<p>She put her hand out to him. "We will say good-bye here," she said +evenly. "I can go home alone."</p> + +<p>"Oh no," he objected, but he saw by her face that in her, too, a +revulsion had taken place, perhaps stronger than his own. He was ashamed +and annoyed. He put out his hand and hers just touched it.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," she said, "for the excursion, and would you please give me +my portfolio?"</p> + +<p>He handed it to her. Then quite impulsively: "I don't want to part from +you like this. Why should I? Let me take you home, won't you?"</p> + +<p>He wanted to say, "Forgive me," but she had possessed herself of her +little sketches, the poor, inadequate work of fruitless months. She +turned and was gone<!-- Page 275 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> almost running up the quays, as she had run before +him down the alley of Versailles. He saw her go with great relief, and, +when the little brown figure was lost in the Paris multitude, he turned +and limped home to the studio in the Quais.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 276 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>He did not go to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne at the appointed hour, +and was so ungracious as not to send her any word. He took the time for +his own work, and from thence on devoted himself to finishing the +portrait of his mother. Meanwhile, Dearborn, enveloped in smoke, dug +into the mine of his imagination and brought up treasures and nearly +completed his play. He recited from it copiously, read it aloud, wept at +certain scenes which he assured Tony would never be as sad to any +spectator as they were to him.</p> + +<p>"I wrote them on an empty stomach," he said.</p> + +<p>Fairfax, meanwhile, finished his statuette and decided to send it to an +exhibition of sculpture to be opened in the Rue de Sčvres. He had +bitterly renounced his worldly life, and was shortly obliged to pawn his +dress suit, and, indeed, anything else that the young men could gather +together went to the Mont de Piété, and once more the comrades were +nearly destitute and were really clad and fed by their visions and their +dreams.</p> + +<p>"You see," he said one day, shortly, to Dearborn, when the silence +between the quays and the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne had grown +intolerable to him, "you see how indifferent she is. She doesn't know +what has become of me. For all she knows I may be drowned in the Seine."</p> + +<p>"Or imprisoned for debt," said Dearborn, cheerfully, "that's more +likely. The tailor doesn't believe you have gone to London, Fairfax. Try +a more congenial place, Tony. Let it be Monte Carlo next time—every one +goes there sooner or later."</p> + +<p>When he came back from Versailles he told Dearborn nothing about his +escapade in detail, simply mentioning<!-- Page 277 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> the fact that he had taken out a +little girl to spend the day in the woods and that she had bored him in +the end, and that he had had the misfortune to meet Mrs. Faversham +unexpectedly.</p> + +<p>Dearborn was one of those subtle spirits who do not need to be told +everything. He rated Antony for playing what he called an ungallant part +to the little Bohemian.</p> + +<p>"You say her hair was like chrysanthemums and that she had violet eyes? +Why, she is a priceless treasure, Tony! How could you desert her?"</p> + +<p>And several times Dearborn tried to extract something more about the +deserted little girl from his friend, but it was in vain.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry," Dearborn said. "We need women, Tony—we need to see the +flutter of their dresses, to watch them come and go in this little room. +By Jove, I often want to open the door and invite up the concierge, the +concierge's wife, his aunt 'and children three' or any, or all of Paris +who would come and infuse new life into us. Anything that is real flesh +and blood, to chase for a moment visions and dreams away and let us +touch real hands."</p> + +<p>"You don't go out enough, old man."</p> + +<p>"And you went out too much, Fairfax. It's not going out—I want some one +to come in. I want to see the studio peopled. You have grown so morose +and I have become such a navvy that our points of view will be false the +first thing we know."</p> + +<p>The snow had been falling lightly. There was a little fringe of it along +the sill, and toward sunset it had turned cold, and under the winter fog +the sun hung like an orange ball behind a veil. The Seine flowed tawny +and yellow under their eyes, as they stood together talking in the +window.</p> + +<p>Fairfax was in his painting clothes, the playwright in his beloved +dressing-gown that Fairfax had not the heart to pawn for coffee and +coal. There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs without.</p> + +<p>"It's the fellows coming to take my statuette," said Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"It's the tailor, the bootmaker and the shirtmaker,"<!-- Page 278 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> said Dearborn. "Go +behind the screen, Tony—run to Monte Carlo."</p> + +<p>There was a tap at the door and a cheerful voice called—</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rainsford, <i>c'est moi</i>."</p> + +<p>"It is Potowski. I will have to let him in, Bob. Here's all Paris for +you. You wanted it."</p> + +<p>He opened the door for Count Potowski.</p> + +<p>The Polish singer came quickly in, his silk hat and his cane in his +hand. He looked around brightly.</p> + +<p>"You don't hide from me," he said. "I have a fatal grasp when I take +hold. You never call on me, Monsieur—so I call on you. Guerrea!—which +means in Polish what 'altro' means in Italian, 'Doch' in German, 'Voilŕ' +in French, and in unenthusiastic English, nothing at all."</p> + +<p>Fairfax presented the Count to Dearborn, who beamed on him, amused, and +Potowski glanced at the cold, cheerless Bohemia. It was meagre. It was +cold. Privation was apparent. The place was not without a charm, and it +had distinction. There were the evidences of intense work, of devotion +to the ideal. There were the evidences of good taste and good breeding. +The few bits of furniture were old and had been bought for a song, but +selected with judgment. Fairfax's statuette waited on its pedestal to be +carried away—in the winter light, softened and subdued by mist, Mrs. +Fairfax read in her chair. Dearborn's table, strewn with his papers and +books, told of hours spent at a beloved labour. There was nothing +material to attract—no studio properties or decorations to speak of. +Two long divans were placed against a wall of agreeable colour. There +was nothing but the spirit of art and work, and the spirit of youth as +well, but Potowski was delighted. He pointed to the statuette.</p> + +<p>"This," he said, "is the lovely lady with whom you have been shut up all +these days. It is charming, Monsieur."</p> + +<p>"It is a study of my mother as I remember her."</p> + +<p>"I salute it," said Potowski, making a little inclination. "I salute +<i>you</i>. It is beautiful." He put his hand on Fairfax's arm. "You do my +wife. You do the<!-- Page 279 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> Contessa," said Potowski, "the same. I adore it. It +looks my wife. It might be her, Monsieur. But all beauty is alike, is +not it? One lovely woman is all women. Are you not of my opinion?"</p> + +<p>He swam toward Dearborn who was fascinated by Potowski's overcoat lined +with fur, and with the huge fur collar, with his patent shoes with their +white tops, with his bright waistcoat, his single eyeglass, his shining +silk hat and, above all, by the gay foreign face, its waxed moustache +and its sparkling dark eyes.</p> + +<p>Dearborn wrapped his dressing-gown modestly around him to conceal his +shirtless, collarless condition. Running his hands through dishevelled +red hair, he responded—</p> + +<p>"No, I don't agree with you. I guess your feminine psychology is at +fault there, Count."</p> + +<p>"<i>Rreally</i> not," murmured the Count, looking at him eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Dearborn is a playwright," said Antony. "He is a great student of +character."</p> + +<p>Potowski waved his hand in its light glove. "You write plays, Monsieur? +You shall write me a libretto. I have been looking for ever for some one +to write the words for a <i>hopera</i> I am making."</p> + +<p>Dearborn nodded. "Far from being all alike, I don't think that there +have been two women alike since Eve."</p> + +<p>"<i>Rreally!</i>"</p> + +<p>Potowski looked at the red-headed man as if he wondered whether he had +met and known all women.</p> + +<p>"You find it so, Monsieur? Now I have been married three times. Every +one of them were lovely women. I find them all the same."</p> + +<p>"You must have a very adaptable, assimilating and modifying nature," +said Dearborn, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Modifying? What is that?" asked the Pole sweetly.</p> + +<p>Neither of the young men made excuses for the icy cold room. They were +too proud. They had nothing to offer Potowski, not even a cigarette, but +the Pole forced his cigar-case upon them, telling them that he made his +cigarettes with a machine by the thousand.</p> + +<p>"My wife, Contessa Potowski, makes them, I mean.<!-- Page 280 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> I do myself the +pleasure to send you a box. They're contraband. You will be arrested if +the police knows so."</p> + +<p>"That," said Dearborn, "would really disappoint the tailor. I think he +would like to get in his own score first. But I would rather go to +prison as a contrabander than as a debtor."</p> + +<p>They sat on the sofa together and smoked, their breath white in the cold +room. But the amiable Potowski beamed on them, and Antony saw Dearborn's +delight at the outside element. And Dearborn sketched his scenario, the +colour hot in his thin cheeks, and Potowski, rubbing his hands to warm +them, hummed airs from his own opera in a heavenly voice, and the voice +and the enthusiasm magnetized poor Dearborn, carried out of his rut, and +before he knew it he had promised to write a libretto for "Fiametta."</p> + +<p>Whilst they talked the porters came and took away the statuette of Mrs. +Fairfax, and Potowski said—</p> + +<p>"It was like seeing <i>they</i> carry away my wife." And, when they had gone, +Antony lighted the candles and Potowski rose and cried, as though the +idea had just come to him: "Guerrea! My friends, I am alone to-night. My +wife has gone to sing in Brussels. I implore you to come out to dinner +with me—I know not where." He glanced at the sculptor and playwright, +as they stood in the candle light. He had only seen Fairfax a +well-dressed visitor at Mrs. Faversham's entertainments. On him now a +different light fell. In his working clothes, there was nothing +poverty-stricken about him, but the marks of need were unmistakably in +the environment. He spoke to Dearborn, but he looked at Fairfax. "I have +grown very fond of him. I love to speak my thoughts at him. We don't +always agree, but we are always good for each other. I have not seen him +for some time. I thought he go away."</p> + +<p>Dearborn smiled. "He <i>was</i> just going to Monte Carlo," he murmured.</p> + +<p>Potowski, who did not hear, went on: "We will go and eat in some +restaurant on this side of the river. I am tired of the Café de Paris. +We will see a play afterwards. There is 'La Dame aux Camélias' with the +divine Sarah. We laugh at dinner and we shall go and sob at La Dame<!-- Page 281 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> aux +Camélias. I like a happy weeping now and then." He swam toward them +affably and appealingly. "I don't dress. I go as I am."</p> + +<p>Dearborn grasped one of the yellow-gloved hands and shook it.</p> + +<p>"Hang it all! I'm going, Tony. There are two pair of boots, anyhow. I +haven't been to a play," he laughed excitedly, "since I was a child. +Hustle, Tony, we will toss up for the best suit of clothes."</p> + +<p>The drama of Dumas gave Antony a beautiful escape from reality. La Dame +aux Camélias disenchanted him from his own problems for the time. In the +Count's box he sat in the background and fed his eyes and his ears with +the romantic and ardent art of the Second Empire. He found the piece +great, mobile, and palpitating, and he was not ashamed. The divine Sarah +and Marguerite Gautier died before his eyes, and out of the ashes +womanhood arose and called to him, as the Venus de Milo had called to +him down the long gallery, and distractions he had known seemed soulless +and unreal shapes. He worshipped Dumas in his creation.</p> + +<p>"Rainsford," whispered Potowski, laying his hand on Antony's knee, "what +do you t'ink, my friend?" The tears were raining down his mobile face; +he sighed. "<i>Arrt</i>," he said in his mellow whisper, "is only the +expression of the feeling, the beautiful expression of the feeling. That +is the meaning of all <i>arrt</i>."</p> + +<p>The big red curtain fell slowly and the three men, poet, singer and +sculptor, kept their seats as though still under the spell of Dumas and +unable to break it.</p> + +<p>"Tony," said Dearborn, as they went out together, "I am going to burn up +all four acts."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 282 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>The middle of January arrived, and he thought Cedersholm would have come +by that time and supposed that they would be off for Rome.</p> + +<p>The study of his mother was accepted by the jury for the exhibition in +the Rue de Sčvres, and Fairfax went on the opening day, saw his name in +the catalogue, and his study on the red pedestal made a dark mellow note +amongst the marbles. He stood with the crowd and listened with beating +heart to the comments of the public. He watched the long-haired +Bohemians and the worldly people, the Philistine and the élite as they +surged, a little sea of criticism, approval, praise and blame, through +the rooms.</p> + +<p>"Pas mal, ça." "Here is a study that is worth looking at." "By whom is +this?"</p> + +<p>And each time that he heard his name read aloud—Thomas Rainsford—he +was jealous of it for Antony. It seemed a sacrilege, a treachery. He +wandered about, looking at the other exhibits, but could not keep away +from his own, and came back timidly, happily, to stand by the figure of +his mother in her chair. There was much peace in the little work of art, +much repose. He seemed to see himself again a boy, as he had been that +day when she asked for the cherries and he had run off to climb for +them—and had gone limping ever since. She had sat languidly with her +book that day, as she sat now, immortalized by her son in clay.</p> + +<p>Some one came up and touched his arm. "Bonjour, Rainsford." It was +Barye, his chief. He had been looking at the group behind the sculptor. +He said briefly: "Je vous félicite, monsieur." He smiled on his +journey<!-- Page 283 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>man from under shaggy brows. "They will talk about you in the +<i>Figaro</i>. C'est exquis."</p> + +<p>Fairfax thanked him and watched Barye's face as the master scrutinized +and went around the little figure. He put out his hand to Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"Come and see me to-morrow. I want to talk to you."</p> + +<p>Fairfax answered that he would be sure to come, just as though he were +not modelling at the studio for ten francs a day. He had been careful +all along not to repeat his error of years before. He had avoided +personalities with his master, as he toiled like a common day-labourer, +content to make his living and to display no originality; but now he +felt a sense of fellowship with the great Frenchman and walked along by +Barye's side to the door, proud to be so distinguished. He glanced over +the crowd in the hope of seeing Her, but instead, walking through the +rooms, his eyeglass in his eye, the little red badge of the Legion of +Honour in his coat, he saw Cedersholm.</p> + +<p>The following day, when he went to the exhibition, the man at the door +handed a catalogue to Fairfax and pointed to No. 102, against which was +the word "Sold." His price had been unpretentious.</p> + +<p>"Moreover," said the man, "No. 102 will certainly have a medal."</p> + +<p>Fairfax, his hands in his empty pockets, was less impressed by that +prognostication than by the fact that there was money for him somewhere. +The man opened the desk and handed Fairfax an envelope with five hundred +francs in it.</p> + +<p>"Who was the purchaser?" Fairfax looked at the receipt he was given to +sign and read: "Sold to Mr. Cedersholm."</p> + +<p>"Mais non," he exclaimed shortly, "ça, non!"</p> + +<p>He was assured, however, that it was the American sculptor and no other. +On his way home he reflected, "She sent him to purchase it." And the +five hundred francs bill burned in his pocket. Then he called himself a +fool and asked what possible interest she could still have in Thomas +Rainsford, whose news she had not taken in four weeks. And also, he +reflected, that so far as Cedersholm was concerned, Thomas Rainsford had +nothing<!-- Page 284 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> to do with Antony Fairfax. "He merely admired my work," he +reflected bitterly. "He has seemed always singularly to admire it."</p> + +<p>He paid some pressing debts, got his clothes out of pawn, left Dearborn +what he wanted, and was relieved when the last sou of the money was +gone.</p> + +<p>"I wonder, Bob," he said to Dearborn, "when I shall ever have any +'serious money.'" And with sudden tenderness he thought of Bella.</p> + +<p>Dearborn, who had also recovered a partially decent suit of clothes, +displayed his trousers and said—</p> + +<p>"I think some chap has been wearing my clothes and stretched them." They +hung loose on him.</p> + +<p>Fairfax laughed. "You have only shrunk, Bob, that's all. You need +feeding up."</p> + +<p>The studio had undergone a slight transformation, which the young men +had been forced to accede to. A grand piano covered with a bright bit of +brocade stood in the centre of the studio, a huge armchair, with a +revolving smoking-table, by its side. The chair was for Dearborn to loll +in and dream in whilst Potowski played and sang at the piano. Dearborn +was thus supposed to work the libretto for "Fiametta."</p> + +<p>Potowski, who came in at all hours, charmed the very walls with his +voice, sang and improvised; Fairfax worked on the study he was making +for Barye, and Dearborn, in the big chair, swathed in his wrapper, made +notes, or more often fell serenely to sleep, for he worked all night on +his own beloved drama, and if it had not been for Potowski he would have +slept nearly all day. The Pole, at present, had gone to Belgium to fetch +his wife, who had been away for several weeks.</p> + +<p>When there was a knock on the door on this afternoon, the young men, +used to unexpected visitors, cried out—</p> + +<p>"Come in—entrez donc!"</p> + +<p>But there was the murmur of a woman's voice without, and Fairfax, his +sculpting tools in his hands, opened the door. It was Mrs. Faversham.</p> + +<p>He stood for a dazed second unable even to welcome her. Dearborn sprang +up in embarrassment and amusement. Mrs. Faversham herself was not +embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Is not Potowski here?" shaking hands with Antony.<!-- Page 285 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> "I had expected to +meet him. Didn't he tell you that I was coming? I understood that you +expected me."</p> + +<p>Fairfax shut the door behind her. "You are more than welcome. This is my +friend, Mr. Dearborn. You may have heard Potowski speak of him."</p> + +<p>She shook hands with the red-haired playwright, whom she captivated at +once by her cordiality and her sweet smile. Of course she had heard of +him and the libretto. Potowski had given her to understand that she +might hear the overture of "Fiametta."</p> + +<p>The young men exchanged glances and neither of them told her that +Potowski was in Belgium. Dearborn rolled the chair toward her and waved +to it gracefully.</p> + +<p>"This is the chair of the muses, Mrs. Faversham, and not one of them has +been good enough to sit in it before now."</p> + +<p>She laughed and sat down, and Fairfax looked at her with joy.</p> + +<p>"We must give Mrs. Faversham some tea," said Dearborn, "and if you will +excuse me while we wait for Potowski, I will pop out and get some milk +and you boil the tea-kettle."</p> + +<p>He took his hat and cape and ran out, leaving them alone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Faversham looked at the sculptor in his velveteen working clothes, +the background of his workshop, its disorder and its poverty around him.</p> + +<p>"How nice it is here," she said. "I don't wonder you are a hermit."</p> + +<p>"Oh," he exclaimed, "don't compliment this desolation."</p> + +<p>She interrupted him. "I think it is charming. You feel the atmosphere of +living and of work. You seem to see things here that are not visible in +rooms where nothing is accomplished."</p> + +<p>He sat down beside her. "Are there such rooms?" he asked. "I don't +believe it. The most thrilling dramas take place, don't they, in the +most commonplace settings?"</p> + +<p>As though she feared that Dearborn would come back, she said quickly—</p> + +<p>"I don't know why you should have been so unkind.<!-- Page 286 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> I have heard nothing +of you for weeks, do you know, excepting through Potowski. It wasn't +kind, was it?"</p> + +<p>"I was rude and ungrateful, but I could not do otherwise."</p> + +<p>She bent forward to him as he sat on the divan. "I wonder why?" she +asked. "Were we not friends? Could you not have trusted me? Do you think +me so narrow and conventional—so stupid?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he exclaimed, and he smiled a little, thinking of Nora Scarlet. +"It is not quite what you think."</p> + +<p>He was angry with her, with the facts of their existence, with her great +fortune, and her engagement to the man he despised above all others, his +own incognito and the fact that she had sent Cedersholm to buy his +study, and that he could not express to her, without insult, his +feelings or tell her frankly who he was.</p> + +<p>"You were not kind, Mr. Rainsford."</p> + +<p>He reflected that she thought him the lover of a Latin Quarter student, +if she thought at all, which she probably did not. Without humility he +confessed—</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have been very rude indeed." He wiped his clay-covered hands +slowly, each finger separately, his eyes bent. He rose abruptly. "Would +you care to look at a study I am making for Barye?" He drew off the +cloths from the clay he was engaged in modelling. She only glanced at +the group and he asked her, almost roughly: "Why did you buy by proxy my +little study in the exhibition? Why did you ask Cedersholm to do so?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Faversham looked at him in frank surprise. "Your study in the +exhibition? I knew nothing of it. I did not know you had exhibited. I +have been ill for a fortnight, and have not seen a paper or heard a hit +of news."</p> + +<p>He was softened. His emotions violently contradicted themselves, and he +saw now that she had grown a little thinner and looked pale.</p> + +<p>"Have you been ill? What a boor you must think me never to have +returned!"</p> + +<p>She was standing close to the pedestal and rested her hand on the +support near his wooden tools. She wore a beautiful grey drees, such a +one as only certain Parisian<!-- Page 287 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> hands can create. It fitted her to +perfection, displaying her shape, and, where the fur opened at the neck, +amongst the lace he saw the gleaming and flashing of a jewel whose value +would have made a man rich. Already the air was sweet with the fragrance +of the scent she used. She had been in grey when he had first seen her +on the day of the unveiling of the monument. Fairfax passed his hand +across his eyes, as though to brush away a vision which, like a mist, +was still between them. He put his hand down over hers on the pedestal.</p> + +<p>"I love you," he said very low. "That is the matter. That is the +trouble. I love you. I want you to know it. I dare love you. I am +perfectly penniless and I am glad of it. I want to owe everything to my +art, to climb through the thorns to where I shall some day reach. I am +proud of my poverty and of my emancipation from everything that others +think is necessary to happiness. I am rude. I cannot help it. I shall +never see you again. I ought not to speak to you in my barren room. I +know that you are not free and that you are going to be married, but you +must hear once what I have to tell you. I love you.... I love you."</p> + +<p>She was as motionless as the grey study. He might himself have made and +carved "the woman in her entirety," for she stood motionless before him.</p> + +<p>"Tell Cedersholm," he said bitterly, "tell him that a poor sculptor, a +struggler who lives to climb beyond him, who will some day climb beyond +him, loves you."</p> + +<p>The arrogance and pride of his words and her immobility affected him +more than a reproof or even speech. He took her in his arms, and she was +neither marble nor clay, but a woman there.</p> + +<p>"Tell him," he murmured close to her cheek, "that I have kissed you and +held you."</p> + +<p>And here she said; "Hush!" almost inaudibly, and released herself. She +was trembling. She put her hands to her eyes. "I shall tell him nothing. +He is nothing to me. I sent him away when he first came, a fortnight +ago. I shall never see Cedersholm again."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Tony, looking at her in rapture, "what, you are <i>free</i>?" +At his heart there was triumph, excitement, wonder, all blending with +the bigger emotion.<!-- Page 288 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> He heard himself ask her eagerly: "Why, why did you +do this?"</p> + +<p>There were tears on her eyelids.</p> + +<p>His face flushing, his eyes illumined, he looked down on her and lifted +her face to him in both his hands.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I think you know," she murmured, her lips trembling.</p> + +<p>He gave a cry, and as he was about again to embrace her they heard +Dearborn's step upon the stairs.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Mrs. Faversham was in the window looking out upon Paris, and Fairfax was +modelling on his study when the playwright came in with a can of milk, +some madeleines and a pot of jam.</p> + +<p>After she had gone he wanted to escape and be alone, but Dearborn +chatted, pacing the studio, whilst Fairfax dressed and shaved, praising +the visitor.</p> + +<p>"She's a great lady, Tony. What breeding and race! And she's not what +the books call 'indifferent' to you."</p> + +<p>"Go to the devil, Dearborn!"</p> + +<p>Dearborn went to work instead, not to lose the inspiration of the lovely +woman. He began a new scene, and dressed his character in dove grey with +silver fox at her throat.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 289 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>Fairfax, at the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, found instead of the +entrance he had expected, a note for him.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"I cannot see you to-night. Be generous,—understand me. Mr. +Cedersholm leaves for Russia to-morrow, he has asked me as a last +favour to let him see me. I have done him so much wrong that I +cannot refuse him. Come early to-morrow morning, and we will walk +in the Bois together.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"I am yours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"<span class="smcap">Mary</span>."</span><br /> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>He read the letter before the footman, and the "yours, Mary" made his +heart bound and his throat contract. He walked toward the Champs Elysées +slowly, thinking. Cedersholm sailed to-morrow, away from France. He was +sent away beaten, bruised, conquered. He must have loved her. No man +could help it. Was this the beginning of Fairfax's triumph? Well, he +could not help it—he was glad. Cedersholm had stolen his fire, the +labour of his youth, and now he would not have been human if there had +not been a thrill through him that the conqueror knows. He could spare +him this farewell evening with the woman who signed herself "I am yours, +Mary."</p> + +<p>"Vade in Pace," he murmured.</p> + +<p>Then the vision of the woman rose more poignant than anything else, and +he saw her as she had stood under his hands, the tears in her eyes, and +the fire and pallor of passion on her face.</p> + +<p>What should he do now? Marry her, of course. He would be married, then, +twice at thirty. He shook his broad shoulders as though instinctively he +chafed under the sudden adjusting to them of a burden. He limped<!-- Page 290 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> out +into the Champs Elysées, under the rows of light where the lamps were +like illumined oranges. The vehicles twinkled by like fire-flies in the +mist. Before him was the Palais de l'Industrie and back of it stretched +the Champ de Mars and Napoleon's tomb. The freedom of the night and the +hour was sweet to him; and he dreamed as he limped slowly down the +Avenue under the leafless trees. Probably wisdom would tell him that, if +he married now, it would be the end of his career. Love was an +inspiration, a sharp impelling power to art, but marriage, a home, +another household, another hearth and family, beautiful as the picture +was, seemed to him, even bright and keen as was his passion, to be +captivity. And the memory of Albany came back to him, the cold winter +months, the days on the engine, the blizzards against the tenement +panes, household cares, small and petty, the buying of coal and food, +and the constant duties which no man can shrink from and be a man, and +which fret the free spirit of the creator. Moreover, the anguish of +those days returned, biting his very entrails at the remembrance of his +griefs, his remorse, his regrets. Molly by the study light, patient and +wifely, rose before his eyes. There was his wife, and she seemed holy +and stainless, set apart for that position and very perfect. He saw her +lying pale and cold, beautiful as marble, with the little swathed form +on her bosom, which had given and never nourished. He saw them both—his +wife and child. Can a man begin over again? Can he create anew, +perfectly anew, the same vision? He saw her go through the open door, +holding it wide for him. So she should hold it at the last. He could +give her this. He had defrauded her of so much. He could give to her to +eternity a certain faithfulness.</p> + +<p>He was exalted. He walked freely, with his head uplifted. It was a misty +evening and the mists blew about him as he limped along in his student's +cape, his spirit communing with his ideals and with his dead. Before, +his visions took form and floated down the Avenue. Now they seemed +unearthly, without any stain of human desire, without any worldly +tarnish. He must be free. The latitude of his life must be unbounded by +any human law, otherwise he would never attain. The flying forms were +sexless and his eyes pursued them like a worshipper.<!-- Page 291 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> They were angelic. +For the moment he had emancipated himself from passion.</p> + +<p>He reached the Place de la Concorde. It was ten o'clock. He could not go +home to be questioned by Dearborn—indeed, he could not have stood a +companion. He called a cab and told the man to drive him up to the Bois +de Boulogne, and they rolled slowly up the Avenue down which he had just +come. But in what position did he stand toward Mary Faversham? She had +refused Cedersholm because she loved him and he loved her—more than he +ever could love, more than he ever had loved. A cab passed him in which +two forms were enlaced. The figures of two lovers blotted in the +darkness. Along the alleys, under the winter trees, every now and then +he saw other lovers walking arm-in-arm, even in winter warmed by the +eternal fire. He touched his pocket where her note lay and his emotions +stirred afresh.</p> + +<p>He dreamed of her.</p> + +<p>He had been tortured day by day, these weeks, by jealousy of Cedersholm, +and this helped him on in his sentimental progress. They passed the +street, which a moment before he had taken from her house, to come out +upon the Champs Elysées. They rolled into the Bois, under the damp +darkness and the night, and the forest odours came to him through the +window of the cab. She would have to wait until he was rich and famous. +As far as her fortune was concerned, if she loved him she could give it +to the poor. He could tell her how to use it. She should never spend a +cent of it on herself. He must be able to suffice for her and for him. +Rich or poor, the woman who married him would have to take him as he +was. On the lake the mists blew over the water. They lay white as +spirits among the trees. Everything about the dark and silent night was +beautiful to him, made beautiful by the sacred warfare in his own mind. +Above all came the human eagerness to see her again, to touch her again, +to tell his love, to hear her say what Dearborn's coming had prevented. +And he would see her to-morrow morning. It was profanity to walk in +these woods without her.</p> + +<p>"Go back," he called to the coachman, "go back quietly to the Quais."<!-- Page 292 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<p>He hoped that he should be able to sleep and that the next day would +come quickly. He became ardent and devoted as he dreamed, and all the +way back his heart ached for her.</p> + +<p>When he entered the studio and called Dearborn he received no response. +There was a note from the playwright on the table—he would not be +back until the next morning.</p> + +<p>Fairfax, his hand under his pillow, crushed her letter, and the words: +"I am yours, Mary," flushed his palm and his cheek.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He had been awake since dawn, fire in his blood and heart animating his +brain and stimulating his creative power. In the early light he had +seated himself to make a few sketches, drawing little exquisite studies +of her, and the face on the paper was ideal, irritatingly so. The chin +and the cheek was young and soft, too youthful for Mrs. Faversham. It +suggested Bella.</p> + +<p>When he went to see her that afternoon, for the first time he was shown +upstairs. Each step was sacred to him as he mounted to the part of the +house in which she lived her intimate life. The stairs were marble, +covered by thick rugs; the iron balustrade had been brought from a +château in the days of the Revolution. Along the wall at his side hung +splendid tapestries, whose colours would have delighted him at another +time. But his eyes now were blinded to material things. His soul, heart +and nature were aflame, and he walked on air. When he was shown into a +small room, Mrs. Faversham's own sitting-room, his agitation was so +great that he seemed to walk through a mist.</p> + +<p>She was not there. The day was fresh and the wood fire burning across +the andirons called to him with a friendly voice. The objects by which +she surrounded herself represented a fortune; the clock before him, +which marked the hour in which he first came to see his love, had +belonged to Marie Antoinette, and it beamed on the lover from its wise +old clever face,—crystal water fell noiselessly, as the minutes passed, +from a little golden mill over which watched two Loves like millers. +There were her books on the table, bound with art and taste.<!-- Page 293 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> There were +her writing things on her desk, and a half-finished letter on the +blotter. There was her "chaise-longue" with its protective pillows, its +sable cover, and between the lace curtains Antony could see the trees of +the park. On the footstool a Pekinese dog sat looking at him +malevolently. It lifted its fluffy body daintily and raised its +impertinent little face to the visitor. Then a door opened and she came +in murmuring his name. Antony, seeing her through a mist of love which +had not yet cleared, took her in his arms, calling her "Mary, Mary!" He +felt the form and shape of her in his arms. As dream women had never +given themselves to him, so she seemed to yield.</p> + +<p>When they sat side by side on the little sofa the Pekinese dog jumped up +and sat between them. She caressed it with one hand, laying the other on +Antony's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I must tell you my life," he said, and his sight cleared as he spoke, +and he saw her face transformed by its emotion, her eyes adoring and +beautiful, her lips parted as if the breath of life he had given to her +left her wondering still.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me of anything to-day."</p> + +<p>He took the hand that lay on his shoulder and raised it. "I must tell +you now."</p> + +<p>"I ask for nothing, Antony. What does the past matter?" She bent forward +and kissed him on his eyes. "I would like to think they had never looked +at anything before to-day."</p> + +<p>He smiled. "But they have looked hard at many things, Mary. They will +always look deeply, and I want you to look back with me."</p> + +<p>She sighed. "Then, forward with me." The Pekinese dog sprang into her +lap. "Go on," she said docilely; "but I am so divinely happy! Why should +we think of anything else?"</p> + +<p>He brushed away the mist that threatened again to cloud his vision. He +took her hand and held it firmly and, lifting up his head, began frankly +to tell her of his past.</p> + +<p>"I am a Southerner, born in New Orleans...."</p> + +<p>As he talked she listened spellbound by his power of<!-- Page 294 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> narrative. In his +speech he was as charming a creator as in his art. She saw the picture +of his Louisiana home; she saw the exquisite figure of his mother; she +saw the beginning of his genius and his poetic, dreaming years. When he +began the more realistic part of his story, talking aloud like this of +himself for the first time to a woman he loved, he forgot her entirely, +carried back by a strong force to the beginning of his struggles in New +York. She listened, unchanged and a little terrified, as he told her of +his work in the sculptor's studio, disguising the name of the man for +whom he worked. She stopped him, her hand on his. So had she asked +previously Cedersholm. Her voice brought him back to the present, to a +feeling that for nothing in the world would he tell her yet, and he said +"No, no," veiling the fact so that he could not guess, and passed over +the misery of his master's treachery and his defeat. But through his +narrative like a flame, charming, brilliant, vivifying, flashed the +personality of Bella, though a child only, still a woman, and again Mary +Faversham, with her hand on his stopped him—</p> + +<p>"What a bewitching child," she said. "Don't speak of her with such fire. +I believe you loved her! She must be a woman."</p> + +<p>Antony stirred. He rose from the divan where he was sitting and crossed +over to the fireplace and stood by the eighteenth-century clock where +the crystal water fell with the passing moments. She looked at him as he +stood there, powerfully built, strong, the light of his feeling and of +his introspection kindling in his eyes and on his brow. It had been +three o'clock when he began his story. The afternoon grew paler, the +fire died down to ashes on the little hearth. He took a cigarette from +his pocket, lit it and stood smoking a few moments. Then he went in his +imagination to Albany and carried his hearer with him, and he began to +speak of Molly. He waited for a moment before laying bare to her his +intimate life. As he turned and met her eyes, he said—</p> + +<p>"I do not know how to tell you this. You must listen as well as you can. +It is life, you know, and there are many kinds."</p> + +<p>Antony, absorbed in his speech, forgot her entirely. He told her of +Molly Shannon with a tenderness that<!-- Page 295 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> would have moved any woman. When +he closed the chapter of his married life, with his last words a silence +fell, and he saw that she was moved beyond what he had dreamed she would +be. He went back to her, waited a moment, then sat down and put his arm +around her.</p> + +<p>"That is my past," he murmured. "Can you forget what there is in it of +defeat and forget its sorrow?"</p> + +<p>She kissed him and murmured: "I love you the better for it. It seems you +have come to me through thorny ways, Antony. Perhaps I can make you +forget them."</p> + +<p>He did not tell her that she would. Even in this moment, when she was in +his arms, he knew that in her there would be no such oblivion for him. +The marks were too deep upon him. He felt them now. With what he had +been saying, there came back to him a sense of the tremendous burden he +had borne when poor, a sense of the common burden we all bear and which +in the heart of the poet nothing ever entirely lifts.</p> + +<p>"Listen," he said urgently and with a certain solemnity. "Any other man +would speak to you about nothing but love. I can do it some day perhaps +too easily, but not now, for this is our beginning and between us both +there must be nothing to conceal." He thought she started a little, and +said hastily: "I mean, nothing for our souls to hide. What I have told +you is my life, but it does not end there. I adore my work. I am a +worker born, I don't know how much of one, but I must give my time and +my talent to it."</p> + +<p>"I know, I know," she breathed. "Do you think I don't realize it, +Antony? Do you think I don't adore you for it? Why, it is part of what +makes me love you."</p> + +<p>"That is all," he said. "I could no more emancipate myself from my work +than I can from my ideals; they are part of me. I am perfectly poor."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed, softly, "don't, don't speak of that."</p> + +<p>He turned his fine eyes on her with a light in them whose courage and +beauty she did not understand.</p> + +<p>"Why not speak of it?" he asked quietly. "I am not ashamed of the fact +that I have no money. Such as money is, I shall make it some day, and I +shall not<!-- Page 296 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> value it then any more than I do now. It is necessary, I +begin to see, but only that. Its only importance is the importance we +give to it: to keep straight with our kind; to justify our existence, +and," he continued, "to help the next man."</p> + +<p>His face took a firmer expression. More than in his recitation of his +life he seemed to forget her. As he said so, his arms fell a little way +away from her—she grew cold—he seemed a stranger. Only for a moment, +however, for he turned, put out his arms, and drew her to him. He kissed +her as he had not kissed her yet, and after a few moments said—</p> + +<p>"Mary, I bring you my talent, and my manhood, and my courage—nothing +else—and I want it to be enough for you."</p> + +<p>She said that it was. That it was more than enough.</p> + +<p>Fairfax sighed, his arms dropped, he smiled and looked at her, and +said—</p> + +<p>"I wonder if it is?" He glanced round the room quietly, with an +arrogance of which he was unconscious. "You must give all this up, +Mary."</p> + +<p>"Must I?" She flushed and laughed. "You mean to say you want me to come +to Bohemia?"</p> + +<p>"I want you to live as I can live," he said, "share what I must have ... +that is, I should ask you that if you married me now ..."</p> + +<p>He watched her face. It was still illuminated. Her love for him was too +vital to be touched by this proposition which she did not wholly +understand.</p> + +<p>"Most men shrink," Fairfax said, "from taking the woman they love from +her luxuries. I believe that I shall not be poor very long. It will be a +struggle. If you marry me now, you will share it with me, otherwise ..." +He waited a moment.</p> + +<p>And she repeated: "Otherwise, Antony?"</p> + +<p>"I shall go away," he answered, "and not come back again until I am rich +and great."<!-- Page 297 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>After he had left her he was dazed and incredulous. His egoism, his +enthusiasm, his idea of his own self-sufficiency seemed preposterous. A +man in love should entertain no idea but the thought of the woman +herself. He began to chafe at poverty which he had assured her made no +difference to him. Did he wish to live again terrible years of sacrifice +and sordidness? If so, he could not hope a woman accustomed to luxury +would choose to share his struggle. He was absurd.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Money," Dearborn said, regarding his shabby cuffs, "opens many doors. I +am inclined also to think that it shuts many doors. You remember the +Kingdom of Heaven and the needle's eye; but," he continued whimsically, +"I should not think of comparing Mrs. Faversham to a camel, Tony!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be an ass," said Antony, proudly. "Mrs. Faversham and I feel +alike about it. Money will play no part in our mutual future." And, as +he said this, was sure neither of her nor of himself.</p> + +<p>"Under which circumstances," said his companion, "I shall offer you +another cup of coffee and tell you my secret. Going with my play to +London is not the only one. I am in love. When you have drunk your +coffee we'll go home. Potowski is going to play for us, and he is going +to bring his wife at last."</p> + +<p>The two friends sat that evening in a corner of a café on the Boulevard +Montparnasse. There were Bohemians around them at their table, and they +themselves were part of that happy, struggling world. Dearborn dropped +his voice, and said softly to Fairfax<!-- Page 298 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"And I have asked my little girl to come as well to-night to hear the +music."</p> + +<p>Fairfax, instead of drinking his coffee, stared at Dearborn, and when +Dearborn murmured, "Nora Scarlet is her name. Isn't it a name for a +drama?" Fairfax stared still harder and repeated the girl's name under +his breath, flushing, but Dearborn did not observe it.</p> + +<p>"I want you to see her, Tony; she is sweet and good."</p> + +<p>"Bob," said Fairfax gravely, "you mean to tell me you have been falling +in love and carrying on a romance without telling me a word about it?"</p> + +<p>Dearborn smiled. "To tell the truth, old man," he replied, "you have +been so absorbed; there was not room for two romances in the studio.</p> + +<p>"I met her in the springtime, Gentle Annie," Dearborn said whimsically, +"and it was raining cats and dogs—but for me it rained just love and +Nora. We were both waiting for a 'bus. Neither one of us had an +umbrella. Now that you speak of it, Tony, I think we have never mended +that lack in our possessions. We climbed to the <i>impériale</i> together, +and the rain beat upon us both. We laughed, and I said to myself, a girl +that can laugh like that in a shower should be put aside for a rainy +day. We talked and we giggled. The rain stopped. We forgot to get down. +We went to the end of the line and still we forgot to get down. The +conductor collected a double fare, and afterward I took her home."</p> + +<p>(Antony thought to himself, "Just what I did not do.")</p> + +<p>"She is angelic, Tony, delightful, an artist's dream, a writer's +inspiration, and a poor man's fairy."</p> + +<p>Fairfax laughed.</p> + +<p>"Don't laugh, old man," said Dearborn simply. "I have never heard you +rave like this about the peerless Mary."</p> + +<p>Fairfax said, "No. But then you talk better than I do." He shook +Dearborn's hand warmly. "You know I am most awfully glad, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I know I am," said Dearborn, lighting a cigarette.</p> + +<p>He settled himself with a beautiful content, asking nothing better than +to go on rehearsing his love affair.</p> + +<p>"We have been engaged a long time, Tony. It is only a question of how +little two people can dare to try<!-- Page 299 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> to get on with, you know, and I have +determined to risk it."</p> + +<p>As they went up the steps of the studio together, Fairfax said—</p> + +<p>"She is coming to-night, Bob, you say? Does she know anything about me?"</p> + +<p>At this Dearborn laughed aloud. "She knows a great deal about me, Tony. +My dear boy, do you think we have talked much about anything but each +other? Do you talk with Mrs. Faversham about me? Nora knows I live here +with a chum. She doesn't even know your name."</p> + +<p>As Dearborn threw open the door they could hear Potowski playing softly +the old French ballad, "J'ai perdu ma tourterelle."</p> + +<p>A woman sat by Potowski in a big chair, and the lamp on the piano shone +yellow upon her. When the two men entered the studio she rose, and +Potowski, still playing, said—</p> + +<p>"Let me present, at last, my better half. Mes amis, la Comtesse +Potowski."</p> + +<p>Dearborn greeted her enthusiastically, and Tony stood petrified. The +comtesse, more mistress of the moment than Tony was, put out one hand +and smiled, but she had turned very pale.</p> + +<p>It was his Aunt Caroline....</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rainsford," she lifted her brows, "I think I have seen you before."</p> + +<p>Tony bowed over her hand and Potowski, still smiling and nodding, +cried—</p> + +<p>"These are great men and geniuses, <i>ma chérie</i>. You have here two great +artists together. They both have wings on their shoulders. Before they +fly away from us and are lost on Olympus, be charming to them. Carolina, +<i>ma chérie</i>, they shall hear you sing."</p> + +<p>Robert Dearborn put his hand on Potowski's shoulder and said—</p> + +<p>"We love your husband, madame. He has been such a bully friend to us, +such a wonderful friend."</p> + +<p>"Poof, my dear Bobbie," murmured Potowski.</p> + +<p>("J'ai perdu ma tourterelle.")</p> + +<p>Fairfax asked, looking directly at her, "Will you<!-- Page 300 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> really sing for us, +Madame Potowski? Can you sing some old English ballad? We have not heard +a word of English for many a long day."</p> + +<p>Potowski wandered softly into a familiar tune. He smiled over his +shoulder at his wife, and, standing by the piano, Caroline +Carew—Carolina Potowski—put her hands over her husband's on the keys +and indicated an accompaniment, humming.</p> + +<p>"If you can, dear, I will sing Mr. Rainsford <i>this</i>."</p> + +<p>Tony took his place on the divan.</p> + +<p>Then Madame Potowski sang:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Flow gently, sweet Afton."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In New York Tony had said, as he sat in the big Puritan parlour, that +her voice was divine. No one who has ever heard Carolina Potowski sing +"Flow gently, sweet Afton" can ever forget it. Tony covered his face +with his hands and said to himself, being an artist as well, "No matter +what she has done, it was worth it to produce such art as that."</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My Mary is asleep by your turbulent stream,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Little Gardiner once more leaned against his arm; restless little Bella +in red, her hair down her back, slipped out of the room to read in +peace, and he sat there, a homeless stranger in a Northern city without +a cent of money in his pocket, and the desires of life and art shining +in his soul.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Flow gently, sweet Afton."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>He indistinctly heard Dearborn open the door. A woman slipped in and +went over and sat down by her lover. The two sat together holding hands, +and "Sweet Afton" flowed on, and nobody's dream was disturbed. Little +Gardiner slept his peaceful sleep in his child's grave; his mother slept +her sleep in a Southern cemetery; the Angel of Resurrection raised his +spotless wings over the city of the silent dead, and Antony's heart +swelled in his breast.<!-- Page 301 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + +<p>When the Comtesse Potowski stopped singing no one said a word. Her +husband played a few bars of Werther and she sang the "Love Letters." +Then, before she ceased, Antony was conscious that Nora Scarlet had +recognized him. Before any embarrassment could be between them, he went +over to her and took her hand, saying warmly—</p> + +<p>"I am so glad, Miss Scarlet. Dearborn has told me of his good fortune. +He is the best fellow in the world, and I know how lucky he is," and +Nora Scarlet murmured something, with her eyes turned away from him.</p> + +<p>Tony turned to Madame Potowski and said ardently, "You must let me come +to see you to-morrow. I want to thank you for this wonderful treat."</p> + +<p>And when Potowski and his Aunt Caroline had gone, and when Dearborn had +taken Nora Scarlet home, Antony stood in the studio, which still +vibrated with the tones of the lovely voice. He had lived once again a +part of his old life. This was his mother's sister, and she had made +havoc of her home. He thought of little Bella's visit to him in Albany.</p> + +<p>"Mother has done something perfectly terrible, Cousin Antony—something +a daughter is not supposed to know."</p> + +<p>Well, the something perfectly terrible was, she had set herself free +from a man she did not love; that she was making Potowski happy; that +she had found her sphere and soared into it.</p> + +<p>Fairfax tried in vain to think of himself now and Mary Faversham, but he +could not. The past rushed on him with its palpitating wings. He groaned +and stretched out his arms into the shadows of the room.</p> + +<p>"There is something that chains me, holds me prisoner. I am wedded to +something—is it death and a tomb?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 302 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>During the following weeks it seemed to him he was chasing his soul and +her own. In their daily intercourse—sweet, of course, tender, of +course—there was a constant sense of limitation. He wanted her to share +with him his love of the beautiful, but Mary Faversham was conventional. +He would have spent hours with her in the Louvre, hanging over +treasures, musing before pictures whose art he felt he could never +sufficiently make his own. Mrs. Faversham followed him closely, but +after a time watched the people. Whilst her lover—in love with all +beauty—remained transfixed over the contemplation of a petrified rose +found in the ruins of Pompeii, or intoxicated himself with the beauty of +an urn, she would interrupt his meditation by speaking to him of +unimportant things. She found resemblances in the little Grecian statues +to her friends in society. Tony sighed and relinquished seeing museums +with Mary. She patronized art with <i>largesse</i> and generosity but he +discovered it was one way to her of spending money, an agreeable, +satisfying way to a woman of breeding and refinement.</p> + +<p>The bewitching charm of her clothes, her great expenditures on herself, +made him open his blue eyes. Once he held her exquisitely shod foot in +his hand, admiring its beauty and its slenderness. On the polished +leather was the sparkle of her paste buckles; he admired the ephemeral +web of her silk stocking, and was ashamed that the thought should cross +his mind as to what this lovely foot represented of extravagance. But he +had been with her when she bought the buckles on the Rue de la Paix; he +knew the price they cost. Was the money making him +sordid—hypercritical, unkind?</p> + +<p>Life for six months whirled round him. Mary<!-- Page 303 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> Faversham dazzled and +bewitched him, charmed and flattered him. Their engagement had not been +made public. He ceased to work; he was at her beck and call; he went +with her everywhere. At her house, in her box at the opera, he met all +Paris. She was hardly ever alone with him; he made one of a group. +Nevertheless, they were talked about. Several orders for busts were the +outcome of his meeting fashionable Paris; but he did not work. Toward +March he received word from America that his bas-relief under the name +of Thomas Rainsford had won the ten thousand dollar prize. He felt like +a prince. For some singular reason he told no one, not even Dearborn. In +writing to him the committee had told him that according to the +contracts the money would not be forthcoming until July. He had gone +through so many bitter disappointments in his life that he did not want +in the minds of his friends to anticipate this payment and be +disappointed anew.</p> + +<p>Among his fellow-workers in the Barye studio was the son of a +millionaire pork-packer from Chicago. The young man took a tremendous +liking to Antony. With a certain perspicacity, the rich young fellow +divined much of his new friend's needs. He came to the studio, to their +different reunions, and chummed heartily with Dearborn and Fairfax. +Peterson was singularly lacking in talent and tremendously +over-furnished with heart. One day, as they worked side by side in the +studio of the big man, Peterson watched Antony's handling of a tiger's +head.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" cried the Chicagoan, "you are simply great—you are simply +great! I wonder if you would be furious with me if I said something to +you that is on my mind?"</p> + +<p>The something on the simple young man's mind was that he wanted to lend +Fairfax a sum of money, to be paid back when the sculptor saw fit. After +a moment's hesitation Antony accepted the loan, making it one-third as +much as the big-hearted chap had suggested. Fairfax set July as the date +of payment, when his competitive money should come in. He borrowed just +enough to keep him in food and clothes for the following months.<!-- Page 304 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>There were no motors in Paris then. In the mornings he drove with Mrs. +Faversham to the Bois and limped by her side in the <i>allées</i>, whilst the +worldly people stared at the distinguished, conspicuous couple. One day +Barye himself stopped them, and to the big man Antony presented Mrs. +Faversham who did not happen to know her fiancé's chief.</p> + +<p>Fairfax looked at her critically as she laughed and was sweet and +gracious. Carriages filed past them; shining equipages, the froth and +wine of life flowed around them under the trees, whose chestnut torches +were lit with spring.</p> + +<p>Barye said to Antony, "Not working, are you, Rainsford? <i>C'est +dommage</i>", and turning to Mrs. Faversham he added, nodding, "<i>C'est +dommage</i>."</p> + +<p>Antony heard the words throughout the day, and they haunted him—<i>c'est +dommage</i>. Barye's voice had been light, but the sculptor knew the +underlying ring in it. There is, indeed, no greater pity than for a man +of talent not to work. That day he lunched with her on the terrace of +her hotel overlooking the rose garden. Fairfax ate scarcely anything. +Below his eyes spread a <i>parterre</i> of perfect purple heliotropes. The +roses were beginning to bloom on their high trees, and the moist earth +odours from the garden he had thought so exquisite came to him +delicately on the warm breeze. But this day the place seemed oppressive, +shut in by its high iron walls. In the corner of the garden, the +gardener, an old man in blue overalls, bent industriously over his +potting, and to Antony he seemed the single worthy figure. At the table +he was surrounded by idlers and millionaires. He judged them bitterly +to-day, brutally and unreasonably, and hastily looked toward Mrs. +Faversham, his future life's companion, hoping that something in her +expression or in her would disenchant him from the growing horror that +was threatening to destroy his peace of mind. Mary Faversham was all in +white; from her ears hung the pearls given her by her husband, whom she +had never loved; around her neck hung a creamy rope of pearls; she was +discussing with her neighbour the rising value of different jewels. It +seemed to them both a vital and interesting subject.<!-- Page 305 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was the end of luncheon; the fragrance of the strawberries, the +fragrance of the roses came heavily to Antony's nostrils.</p> + +<p>His aunt, the Comtesse Potowski, sat at his right. She was saying—</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, when are you going to be married? There is nothing like a +happy marriage, Tony. A woman may have children, you know, and be +miserable; she has not found the right man. I hope you will be very +happy, Tony."</p> + +<p>Some one asked her to sing, and Madame Potowski, languid, slim, with +unmistakable distinction, rose to play. She suggested his mother to +Antony. She sang selections from the opera then in vogue. Tony stood +near the piano and listened. Her voice always affected him deeply, and +as he had responded to it in the old days in New York he responded now, +and there was a sense of misery at his heart as he listened to her +singing the music of old times when he had been unable to carry out his +ideals because of his suffering and poverty.</p> + +<p>There was now a sense of soul discontent, of pitiless remorse. As if +again to disenchant himself, he glanced at Mary as she, too, listened. +Back of her in the vases were high branches of lilac, white and +delicate, with the first beauty of spring; she sat gracefully indolent, +smoking a cigarette, evidently dreaming of pleasant things. To Antony +there was a blank wall now between him and his visions. How unreal +everything but money seemed, and his soul stifled and his senses numbed. +In this atmosphere of riches and luxury what place had he? Penniless, +unknown, his stature stunted—for it had been dwarfed by his idleness. +Again he heard Barye say, "<i>C'est dommage</i>."</p> + +<p>His aunt's voice, bright as silver, filled the room. He believed she was +singing for him expressly, for she had chosen an English ballad—"Roll +on, silvery moon." Again, with a sadness which all imaginative and +poetic natures understand, his present slipped away. He was back in +Albany in the cab of his engine; the air bellied in his sleeve, the air +of home whipped in his veins—he saw the fields as the engine flashed by +them, whitening under the moonlight as the silvery moon rolled on! How<!-- Page 306 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> +he had sweated to keep himself a man, how he had toiled to keep his hope +up and to live his life well, what a fight he had made in order that his +visions might declare themselves to him!</p> + +<p>When his aunt ceased to sing and people gathered around her, Tony rose +and limped over to Mrs. Faversham. He put out his hand.</p> + +<p>"I must go, Mary," he said. "I have some work to do this afternoon."</p> + +<p>She smiled at him. "Don't be ridiculous, Tony."</p> + +<p>The others had moved away to speak to the Comtesse Potowski, and they +were alone.</p> + +<p>"I am becoming ridiculous," said Antony, "that is true, but it is not +because I am going to work."</p> + +<p>She did not seem to notice anything in his gravity. "Don't forget we are +dining and driving out to Versailles; don't forget, Tony."</p> + +<p>Fairfax made no response. On his face was a pitiless look, but Mrs. +Faversham, happy in her successful breakfast and enchanted with the +music, did not read his expression.</p> + +<p>"I will come in to-morrow, Mary."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Faversham, turning to a man who had come up to her, still +understood nothing.</p> + +<p>"Don't forget, Tony,"—she nodded at him—"this afternoon."</p> + +<p>Antony bade her good-bye. He looked back at her across the room, and she +seemed to him then the greatest stranger of them all.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 307 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>He went upstairs to his atelier with a strange eager hammering at his +heart. For several weeks the studio had been, for him, little more than +an ante-chamber—a dressing-room where he had made careful toilettes +before going to Mrs. Faversham. His constant attendance upon a beautiful +woman had turned him into something of a dandy, and the purchase of fine +clothes and linen had eaten well into his borrowed money, which had been +frankly used by Dearborn when in need.</p> + +<p>"Dearborn, wear any of my things you like, only don't get ink spots on +them, for God's sake!"</p> + +<p>And Dearborn had responded, "I don't need to go courting in +four-hundred-franc suits, Tony; Nora is my kind, you know."</p> + +<p>And when Antony had flashed out, "What the devil do you mean?" Dearborn +explained—</p> + +<p>"Only that Nora and I are poor together. I didn't intend to be rude, old +man."</p> + +<p>Dearborn had gone to London third-class with his play under his arm and +hope in his heart. Antony had not been sorry to find himself alone. When +he was not with Mary he paced the floor, his idle hands in his pockets. +At night he was restless, and he did not disturb any one when at two +o'clock he would rise to smoke, and, leaning out of the window, watch +the dawn come up over the Louvre, over the river and the quays. His +easels, his tools, his covered busts mocked him as the dust settled down +upon them. His part of the big room had fallen into disuse. In the +salons of Mary Faversham nothing seemed important but the possession of +riches; they talked of art there, but they discussed it easily, and no +one ever spoke of work. They talked of books there,<!-- Page 308 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> but the makers of +them seemed men of another sphere. His aunt and the Comte Potowski sang +there indeed, but to Antony their voices were only echoes. He had grown +accustomed to objects whose possession meant small fortunes. His own few +belongings seemed pitiful and sordid. Poverty at Albany had appalled +him, but as yet his soul had been untarnished. Life seemed then a +beautiful struggle. Here in Paris, too, as he worked with Dearborn in +his studio, the lack of money had been unimportant, and privation only a +step on which men of talent poised before going on. Lessons had been +precious to him, and in his meagre existence all his untrammelled senses +had been keen. Now his lack of material resource was terrible, +degrading, sickening.</p> + +<p>He threw open wide the window and let in the May sunlight, and the noise +of the streets came with it. Below his window paused the "goat's +milkman," calling sweetly on his little pipe; a girl cried lilies of the +valley; there was a cracking of whips, the clattering of horses' feet, +and the rattling of the little cabs. The peculiar impersonality of the +few of the big city, the passing of the anonymous throng, had a soothing +effect upon him. The river flowed quietly, swiftly past the Louvre, on +which great white clouds massed themselves like snow. Fairfax drew a +long breath and turned to the studio, put on his old corduroy clothes, +filled himself a pipe, and uncovered one of his statues in the corner, +and with his tools in his hand took his position before his discarded +work.</p> + +<p>This study had not struck him as being successful when he had thrown the +cloth over it in February, when he had gone up to the Avenue du Bois de +Boulogne. Since that time he had not touched his clay. Now the piece of +work struck his critical sense with its several qualities of merit. He +was too real an artist not to see its value and to judge it. Was it +possible that he had created that charming thing—had there been in him +sufficient talent to form those plastic lines? It was impossible for +Antony to put himself in the frame of mind in which he had been before +he left his work; in vain he tried to bring back the old inspiration of +feeling. The work was strange to him, and almost beautiful too. He was +jealous of it, angry at it. Had he become in so short<!-- Page 309 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> a time a useless +man? He should have been gaining in experience. A man is all the richer +for being in love and being loved. The image of Mary would not come to +him to soothe his irritation. He seemed to see her surrounded by people +and things. Evidently his love had not inspired him, nor did luxury and +the intercourse with worldly people. He had been the day before with +Mary to see the crowning exhibition of a celebrated painter's work, the +fruits of four years of labour. The artist himself, frightfully obese, +smiling and self-satisfied, stood surrounded by his canvases. None of +the paintings had the spontaneity and beauty of his early works—not +one. Fairfax had heard a Latin Quarter student say, "B—— used to paint +with his soul before he was rich, now he paints with his stomach." The +marks of the beast had stamped out the divine seal.</p> + +<p>As Fairfax mixed his clay in the silent room where he and Dearborn had +half starved together, he said, "I have never yet become so frightfully +rich as to imperil my soul."</p> + +<p>In the declining spring light he began to model. He did not look like a +happy man, like a happy lover, like a man destined to marry a beautiful +woman with several millions of dollars. "Damn money," he muttered as he +worked, and, after a little, "Damn poverty," he murmured. What was it, +then, he could bless? In his present point of view nothing seemed +blessed. He was working savagely and heavily, but hungrily too, as +though he besought his hands to find again for him the sacred touch that +should electrify him again, or as though he prayed his brain to send its +enlightened message to his hand, or as though he called on his emotion +to warm his hardened heart—a combination which he believed was needful +to work and art. Fairfax was so working when the porter brought him a +letter.</p> + +<p>It was from Dearborn, and Antony read it eagerly, holding it up to the +fading light. As he saw Dearborn's handwriting he realized that he +missed his companion, and also realized the strong link between them +which is so defined between those who work at a kindred art.</p> + +<p>"Dear old man,"—the letter was dated London—"I am sky-high in a room +for which I pay a shilling a<!-- Page 310 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> night. A thing in the roof is called a +window. Through it I see a field of pots—not flower-pots, but +chimney-pots—and the smoke from them is hyacinthine. The smoke of +endless winters and innumerable fogs has grimed every blessed thing in +this filthy room. My bed-spread is grey cloth, once meant to be white. +Other lodgers have left burnt matches on the faded carpet, whose flowers +have long since been put out by the soot. Out of this hole in the roof I +see London, the sky-line of London in a spring sky. There is a singular +sort of beauty in this sky, as if it had trailed its cerulean mantle +over fields of English bluebells. For another shilling I dine; for +another I lunch. I skip breakfast. I calculate I can stay here ten days, +then the shillings will be all gone, Tony. In these ten days, old man, I +shall sell my play. I am writing you this on the window-sill; without is +the mutter of soft thunder of London—the very word London thrills me to +the marrow. Such great things have come out of London—such prose—such +verse—such immortality!</p> + +<p>"To-day I passed 'Jo,' Dickens's street-sweeper, in Dickens's 'Bleak +House.' I felt like saying to him, 'I am as poor as you are, Jo, +to-day,' but I remembered there were a few shillings between us.</p> + +<p>"Well, old man, as I sit here I seem to have risen high above the +roof-tops and to look down on the struggle in this great vortex of life, +and here and there a man goes amongst them all, carrying a wreath of +laurel. Tony, my eyes are upon him! Call me a fool if you will, call me +mad; at any rate I have faith. I know I will succeed. Something tells me +I will stand before the curtain when they call my name. It is growing +late. I must go out and forage for food ... Tony. I kiss the hand of the +beautiful Mrs. Faversham."</p> + +<p>Antony turned the pages between his fingers. The reading of the letter +had smoothed the creases from his brow. He sighed as he lifted his head +to say "Come in," for some one had knocked timidly at the door.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" Fairfax said, and now that they were alone he called her "Aunt +Caroline."</p> + +<p>Madame Potowski came forward and kissed him.</p> + +<p>He drew a big chair into the window. He was always solicitous of her and +a little pitiful.<!-- Page 311 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + +<p>Madame Potowski's hair had been soft brown once; it was golden, frankly +so, now, and her fine lips were a little rouged. In her dress of +changeable silk, her cape of tulle, her hat with a bunch of roses, her +tiny gloved hands, she was a very elegant little lady. She rested her +hands on her parasol and had suggested his mother to Antony. Then, as +that resemblance passed, came the fleeting suggestion which he never +cared to hold—of Bella.</p> + +<p>"I have come, my dear Tony, to see you. I wanted to see you alone."</p> + +<p>Tony lit a cigar and sat by her side. The Comtesse Potowski had a little +diamond watch with a chain on her breast. Outside the clock struck five.</p> + +<p>"I have only a second to stay—my husband misses me if I am five minutes +out of his sight."</p> + +<p>"I do not wonder, Aunt Caroline."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it all strange, Tony," she asked, "how very far up we have come?"</p> + +<p>He shook the ashes off his cigar. "Well, I don't feel myself very far +up, Aunt Caroline."</p> + +<p>"My dear Tony, aren't you going to marry an immense fortune?"</p> + +<p>"Is that what people say, Aunt Caroline?"</p> + +<p>"You are going to do a very brilliant thing, Tony."</p> + +<p>"Is that what you call going very far up?"</p> + +<p>His aunt shook her pretty head. "Money is the greatest power in the +world, dear boy. Art is very well, but there is nothing in the wide +world like an income, dear."</p> + +<p>Her nephew stirred in his chair. Caroline Potowski looked down at her +little diamond watch, her dress shining like a bunch of many-hued roses. +Antony knew that her husband was rich; he also made a good income from +his singing and she must have made not an inconsiderable fortune.</p> + +<p>"What are you thinking about?" said his aunt later, her hand on his own. +"You have shown great wisdom, great worldly wisdom."</p> + +<p>"My God!" exclaimed her nephew between his teeth.</p> + +<p>If Madame Potowski heard this exclamation, it was not tragic to her. She +lowered her tone, although there was no one to hear them.<!-- Page 312 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Tony, I am very anxious about money."</p> + +<p>Her nephew laughed aloud. In spite of himself there came over him in a +flash the memory of the day nearly ten years ago when she sat on the +side of his miserable little bed in his miserable little room in New +York and took from him as a loan—which she never meant to pay back—all +the money he had in the world. He put his hands in his pockets.</p> + +<p>"Has your husband any financial difficulties?"</p> + +<p>"My husband knows nothing about it," she said serenely. "You don't +suppose I could tell him, do you? I must have five thousand francs, dear +Tony, before to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Tony said lightly, "I am afraid economy is not your strong point."</p> + +<p>"Tony," she exclaimed reproachfully, "I am a wonderful manager; I can +make a franc go further than my husband can a louis, and I have a real +gift for bargains. Think of it! I only had one hundred dollars a month +to dress myself and Bella and poor little Gardiner, and for all my +little expenses." The children's names on her lips seemed sacrilege to +him. He did not wish her to speak those sacred names, or destroy his +sacred past, whose charm and tenderness persisted over all the suffering +and which nothing could destroy. "I have been buying a quantity of old +Chinese paintings—a great bargain; in ten years they will be worth +double the money. You must come and see them. The dealer will deliver +them to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"History," Antony thought, "how it repeats itself!"</p> + +<p>Caroline Potowski leaned toward her nephew persuasively, and even in the +softened twilight he saw the weakness and the caprices of her pretty +face, and he pitied Potowski.</p> + +<p>"I must have five thousand francs before to-morrow," said his aunt, +"otherwise these dealers will make me trouble."</p> + +<p>Fairfax laughed again. With a touch of bitterness he said—</p> + +<p>"And I must have an income of five times as much as that a year—ten +times as much as that a year—unless I wish to feel degraded because I +am a poor labourer."<!-- Page 313 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> + +<p>The comtesse did not reply to this. As she did not, Fairfax saw the +humour of it.</p> + +<p>"You do not really think I could give you five thousand francs, auntie?"</p> + +<p>"I know you haven't a great deal of money, dear boy——"</p> + +<p>"Not a great deal, auntie."</p> + +<p>"But you seem to have such a lot of time to spend to amuse yourself."</p> + +<p>He nodded. "So I seem to have."</p> + +<p>The comtesse looked at him a little askance. "You are going to make such +a brilliant marriage. Mrs. Faversham is so fearfully rich."</p> + +<p>Fairfax exclaimed, but shut down on the words that came to his lips. He +realized that his aunt was a toy woman, utterly irresponsible, a pretty +fool. He said simply—</p> + +<p>"You had better frankly tell your husband."</p> + +<p>She swung her parasol to and fro. "You think so, Tony?"</p> + +<p>"Decidedly."</p> + +<p>"And you couldn't possibly manage, Tony?"</p> + +<p>Tony pointed to his studies. "These are my only assets; these are my +finances, auntie. I shall have to sell something to live on—if I am so +lucky as to be able to find a customer."</p> + +<p>"If I could give the dealer a thousand francs tomorrow I think he would +wait," said his aunt.</p> + +<p>Tony shook his head. "I wish I were a millionaire for five minutes, Aunt +Caroline."</p> + +<p>His aunt rose and smoothed her glove. "I shall have to pawn my watch and +necklace," she said tranquilly. "Bella is fearfully rich," she drawled, +nodding at him, "and she is of age. Her father will settle a million on +her when she marries."</p> + +<p>A pang went through Fairfax's heart. Another heiress!</p> + +<p>"They say she is awfully pretty and awfully sought after."</p> + +<p>Antony murmured, "Yes, yes, of course," and took a few paces up and down +the room.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said his aunt, who had slowly walked<!-- Page 314 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> over to the door +and stood with her hand on the knob, "I used to think you were a little +in love with Bella. She was such a funny, old-fashioned child, so grown +up."</p> + +<p>Fairfax exclaimed fiercely, "Aunt Caroline, I don't like to re-live the +past!"</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder," she murmured quietly; "and you are going to make such +a brilliant marriage."</p> + +<p>He saw her go with relief. She was terrible to him—like a vampire in +her silks and jewels. Would she ruin her innocent, kindly husband? What +would she do if she could not raise the money? He believed her capable +of anything.</p> + +<p>For three days he worked feverishly, and then he wrote to Mrs. Faversham +that he was a little seedy and working, and that as Dearborn was away he +would rather she would not come to the studio. Mrs. Faversham accepted +his decision and wrote that she was organizing a charity concert for +some fearfully poor people whom the Comtesse Potowski was patronizing; +the comte and comtesse would both sing at the <i>musicale</i>, and he must +surely come. "We must raise five thousand francs," she wrote, "and +perhaps you may have some little figurine that we could raffle off in +chances."</p> + +<p>Tony laughed as he read the letter. He sent her a statuette to be +raffled off for his aunt's Chinese paintings. She was ignorant of any +sense of honour.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When Dearborn came back from London he found Antony working like mad.</p> + +<p>Dearborn threw his suit-case down in the corner, his hat on top of it, +and extended his hands.</p> + +<p>"Empty-handed, Tony!"</p> + +<p>But Fairfax, as he scanned his friend's face, saw no expression of +defeat there.</p> + +<p>"Which means you left your play in London, Bob."</p> + +<p>"Tony," said Dearborn, linking his arm in Fairfax's and marching him up +and down the studio, "we are going to be very rich."</p> + +<p>"Only that," said Tony shortly.</p> + +<p>"This is the beginning of fame and fortune, old man!"<!-- Page 315 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dearborn sat down on the worn sofa, drew his wallet out of his pocket, +took from it a sheaf of English notes, which he held up to Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"Count it, old chap."</p> + +<p>Fairfax shook his head. "No; tell me how much for two years' flesh and +blood and soul—how you worked here, Bob, starved here, how you felt and +suffered!"</p> + +<p>"I forget it all," said the playwright quietly; "but it can never be +paid for with such chaff as this,"—he touched the notes. "But the +applause, the people's voices, the tears and laughter, that will pay."</p> + +<p>"By heaven!" exclaimed Fairfax, grasping Dearborn's hand, "I bless you +for saying that!"</p> + +<p>Dearborn regarded him quietly. "Do you think I care for money?" he said +simply. "I thought you knew me better than that."</p> + +<p>Fairfax exclaimed, "Oh, I don't know what I know or think; I am in a bad +dream."</p> + +<p>Dearborn laid the notes down on the sofa. "It is for you and me and +Nora, the bunch, just as long as it lasts."</p> + +<p>Between Dearborn and himself, since Antony's engagement, there had been +a distinct reserve.</p> + +<p>Antony lit a cigarette and Dearborn lighted his from Antony's. The two +friends settled themselves comfortably. It was the close of the day. +Without, as usual, rolled the sea of the Paris streets, going to, going +with the river's tide, and going away from it; the impersonal noise +always made for them an accompaniment not disagreeable. The last light +of the spring day fell on Fairfax's uncovered work, on the damp clay +with the fresh marks of his instruments. He sat in his corduroys, a red +scarf at his throat, a beautiful manly figure half curled up on the +divan. The last of the day's light fell too on Dearborn's reddish hair, +on his fine intelligent face. Fairfax said—</p> + +<p>"Now tell me everything, Bob, from the beginning, from the window as you +looked over the chimney-pots with the hyacinthine smoke curling up in +the air—tell me everything, to the last word the manager said."</p> + +<p>"Hark!" exclaimed Dearborn, lifting his hand.<!-- Page 316 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> "Nora is coming. I want +to tell it to her as well. No one can tell twice alike the story of his +first success—the first agony of first success." He caught his breath +and struck Fairfax a friendly blow on his chest. "It will be a success, +thank God! There is Nora," and he crossed the studio to let Nora Scarlet +in.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 317 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>The third day he went up to see her and found her in the garden, a +basket on her arm, cutting flowers. She wore a garden hat covered with +roses and carried a pair of gilded shears with which to snip her +flowers. As Antony came down the steps of the house she dropped the +scissors into the basket with her garden gloves. She lifted her cheek to +him.</p> + +<p>"You may kiss me, dear," she said; "no one will see us but the flowers +and the birds."</p> + +<p>Antony bent to kiss her. It seemed to him as though his arms were full +of flowers.</p> + +<p>"If you had not come to-day, I should have gone to you. You look well, +Tony," she said. "I don't believe you have been ill at all."</p> + +<p>"My work, Mary."</p> + +<p>She took his arm and started towards the house. "You must let me come +and see what wonderful things you are doing."</p> + +<p>"I am doing nothing wonderful," he said slowly. "It has taken me all +this time to realize I was never a sculptor; I have been so atrociously +idle, Mary."</p> + +<p>"But you need rest, my dear Tony."</p> + +<p>"I shall not need any rest until I am an old man."</p> + +<p>He caressed the hand that lay on his arm. They walked past the +flower-beds, and she picked the dead roses, cutting the withered leaves, +and talking to him gaily, telling him all she had done during the days +of their separation, and suddenly he said—</p> + +<p>"You do not seem to have missed me."</p> + +<p>"Everywhere," she answered, pressing his arm.</p> + +<p>They walked together slowly to the house, where she left her roses in +the hall and took him into the<!-- Page 318 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> music-room, where they had been last +when he left her, the afternoon following the luncheon.</p> + +<p>"I must impress her indelibly on my mind," Antony thought. "I may never +see her again."</p> + +<p>When she had seated herself by the window through which he could see the +roses on the high rose trees and the iron balcony on whose other side +was the rumble of Paris, he stood before her gravely.</p> + +<p>"Come and sit beside me," she invited, slowly. "You seem suddenly like a +stranger."</p> + +<p>"Mary," he said simply, "the time has come for me to ask you——" The +words stuck in his throat. What in God's name was he going to ask her? +What a fanatic he was! Utterly unconscious of his thoughts, she +interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"I know what you want to ask me, Tony, and I have been waiting." She +leaned against him. "You see, I have had the foolish feeling that +perhaps you didn't care as you thought you did. It is that dreadful +difference in our age."</p> + +<p>"Do you care, Mary?"</p> + +<p>She might have answered him, "Why otherwise should I marry a penniless +man, five years my junior, when the world is before me?"</p> + +<p>She said, "Yes, I care deeply."</p> + +<p>"Ah," he breathed, "then it is all right, Mary; that is all we need." +After a few seconds he said gently: "Now look at me." Her face was +flushed and her eyes humid. She raised them to him. He was holding one +of her hands in both of his as he spoke, and from time to time touched +it with his lips. "Listen to me; try to understand. I am a Bohemian, an +artist; say that over and over. Do you think me crazy? I have not been +ill. I went into a retreat. I shut myself up with my soul. This life +here,"—he gestured to the room as though it held a host of +enemies,—"this life here has crushed me. I had begun to think myself a +miserable creature just because I am poor. Now, if money is the only +thing that counts in the world, of course I am a miserable creature, and +then let us drink life to its dregs; and if it is not the only thing, +well then, let us drink the other things to their dregs."<!-- Page 319 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> She said, +"What other things?"</p> + +<p>"Why, the beauty of struggling together with every material +consideration cast out! Think how beautiful it is to work for one you +love; think of the beauty of being all in all to each other, Mary!"</p> + +<p>"But we are that, Tony."</p> + +<p>Now that Antony had embarked, he spoke rapidly. "You owe your luxury to +your husband whom you never loved. Now I cannot let you owe him anything +more, Mary."</p> + +<p>She began, "But I don't think of my fortune in connection with him."</p> + +<p>Antony did not hear her. "I feel lately as though I had been selling my +soul," he said passionately. "And what can a man have in exchange for +his soul? Of course, it was presumptuous folly of me to have asked you +to marry me."</p> + +<p>She put both her hands over his and breathed his name. He spoke +desperately, and the picture rose up before him of his bare studio and +his meagre life.</p> + +<p>"Will you marry me now?"</p> + +<p>"I said I was quite ready."</p> + +<p>"The day will come when I will be rich and great." He paused. He saw +that her eyes were already troubled, and asked eagerly, "You believe +that, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Great enough, rich enough, not to make a woman ashamed. You must wait +for that time with me."</p> + +<p>Mary Faversham said quietly, "You have been shutting yourself up with a +lot of fanatical ideas."</p> + +<p>He covered her lips gently with his hands. His face became grave.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, "don't speak—wait. You don't dream what every word you +say is going to mean—wait. You don't understand what I mean!"</p> + +<p>And he began to tell her the gigantic sacrifice he was about to impose +upon her. If he had been assured of his love for her, assured of her +love for him, he might have made a magnetic appeal, but he seemed to be +talking to her through a veil. He shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No, I cannot ask it, Mary."</p> + +<p>Mary Faversham's face had undergone a change.<!-- Page 320 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> It was never lovelier +than now, as with gravity and sweetness she put her arms around his neck +and looked up at him with great tenderness. She said—</p> + +<p>"I think I know what you mean. You want me to give up my fortune and go +to you."</p> + +<p>She seemed to radiate before Fairfax's eyes, and his worship of her at +this moment increased a thousandfold. He leaned forward and laid his +head against her breast.</p> + +<p>In the love of all women there is a strong quality of the maternal. Mary +bent over the blond head and pressed her lips to his hair. When Antony +lifted his face there were tears in his eyes. He cried—</p> + +<p>"Heaven bless you, darling! You don't know how high I will take you, how +far I will carry us both. The world shall talk of us! Mary—Mary!"</p> + +<p>She smoothed his forehead. She knew there would never be another moment +in her life like this one.</p> + +<p>He said, "I will take you to the studio, of course. I haven't told you +that in June I shall have fifty thousand francs, and from then on I will +be succeeding so fast that we will forget we were ever poor." He saw her +faintly smile, and said sharply, "I suppose you spend fifty thousand +francs now on your clothes!"</p> + +<p>She said frankly, "And more; but that makes no difference," and +ventured, "You don't seem to think, Tony, what a pleasure it would be to +me to do for you." She paused at his exclamation. "Oh, of course, I +understand your pride," and asked, "What shall I do with my fortune, +Tony?"</p> + +<p>"This money on which you are living," he said gravely, "that you have +accepted from a man you never loved, give it all to the poor. Keep the +commandment for once, and we will see what the treasures of heaven are +like."</p> + +<p>He thought she clung to him desperately, and there was an ardour in the +return of her caress that made him say—</p> + +<p>"Mary, don't answer me to-day, please; I want you to think it calmly +over. Just now you have shown me what I wanted to see."</p> + +<p>She asked, "What?"</p> + +<p>"That you love me."</p> + +<p>She said, "Yes, I do love you. Will you believe it always?"<!-- Page 321 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bending over her he said passionately, "I shall believe it when I have +your answer, and you are going to make me divinely happy."</p> + +<p>She echoed the word softly, "Happy!" and her lips trembled. Across the +ante-chamber came the sound of voices. Their retreat was about to be +invaded by the people of the world who never very long left Mary +Faversham alone.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she cried, "I cannot see any one. Why did they let any one in?" +And, lifting her face to him, she said in a low tone, "Tony, kiss me +again."</p> + +<p>Antony, indifferent as to who might come and who might not, caught her +to him and held her for a second, then crossed the room to the curtained +door and went down the terrace steps and across the garden.</p> + +<p>By the big wall he turned and looked back to where, through the long +French windows, he could see the music-room with the palms and gilt +furniture. Mary Faversham was already surrounded by the Comte de B—— +and the Baron de F——. He knew them vaguely. Before going to get his +hat and stick from the vestibule, he watched her for a few moments, with +a strange adoration in his heart. She was his, she was ready to give up +everything for the sake of his ideals. He thought he could never love +more than at this moment. He believed that he was not asking her to make +a ridiculous sacrifice, but on the contrary to accept a spiritual +gain—a sacrifice of all for love and art and honour, too! As he looked +across the room a distinguished figure came to Mary Faversham. He was +welcomed very cordially. It was Cedersholm. He had been in Russia for +months. Fairfax's heart grew cold.</p> + +<p>As though Mary fancied that her mad lover might linger, she came over to +the window and drew down the Venetian shade. It fell, rippling softly, +and blotted out the room for Fairfax. A wave of anger swept him, a +sudden uncertainty regarding the woman herself followed, and immediately +he saw himself ridiculous, crude and utterly fantastical in his +ultimatum. The egoism and childishness of what he had done stood out to +him, and in that second he knew that he had lost her—lost her for +ever.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 322 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p>He did not go home. He went into the Bois and walked for miles. His +unequal, limping strides tired him to death and he was finally the only +wanderer there. Over the exquisite forest of new-leaf trees the stars +came out at length, and the guardians began to observe him. At eight +o'clock in the morning he had not eaten. He went into a small restaurant +and made a light meal. For the first time since Albany, when he had +drank too much in despair and grief, he took now too much red wine. He +walked on feathers and felt his blood dance. He rang the bell at Mary +Faversham's at nine-thirty in the morning, and the butler, intensely +surprised, informed him that Mary had gone out riding in the Bois with +Monsieur Cedersholm. Antony had given this servant more fees that he +could afford. He found a piece of money in his pocket and gave it to +Ferdinand.</p> + +<p>"But, monsieur," said the man, embarrassed, and handled the piece. It +was a louis. Antony waved magnificently and started away. He took a cab +back to the studio, but could not pay the cabman, for the louis was his +last piece of money. He waked Dearborn out of a profound sleep, in which +the playwright was dreaming of two hundred night performances.</p> + +<p>"Bob, can you let me have a few francs?"</p> + +<p>"In my vest pocket," said Dearborn. "Take what you like."</p> + +<p>Tony paid his cab out of the change and realized that it was some of the +money from Dearborn's advance royalties. It gave him pleasure to think +that he was spending money which had been made by art. It was "serious +money." He did not hesitate to use it. He sat by the table when he came +in from paying his cab<!-- Page 323 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> and fell into a heavy sleep, his head upon his +arm. Thus the two friends slumbered until noon, Dearborn dreaming of +fame and Antony of despair.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock that afternoon, bathed and dressed, himself again save +for a certain bewilderment in his head, he stood in his window looking +out on the quays. Underneath, Nora Scarlet and Dearborn passed +arm-in-arm. They were going to Versailles to talk of love, of fame and +artistic struggle, under the trees. Antony heard the shuffling of his +old concierge on the stairs. He knew that the man was bringing him a +letter and that it would be from Mary.</p> + +<p>With the letter between his hands, he waited some few minutes before +opening it. He finally read it, sitting forward on the divan, his face +set.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dearest</span>," it began, and then there was a long space as though the +woman could not bear to write the words, "You will never be able to +judge me fairly. I cannot ask it of you. You are too much of a +genius to understand a mere woman. I am writing you in my boudoir, +just where you came to me that day when you told me your love and +when I wept to hear it, dearest. I shall cry again, thinking of it, +many times. I have done you a great wrong in taking ever so little +of you, and taking even those few months from the work which shall +mean so much to the world. Now I am glad I have found it out before +it is too late. I have no right to you, Tony. In answer to what you +asked me yesterday, I say no. You will not believe it is for your +sake, dear, but it is. I see you could not share my life in any +way, and keep your ideals. How could I ask you to? I see I could +not share your struggle and leave you free enough to keep your +ideals.</p> + +<p>"I can never quite believe that love is a mistake. I shall think of +mine for you the rest of my life. When you read this letter I shall +have left Paris. Do not try to find me or follow me. I know your +pride, dear, the greatest pride I ever saw or dreamed of. I wonder +if it is a right one. At any rate, it will not let you follow me; I +am sure of that. I wish to put between us an immeasurable distance, +one which no folly on your part and no weakness on mine could +bridge. Cedersholm has<!-- Page 324 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> returned from Russia, and I told him last +night that I would marry him.—<span class="smcap">Mary.</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Then, for the first time, Tony knew how he loved her. Crushing the +letter between his hands, he snatched up his hat and rushed out, took a +cab, and drove like mad to her house.</p> + +<p>The little horse galloped with him, the driver cracked his whip with +utterances like the sparks flying, and they tore up the Champs Elysées, +part of the great multitude, yet distinct, as is every individual with +their definite sufferings and their definite joys.</p> + +<p>Her house stood white and distinct at the back of the garden, the +windows were flung open. On the steps of the terrace a man-servant, to +whom Antony had given fat tips which he could not afford, stood in an +undress uniform, blue apron and duster over his arm; painters came out +with ladders and placed them against the wall. The old gardener, +Félicien, who had given him countless <i>boutonničres</i>, mounted the steps +with a flower-pot in his hand and talked with the man-servant; he was +joined by two maids. The place was left, then, to servants. Everything +seemed changed. She might never—he was sure she would never—return as +Mrs. Faversham. Immeasurably far away indeed, as she said—immeasurably +far—she seemed to have gone into another sphere, and yet he had held +her in his arms! The thought of his tenderness was too real to permit of +any other consideration holding its place. He sprang out of his cab, +rang the door-bell, and when the door was opened he asked the surprised +servant for Mrs. Faversham's address.</p> + +<p>"But I have no idea of it, monsieur," said the man with a comprehensive +gesture. "None."</p> + +<p>"You are not sending any letters?"</p> + +<p>"None, monsieur."</p> + +<p>Fairfax's blue eyes, his pale, handsome face, appealed very much to +Ferdinand. He liked Monsieur Rainsford. Although the chap did not know +it himself, Tony had been far more generous than were the millionaires. +Ferdinand called one of the maids.</p> + +<p>"Where's madame's maid stopping in London?" asked the butler.<!-- Page 325 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, at the Ritz," said Louise promptly. "She is always at the Ritz, +monsieur."</p> + +<p>Tony had no more gold to reward this treachery.</p> + +<p>When Dearborn came home that night from Versailles he found a note on +the table, leaning up against the box in which the two comrades kept +their mutual fund of money. Dearborn's advance royalty was all gone but +a hundred francs.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"I have gone to London," Fairfax's note ran. "Sell anything of mine +you like before I get back, if you are hard up.—<span class="smcap">Tony.</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>He spent two pounds on a pistol. If he had chanced to meet Cedersholm +with her, he would have shot him. From the hour he had received her +letter and learned that she was going to marry Cedersholm, he had been +hardly sane.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock on a bland, sweet afternoon, three days after he had +left Paris, he was shown up to her sitting-room at the Whiteheart Hotel, +in Windsor. He had traced her there from the Ritz.</p> + +<p>Mary Faversham, who was alone, rose to meet him, white as death.</p> + +<p>"Tony," she said, "don't come nearer—stand there, Tony. Dear Tony, it +is too late, too late!"</p> + +<p>He limped across the room and took her in his arms, looking at her +wildly. Her lips trembled, her eyes filled.</p> + +<p>"I married him by special license yesterday, Tony. Go, go, before he +comes."</p> + +<p>He saw she could not stand. He put her in a chair, fell on his knees and +buried his head in her lap. He clung to her, to the Woman, to his Vision +of the Woman, to the form, the substance, the reality which he thought +at last he had really caught for ever. She bent over him and kissed his +hair, weeping.</p> + +<p>"Go," she said. "Go, my darling."</p> + +<p>Fairfax had not spoken a word. Curses, invectives, prayers were in his +heart. He crushed them down.</p> + +<p>"I love you for your pride," she said. "I adore you for the brave demand +you made me. I could not fulfil it, Tony, for your sake."</p> + +<p>Then he spoke, and meant what he said, "You have ruined my life."<!-- Page 326 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh no!" she cried. "Don't say such a thing!"</p> + +<p>"Some day I shall kill him." He had risen, with tears in his eyes. "You +loved me," he challenged, "you did love me!"</p> + +<p>She did not dare to say "I love you still." She saw what the tragedy +would be.</p> + +<p>"We could not have been poor," she said, "could we, dear?"</p> + +<p>He exclaimed bitterly, "If you thought of that, you could not have +cared." And she was strong enough to take advantage of his change.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I could not have cared as you mean, or I should never have +done this."</p> + +<p>Then Fairfax cursed under his breath, and once again, this time +brutally, caught her in his arms and kissed her, crying to her as he had +cried once before—</p> + +<p>"Tell him how I kissed you—tell him!"</p> + +<p>White as death, Mary Faversham pushed him from her. "For the love of +God, Tony, go!"</p> + +<p>And he went, stumbling down the stairs. Out in Windsor the bugles for +some solemn festivity were blowing.</p> + +<p>"The flowers of the forest are all wied away."</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead">BOOK IV</h2> + +<h2 class="chapterhead">BELLA</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 327 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>From the Western world he heard nothing for four years. Meanwhile he +brought his new skill, his maturer knowledge, the result of seven years' +study and creation in the workshops of masters and in his own studio, to +the sculpturing of the second tomb—the Open Door.</p> + +<p>There were crowds around his marble in the Salon, and he mingled with +them, watching them muse, discuss, criticize, grow sad and thoughtful +before his conception of Life and Death. Some of them looked as poor Tom +Rainsford had looked, yearningly toward the door of the tomb. Others +hurried past the inscrutable beauty of the Open Door. Purely white, +stainless, slender, luminous and yet cold, Molly stood immortalized by +Antony. His conception made him famous.</p> + +<p>He had exhibited each year with increasing success at private +exhibitions, but never at the Salon, and had been called "poseur" +because of his reluctance to expose his work in national academies. His +bas-reliefs had made him favourably known, but nothing equalled the +solemn marble that came now from his studio. Antony's work occupied some +twenty feet in the Champ de Mars.</p> + +<p>His lame foot touched a pile of newspapers on the floor, in which the +critics spoke of him in terms he thought fulsome and ridiculous, and +they pained him while they dazzled him. He thought of Bella. He had +thought of<!-- Page 328 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> Bella constantly of late, and there were no answers to his +questions. She would be twenty-three, a woman, married, no doubt, always +enchanting. How she had stood before his bas-relief in Albany, musing, +and her eyes had been wet when she had turned to him and asked, "Who is +it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful, beautiful!" He would have +liked to have led Bella to his work in the Salon, and, hand-in-hand with +her, until the crowd around them should have melted away, have stood +there with her alone. From the night her inspiring little hand had +stolen into his, Bella's hand had seemed a mate for his.</p> + +<p>"Who is it, Cousin Antony?"</p> + +<p>Indeed, who was the woman going through the Open Door? What woman's face +and form constantly inspired him, haunting him, promising to haunt him +until the end? He was always seeking to unveil the face of his visions +and find the one woman, the supplement, the mate, the companion.</p> + +<p>Who would inspire him now? His memories, his dead, his past, had done +their work. What fresh inspiration would urge him now to create?</p> + +<p>The public had no fault to find with him. The tomb made him celebrated +in twenty-four hours. At a time when all Paris was laughing at Rodin's +Balzac, there was a place for a sculptor like Antony, for the idealist +and dreamer, gifted with a strong and faultless technique.</p> + +<p>He read hastily and with surprise the exaggerated praise which the "Open +Door" called forth from the reviews. "It is not as good as all that," he +thought, "and it is too soon to hear thunder about my ears."</p> + +<p>He seemed to see the door of his future open and himself standing there, +the burden of proof upon him. What work he must continue to produce in +order to sustain such sudden fame! The <i>Figaro</i> called him a "giant," +and several critics said he was the sculptor of the time. His mail was +full of letters from friends and strangers. By ten o'clock the night of +the "Vernissage" all his acquaintances and intimates in Paris had +brought him their felicitations. He turned back to his table where his +letters lay. He had just read an affectionate, enthusiastic expression +of praise and belief from Potowski.<!-- Page 329 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> There was another note which he had +read first with anger, then with keen satisfaction, and then with as +much malice as his heart could hold.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"<span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</span><br /> +</p> + +<blockquote><p>"I have the honour to represent in France the committee for the +construction in Boston of a triumphal arch to be raised in +commemoration of the men who first fell in the battle of the +Revolution. The idea is to crown this arch with a group of figures, +either realistic or symbolical, as the sculptor shall see fit. +After carefully considering the modern work of men in France, I am +inclined to offer this commission to you if you can accept it. Your +'Open Door' is the most beautiful piece of sculpture, according to +my opinion, in modern times. An appointment would gratify me very +much.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"I have the honour to be, sir, etc.,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"<span class="smcap">Gunner Cedersholm</span>."</span><br /> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Antony had given the appointment with excitement, and he was waiting now +to see for the first time in ten years the man who had stolen from him +fame, honour, and love.</p> + +<p>He had heard nothing of the Cedersholms for six years. As far as he +knew, during this time they had never returned to France. Once he +vaguely understood that they were travelling for Mrs. Cedersholm's +health.</p> + +<p>His eyes ached to look upon the man whom he regarded as his bitterest +enemy. Of Mrs. Cedersholm he thought now only as he thought of woman, of +vain visions which he might never, never grasp or hold. He had bitterly +torn his love out of his heart.</p> + +<p>After leaving her at Windsor he had remained for some time in London +where Dearborn had followed him, and where Dearborn and Nora Scarlet +were married. Fairfax had sat with them in the gallery at Regent's +Theatre when the curtain rose on Dearborn's successful play. Fairfax +took a position as professor of drawing in a girls' school in the West +End and taught a group of schoolgirls for several months. Between times +he modelled on his statues for his new conception of the "Open Door." +Then in the following spring, with a<!-- Page 330 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 337]</a></span> yearning in his heart and +homesickness for France, he returned into the city with the May. He +could scarcely look up at the windows of the old studio on the quays. He +rented a barren place in the Vaugirard quarter and began his work in +terrible earnestness.</p> + +<p>Now, as he waited for his visitor, he wondered if Mary Cedersholm had +visited the Salon, if with others she had stood before his sculpture. +His servant announced "Monsieur Cedersholm," then let in the visitor and +shut the door behind him. Cedersholm entered the vast studio in the soft +light of late afternoon with which the spring twilight, rapidly +withdrawing, filled the room. Antony did not stir from his chair, where +he sat enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke.</p> + +<p>The small man—Fairfax had forgotten how small he was—entered +cautiously as though he were entering the room of a foe, which, indeed, +he was doing, without being aware of it. Fairfax remembered that he had +seen Cedersholm wearing a single eyeglass, and now spectacles of +extraordinary thickness covered his eyes. He evidently saw with +difficulty. As Fairfax did not rise to greet him, Cedersholm approached, +saying tentatively—</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rainsford? I believe I have an appointment with Mr. Rainsford."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Fairfax curtly, "I am here. Sit down, will you?"</p> + +<p>His lame foot, which would have disclosed his identity, was withdrawn +under his chair.</p> + +<p>"I have just come from the Soudan," said Cedersholm, "where I had a +sunstroke of the eyes. I see badly."</p> + +<p>"Blindness," said Fairfax shortly, "is a common failing, but many of us +don't know we have anything the matter with our eyes."</p> + +<p>"It is, however, a tragedy for a sculptor," said Cedersholm, taking the +chair to which Fairfax had pointed.</p> + +<p>From the box on the table Fairfax offered his guest a cigar, which was +refused. Antony lit a fresh one; it was evident he had not been +recognized.</p> + +<p>"I have not touched a tool for five years," Cedersholm said. "A man like +you who must adore his work can easily imagine what this means."<!-- Page 331 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> + +<p>"For two or three years I did not touch a tool. I know what it means."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Cedersholm with interest. "What was your infirmity?"</p> + +<p>"Poverty," returned Fairfax. Then added, "You have not come to talk with +me about the short and simple annals of the poor."</p> + +<p>"All that which goes to make the education and career of a great man," +said Cedersholm, "is deeply interesting, especially to a confrčre. You +have executed a very great piece of work, Mr. Rainsford."</p> + +<p>Fairfax made no response.</p> + +<p>"You seem," said Cedersholm, "to doubt my sincerity. You received my +letter?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Would you be reluctant to undertake such a work?"</p> + +<p>The man who stood before Fairfax was so altered from his former self +that Tony was obliged to whip up his memories, to call up all his past +in order to connect this visitor with the man who had ruined him. Pale, +meagre, so thin that his clothes hung upon him, disfigured by his thick +glasses, he seemed to have shrunk into a little insignificant creature. +No man could connect him with the idea of greatness or success. Fairfax +answered it would depend upon circumstances.</p> + +<p>"I expect you are very much overrun with orders, Mr. Rainsford. I can +understand that. I do not take up a newspaper without reading some +appreciative criticism of your work." The Swedish sculptor removed his +glasses and wiped his eyes with a fragrant silk handkerchief. Then +carefully replacing his spectacles, begged Fairfax's pardon. "I have +suffered dreadfully with these infirm eyes," he said.</p> + +<p>Fairfax leaned forward a little, continuing to whip up his memories, +and, once goaded, like all revengeful and evil things, they came now +quickly to bring back to him his anger of the past. Hatred and malice +had disappeared—his nature was too sweet, too generous and forgiving to +brood upon that which was irrevocably gone. He had been living fast; he +had been working intensely; he had been loved, and he had shut his eyes +and sighed and tried to think he loved in return. But the walls of<!-- Page 332 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> his +studio in the Rue Vaugirard melted away, and, instead, Cedersholm's +rich, extravagant New York workshop rose up before his eyes. He saw +himself again the young, ardent student, his blood beating with hope and +trust, and his hands busy over what he had supposed was to be immortal +labour; it had been given for this man then, the greatest living +sculptor, to adopt it for his own. Now his heart began to beat fast. He +clasped his hands strongly together, his voice trembling in his throat.</p> + +<p>"I should ask a tremendous price," he said slowly, "a tremendous price."</p> + +<p>"Quite right," returned the Swedish sculptor. "Talent such as yours +should be paid for generously. I used to think so. I have commanded my +price, Mr. Rainsford."</p> + +<p>"I know your reputation and your fame," said Fairfax.</p> + +<p>The other accepted what his host said as a compliment, and continued—</p> + +<p>"The committee is very rich; there are men of enormous fortunes +interested in the monument. They can pay—in reason," he added; "of +course, in reason—and as you are an American there would be in your +mind the ideal of patriotism."</p> + +<p>"My demand would not be in reason," said Fairfax.</p> + +<p>Cedersholm, struck at length by his tone, finding him lacking in +courtesy and manners, began to peer at him keenly in the rapidly +deepening twilight.</p> + +<p>"In a way," he said sententiously, eager to be understood and approved +of by the man who, in his judgment, was important in the sculpture of +the time, he continued courteously, "there is no price too much to pay +for art. I have followed your work for years."</p> + +<p>"Have you?" said Antony.</p> + +<p>"Six years ago I bought a little statue in an exhibition of the works of +the pupils of Barye's studio." Cedersholm again took out his fine silk +handkerchief and pressed it to his eyes. "Since then I have looked for +comments on your work everywhere, and, whenever I saw you mentioned, I +reminded the fact to my wife, who was an admirer of your talent."</p> + +<p>Antony grew cold. At the mention of her name his blood chilled. Mary! +Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. He drew his breath hard, clasped one hand +across his forehead,<!-- Page 333 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> and still back in the far remote past he did not +bid this vision of Mary Cedersholm to linger.</p> + +<p>"When I came back to Paris, I found you had justified my faith in your +work. The question of payment now, in case you undertake this group, for +instance, I dare say the matter would be satisfactorily adjusted."</p> + +<p>"I doubt it, Mr. Cedersholm."</p> + +<p>Cedersholm, already interested in the man as a worker, became now +interested in his personality, and found him curious, settled himself +comfortably in his chair and swung his monocle, which he still wore, by +its string. He saw the face of his host indistinctly, and his eyes +wandered around the vast, shadowy studio where the swathed casts stood +in the corners. The place gave him a twinge of jealousy and awakened all +his longings as an artist.</p> + +<p>"It makes me acutely suffer," he said, "to come into the workshop of the +sculptor. Four years of enforced idleness——" Then he broke in abruptly +and said, "You have apparently settled already in your mind—decided not +to accept this work for us. I think you are determined not to meet us, +Mr. Rainsford."</p> + +<p>"The price," said Antony, leaning fully forward, his blue eyes, whose +sight was unimpeded, fixed on Cedersholm, "must be great enough to buy +me back my lost youth."</p> + +<p>His companion laughed gently and said indulgently, "My dear Mr. +Rainsford."</p> + +<p>"To buy me back my loss of faith in men's honour, in human kindness, in +justice, in woman's love."</p> + +<p>"He is a true genius," Cedersholm thought to himself, "just a bit over +the line of mental balance." And he almost envied Antony this frenzy, +for he had always judged himself too sane to be a great artist.</p> + +<p>"It must buy me back three years of bitter struggle, of degrading manual +toil."</p> + +<p>"My dear man," said the sculptor indulgently. "I think I understand you, +but no material price could ever do what you ask. Money, unfortunately, +has nothing to do with the past; it can take care of the future more or +less, but the past is beyond repurchase, you know."</p> + +<p>It was growing constantly darker. The corners of the<!-- Page 334 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> studio were deep +in shadows, and the forms of Antony's casts shone like spectres in their +white clothes; the scaffoldings looked ghostly and spirit-like. +Cedersholm sighed.</p> + +<p>"Why have you come to me?" he heard Fairfax ask in his cutting tone, and +he understood that for some reason or other this stranger was purposely +impolite and unfriendly to him. He had not even found Fairfax's face +familiar. There he sat before Antony, small, insignificant. How often he +had crossed Tony's mind in some ugly dream when he had longed to crush +him like a reptile. Now that he stood before him in flesh and blood it +was astonishing to Fairfax to see how little real he was.</p> + +<p>"I have been absent from France for six years," continued the Swede, and +paused.... And Antony knew he was going back in his mind over the past +six years of his married life with Mary. "I returned to Paris this week, +and wandered into the Salon and stood with a crowd before your +bas-relief. I stood for quite half an hour there, I should think, and at +least one hundred men and women passed and paused as I had paused. I +listened to their comments. I saw your popularity and your power, and +saw how you touched the mass by the real beauty of real emotion, by your +expression of feeling in plastic art. This is not often achieved +nowadays, Mr. Rainsford. Sculpture is the least emotional of all the +arts; literature, painting, and music stir the emotions and bring our +tears, but that calm, sublime marble, that cold stone awes us by its +harmonious perfection. Before sculpture we are content to marvel and +worship, and in the 'Open Door' you have made us do all this and made us +weep. I do not doubt that amongst those people many had lost their own +by death." He paused. It was so dark now that the two men saw each +other's face indistinctly. In the shadows Cedersholm's form had +softened; the shadows blurred him before Fairfax's eyes; his voice was +intensely melancholy. "To every man and woman who has lost your +bas-relief is profoundly appealing. Every one of us must go through that +door. Your conception, Mr. Rainsford, and your execution are sublime."</p> + +<p>Fairfax murmured something which Cedersholm did<!-- Page 335 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> not make out. He paused +a moment, apparently groping in thought as he groped with his weak eyes, +and as Fairfax did not respond, he continued—</p> + +<p>"You spoke just now of the price we must pay you, the price which you +say must buy you back—what I judge you to mean by your progress, by +these years of labour and education, by your apprenticeship to art, and, +let me say, to life. My dear man, they have already purchased for you +your present achievement, your present power. Everything we have, you +know, must be paid for. Some things are paid for in coin, and others in +flesh and blood and tears. To judge by what we know of the progress of +the world in spiritual things and in art, it is the things that are +purchased by this travail of the spirit that render eternal possessions, +the eternal impressions. No man who has not suffered as you have +apparently suffered, no man who has not walked upon thorns, could have +produced the 'Open Door.' Do not degrade the value of your past life and +the value of every hour of your agony. Why, it is above price." He +paused ... his voice shook. "It is the gift of God!"</p> + +<p>Antony's hands were clasped lightly together; they had been holding each +other with a grip of steel; now they relaxed a bit. He bowed his head a +little from its proud hauteur, and said—</p> + +<p>"You are right; you are right."</p> + +<p>"Four years ago," continued the voice—Cedersholm had become to him now +only a voice to which he listened in the darkness—"four years ago, if I +had seen the 'Open Door,' I would have appreciated its art as I +recognized the value of your figure which I bought at the Exposition, +but I could not have understood it; its spiritual lesson would have been +lost upon me. You do not know me," he continued, "and I can in no way +especially interest you. But these six years of my life, especially the +last two, have been my Garden of Gethsemane."</p> + +<p>He stopped. Antony knew that he had taken out the silk handkerchief +again and wiped his eyes. After a second, Cedersholm said—</p> + +<p>"You must have lost some one very near you."</p> + +<p>"My wife," said Antony Fairfax.<!-- Page 336 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p> + +<p>The other man put out his hand, and he touched Antony's closed hands.</p> + +<p>"I have lost my wife as well; she died two years ago."</p> + +<p>Cedersholm heard Antony's exclamation and felt him start violently.</p> + +<p>"Your wife," he cried, "Mary ... dead ... dead?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why do you exclaim like that?"</p> + +<p>"Not Mary Faversham?"</p> + +<p>"Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. Did you know her?"</p> + +<p>With a supreme effort Antony controlled himself. His voice suffocated +him.</p> + +<p>Dead! He felt again the touch of her lips; he heard again her voice; he +felt her arms around him as she held him in Windsor—"Tony, darling, go! +It is too late."</p> + +<p>Oh! the Open Door!</p> + +<p>Cedersholm, in the agitation that his own words had produced in himself, +and in his grief, did not notice that Fairfax murmured he had known Mrs. +Cedersholm in Paris.</p> + +<p>"My wife was very delicate," he said. "We travelled everywhere. She +faded and my life stopped when she died. To-day, when I saw the 'Open +Door,' it had a message for me that brought me the first solace." Again +his hands sought Fairfax's. "Thank you, brother artist," he murmured; +"you have suffered as I have. You understand."</p> + +<p>From where he sat, Fairfax struck a match and lit the candle. Its pale +light flickered up in the big dark room like a lily shining in a tomb. +He said, with a great effort—</p> + +<p>"I made a little bas-relief of Mrs. Cedersholm. Did she never speak of +me?"</p> + +<p>"Never," said Cedersholm thoughtfully. "She met so many people in +France; she was so surrounded. She admired greatly the little figure I +bought at the Exposition; it was always in our salon. We spoke of you as +a coming power, but I do not recall that she ever mentioned having known +you."</p> + +<p>To Antony this was the greatest proof she could have given him of her +love for him. That careful silence, the long silence, not once speaking +his name. He had triumphed over Cedersholm. She had loved him. +Cedersholm murmured<!-- Page 337 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"And you did that bas-relief—a head silhouetted against a lattice? It +never left her room, but she never mentioned it to me although I greatly +admired it. It Was a perfect likeness." Fairfax saw Cedersholm peer at +him through the candle light. "Curious," he continued, "curious."</p> + +<p>And Antony knew that Cedersholm would never forget his cry of +"Mary—Mary dead!" And her silence regarding his existence and his name, +and that silence and that cry would go together in the husband's memory.</p> + +<p>The door of the studio was opened by Dearborn, who came in calling—</p> + +<p>"Tony, Tony, old man."</p> + +<p>Cedersholm rose, and Antony rose as well, putting out his hand, saying—</p> + +<p>"I will undertake the work you speak of, if your committee will write me +confirming your suggestion. And I leave the price to you, you know; you +understand what such work is worth. I place myself in your hands."</p> + +<p>Dearborn had come up to them. "Tony," said Dearborn, "what are you +plotting in the dark with a single candle?"</p> + +<p>Fairfax presented him. "Mr. Cedersholm, Robert Dearborn, the playwright, +the author of 'All Roads Meet.'"</p> + +<p>Dearborn shook the sculptor's hand lightly. He wondered how this must +have been for his friend. He looked curiously from one to the other.</p> + +<p>"'All Roads Meet,'" he quoted keenly. "Good name, don't you think? They +all do meet somewhere"—he put his hand affectionately on Tony's +shoulder—"even if it is only at the Open Door." Then he asked, partly +smiling, "And the beautiful Mrs. Cedersholm, is she in Paris too?"</p> + +<p>"My wife," said Cedersholm shortly, "died two years ago."</p> + +<p>"Dead!" exclaimed Robert Dearborn in a low tone of regret, the tone of +every man who regrets the passing of a lovely creature that they have +admired. "Dead! I beg your pardon, I did not know. I am too heartily +sorry."</p> + +<p>He put out his kindly hand. Cedersholm scarcely<!-- Page 338 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> touched it. He was +excited, overwhelmed, and began to take his leave, to walk rapidly +across the big room.</p> + +<p>As the three men went together toward the door of the studio, Fairfax +turned up an electric light. It shone brightly on them all, on +Dearborn's grave, charming face, touched with the news of the death of +the woman his friend had loved, on Cedersholm's almost livid face, on +his thick glasses, and on Antony limping at his side. Cedersholm saw the +limp, the unmistakable limp, the heavy boot, his stature, his beautiful +head, and in spite of his infirmity he saw enough of his host to make +him know him, to make him remember him, and his heart, which had begun +to ache at Fairfax's cry of Mary, seemed to die within him. He +remembered the man whom he had cheated out of his work and out of public +acknowledgment. He knew now what Fairfax meant by the repurchase of his +miserable youth. He had believed Antony Fairfax dead years ago. He had +been told that he was dead. Now he limped beside him, powerful, clever, +acknowledged, and moreover, there he stood beside him with memories that +Cedersholm would never know, with memories that linked him with Mary +Faversham-Cedersholm. In an unguarded moment that cry had escaped from +the heart of a man who must have loved her. He thought of the bas-relief +that hung always above her bed, and he thought of her silence, more +eloquent now to him even than Antony's cry, and that silence and that +cry would haunt him till the end, and the silence could never be broken +now that she had gone through the Open Door.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Dearborn had not been with him all day until now. He had come up radiant +to Tony, and putting his hand on his shoulder, said—</p> + +<p>"My dear Tony, I had to come in to-day just to bring you a piece of +news—to tell you a rumour, rather. The 'Open Door' has been bought by +the Government. Your fame is made. I wanted to be the first to tell you. +I went into the Embassy for a little while to hear them talk about you, +and I can assure you that I did hear them. The ambassador himself told +me this news is official. Every one will know to-morrow."<!-- Page 339 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>They talked together until the morning light came grey across the panes +of the atelier, and the light was full of new creations, of new ideals +of fame and life, of new ambitions and dreams for them both. Enthralled +and inspired each by the other, the two artists talked and dreamed. +Dearborn's new play was running into its two-hundredth performance. He +was a rich man. Now Antony paused on the threshold of his studio, +looking back into the deserted workroom filling with the April evening. +In every corner, one by one, the visions rose and floated. They became +new statues, new creations, indistinct and ethereal. Only the space, +where the work that had been carried away to the Salon had once stood, +was bare. As he shut the door he felt that he shut the door for ever +upon his past, upon his young manhood and upon his youth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 340 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>In the early days of July he found himself once more alone in the empty +studio, where he had worked for twelve months at the "Open Door."</p> + +<p>The place where the huge marble had stood was empty; in its stead fame +remained.</p> + +<p>Looking back, it seemed now that his hardships had not been severe +enough. Had success really come? Would it stay? Was he only the child of +an hour? Could he sustain? He recalled the little statuettes which he +had made out of the clay of the levee when he was a boy. He remembered +his beautiful mother's praise—</p> + +<p>"Why, Tony, they are extraordinary, my darling."</p> + +<p>And the constant fever had run through his veins all his life. He had +made his apprenticeship over theft and death. He said to himself—</p> + +<p>"I shall sustain."</p> + +<p>As he mused there, the praise he had received ringing in his ears, he +entertained fame and saw the shadow of laurel on the floor, under the +lamplight, where his marble had stood, long and white.</p> + +<p>He had made warm friends and bound them to him. He loved the city and +its beauties. His refinement and sense of taste had matured. Antony knew +that in his soul he was unaltered, that he was marked by his past, and +that the scars upon him were deep.</p> + +<p>He was very much alone; there was no one with whom he could share his +glory. Should he become the greatest living sculptor, to whom could he +bring his honours, his joys?</p> + +<p>For a long time Bella went with him in everything he did. His visions +were banished by the vivid thought<!-- Page 341 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> of her. When he came into his studio +at twilight he would fancy he saw her sitting by the table.</p> + +<p>She would lean there, not like a spirit-like woman under the shaded +lamp, sewing at little children's garments ... not like that! +Nevertheless, Bella sat there as a woman who waits for a return, the +charming figure, the charming head with its crown of dark hair, and the +lovely, brilliantly coloured face. Now there was nothing spirit-like in +Antony's picture.</p> + +<p>Then again he would imagine that he saw her in the crowd before his +bas-relief at the Salon; he would select some woman dressed in an +unusually smart spring gown and call her Bella to himself, until he saw +her turn.</p> + +<p>Once indeed, there, on the edge of the crowd, leaning with her hands +upon the handle of her parasol, he was sure he saw her. The pose of the +body was charming, the turn of the head almost as haughty as his own +mother's, but the slenderness and the magnetism were Bella's own.</p> + +<p>Antony chose this woman upon whom to fix his attention, and he thought +that when she would move the resemblance would be gone.</p> + +<p>The young girl suddenly altered her pose, and Antony saw her fully; he +saw the proud beautiful face, piquant, alluring, a trifle sad; the +brilliant lips, the colour in the cheeks, like a snow-set peach, the +wonderful eyes, could belong to but one woman.</p> + +<p>Separated from her by a little concourse of people, Antony could only +cry, "Bella!" to himself. He started eagerly toward the place where he +had seen her, but she vanished as the mirage on the desert's face.</p> + +<p>What had he seen? A real woman, or only a trick of resemblance?</p> + +<p>It was real enough to make him search the newspapers and the hotel lists +and the bankers. Now he could not think of her name without a mighty +emotion. If that were Bella, she was too lovely to be true! She <i>must</i> +be his, no matter at what price, no matter what her life might be.</p> + +<p>A fortnight after he received in his mail a letter from America. The +address, "Mr. Thomas Rainsford," was in a round full hand, a handsome +hand; first he thought it a man's. He opened it with slight interest. +The<!-- Page 342 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> paper exhaled an intangible odour; it was not perfume, but a +delicate scent which recalled to him, for some reason, or other, the +smell of the vines around the veranda-trellis in New Orleans. He read—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Mr. Thomas Rainsford.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—</span><br /> +</p> + +<blockquote><p>"This will seem to be a very extraordinary letter, I know. I hardly +know how to write such a letter. When I was in Paris a few weeks +ago, I stood before the most beautiful piece of sculpture I have +ever seen. I do not know that any one could do a more wonderful, a +more deeply spiritual thing in clay or marble. But it is not what I +think about it in that way, which is of interest. It cannot be of +any interest to you, as you do not know me, nor is it for this that +I am writing to you. Again, I do not know how to tell you.</p> + +<p>"Where did you get your ideas for your statue? That is what I want +to know. Years ago, a bas-relief, very much like yours—I should +almost say identically yours—was made by my cousin, Antony +Fairfax, in Albany. That bas-relief took the ten-thousand-dollar +prize in Chicago. It was, unfortunately, destroyed in a fire, and +no record of it was kept. My cousin is dead. For this reason I +write to ask you where you got your inspiration for the 'Open +Door.' It can be nothing to him that his beautiful work has been +more beautifully done by a stranger, can do him no harm, but I want +to know. Will you write me to the care of the Women's Art League, +5th Avenue, New York? Perhaps you will not deign to answer this +letter. Do not think that I am making any reproach to you. It can +be nothing to my cousin; he is dead but it would be a comfort to +me. Once again, I hope you will let me hear from you.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Yours faithfully,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"<span class="smcap">Bella Carew</span>."</span><br /> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>The man reading in his studio looked at the signature, looked at the +handwriting, held it before his eyes, to which the tears rushed. He +pressed the faintly scented pages to his lips. Gallant little Bella ... +He stretched<!-- Page 343 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> out his arms in the darkness, called to her across three +thousand miles—</p> + +<p>"Little cousin, please Heaven he can show you some day, Bella Carew."</p> + +<p>It was at this time that he modelled his wonderful bust of Bella Carew.</p> + +<p>When he finished the "Open Door," he said that he would not work for a +year, that he was exhausted bodily and mentally; certainly he had lacked +inspiration. But the afternoon of the day on which he had read this +letter—this letter that opened for him a future—he set feverishly to +work and modelled. He made a head of Bella which the critics have +likened to the busts of Houdon, Carpeaux, and other masters. He modelled +from memory, guided by his recollections of that picturesque face he had +seen under the big hat on the outskirts of the crowd before his +bas-relief. He modelled from memory, from imagination, with hope and new +love, from old love too; told himself he had fallen in love with Bella +the first night he had seen her, when she had comforted him about his +heavy step.</p> + +<p>Into the beautiful head and face he worked upon he put all his ideal of +what a woman's face should be. He fell in love with his creation, in +love with the clay that he moulded. Once more he had a companion in the +studio from which had been removed his study for the tomb, and this +represented a living woman. It seemed almost to become flesh and blood +under his ardent hand. "Bella!" he called to her as he smoothed the +lovely cheek and saw the peach bloom under it.</p> + +<p>"Little cousin," he breathed, as he touched the hair along her neck, and +remembered the wild, tangled forest that had fallen across his face when +he carried her in his arms during their childish romps. "Honey child," +he murmured as he modelled and moulded the youthful lines of the mouth +and lips and stood yearning before them, all his heart and soul in his +hands that made before his eyes a lovely woman. She became to him the +very conception and expression of what he wanted his wife to be.</p> + +<p>They say that men have fallen in love with that beautiful face of Bella +Carew as modelled by Fairfax.<!-- Page 344 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> + +<p>Arch and subtle, tender and provoking, distinguished, youthful, +alluring, it is the most charming expression of young womanhood that an +artist's hand could give to the world.</p> + +<p>"Beloved," he murmured like a man half in sleep and half awakening, and +he folded the lines of her bodice across her breast and fastened them +there by a single rose.</p> + +<p>With a sweep of her lovely hair, with an uplift of the corners of her +beautiful lips, with the rose at her breast, Bella Carew will charm the +artistic world so long as the clay endures.<!-- Page 345 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>On the promenade deck of one of the big steamers, as it pushed around +into its pier, a man stood in his long overcoat, his hands in his +pockets, hoping to avoid the reporters whom he had reason to suppose +were ready to make him their prey.</p> + +<p>He was entering New York Harbour at an early hour in the morning. It was +November, and over the river and over the city hung the golden haze. If +the lines of the objects, if the shore and buildings were crude, their +impression was not so to him. To and fro the ferries plied from shore to +shore, and their whistles and the whistles of the tugs spoke shrilly and +loudly to the morning, but there was nothing nasal or blatant to him in +the noises. He found the scene, the light of the morning, the greeting +of the city as it stirred to life, enchanting. He had gone away from it +six years ago, a broken-hearted man, and it seemed now as though he had +made his history in an incredibly short time. Down in the hold of the +boat, in their cases, reposed his sculptures, some thirty statues and +models that he had brought for his exposition in New York. He had come +back celebrated. His visions and his dreams so far had been fulfilled.</p> + +<p>Once again all his past, all his emotions, his tears and aspirations, +culminated in this hour. This was his return, but not as Antony Fairfax. +He did not know that he should ever take his old name again. He had made +the name of Thomas Rainsford famous, and the fact gave him a singular +tender satisfaction, linking him with a dear man who had loved him. He +felt almost as though his friend were resurrected or given a new draught +of immortal life every time the name was said.<!-- Page 346 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> + +<p>A young man came up to him, pencil in hand, his look eager and +appealing, and Fairfax recognized a reporter in search of a good +newspaper story. He understood the poor clothes, the dogged +determination.</p> + +<p>"You want a story?" he said. "Well, sit down."</p> + +<p>The newspaper man, highly delighted with the sculptor's sympathy and +understanding, wrote his interview with enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Fairfax talked for five minutes, and said at the close, "I had not +intended to be interviewed. But you are a rising man; you have secured +me against my will."</p> + +<p>The reporter put up his pad. "Thank you, Mr. Rainsford; but this is so +impersonal. I would like some of your views on art. They tell me you +have had a tough fight for success and existence."</p> + +<p>"Many of us have that," said Fairfax.</p> + +<p>"Your ideals, sir?"</p> + +<p>The young chap was only twenty-one. It was his first interview. Fairfax +smiled.</p> + +<p>"Downstairs in the hold are thirty cases of my work, the labour of the +last six years. Go to my exposition, and you will see my ideals."</p> + +<p>As the other took his leave Antony saw himself again, poor, unknown, as +he had set foot in New York. There was a deputation on the wharf to meet +him from the Academy of Design, and he walked down the gang-plank alone, +leaving no one behind him in France who stood to him for family, and he +would find no one in America who should mean to him hearth and home.</p> + +<p>They had taken rooms for him in the old Hotel Plaza overlooking 59th +Street; there, toward the afternoon of the first day, he found himself +at three o'clock, alone in his parlour overlooking Central Park.</p> + +<p>The trees were still in leaf. November was mild and golden. The air of +America, of the city which had once been unfriendly to him, and which +now opened its doors, blew in upon him through the open window like a +caress. He looked musingly at the little park where he had wandered with +Gardiner and Bella, on the Sunday holiday, when Bella had told him "all +things she wanted to do were wicked."</p> + +<p>Amongst his statues he had brought over was one<!-- Page 347 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> lately bought by France +and presented to the Metropolitan Museum. It was the marble of a little +girl mourning over a dead blackbird. Everything in the city was +connected now with Bella Carew.</p> + +<p>There was a sheaf of invitations on the table from well-known New +Yorkers, invitations to dinners, invitations to lecture, and he knew +that he would be taken into the kindliest heart of New York. Well, if +work can give a man what he wants, he had worked enough for it; there +was no doubt about that. It had been nearly a year since his interview +with Cedersholm. He brought with him casts and statues for the triumphal +arch in Boston, and he intended taking a studio here and continuing his +work in America, but he had no plans. In spite of his success and the +prices he could command, his thoughts and his mind were all at sea. His +personality had not yet developed to the point where he was at peace. He +knew that such peace could only come to him through the companionship of +a woman.</p> + +<p>No commonplace woman would satisfy Fairfax now.</p> + +<p>Money and position meant absolutely nothing to him. If Bella Carew were +a rich and brilliant heiress it would probably alienate him from her. +His need called for a woman who could work at his side with a kindred +interest, a woman who knew beauty, who loved art, whose appreciation and +criticism could not leave him cold.</p> + +<p>What would Bella Carew, when he found her—as he should—prove herself +to be? Spoiled she was, no doubt, mistress for several years of a large +fortune, coquette, flirt; of these things he was partly sure, because +she had not married. Children with her great promise develop sometimes +into nonentities, but Bella, at sixteen, had surpassed his wildest +prophecies for her. Bella, as he had seen her on the outskirts of the +crowd, had driven him mad. He knew that it had been she; there was no +doubt about it in his mind. Now to find her, to see what she had become.</p> + +<p>He knew that Bella, when she opened the morning papers the next day—if +she were in New York—would discover who he was. There would be +descriptions of him as a lame sculptor; there would be reproductions<!-- Page 348 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> of +his "Open Door"; there would be the fact that he was born in New +Orleans; that he assumed the name of Rainsford. Now that he had no +longer any secret to keep, his own name, Antony Fairfax, would appear. +Bella would not fail to know him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 349 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>He took his gloves and his hat and started out. He drove to the address +which Bella had given him, where her letters were to be sent. It was a +studio building, and the woman stenographer at the general desk knew +that Miss Carew was absent in Europe and had not returned.</p> + +<p>This was a blow; the woman saw the disappointment on his face.</p> + +<p>"Miss Carew's letters?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She pointed to the empty box. They were all sent to her to Europe.</p> + +<p>He wandered in the little office whilst the woman did her work. He +glanced around him. On the walls there were framed sketches; there were +busts in plaster on pedestals.</p> + +<p>It struck him as strange that Bella should have her letters sent to her +to a studio. He wanted to question the secretary, hesitated, then +asked—</p> + +<p>"You know Miss Carew?"</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>"I reckon she patronizes this academy."</p> + +<p>It would not have been surprising if she had given it some large +donation.</p> + +<p>The stenographer repeated the word, "Patronizes? Miss Carew works here +when she is in America; she has a small studio here."</p> + +<p>"Works here? Do you mean she paints?"</p> + +<p>The woman smiled. "Yes; she has been studying in Florence. I expect her +home every day."</p> + +<p>Fairfax still lingered, drawing his soft gloves through his hands.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to do, then, but to wait,"—he smiled<!-- Page 350 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> on her his light +smile. He turned to go, hesitated. The temptation was too strong.</p> + +<p>"Miss Carew paints portraits?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the stenographer, "beautiful portraits."</p> + +<p>He smiled, biting his lips. He remembered the parallel lines, the +reluctant little hand drawing them across the board.</p> + +<p>"No more parallel lines, Cousin Antony."</p> + +<p>He did not believe that she painted beautiful portraits. He would have +loved to see her work, oh, how much! There must be some of it here.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing of hers here, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>He went across the little room to the door. He could hardly bear to go +from here, from the only place that had any knowledge of Bella as far as +he knew.</p> + +<p>He took out his card, scribbled his address upon it, handed it to the +stenographer, without asking anything of her but to let him know when +she would come back.</p> + +<p>The woman nodded sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"It is unusual for a great heiress, like Miss Carew, to paint +portraits."</p> + +<p>"She is not a great heiress; Mr. Carew lost all his money two years ago. +I think Miss Carew is almost quite poor."</p> + +<p>A radiant look came over Antony's face. "Thank you very much indeed," he +said. "I count on you to take care of this little commission for me," +and he went out of the room in ecstasy, closing the door behind him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><!-- Page 351 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead">CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>He left his hansom at the entrance of the park, at 72nd Street.</p> + +<p>There, on the corner, stood his uncle's house, a monument, to him, of +the past. His heart beat hard as he looked at the unfriendly dwelling +from whose doors he had rushed on the night of the winter blizzard, +when, as it had seemed to him then, little Gardiner's spirit rushed with +him out into the storm. From those windows Bella had waved her hand.</p> + +<p>How his spirits had risen high with hope, the night on which he had +first gone up those steps. It was on that night Bella had said to him, +"Why, you have got a light step and a heavy step, Cousin Antony. I never +heard any one walk like that before."</p> + +<p>He tramped into Central Park, taking his way to the Metropolitan Museum. +At the door he was informed that the museum was closed. He gave his +card, and, after a few words with the man in charge, Thomas Rainsford +the sculptor was let in and found himself, to all intents and purposes, +alone. He wandered about the sculptures, wondering where the statue of +little "Bella" would be placed.</p> + +<p>The rooms were delightfully restful. He chose a bench and sat down, +resting and musing.</p> + +<p>In front of one of the early Italian pictures stood an easel with a copy +exposed upon it to his view. A reproduction of a sixteenth-century +Madonna with a child upon her breast. The copy showed the hand of an +adept in colour and drawing. Antony looked at it with keen pleasure, +musing upon the beauty of the child.</p> + +<p>Afterwards he rose and went into the Egyptian room, lingering there. But +when he came back the painter was there before her easel, and Antony +stood in the doorway to watch her at work.<!-- Page 352 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p> + +<p>She wore a long brown linen painting apron that covered her form, +evidently a slender form, evidently a young form. She painted ardently, +with confidence and absorption. As Antony watched her, her pose, her +ardour, the poise of her body, the lovely dark head, the gestures, the +fire of her, brought all of a sudden his past rushing back to him. The +sight of her came to him with a thrilling, wonderful remembrance. He +came forward, his light step and his heavy step falling on the hard wood +floors of the museum.</p> + +<p>She turned before he was close to her, her palette and her brushes in +her hand. She stood for a moment immovable, then gave a little cry, +dropped her palette and brushes on the floor, grew white, then blushed +deeply and held out both her hands to him.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Antony!"</p> + +<p>He took her hands in his, could not find his voice even to say her name. +He heard her say—</p> + +<p>"They told me you were dead! I thought you had died long ago—I thought +another man had taken your genius and your fame."</p> + +<p>She spoke fast, with catching breath, in a low vibrant tone that he +remembered—how he did remember it! His very life seemed to breathe on +her lips in the sound of her voice. "Flow gently, sweet Afton"—the +music was here—here—all the music in the world!</p> + +<p>"I know who you are now; I saw it in the paper. I read it this morning. +I saw your picture, and I knew." She stopped to catch her breath deeply. +"Oh, I'm so glad!"</p> + +<p>She was more beautiful than he had dreamed she would be; brilliant, +bewitching, and the flowers of his past clustered round her.</p> + +<p>"I heard them falling through the rooms, the light step and the heavy +step."</p> + +<p>Slowly by both her hands which he held he drew her toward him, and as he +held her cheek against his lips he heard her murmur—</p> + +<p>"Back from the dead! Cousin Antony.... No, just Antony!"</p> + +<p>"Little cousin!" he said. "Bella!"</p> + +<p class="center">THE END</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TN" id="TN">Transcriber's Notes</a></h2> + +<p>Obvious misprints and the correction of inconsistent spelling or +punctuation are noted with <ins class="correction" title="original: hover notes like this">hover notes</ins>.</p> + +<p>Other than the corrections noted by hover information, printer's +inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained.</p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Fairfax and His Pride, by Marie Van Vorst + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE *** + +***** This file should be named 32826-h.htm or 32826-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/2/32826/ + +Produced by KD Weeks, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fairfax and His Pride + +Author: Marie Van Vorst + +Release Date: June 15, 2010 [EBook #32826] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE *** + + + + +Produced by KD Weeks, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, +and inconsistent spellings regularized. Please see the Transcriber's end +notes for details. + + + + + FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE + + _A NOVEL_ + + BY + + MARIE VAN VORST + + Author of "Big Tremaine," etc. + + + BOSTON + SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + Copyright, 1920, + BY SMALL, MAYNARD& COMPANY + (INCORPORATED) + + + + + TO + + B. VAN VORST + + IN MEMORY OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP + + + + +FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE + + + + +BOOK I + +THE KINSMEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +One bitter day in January in the year 1880, when New York was a tranquil +city, a young man stood at the South Ferry waiting for the up-town horse +car. With a few other passengers he had just left the packet which had +arrived in New York harbour that afternoon from New Orleans. + +Antony Fairfax was an utter stranger to the North. + +In his hand he carried a small hand-bag, and by his side on the snow +rested his single valise. Before him waited a red and yellow tram-car +drawn by lean horses, from whose backs the vapour rose on the frosty +air. Muffled to his ears, the driver beat together his hands in their +leather gloves; the conductor stamped his feet. The traveller climbed +into the car, lifting his big bag after him. + +The cold was even more terrible to him than to the conductor and driver. +He had come from the South, where he had left the roses and magnolias in +bloom, and the warmth of the country was in his blood. He dug his feet +into the straw covering the floor of the car, buttoned his coat tight +about his neck, pushed his hands deep in his pockets and sat wondering +at the numbing cold. + +This, then, was the North! + +He watched with interest the few other passengers board the little car: +two fruit vendors and after them were amiably lifted in great bunches of +bananas. Antony asked himself the question whether this new country +would be friendly to him, what would its spirit be toward him, and as +he asked this question of the cold winter air the city suddenly took +reality and formed for him out of his dreams. Would it be kind or cruel? +The coming days would answer: meanwhile he could wait. Some places, like +some people whom we meet, at once extend to us a hand; there are some +that even seem to offer an embrace. Through the car blew a sudden icy +blast and New York's welcome to Fairfax was keen as a blow. There was an +actual physical affront in this wind that struck him in the face. + +Suppose the elements were an indication of what the rest would be? But +no--that was ridiculous! There would be certainly warm interiors behind +the snow-fretted panes of the windows in the houses that lined the +streets on either side. There would be warm and cordial hearts to +welcome him somewhere. There would be understanding of heart, indulgence +for youth. He would find open doors for all his ambitions, spurs to his +integrity and effort. He would know how to make use of these ways and +means of progress. For years he had dreamed of the galleries of pictures +and of the museum. It was from this wonderful city whose wideness had +the intense outreach of the unknown that Fairfax had elected to step +into the world. + +New York was to be his threshold. There was no limit to what he intended +to do in his special field of work. From his boyhood he had told himself +that he would become great. He was too young to have discovered the +traitors that hide in the brain and the emptiness of the deepest tears. +He was a pioneer and had the faith of the pioneer. According to him +everything was real, the beauty of form was enchanting, all hearts were +true, and all roads led to fame. His short life focused now at this +hour. + +Life is a series of successive stages to which point of culmination a +man brings all he has of the past and all his hopes. All along the road +these blessed visions crowd, fulminate and form as it were torches, and +these lights mark the road for the traveller. Now all Antony's life came +to a point in this hour. He had longed to go to New York from the day +when in New Orleans he had completed his first bust. He had moulded from +the soft clay on the banks of the levees the head of a famous general, +who had later become president. He was only twelve years old then, but +his little work bore all the indications of genius. + +He was an artist from the ends of the slender hands to the centre of the +sensitive heart. The childlikeness, the beauty of his nature revealed it +in everything he did; and he was only twenty-two years old. + +As he sat in the horse car, his heart full of hope, his brain teeming +with the ideal, he was an interesting figure to watch, and a fine old +gentleman on his way up town was struck by the brilliancy, the aspect of +the fellow passenger. He studied the young fellow from behind his +evening paper, but the old gentleman could not make up his mind what the +young man was. Aside from the valise at his feet Antony had no other +worldly goods, and aside from the twenty-five dollars in his pocket, he +had no other money. There was nothing about him to suggest the artistic +type: broad-shouldered, muscular, he seemed built for battles and feats +of physical strength, but his face was thoughtful for one so young. His +eyes were clear. "He looks," mused the gentleman, "like a man who has +come home after a very successful journey. I suspect the young fellow is +returning with something resembling the story books' bag of gold." He +humorously fancied even that the treasure might be in the valise on the +straw of the car at the traveller's feet. + +The car tinkled slowly through the cold. After a long while, well above +a street marked Fiftieth, its road appeared to lie in the country. There +were vacant lots on either side; there were low-roofed, ramshackle +shanties; there were stray goats here and there among the rocks. Antony +said to the conductor in a pleasant, Southern voice: "You won't forget +to let me off at 70th Street." He rose at the conductor's signal and the +ringing of the bell. The old gentleman, who was a canon of the Church, +saw as the young man rose that he was lame, that he limped, that he wore +a high, double-soled boot. As Fairfax went out he lifted his hat with a +courteous "Good evening" to his only fellow passenger, for the others +had one by one left the car to go to their different destinations. "Too +bad," thought the canon to himself, "Lame, by Jove! With a smile like +that a man can win the world." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The little figure in the corner of the pink sofa had read away the hours +of the short winter afternoon curled up in a ball, her soft red dress, +her soft red cheeks, her soft red lips vivid bits of colour in the +lamplight. She had read through the twilight, until the lamps came to +help her pretty eyes, and like a scholar of old over some problem she +bent above her fairy tale. The volume was unwieldy, and she supported it +on her knees. Close to her side a little boy of six watched the absorbed +face, watched the lamp and the shadows of the lamp on the pink walls of +the room; watched his mother as she sat sewing, but most devotedly of +all he watched through his half-dreaming lids his sister as she read her +story. His sister charmed him very much and terrified him not a little; +she was so quick, so strong, so alive--she rushed him so. He loved his +sister, she was his illustrated library of fairy tales and wonderful +plays, she was his companion, his ruler, his dominator, and his best +friend. + +"Bella," he whispered at the second when she turned the page and he +thought he might venture to interrupt, "Bella, _wouldn't_ you read it to +me?" + +The absorbed child made an impatient gesture, bent her head lower and +snuggled down into her feast. She shook her mane of hair. + +"Gardiner," his mother noticed the appeal, "when will you learn to read +for yourself? You are a big boy." + +"Oh, I'm not so vewy big," his tone was indolent, "I'm not so big as +Bella. You said yesterday that you bought me five-year-old clothes." + +In the distance, above the noise of the wind, came the tinkle of the +car-bell. Gardiner silently wished, as he heard the not unmusical sound, +that the eternal, ugly little cars, with the overworked horses, could +be turned into fairy chariots and this one, as it came ringing and +tinkling along, would stop at the front door and fetch.... A loud ring +at the front door made the little boy spring up. + +His sister frowned and glanced up from her book. "It isn't father!" she +flashed out at him. "He's got his key. You needn't look scared yet, +Gardiner. It is a bundle or a beggar or something or other stupid. Don't +disturb." + +However, the three of them listened, and in another second the door of +the sitting-room was opened by a servant and, behind the maid, on the +bare wood floor of the stairs, there fell a heavy step and a light step, +a light step and a heavy step. Bella never forgot the first time she +heard those footfalls. + +The lady at the table put her sewing down, and at that moment, behind +the servant, a young man came in, a tall young man, holding out his hand +and smiling a wonderful and beautiful smile. + +"Aunt Caroline. I'm Antony Fairfax from New Orleans. I've just reached +New York, and I came, of course, at once to you." + + * * * * * + +Not very much later, as they all stood about the table talking, Bella +uncurled and once upon her feet, astonishingly tall for twelve years +old, stood by Fairfax's side, while Gardiner, an old-fashioned little +figure in queer home-made clothes, flushed, delicate and timid, leaned +on his mother. The older woman had stopped sewing. With her work in her +lap she was looking at the seventh son of her beautiful sister of whom +she had been gently, mildly envious all her life. + +Bella said brusquely: "You've got an awfully light smile, Cousin +Antony." + +He laughed. "I suppose that comes from an awfully light heart, little +cousin!" + +"Bella," her mother frowned, "don't be personal. You will learn not to +mind her, Antony; she is frightfully spoiled." + +The little girl threw back her hair. "And you've got one light step, +Cousin Antony, and one heavy step. No one ever came up our stairs like +that before. How do you do it?" + +The stranger's face clouded. He had been looking at her with keen +delight, and he was caught up short at her words. He put out his +deformed shoe. + +"This is the heavy step." + +Bella's cheeks had been flushed with excitement, but the dark red that +rose at Fairfax's words made her look like a little Indian. + +"Oh, I didn't know!" she stammered. "I didn't know." + +Her cousin comforted her cheerfully. "That's all right. I don't mind. I +fell from a cherry tree when I was a little chap and I've stumped about +ever since." + +His aunt's gentle voice, indifferent and soft, like Gardiner's +murmured-- + +"Oh, don't listen to her, Antony, she's a spoiled, inconsiderate little +girl." + +But Bella had drawn nearer the stranger. She leaned on the table close +to him and lifted her face in which her eyes shone like stars. She had +wounded him, and it didn't seem to her generous little heart that she +could quite let it go. And under her breath she whispered-- + +"But there's the _light_ step, isn't there, Cousin Antony? And the +smile--the awfully light smile?" + +Fairfax laughed and leaned forward as though he would catch her, but +she had escaped from under his hand like an elusive fairy, and when he +next saw her she was back in her corner with her book on her knees and +her dark hair covering her face. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +He talked with his aunt for a long while. Her grace and dignity +suggested his mother, but she was not so lovely as the other woman, +whose memory was always thrilling to him. Fairfax ran eagerly on, on +fire with his subject, finally stopping himself with a laugh. + +"I reckon I'm boring you to death, Aunt Caroline." + +"Oh, no," she breathed, "how can you say so? How proud she must be of +you!" + +Downstairs in the hall he had left his valise and his little hand +satchel, with the snow melting on them. He came from a household whose +hospitality was as large, as warm, as bright as the sun. He had made a +stormy passage by the packet _Nore_. His head was beginning to whirl. +From the sofa there was not a sign. Bella read ardently, her hand +pressing a lock of her dark hair across her burning cheek. Gardiner, his +eyes on his cousin, drank in, fascinated, the figure of the big, +handsome young man. + +"He's my relation," he said to himself. "He's one of our family. I know +he can tell stories, and he's a traveller. He came in the fairy cars." + +Mrs. Carew tapped her lip with her thimble. "So you will learn to model +here," she murmured. "Now I wonder who would be the best man?" + +And Fairfax responded quickly, "Cedersholm, auntie, he's the only man." + +"My husband," his aunt began to blush, "your uncle knows Mr. Cedersholm +in the Century Club, but I hardly think...." + +Antony threw up his bright head. "I have brought a letter from the +President to Cedersholm and several of the little figures I have +modelled." + +"Ah, that will be better," and his aunt breathed with relief. Mrs. +Carew's mention of her husband came to Antony like a sharp chill. +Nothing that had been told him of the New York banker who had married +his gentle aunt was calculated to inspire him with a sense of kinship. +It was as though a window had been opened into the bright room. A slight +noise at the door downstairs acted like a current of alarm upon the +family. The colour left his aunt's cheeks, and little Gardiner +exclaimed, "I hear father's key." The child came over to his mother's +side. It seemed discourteous to Antony to suggest going just as his +uncle arrived, so he waited a moment in the strange silence that fell +over the group. In a few seconds Mr. Carew came in and his wife +presented. "My dear, this is Antony Fairfax, my sister Bella's only +child, you know. You remember Bella, Henry." + +A wave of red, which must have been vigorous in order to sweep in and +under the ruddy colour already in Carew's cheeks, testified that he did +remember the beautiful Mrs. Fairfax. + +"I remember her very well," he returned; "is she as handsome as ever? +You have chosen a cold day to land in the North. I presume you came by +boat? We have been two hours coming up town. The cars are blocked by +snow. It's ten degrees below zero to-night. I wish you would see that +ashes are poured on the front steps, Caroline, at once." + +The guest put out his hand. "I must be going. Good night, Aunt +Caroline----good night, Gardiner. Good night, sir." + +Fairfax marked the ineffectuality in his aunt's face. It was neither +embarrassment nor shame, it was impotence. Her expression was not +appealing, but inadequate, and the slender hand that she gave him melted +in his like the snow. There was no grasp there, no stimulus to go on. He +turned to the red figure of the huddled child in the sofa corner. + +"Good night, little cousin." + +Bella dropped her book and sprang up. "Good night," she cried; "why, +you're not going, Cousin Antony?" + +And as the older woman had done she extended her hand. It was only a +small child's hand, but the essential was there. The same sex but with +a different hand. It did not melt in Antony's; it lay, it clasped, lost +in his big palm. He felt, nevertheless, the vital little grasp, its +warmth and sweetness against his hand. + +"Where are you going?" + +Mr. Carew had passed out now that he had successfully eliminated from +the mind of the guest any idea that hospitality was to be extended. Once +more the little group were by themselves. + +"There is the Buckingham Hotel," Mrs. Carew ventured. "It's an excellent +hotel; we get croquettes from there when Gardiner's appetite flags. The +children have their hair cut there as well." + +Tired as Fairfax was, rebuffed as he was, he could not but be cheered by +the bright look of the little girl who stood between him and her mother. +She nodded at her cousin. + +"Why, the Buckingham is six dollars a day," she said. "I asked the +barber when he cut Gardiner's hair." + +Fairfax smiled. "I reckon that is a little steep, Bella." + +"It's too far away, anyhow, Cousin Antony, it's a mile; twenty blocks is +a New York mile. There are the Whitcombs." And the child turned to the +less capable woman. + +Her mother exclaimed: "Why, of course, of course, there are the +Whitcombs! My dear Antony," said his aunt, "if you could only stay with +them you would be doing a real charity. They are dear little old maids +and self-supporting women. They sell their work in my women's exchange. +They have a nice little house." + +Bella interrupted. "A dear little red-brick house, Cousin Antony, two +stories, on the next block." + +She tucked her book under her arm as though it were a little trunk she +was tucking away to get ready to journey with him. + +"The Whitcombs would be perfectly enchanted, Antony," urged his aunt, +"they want a lodger badly. It's Number 700, Madison Avenue." + +"It looks like the house that Jack built," murmured Gardiner, dreamily; +"they have just wepainted it bwight wed with yellow doors...." + +Fairfax thanked them and went, his heavy and his light step echoing on +the hard stairway of his kinsmen's inhospitable house. Bella watched him +from the head of the stairs, her book under her arm, and below, at the +door, he shouldered his bag and went out into the whirling, whirling +snow. It met him softly, like a caress, but it was very cold. Bella had +said two blocks away to the left, and he started blindly. + +This was his welcome from his own people. + +His Southern home seemed a million miles away; but come what would, he +would never return to it empty-handed as he had left it. He had been +thrust from the door where he felt he had a right to enter. That +threshold he would never darken again--never. A pile of unshovelled snow +blocked his path. As he crossed the street to avoid it, he looked up at +the big, fine house. From an upper window the shade was lifted, and in +the square of yellow light stood the two children, the little boy's head +just visible, and Bella, her dark hair blotting against the light, waved +to him her friendly, cousinly little hand. He forged on through the snow +to "The House that Jack built." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +He was the seventh son, and his mother was tired of child-bearing when +Antony was born. The others, mediocre, fine fellows, left to their +father's control, had turned out as well as children are likely to turn +out when brought up by a man. One by one, during the interval of years +before Antony came, one by one they had died, and when Mr. Fairfax +himself passed away, he left his wife alone with Antony a baby in her +arms. She then gave herself up to her grief and the contemplation of her +beauty. Adored, spoiled, an indifferent house-keeper, Mrs. Fairfax was, +nevertheless, what is known as a charming creature, and a sincere +artist. She had her studio, her canvases, she wrote plays and songs, and +nothing, with the exception perhaps of realities, for she knew nothing +of them, nothing made less impression on her than did her only child, +until one day she suddenly remembered Antony when it was too late. + +He was like his mother, but she was unconscious of the fact. She only +knew him as a rowdy boy, fond of sports, an alarmingly rough fighter, +the chief in the neighbourhood scuffles, a vigorous, out-of-door boy, at +the head of a yelling, wild little band that made her nerves quiver. +Coloured servants and his Mammy soothed Antony's ills and washed his +bruises. With a feeling of shame he thrust aside his artistic +inclinations, lest his comrades should call him a milksop, but he drew +copiously in secret, when he was kept in at school or housed with a +cold. And from the distance at which she kept him, Antony worshipped his +mother. He admired her hauteur, the proud cold loveliness. His sunny +nature, incapable of morose or morbid brooding, felt no neglect. Late in +spring they too had gone north to a water cure popular with Louisiana +people, where a more vigorous growth of trees magnetized Antony, who +climbed like a squirrel and tore his clothes to his heart's content. He +had come in from a tramp and, scandalized by his rough and tumbled +appearance as she caught a glimpse of him swinging along, Mrs. Fairfax +summoned her little son. Rocking idly on the verandah she watched him +obey her call, and there was so much buoyant life in his running step, +such a boy's grace and brightness about him that he charmed her +beauty-loving eyes. + +"Go, wash your face and hands and bring your school books here. I do +hope you have brought your books with you." + +When he reappeared with the volumes of dog-eared school books, she +fingered them gingerly, fell on his drawing portfolio and opened it. + +"Who drew these for you, Tony?" + +"Mother, no one. I did them. They are rotten." + +Mrs. Fairfax exclaimed with excitement: "Why, they are quite +extraordinary! You must study with some one." + +Blushing, enraptured, Antony was tongue-tied, although a host of things +rushed to his lips that now he might be permitted to speak to her he +longed to tell everything that was on his heart. + +Neither of them forgot that day. The wistaria was purple in the vines, +and his mother, a shawl with trailing fringe over her shoulders, rocked +indolent and charming in her chair. She had made her husband and her +other sons her slaves, and she remembered now, with a sense of comfort, +that she had another servitor. + +"My shoe is unbuttoned"--she raised her small foot--"button it, Tony." + +The boy fell on his knees, eager to offer his first service to the +lovely woman, but his hands were awkward. He bungled and pinched the +delicate skin. The mother cried out, leaned over and smartly boxed his +ears. + +"Stupid boy, go; send me Emmeline." + +Poor Antony retired, and as Emmeline took his place he heard his mother +murmur-- + +"Aren't the cherries ripe yet, Emmy? I'm dying to taste some cherries, +they're so delicious in the North." + +Emmeline had fastened the shoe and lagged away with southern negligence, +leaving Antony's books as he had flung them on the porch, and though it +was an effort to lean over, Mrs. Fairfax did so, picked up the +drawing-book and studied it again. + +"Talented little monkey," she mused, "he has my gift, my looks too, I +think. How straight he walks! He has '_l'elegance d'un homme du +monde_.'" + +She called herself Creole and prided herself on her French and her +languor. + +She sat musing thus, the book on her knees, when half an hour later they +carried him in to her. He had fallen from a rotten branch on the highest +cherry tree in the grounds. + +He struck on his hip. + +All night she sat by his side. The surgeons had told her that he would +be a cripple for life if he ever walked again. Toward morning he +regained his senses and saw her sitting there. Mrs. Fairfax remembered +Antony that day. She remembered him that day and that night, and his cry +of "Oh, mother, I was getting the cherries for you!" + + * * * * * + +Before they built him his big, awkward boot, when he walked again at +all, Antony went about on crutches, debarred from boyish games. In order +to forget his fellows and the school-yard and "the street" he modelled +in the soft delicious clay, making hosts of creatures, figures, heads +and arms and hands, and brought them in damp from the clay of the levee. +His own small room was a studio, peopled by his young art. No sooner, +however, was he strong again and his big shoe built up, than his +boy-self was built up as well, and Antony, lame, limping Antony, was out +again with his mates. He never again could run as they did, but he +contrived to fence and spar and box, and strangely enough, he grew tall +and strong. One day he came into his little room from a ball game, for +he was the pitcher of the nine, and found his mother handling his clayey +creatures. + +"Tony, when did you do these?" + +"Oh, they are nothing. Leave them alone, mother. I meant to fire them +all out." + +"But this is an excellent likeness of the General, Tony." + +He threw down his baseball mask and gloves and began to gather up +unceremoniously the little objects which had dried crisp and hard. + +"Don't destroy them," his mother said; "I want every one of them. And +you must stop being a rowdy and a ruffian, Antony--you are an artist." + +He was smoothing between his palms one of the small figures. + +"Professor Dufaucon could teach you something--not much, poor old +gentleman, but something elementary. To-morrow, after school, you must +go to take your first lesson." + +Mrs. Fairfax took the boy herself, with the bust of the famous General +in her hands, and afterwards sent the bust to Washington, to its subject +himself, who was pleased to commend the portrait made of him by the +little Southern boy from the clay of the New Orleans levee. + +Professor Dufaucon taught him all he knew of art and something of what +he knew of other things. In the small hall-room of the poor French +drawing-master, Antony talked French, learned the elements of the study +of beauty and listened to the sweet strains of the Professor's flute +when he played, "J'ai perdu ma tourterelle...." + +In everything that he modelled Antony tried to portray his mother's +face. As she had been indifferent to him before, so ardently Mrs. +Fairfax adored him now. She poured out her tenderness on this crippled +boy. He had been known to say to his Mammy that he was glad that he had +fallen from the cherry tree because his mother had never kissed him +before, and her tears and her love, he thought, were worth the price. +She was as selfish with him in her affection as she had been in her +indifference. She would not hear of college, and he learned what he +could in New Orleans. But the day came when his mistress, art, put in a +claim so seductive and so strong that it clouded everything else. +Professor Dufaucon died, and in the same year Antony sent a statuette to +the New York Academy of Design. It was accepted, and the wine of that +praise went to his head. + +Mrs. Fairfax, broken as no event in her life had been able to break +her, saw Antony leave for the North to seek his fortune and his fame. + +She owned her house in Charles Street, and lived on in it, and the +little income that she had barely sufficed for her needs. She showed +what race and what pride she had when she bade Antony good-bye, standing +under the jasmine vine. She never wore any other dress than a loose +morning robe of a white or a soft mauve material. Standing there, with a +smile of serene beauty, she waved her handkerchief to him as she saw him +go limping down the walk from the garden to the street and put of sight. +True to her type then, she fainted dead away, and Emmeline and Mammy +brought her to. + + * * * * * + +He thought of things in Miss Whitcomb's front room. There was nothing +fairylike about the red-brick dwelling, although at the corner of the +New York Avenue these two stories seemed diminutive and out of place. He +made with the timid maiden ladies his own timid arrangement. He was so +poor and they were so poor that the transaction was timorous--Antony on +his part was afraid that they might not take him in, they, on theirs, +were terrified lest the lodger would not come in. When at length they +left him alone, his first feeling was gratitude for a room of any kind +that represented shelter from the Northern cold, but when he had +divested himself of his coat, he realized that the little unheated room +was as cold as the outside. A meagre bed, a meagre bureau and washstand, +two unwelcoming chairs, these few inanimate objects were shut in with +Antony, and unattractive as they were, they were appealing in their +scant ugliness. Before the window slight white curtains hung, the same +colour as the snow without. They hung like little shrouds. Around the +windows of his Southern home the vine had laid its beauty, and the +furnishings had been comfortable and tasteful. The homelessness of this +interior, to the young man who had never passed a night from under his +own roof, struck with a chill, and he thought of the sitting-room in the +vast house of his kinsmen not a block away. His kinspeople had not even +asked him to break bread. Dressed as he was, he lay down exhausted on +his bed, and when a knock came and Miss Whitcomb's voice invited him to +supper, Fairfax sprang up and answered as out of a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +His fortune of twenty-five dollars he divided into five equal packets. +His weekly bill with the old ladies, to whom his aunt had begged Antony +to go _in charity_, was to be six dollars. There would of course be +extras, car-fare and so forth. With economy--it would last. Antony saw +everything on the bright side; youth and talent can only imagine that +the best will last for ever. Decidedly, before his money gave out he +would have found some suitable employment. + +With the summons for supper he flung on his coat, plunged downstairs and +into the dining-room, and shone upon his hostesses over their tea and +preserves. The new boarder chatted and planned and listened, jovial and +kindly, his soul's good-fellowship and sweet temper shedding a radiance +in the chill little room. Miss Eulalie Whitcomb was in the sixties, and +she fell in love with Antony in a motherly way. Miss Mitty was fifteen +years her junior, and she fell in love with Antony as a woman might. +Fairfax never knew the poignant ache he caused in that heart, virginal +only, cold only because of the prolonged winter of her maidenhood. + +That night he heard his aunt's praises sung, and listened, going back +with a pang to the picture the family group had made before his +home-loving eyes. + +Such a marvellous woman, Mr. Fairfax (she must call him Antony if he was +to live with them. Miss Mitty couldn't. She must. Well, Mr. Antony +then), such a brilliant and executive woman. Mrs. Carew had founded the +Women's Exchange for the work of indigent ladies, such a dignified, +needed charity. + +Miss Mitty knew a little old lady who made fifteen hundred dollars in +rag dolls alone. + +"Dear me," said Fairfax, "couldn't you pass me off for a niece, Miss +Whitcomb? I can make clay figures that will beat rag dolls to bits." + +Fifteen hundred dollars! He mused on his aunt's charity. + +"And another," murmured Miss Eulalie, "another friend of ours made +altogether ten thousand dollars in chicken pies." + +"Ah," exclaimed the lodger, "that's even easier to believe. And does my +uncle Carew make pies or dolls?" + +"He is a pillar of the Church," said his hostess gravely, "a very +distinguished gentleman, Mr. Antony. He bowed once to one of us in the +street. Which of us was it, sister?" + +Not Miss Mitty, at any rate, and she was inclined to think that Mr. +Carew had made a mistake, whichever way it had been! + +Their lodger listened with more interest when they spoke of the +children. The little creatures went to school near the Whitcomb house. +Gardiner was always ailing. Miss Mitty used to watch them from her +window. + +"Bella runs like a deer down the block, you never saw such nimble legs, +and her skirts are _so_ short! They _should_ come down, Mr. Antony, and +her hair is quite like a wild savage's." + +Miss Eulalie had called Bella in once to mend a hole in her stocking +"really too bad for school." + +"She should have gone into the Women's Exchange," suggested her cousin, +"and employed some one who was out of orders for chicken pies or dolls!" + + * * * * * + +That night, under the gas jet and its blue and ghastly light, Fairfax +tried to write to his mother, began his letter and left it as he began. +"My dearest Mother...." She had told him little of his kinspeople, the +sisters had never been friends. Nevertheless, he quite understood that, +whatever she might have thought of the eccentricities of his uncle, this +welcome to her boy would cut her cruelly. She had fully expected him to +be a guest at the Carews. + +"My dearest Mother...." He began to draw idly on the page. A spray of +jasmine uncurled its leaves beneath his hand. Across his shoulders he +felt the coldness of the room where he sat. A few more hurried strokes +and Fairfax had indicated on the page before him a child's head--an +upturned face. As he rounded the chin, Antony saw that the sketch would +be likely to charm him, and he was tired out and cold. He threw down his +pen, dragged out his valise, opened it, took out his things and prepared +for his first night's rest in the city of his unfriendly kinsmen. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +If it had been only spring, or any season less brutal than this winter, +whose severity met him at times with a fresh rebuff and a fresh +surprise--if it had been spring, Antony would have procrastinated, hung +back, unaccustomed as he was to taking quick, decisive action, but the +ugliness of the surroundings at Miss Whitcomb's and the bitter winter +weather forced him to a decision. In the three following days he visited +every one of the few studios that existed at that period in New York. +What were his plans? What were his ideas? But, when he came face to face +with the reality of the matter-of-fact question, he had no plans. +Idealistic, impractical, untried and unschooled, he faced the fact that +he had no plan or idea whatsoever of how to forge his life: he never had +had any and his mother had given him no advice. He wanted to work at +art, but how and where he did not know. Some of the studios could use +models--Fairfax burned at the thought. He could not study as a pupil and +live on air. No one wanted practical workmen. + +The man he most wanted to see was Gunner Cedersholm. He had fallen in +love with the works of the Swedish master as he had seen them in +photograph and plaster cast at the exposition in New Orleans. He had +read all the accounts in the papers he could find of the great Swede. +When he learned that Gunner Cedersholm was in Europe and that he should +not be able to see him until spring, poor Antony longed to stow himself +on a ship and follow the artist. + +Meanwhile, the insignificant fact that an insignificant piece of +modelling had been accepted by an inadvertent jury and placed in the New +York Academy, began to appear to him ridiculous. He had not ventured to +mention this to any one, and the fact that at his fingers' ends lay +undoubted talent began to seem to him a useless thing as well. The only +moment of balm he knew came to him one afternoon in the Metropolitan +Museum. This museum was at that period sparsely dowered. Fairfax stood +before a plaster figure of Rameses, and for the first time the young +artist saw around him the effigies of an art long perfect, long retained +and long dead. + +Turning down through the Egyptian room, his overcoat on his arm, for, +thank Heaven, the place was warmed, his beauty-loving eyes fell on the +silent objects whose presence was meed and balm. He took in the +nourishment of the food to his senses and the colour in his cheeks +brightened, the blue deepened in his eyes. He was repeating the line: +"Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time ..." when two living objects +caught his attention, in a room beyond devoted to a collection of +shells. Before a low case stood the figure of a very little boy in a +long awkward ulster and jockey cap, and by his side, in a conspicuously +short crimson skirt and a rough coat, was a little girl. Her slender +legs and her abundant hair that showered from beneath a crimson +tam-o'-shanter recalled Miss Mitty's description of Bella; but Antony +knew her for herself when she turned. + +"Cousin Antony!" She rushed at him. Childlike, the two made no reference +to the lapse of time between his first visit and this second meeting. +Gardiner took his hand and Antony thought the little boy clung to it, +seized it with singular appealing force, as though he made a refuge of +the strong clasp. Bella greeted him with her eager, brilliant look, then +she rapidly glanced round the room, deserted save for themselves. + +"Something perfectly fearful happened last week, Cousin Antony. Yes, +Gardiner, I will tell. Anyhow, it's all over now, thank the stars." (He +learned to hear her thank these silent heavenly guardians often.) "What +do you think? Last week we came here, Gardiner and me, we come often. We +play with the ancient Egyptians. I'm Cleopatra and Gardiner's' different +things, and there's a guardian here that we specially like because he +taught us things useful for school if you have a weak memory. This is +how you remember the poets-- + + Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Pope, + Go upstairs and get some soap. + +So you see we can't forget them like that. And Shakespeare's birth and +death I never could remember till he taught me-- + + Fifteen hundred and sixty-four + Shakespeare first was heard to roar. + Sixteen hundred and sixteen + Billy Shakespeare last was seen. + +When your memory's weak it's a great help, Cousin Antony. Then what do +you think Gardiner did?" + +Here Fairfax was more than ever sensible of the little boy's clinging +hand. He looked down at the sensitive, flushed face, and the fascinated +eyes of Gardiner were fixed on the vigorous, ardent little sister. + +"Well," said Antony, cordially, "I reckon it's not anything very bad, +little cousin." + +He led them to a bench under the calm serene chaperonage of Rameses who +kept sentinel over them. + +"Bad," whispered Bella, "why it was the worst thing you can possibly +imagine, Cousin Antony. He stole." + +The child's voice dropped solemnly and the silence that fell in the +museum was impressive, even though the situation was humorous. Gardiner, +whom Antony had lifted on his knee, raised his head and looked his +cousin mildly in the eyes. + +"It was a shell," he said slowly, "a blue and bwown shell. Nobody was +looking and I took it home." + +He confessed calmly and without shame, and his sister said-- + +"The guardian was cleaning the cases. I think they trusted us, Cousin +Antony, we were alone here, and it makes it much worse. When we got home +Gardiner showed it to me, and we have had to wait a week to come back +and restore it." + +"I westored it," repeated the boy, "Bella made me." + +With his diminutive hand he made a shell and discoursed regretfully-- + +"It was a perfectly lovely shell. It's over there in its place. Bella +made me put it back again." + +"The worst of it is," said the sister, "that he doesn't seem to care. He +doesn't mind being a thief." + +"Well," laughed Antony, "don't you trouble about it, Bella honey, you +have been a policeman and a judge and a benefactor all in one, and you +have brought the booty back. Come," said Fairfax, "there's the man that +shuts us out and the shells in, and we must go." And they were all three +at the park gate in the early twilight before the children asked him-- + +"Cousin Antony, where have you been all these days?" + + * * * * * + +He saw the children to their own door, and on the way little Gardiner +complained that his shoes were tight, so his cousin carried him, and +nearly carried Bella, who, linking her arm firmly in his, walked close +to him, and, unobserved by Antony, with sympathetic gallantry, copied +his limp all the way home. + +Their companionship had been of the most perfect. He learned where they +roller skated, and which were the cracks to avoid in the pavement, and +which were the treasure lots. He saw where, in dreary excavations, where +plantain and goatweed grew, Bella found stores of quartz and flints, and +where she herded the mangy goat when the Irish ragpickers were out +ragpicking. + +Under his burden of Gardiner Antony's heart had, nevertheless, grown +light, and before they had reached the house he had murmured to them, in +his rich singing voice, Spartacus' address to the gladiators, and where +it says: "Oh, Rome, Rome, thou hast been a tender nurse to me; thou hast +given to the humble shepherd boy muscles of iron and a heart of +steel,"--where these eloquent words occurred he was obliged to stand +still on Madison Avenue, with the little boy in his arms, to give the +lines their full impressiveness. + +Once deposited on the steps, where Fairfax looked to see rise the +effigies of the ashes his uncle had ordered scattered, Gardiner seemed +hardly able to crawl. + +Trevelyan encouraged him: "Brace up, Gardiner, be a man." + +And the child had mildly responded that "his bones were tired." His +sister supported him maternally and helped him up, nodding to Antony +that she would look after her little brother, and Antony heard the boy +say-- + +"Six and six are twelve, Bella, and you're both, and I'm only one of +them. How can you expect...?" + +Antony expected by this time nothing. + +And when that night the eager Miss Whitcombs handed him a letter from +his aunt, with the heading 780, Madison Avenue, in gold, he eagerly tore +it open. + +"My dear Antony," the letter ran, "the children should have drawing +lessons, Gardiner especially draws constantly; I think he has talent. +Will you come and teach them three times a week? I don't know about +remuneration for such things, except as the school bills indicate. Shall +we say twenty dollars a term--and I am not clear as to what a 'term' is! +In music lessons, for instance--" (She had evidently made some +calculations and scratched it out, and here the price was dropped for +ever and ever.) + +To an unpractical woman such a drop is always soothing, and to a +sensitive pauper probably no less so. The letter ended with the +suggestion to Antony that he meet them in their own pew on Sunday +morning at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, and that he return with +them for dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +He succeeded in keeping from the kind and curious interest of the +little ladies the state of his mind and his pocket, and his intentions. +It had not been easy, for when their courteous hints brought no +satisfaction, Miss Eulalie and Miss Mitty asked Fairfax out boldly what +he "was going to do"? Miss Mitty, on whom the task of doing up the hall +room had fallen, dreamed over the sketches she found (in his valise). +Spellbound, she held in her hand a small head of a dryad, and modestly +covered up with her handkerchief a tiny figure whose sweet nudity had +startled her. Antony parried questions. He had come to seek Fortune. So +far it rolled before him with the very devil in its tantalizing wheel, +but he did not say this to Miss Whitcomb. Miss Eulalie suggested to him +that his uncle "could make a place for him in the bank," but Fairfax's +short reply cooled her enthusiasm, and both ladies took their cue. In +the first week he had exhausted his own projects and faced the horrible +thought of disaster. + +His nature was not one to harbour anything but sweetness, and the next +day, Sunday, when the sunlight poured upon New York, he thought of the +little cousins and decided to accept his aunt's invitation. The sky was +cloudless and under its hard blue the city looked colder and whiter than +ever. It was a sky which in New Orleans would have made the birds sing. +The steeples sang, one slender tower rocking as its early ringing bells +sang out its Sunday music on the next corner of the street, and Antony +listened as he dressed, and recognized the melody. He found it beautiful +and sang in his young voice as he shaved and tied his cravat, and made +himself impeccable for the Presbyterian Church. His own people were High +Church Episcopalians, and from the tone and music of these bells he +believed that they rang in an Episcopal building. There was no +melancholy in the honied tone of the chime, and it gave him a glow that +went with him happily throughout the dreary day. + +He found himself between the children in the deep dark pew, where the +back of the seat was especially contrived to seize the sinner in a +sensitive point, and it clutched Antony and made him think of all the +crimes that he had ever committed. Fortunately it met Bella and Gardiner +at their heads. Antony's position between the children was not without +danger. He was to serve as a quieter for Bella's nerves, spirits and +perpetual motion, and to guard against Gardiner's somnolence. He +remained deaf to Bella's clear whispers, and settled Gardiner +comfortably and propped him up. Finally the little boy fell securely +against the cousinly arm. At the end of the pew, Mr. and Mrs. Carew were +absorbed, she in her emotional interest in the pastor, a brilliant +Irishman who thundered for an hour, and Mr. Carew in his own importance +and his position. Antony remembered Miss Mitty and that his uncle was a +pillar of the Church, and he watched the pillar support in grave +pomposity his part of the edifice. + +But neither time nor place nor things eternal nor things present +affected the little girl at Antony's side. Sunk in the deep pew, +unobserved and sheltered by Antony's figure, she lived what she called +her "Sunday pew life," lived it as ardently as she did everything. After +a short interval in which she pored over the open hymnbook, she +whispered to him ---- ---- + +"Cousin Antony, I have learned the whole hymn, ten verses in five +minutes. Hear me." + +He tried to ignore her, but he was obliged to hear her as with great +feeling and in a soft droning undertone she murmured the hymn through. + +"'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.' Isn't it perfectly beautiful, +Cousin Antony?" + +This done, she took off her yellow kid gloves carefully, finger by +finger, and blew them out into a shapely little hand like Zephyr's, to +the dangerous amusement of a child in the next pew. Antony confiscated +the gloves. By squeezing up her eyes and making a lorgnon of her pretty +bare hand, Bella scrutinized the solemn preacher. Antony severely +refused her pencils and paper and remained deaf to her soft questions, +and, thrown on her own resources, Bella extracted her father's huge +Bible from the rack and, to Fairfax's relief, with much turning of the +leaves she finally found a favourite chapter in Revelation and settled +down and immersed herself in the Apocalypse. She read with fervour, her +bonnet back on her rebellious hair, her legs crossed in defiance of +every rule of polite demeanour. Something of the sermon's eloquent, +passionate savagery was heard by Fairfax, and at the close, as the +preacher rose to his climax, Bella heard too. At the text, "There shall +be no more night there, neither candle nor light of the sun," she shut +her book. + +"He is preaching from my chapter, Cousin Antony," she whispered; "isn't +it perfectly beautiful?" + +Fairfax learned to wait for this phrase of hers, a ready approval of +sensuous and lovely and poetic things. He learned to wait for it as one +does for a word of praise from a sympathetic companion. Gardiner woke up +and yawned, and Fairfax got him on his feet; his tumbled blonde head +reached just to the hymnbook rail. He was a pretty picture with his +flushed soft cheeks, red as roses, and his sleepy eyes wide. So they +stood for the solemn benediction, "The love of God ... go with you ... +always." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +He decided not to be the one to shut doors against himself. If life as +it went on chose with backward fling to close portals behind him of its +own accord, he at least would not assist fate, and with both hands, +generously, as his heart was generous, Fairfax threw all gates wide. +Therefore with no _arriere pensee_ or any rankling thought, he went on +the appointed afternoon to teach his little cousins the rudiments of +drawing. + +The weather continued brutal, grew more severe rather, and smartly +whipped him up the avenue and hurled him into the house. He arrived +covered with snow, white as Santa Claus, and he heard by the voices at +the stair head that he was welcome. The three were alone, the upper +floor had been assigned to the drawing party. It was a big room full of +forgotten things, tons of books that people had ceased to want to read, +the linen chest, a capital hiding-place where a soft hand beneath the +lid might prevent a second Mistletoe Bough tragedy. There were old +trunks stored there, boxes which could not travel any more, one of which +had been on a wedding journey and still contained, amongst less poetic +objects, mother's wedding slippers. There was a dear disorder in the big +room whose windows overlooked Madison and Fifth Avenues, and the +distant, black wintry trees of Central Park. A child on either side of +him, Fairfax surveyed his workshop, and he thought to himself, "I could +model here, if I only had some clay." + +Bella had already installed herself. Their tables and their boards and a +prodigal outlay of pencils and paper were in themselves inspiring. + +"There is no chair high enough for Gardiner," Bella said, "but we can +build him one up out of books." + +"I'd wather sit on Cousin Antony's lap," said the little boy; "built-up +books shake me off so, Bella." + +Both children wore blue gingham play aprons. Fairfax told them they +looked like real workmen in a real studio, with which idea they were +much delighted. + +"Gardiner looks like a charity child," said his sister, "in that apron, +and his hair's too long. It ought to be cut, but I gave my solemn word +of honour that I wouldn't cut it again." + +"Why don't you go to your famous Buckingham barber?" asked the cousin. + +"It's too far for Gardiner to walk," she returned, "and we have lost our +last ten cents. Besides, it's thirty-five cents to get a hair-cut." + +Fairfax had placed the boy before his drawing board, and confiscated a +long piece of kitchen bread, telling Bella that less than a whole loaf +was enough for an eraser, extracted the rubber from Gardiner's mouth, +and sat down by the little boy's side. + +"There's not much money in this house, Cousin Antony," Bella informed +him when the seance opened. "Please let me use the soft pencils, will +you? They slide like delicious velvet." + +Fairfax made an equal division of the implements, avoiding a scene, and +made Bella a straight line across the page. + +"Draw a line under it." + +"But any one can draw a straight line," said Bella, scornfully, "and I +don't think they are very pretty." + +"Don't you?" he answered; "the horizon is pretty, don't you think? And +the horizon is a straight line." + +"Yes, it is," said Gardiner, "the howizon is where the street cars fall +over into the sunset." + +"Gardiner's only six," said Bella, apologetically, "you mustn't expect +much of him, Cousin Antony." + +She curled over the table and bent her head and broke her pencils one by +one, and Fairfax guided Gardiner's hand and watched the little girl. She +was lightly and finely made. From under her short red skirt the pretty +leg in its woollen stocking swung to and fro. There was a hole in the +stocking heel, visible above the tiny, tiny slipper. Through the crude +dark collar of the gingham apron came her dark head and its wild +torrent of curling hair, wonderful hair, tangled and unkempt, curling +roundly at the ends, and beneath the locks the curve of her cheek was +like ivory. She was a Southern beauty--her little red mouth twisted awry +over her drawing. + +"I thought dwawing was making pictures, Cousin Antony; if I'd have known +it was _lines_, I wouldn't have taken," said his youngest cousin. + +"You have to begin with those things, old man. I'll wipe your hands off +on my handkerchief." + +"Please do," said the little boy; "my hands leak awful easy." + +His sister laughed softly, and said to herself in an undertone-- + +"I've drawn my lines long--long--ago, and now I'm making...." + +"Don't make anything, Bella, until I tell you to," commanded her +teacher, and glanced over her page where she had covered the paper with +her big formless handwriting, "Dramatiss personi, first act." + +"Why, I had a lovely idea for a play, Cousin Antony, and I thought I'd +just jot it down. We're the company, Gardiner and I, and we give plays +here every now and then. You can play too, if you like, and say +'Spartacus.' Ah, say it now." + +Trevelyan felt the appealing little hand of the boy stealing into his. + +"Do, please," he urged; "I don't want ever to draw again, never, never." + +"Hush," said his sister severely, "you mustn't say that, Gardiner; +Cousin Antony is our drawing master." + +Gardiner's sensitive face flushed. "I thought he was only my cousin," +said the child, and continued timidly, "I'll dwaw a howizon now and then +if you want me to, but I'd wather not." + +They left their tables. Fairfax said, "I'm no good at teaching, Bella." +He stretched his arms. "I reckon you're not much good at learning +either. Gardiner's too young and you're not an artist." + +"Say about the 'timid shepherd boy,' Cousin Antony." + +He had taken his coat off in the furnace-heated room and stood in his +snowy shirt sleeves, glad to be released from the unwelcome task of +teaching restless children. He loved the ring and the thrill of the +words and declaimed the lines enthusiastically. + + * * * * * + +"You look like a gladiator, Cousin Antony," Bella cried; "you must have +a perfectly splendid muscle." + +He bared his right arm, carried away by his recitation and the picture +evoked. The children admired the sinews and the swelling biceps. +Gardiner touched it with his little fingers; the muscular firm arm, +ending in the vigorous wrist, held their fascinated gaze. The sculptor +himself looked up it with pardonable approval. + +"Feel mine," said Gardiner, crimson with the exertion of lifting his +tiny arm to the position of his cousin's. + +"Immense, Gardiner!" Fairfax complimented, "immense." + +"Feel mine," cried Bella, and the sculptor touched between his fingers +the fine little member. + +"Great, little cousin!" + +"I'll be the gladiator's wife and applaud him from the Coliseum and +throw flowers on him." + +Fairfax lingered with them another hour, laughing at his simplicity in +finding them such companions. With compunction, he endeavoured to take +up his lesson again with Bella, unwilling and recalcitrant. She drew a +few half-hearted circles, a page of wobbly lines, and at the suspicion +of tears Fairfax desisted, surprised to find how the idea of tears from +her touched him. Then in the window between them, he watched as the +children told him they always did, for "mother's car to come home." + +"She is sharping," exclaimed Gardiner, slowly; "she has to sharp very +hard, my mother does. She comes back in the cars, only she never comes," +he finished with patient fatality. + +"Silly," exclaimed his sister, "she always comes at dinner-time. And we +bet on the cars, Cousin Antony. Now let's say it will be the +seventy-first. We have to put it far away off," she explained, "'cause +we're beginning early." + +Fairfax left them, touched by their patience in watching for the mother +bird. He promised to return soon, soon, to go on with his wonderful +tales. As he went downstairs Bella called after him. + +"But you didn't say _which_ car you bet on, Cousin Antony." + +And Fairfax called back in his Southern drawl: "I reckon she'll come in +a pumpkin chariot." And he heard their delighted giggles as he limped +downstairs. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +He avoided his uncle, Mr. Carew, and made up his mind that if the master +of the house were brusque to him, he would not return, were the +threshold worn never so dear by little feet. Bella had the loveliest +little feet a fellow connoisseur of plastic beauty could wish to see, +could wish to watch twinkle in run-down slippers, in scuffled boots--in +boots where a button or two was always lacking--and once when she kicked +off her strap slipper at a lesson Fairfax saw, through a hole in the +stocking, one small perfect toe--a toe of Greek marble perfection, a +most charming, snowy, rosy bit of flesh, and he imagined how adorable +the little foot must be. + +To an audience, composed of a dreamy boy and an ardent, enthusiastic +little girl, Fairfax confessed his talent, spoke of his hopes, of his +art, even hinted at genius, and one day fetched his treasures, his bits +of moistened clay, to show the children. + +"Oh, they are perfectly _beautiful_, Cousin Antony. Wouldn't you do +Gardiner's head for mother?" + +On this day, with his overcoat and hat, Fairfax had laid by a paper +parcel. It was stormy, and around the upper windows the snow blew and +the winds cried. Propped up by pillows, Gardiner, in his red flannel +dressing-gown, nestled in the corner of the sofa. Antony regarded Bella, +red as a cardinal bird in her homely dress; he had seen her wear no +other dress and would have regretted the change. + +"Oh, I'll do Gardiner one of these days, but I reckon I'll make another +study to-day." + +"Me?" Bella shook back her mane. + +Her cousin considered her with an impersonal eye, whose expression she +did not understand to be the artist's gauge and measure. + +"Bella," he said shortly, "I'm going to make a cast of your foot." + +She was sitting on the sofa and drew her feet under her. + +"Only just my foot, Cousin Antony, not all of me?" + +"Come now," said the sculptor, "it won't take long. It's heaps of +sport." + +He unrolled the paper parcel he had brought, unfolding a mass of snowy, +delectable looking powder. + +"Ask old Ann to fetch us a couple of basins, deep ones, some water and a +little oil and salt." + +When after toilsome journeys up and down the stairs of the four-storied +house, the things had been fetched, Fairfax mixed his plaster, eagerly +watched by the children. Perched on the edge of the divan, Bella brooded +over the foaming, marvellous concoction, into whose milky bubbles she +saw art fall like a star--a genius blossom like a flower. She gazed at +Antony's hands as they plunged in and came out dripping; gazed as though +she expected him to bring forth some peerless image his touch had called +to life. His shirt sleeves rolled up over his fine arms, his close +high-cropped and sunny hair warm upon his brow, his eyes sparkling, he +bent an impassioned face over the milky plaster. + +"Now," Fairfax said, "hurry along, Bella, I'm ready!" + +She responded quietly. "I'm here. It's like a snow pie, Cousin Antony." + +"Take off your shoe and stocking." + +"Cousin Antony!" + +A painful flush of red, the drawing under her more closely of the little +legs, showed how far she had been from comprehending. + +"Casts are taken from life, Bella," informed her cousin practically, +"you'll see. I'm going to make a model from life, then watch what +happens. I reckon you're not afraid, honey?" + +Gardiner kicked his foot out from under the rugs. "Do mine." + +With the first timidity Antony had seen her display, Bella divested +herself of her shoe and drew off her dark stocking, and held him out the +little naked foot, a charming, graceful concession to art. + +"It's clean," she said simply. + +He took it in his big hand and it lay like a pearl and coral thing in +his palm. Bella did not hear his murmured artistic ecstasies. Fairfax +deftly oiled the foot, kneeling before it as at a shrine of beauty. He +placed it in one of the basins and poured the plaster slowly over it, +sternly bidding her to control her giggles and her "ouches" as it could +not harm. + +"Keep perfectly still. Do not budge till the plaster sets." + +"Oh, it's setting already," she told him, "_hard_! You won't break off +my foot, Cousin Antony?" + +"Nonsense." + +Whilst the cast set he recited for them "St. Agnes's Eve," a great +favourite with the children, beyond their comprehension, but their +hearts nevertheless stirred to the melody. As Fairfax leant down to +break the model Bella helped him bravely. + +"_Now_, might I put on my stocking, Cousin Antony?" + +He had been pouring the warm plaster into the mould and had forgotten +her, and was reproached. + +The twilight gathered and made friends with the storm as they waited for +the cast to harden. Old Ann came in and lighted the gas above the group +on the old divan. + +"Be the hivenly powers! Mr. Fairfax, ye've here a power of a dirt." + +Fairfax, who had taken a fancy to the patient old creature, who had' +known his mother and was really more a slave to the children than his +own black Mammy, bore the scolding peacefully. + +"Ye're the childest of the three, sor." + +Antony caught her arm. "Wait and see, old Ann," and he kneeled before +the cooled plaster and broke his model, released his work and held up +the cast. + +"For the love of hiven, Mr. Antony, it's Miss Bella's foot ye've got, +sor." + +She stared as at a miracle, then at her little lady as though she +expected to see a missing member. Bella danced around it, pleaded for +it, claimed it. Gardiner was allowed to feel how cold it was, and +Fairfax took it home in his overcoat pocket, anxious to get safely away +with it before his uncle came and smashed it, as he had the feeling +that Mr. Carew would some day smash everything for him. That night when +she undressed Bella regarded with favour the foot that had been +considered worthy of a cast and extracted sacredly a bit of plaster +which she found between the toes, and Antony Fairfax limped home to the +House that Jack Built, his heavy step lighter for the fairy foot, the +snow-white, perfect little foot he carried triumphantly in his pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He was too sincerely an artist not to make pictures of all he saw, and, +being sincere, he made his lines true, and then outlined the sketch, +softening, moulding, moulding.... His aunt's gentle inefficiency (she +was kind to him, affectionate, and called him "her dear boy") was to +Fairfax only charming, feminine softness, and he grew fond of Mrs. +Carew, indulgent to her faults, listened half convinced to her +arguments, admired her in her multitudinous toilettes, in all of which +she was original, found her lovely and graceful. Her eyes were +deer-like--not those of a startled fawn, but like a doe's who stands +gazing at a perfect park, whose bosks she takes to be real forests. Mrs. +Carew knew absolutely nothing of life. Fairfax at twenty-three, knew +less of it, and he could not criticize her vision. He saw his uncle +through Bella's eyes, but he never passed the master of the house in the +halls, taking good care to escape him. It was not easy to associate fear +with Bella; her father had not impressed her free mind with this +sentiment. + +"Father," she told Antony, "is the most important man in New York City, +the cook said so. He might be President, but he doesn't want to; he +likes his own work best. Father's work is making money, and he quite +understands how hard such a thing is. That is why there is so little in +the house, Cousin Antony. Even the cook hadn't a cent when I asked her +to lend me a penny. We used to have five cents a week, but now mother +has to be so careful that we're hard up. It's awful when there are +treats on, Cousin Antony, because you see, you ought to do your share. +That is why Gardiner and I always stick around together and say we don't +like children.... No," she said firmly, "I really _couldn't_ take five +cents, Cousin Antony; thank you ever so much. We're bound in honour not +to; we promised never to take from a stranger; yes, I know you're not a +stranger, and I forget to whom we promised, but I really couldn't, +Cousin Antony." + +Mrs. Carew could, however. One day, on her way to the magic car, as it +waited with its lean horses and jingle-jangle to take the lady +"sharping," that day she borrowed two dollars from Fairfax, who, being a +pauper, had always money in his pocket; having in reality nowhere else +to keep it--and having none to keep elsewhere. The two dollar bill went +to join ghostly company with the drawing lessons money, and fluttered +away to the country of unpaid bills, of forgotten obligations, of +benefits forgot, and it is to be wondered if souls are ever at peace +there. + +"Father," said Bella, "is the 'soul of honour.' When Ann comes to rub +Gardiner's feet at night (they are so often tired, Cousin Antony), she +told me about father's character. She's awfully Irish, you wouldn't +understand her. Father goes to 'board meetings' (I don't know what they +are, but they're very important) and they call him 'your honour,' and +Ann says it's all because of his soul. _He never breaks his word_, and +when the bills come in...." + +The drawing lessons went bravely and wearily on day after day. Because +his aunt wished it, Fairfax guided Gardiner's inert fingers across the +page and almost tied Bella to her chair. On drawing days he lunched with +the household, and honestly earned his food. Half fed, keen with a +healthy appetite, he ate gratefully. They had been pausing at the end of +a half-hour's torture when Bella took up her monologue on her father's +character. + +"When the bills come in he shuts himself in the library. I hear him walk +up and down; then he comes out with his face white, and once, long past +dinner-time, when mother didn't come in, he said to me, 'Where in +heaven's name is your mother? What can she find left in the shops to +buy?' just that, he asked me that, Cousin Antony. I felt awfully sorry. +I was just going to ask him for five cents, but I hadn't the heart." + +That she had heart for her father, this child of twelve, and at so +tender an age could see and comprehend, could pity, struck Fairfax, and +on his part he began to see many things, but being a man and chivalrous, +he pitied the woman as well. + +"My aunt is out of her element," he decided; "she cannot be in love with +her husband; no woman who loved anything on earth could gad about as she +does," and he wondered, and the deer in the park gazing at an artificial +wilderness became more and more of a symbol of her. + +Regarding the man they called "his honour" Fairfax had not made up his +mind. + + * * * * * + +Gardiner developed scarlet fever and lay, so Mrs. Carew assured Antony, +"at the door of death," and Bella had been sent away to the country. Mr. +Carew lived at the Club, and Antony made daily visits and did countless +errands for his aunt. One day, toward the end of the little boy's +convalescence, Fairfax came in late and heard the sound of a sweet voice +singing. He entered the drawing-room quietly and the song went on. Mrs. +Carew had a lovely voice, one of those natural born voices, +heart-touching, appealing; one of those voices that cause an ache and go +to the very marrow, that make the eyes fill. As though she knew Antony +was there, and liked the entertainment, she sang him song after song, +closing with "Oh, wert thou in the cold blast," then let her hands rest +on the keys. Fairfax went over to the piano. + +"Why didn't you tell me you sang like this, Aunt Caroline?" The emotion +her songs had kindled remained in his voice. + +"Oh, I never sing, my dear boy, your uncle doesn't like music." + +"Damn," said the young man sharply; "I beg your pardon. You've got the +family talent; your voice is divine." + +She was touched but shook her head. "I might have sung possibly, if your +uncle had ever cared for it. He'll be back to-morrow and I thought I'd +just run these things over." + +As she rose and left the piano he observed how young she was, how +graceful in her trailing dress. The forced housing of these weeks of +Gardiner's illness had quieted the restless spirit. Mrs. Carew was +womanly to him, feminine for the first time since his arrival. It was at +the end of his tongue to say, "Why did you ever marry that man?" He +thought with keen dislike of the husband whose appearance would close +the piano, silence the charming voice, and drive his aunt to find +occupation in the shops and in charities. He became too chivalrous. + +"Flow gently, sweet Afton," as sung by her, echoed thence afterwards in +his mind all his life. The melody was stored in the chambers of his +memory, and whenever, in later years, he tried not to recall 700 Madison +Avenue, and the inhospitable home, maddeningly and plaintively these +tunes would come: "Roll on, silver moon," that too. How that moon rolled +and hung in the pale sky of remembrance, whose colour and hue is more +enchanting than ever were Italian skies! + +Mrs. Carew had an audience composed of two people. Little Gardiner, up +and dressed in his flannel gown, and the big cousin fathering him with a +protecting arm, both in the sofa corner. Mrs. Carew's mellow voice on +those winter afternoons before Bella returned, before Mr. Carew came +back from the Club, flowed and quavered and echoed sweetly through the +room. In the twilight, before the gas came, with old-fashioned stars set +in the candelabra, the touching pathos of the ballads spoke to the +romantic Fairfax ... spoke to his twenty-three years and spoke +dangerously. He became more and more chivalrous and considered his aunt +a misunderstood and unloved woman. Long, long afterwards, a chord, a +note, was sufficient to bring before him the square drawing-room with +its columns, furnish with an agglomeration of gaudy, rich, fantastic +things expressive of her uncertain taste. He saw again the long dark +piano and the silhouette of the woman behind it, graceful, shadowy, and +felt the pressure against his arm of little Gardiner, as they two sat +sympathetically lifted to an emotional pitch, stirred as only the music +of a woman's voice in love-songs can stir a man's heart. + +Bella came back and there was an end of the concerts. A charm to keep +Bella silent had not yet been found, unless that charm were a book. "She +could not read when mother sang," she said, "and more than that, it +made her cry." And when Mr. Carew's latchkey scratched in the door, +Bella flew upstairs to the top story, Antony and Gardiner followed more +slowly; Mrs. Carew shut her piano, and took the cars again to forget her +restlessness in the purchase of silks and dry goods and house +decorations, and was far from guessing the emotion she had aroused in +the breast of her nephew--"Flow gently, sweet Afton." Nothing flowed +gently in Fairfax's impetuous breast. Nothing flowed gently on the tide +of events that drifted past slowly, leaving him unsuccessful, without +any opening into fame. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Cedersholm returned to New York and Fairfax presented himself again at +the studio, getting as far as the workroom of the great Swede who had +started in life the son of a tinsmith in Copenhagen. The smell of the +clay, the sight of the figures swathed in damp cloths, the shaded light, +struck Fairfax deliciously as he waited for an audience with Cedersholm. +Fairfax drew his breath deep as though he were once again in his +element. Cedersholm was out, and with no other encouragement than the +sight of the interior of the four walls, Antony was turned away. His +mother had added to his fast melting funds by a birthday gift, and +Fairfax was nearly at the end of this. + +Walking up from Cedersholm's to his uncle's house, a tramp of three +miles, he limped into the children's room, on his usually bright face +the first shadow they had seen. Bella was already seated at her table. +Her six weeks in the country had sent her back, longer, slimmer, her +skirt let down at the hem an inch, and some pretence to order in her +hair. The dark mass of her hair was lifted back, held by a round comb; +Bella was much transformed. + +"Hello, honey," cried her cousin, "what have you been changing into?" + +"What do you think of my back comb, Cousin Antony? It's the fourth. I've +broken three. All cheap, luckily, not the best quality." + +Bella took the comb from her hair and handed it to Antony, and, +unprisoned, her locks fell triumphantly around her face. + +"I like you better that way, little cousin," said Fairfax, "and," +continued the drawing master, "you've a wonderful new pair of shoes, +Bella!" + +The little leg was encased in a light blue silk stocking, and the +perfect little foot, whose rosy curves and lines Fairfax knew, was +housed in a new blue kid shoe with shining white buttons, entirely out +of keeping with the dear old red dress which, to Fairfax, seemed part of +Bella Carew. + +"Dancing school," she said briefly; "mother promised us we might go ages +ago, long before you came, Cousin Antony." + +"About ten years ago, I fink," said Gardiner helpfully. + +"Nonsense," corrected his sister sharply, "but long enough ago for +_these_ to grow too small." She held up her pretty foot. "We got as far +as the shoes and stockings (real silk, Cousin Antony, feel). Aren't they +perfectly _beautiful_? We didn't _dare_, because of the bills, get the +dress, you know, so I guess mother's been waiting for better times. But +just as soon as I came back from the country and they let out the hem +and bought the comb, I said to Gardiner, 'There, my dancing shoes will +be too small.'" She leant down and pinched the toes. "They _do_ +squeeze." She crinkled up her eyes and pursed up the little red mouth. +"They pinch awfully, but I'm going to wear them to drawing lessons, if I +can't to dancing lessons. See," she smoothed out her drawing board and +pointed to her queer lines, "I have drawn some old things for you, a +couple of squares and a triangle." + +Fairfax listened, amused; the problems of his life were vital, she could +not distract him. He took the rubber, erasing her careless work, sat +down by her and began to give her real instruction. Little Gardiner, +excused from all study, amused himself after his own fashion in a corner +of the sofa, and after a few moments of silence, Fairfax's pupil +whispered to him in a low tone-- + +"I can't draw anything, Cousin Antony, when you've got that look on." + +Fairfax continued his work. + +"It's no use, you've got the heavy look like the heavy step. Are you +angry with me?" + +Not her words, but her voice made her cousin stop his drawing. In it was +a hint of the tears she hated to shed. Bella leant her elbow on the +table, rested her head in her hand and searched Fairfax's face with her +eloquent eyes. They were not like her mother's, doe-like and patient; +Bella's were dark eyes, superb and shadowy. They held something of the +Spanish mystery, caught from the strain that ran through the Carew +family from the Middle Ages, when the Carez were nobles in Andalusia. + +"I am angry with myself, Bella; I am a fool." + +"Oh no, you're _not_," she breathed devotedly, "you're a genius." + +The tension of Fairfax's heart relaxed. The highest praise that any +woman could have found, this child, in her naivete, gave him. + +"Why don't you make some figures and sell them, Cousin Antony? Are you +worried about money troubles?" She had heard these terms often. + +"Yes," he said shortly, "just that." + +He had gone on to sketch a head on the drawing-board, touching it +absently, and over his shoulder Bella murmured-- + +"Cousin Antony, it's just like me. You just draw wonderfully." + +He deepened the shadows in the hair and rounded the ear, held it some +way off and looked at it. + +"I wish I had some clay," he murmured. + +He had brought the cast of the foot back to show it to his aunt when an +occasion should offer. It stood now in the little cabinet where Bella +and Gardiner kept their treasures. + +"I went to see Mr. Cedersholm to-day," Fairfax continued, for lack of +other confidant taking the dark-eyed child; "now, if Cedersholm would +only take me up, and give me the chance to work under him, I'd soon show +him." + +Bella agreed warmly. "Yes, indeed, you soon would." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The odours of strange meats and sauces were wafted throughout the house. +Little troublesome feet pattered up and down the dingy back stairs, and +whenever Bella and Gardiner were laid hold upon they were banished. They +were inoculated with excitement and their nostrils pricked with the +delicious smells of flowers and smilax and feast meats. + +Mr. Carew annually gave a banquet to some twenty New Yorkers, who he was +so generous as to think were nearly as great as himself. The household +was not constructed or run on a hospitable basis and nothing was in tune +for entertaining. Sympathetic Bella, thrilling with liveliest interest, +assisted at the preparations, and to her bright cheeks and eyes her +mother bewailed-- + +"Only _twenty_ glasses, Bella, of the fine engraved deer and pheasant +pattern, and we shall be twenty-four." + +"Mother, give me one in a paper and I'll take it down town and match +it." + +Her mother laughed. "Match it, why they were made by hand years ago, and +are worth ten dollars apiece." + +"Oh, dear," breathed the little girl, and multiplied: "Two hundred +dollars for twenty. _Mother!_" + +The child stole silently out from the glistening array. Ten dollars +apiece. And she and Gardiner at their last nursery tea-party.... Through +the door, as she slipped away, she looked back at her mother, standing +thoughtful over the rows of crystal. In the great mahogany cage which, +like a small dark chateau, surmounted the pedestal of carved wood, the +blackbird Jetty huddled on his perch. He was a superb specimen, black as +jet, whence his name, a free woodland spirit, with a yellow bill like a +crocus flower, and piercing eyes. Bella passed under the cage and +called up to him, "Sing, Jetty, sing." + + Piped a blackbird from a beechwood spray, + "Little maid, slow wandering this way, + What's your name?" said he. + + Little Bell had wandered through the glade, + She looked up between the beechwood's shade, + "Little Bell," said she.... + +The child crooned to the bird her schoolroom poem. In return, Jetty sang +a short, brilliant little roulade, his one trained tune, which Bella had +vainly tried to pick out on the piano. She never heard half so sweet a +song from any bird. + +"Jetty is my _favourite_ singer," she had said to Antony. But as she +lingered now under his cage in order to lengthen out the time, which, +because of her aching conscience, was hanging heavy, Jetty blinked down +at her as she stood with her hands behind her back, her face uplifted; +he peered at her like a weird familiar spirit. "Listen, Jetty. Gardiner +and I took those perfectly beautiful, expensive glasses for our tea +party. He smashed all three of them. There was a glass for Gardiner, a +glass for me and one for the uninvited guest--no, I mean the unexpected +guest. Gardiner sat down on the glasses where I had put them out to wash +them. He would have been awfully cut only he had father's overcoat on +(one of father's old coats, we got it out of the camphor chest)." She +ceased, for Jetty, in the midst of the confession, hopped down to take a +valetudinarian peck at his yellow seeds. + +"Now," murmured Bella, "the question is, _shall_ I tell mother on an +exciting day like this when she is worried and nervous, and, if I do +tell her, wouldn't it be carrying tales on poor little Gardiner?" + +Jetty, by his food cup, disheartened and discouraged and apparently in a +profound melancholy, depressed Bella; she left him, turned and fled. + +Bella picked a forbidden way up the freshly oiled stairs and joined her +little brother. There she listened to tales, danced on tiptoe to peer +through the stair rails, and hung with Gardiner over the balustrade and +watched and listened. The children flew to the window to see the cabs +and carriages drive up, fascinated by the clicking of the doors, finding +magic in the awning and the carpeting that stretched down the stoop to +the curb; found music in the voices below in the hallway as the guests +arrived. Bella could hardly eat the flat and unpalatable supper prepared +for her on the tray, and, finally, she seized her little brother. + +"Come, let's go down and see the party, Gardiner." + +She dragged him after her, half-reluctant and wholly timid. On the +middle of the stairway she paused. The house below was transformed, hot +and perfumed with flowers, the very atmosphere was strange. Along the +balustrade, their hands touched smilax garlands. The blaze of light +dazzled them, the sweet odours, the gaiety and the spirit of cheer and +life and good-fellowship came up on fragrant wings. The little brother +and sister stood entranced. The sound of laughter and men's agreeable +voices came soaring in, the gaiety of guests at a feast, and, over all +rose a sound most heavenly, a low, thrilling, thrilling sound. + +Jetty was singing. + +The children knew the blackbird's idyl well, but it was different this +night. They heard the first notes rise softly, half stifled in his +throat, where Jetty caressed his tune, soothed it, crooned with it, and +then, preluded by a burst all his own of a few adorable silver notes, +the trained melody came forth. + +"Oh, _Gardiner_," breathed the little girl, "hear Jetty. Isn't it +perfectly beautiful?" + +They stepped softly on downstairs, hand in hand, into the lower rooms, +over to the dining-room where the thick red curtains hung before the +doorway. Gardiner wore his play apron and his worsted bed slippers. +Bella--neither the little brother nor the old nurse had observed that +Bella had made herself a toilette. The dark hair carefully brushed and +combed, was tied back with a crimson ribbon, and below her short dress +shone out her dancing school blue stockings and her tight blue shoes. +Peering through the curtains, the children could see the dinner company +to their hearts' content. Bella viewed the great New Yorkers, murmuring +under her breath the names and wondering to whom they belonged. Judge +Noah Davis, famous for the breaking of the Tweed ring--him, Bella knew, +he was a frequent caller. There was a prelate of the Church and there +was some one whom Bella wanted especially to see--Cedersholm, Mr. +Cedersholm--which could he be? Which might he be? Little Gardiner's hand +was hot in hers. He whispered beseechingly-- + +"Come, Bella, come, I'm afwaid." + +"Hear Jetty, Gardiner, be quiet." + +And the bird's voice nearly drowned the murmur and the clamour of the +dining-room. Mr. Carew, resplendent in evening clothes, displayed upon +his shirt front the badge of the Spanish Society (a golden medal hung by +a silken band). It was formed and founded by the banker and he was proud +of his creation. + +"Who would ever suppose that father didn't like company? Whoever would +think that you could be afraid of father!" + +Suave, eloquent, Carew beamed upon his guests, and his little daughter +admired him extravagantly. His hair and beard were beautiful. Touching +the medal on his breast, Carew said-- + +"Carez is the old name, Cedersholm." + +Cedersholm! Bella stared and listened. + +"Yes, Carez, Andalusian, I believe, to be turned later in England into +Carew; and the bas-relief is an excellent bit of sculpturing." + +Mr. Carew undid the medal and handed it to the guest on his right. + +"Here, Cedersholm, what do you think of the bas-relief?" + +Cedersholm, already famous in New York, faced Bella Carew and she saw +him plainly. This was the sculptor who could give Cousin Antony his +start, "his fair chance." He did not look a great man, as Bella thought +geniuses should look; not one of the guests looked as great and +beautiful as Cousin Antony. Why didn't they have him to the dinner, she +wondered loyally. Hasn't he got money enough? Perhaps because he was +lame. + +Jetty was lame. He had broken his leg in the bars once upon a time. How +he sang! From his throat poured one ecstatic roulade after another, one +cascade after another of liquid delicious sweetness. Fields, woods, +copses, and dells; sunlight, moonlight, seas and streams, all, all were +in Jetty's passion of song. + +Gardiner had left his sister's side and stood under the bird-cage gazing +up with an enraptured face. He made a pretty, quaint figure in the +deserted room, in his gingham apron and his untidy blonde hair. + +Bella heard some one say, "What wonderful singing, Mrs. Carew." And she +looked at her mother for the first time. The lady was all in white with +a bit of old black point crossed at her breast and a red camellia +fastened there. Her soft fine hair was unpretentiously drawn away +neatly, and her doe-like eyes rested amiably on her guests. She seemed +to enjoy her unwonted entertainment. + +Still Bella clung to her hiding-place, fascinated by the subdued noise +of the service, the clinking of the glasses, listening intelligently to +a clever raconteur when he told his anecdote, and clapping her hand on +her mouth to keep from joining aloud in the praise that followed, and +the bead of excitement mounted to her head like the wine that filled the +glasses, the engraved deer and pheasant glasses, three of which had been +massacred upstairs. The dinner had nearly reached its end when the +children slipped down, and the scraping of chairs and a lull made Bella +realize where she was, and when she escaped she found that Gardiner had +made his little journey upstairs without her guardianship. Bella's mind +was working rapidly, for her heart was on fire with a scheme. In her +bright dress she leaned close to the dark wainscoting of the stairway +and heard Jetty sing. How he sang! _That_ was music! + +"Why do people sing when there are birds!" Bella thought. Low and sweet, +high and fine, the running of little country brooks, unattainable as a +weather vane in the sun. + +Bella was at a pitch of sensitive emotion and she felt her heart swell +and her eyes fill. She would have wept ignominiously, but instead shot +upstairs, a red bird herself, and rushed to the cabinet where her +childish treasures were stored away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The sculptor Cedersholm had come from Sweden himself a poor boy. He had +worked his way into recognition and fame, but his experience in life had +embittered rather than softened him. He early discovered that there is +nothing but example that we can learn from the poor or take from the +poor, and he avoided everything that did not add to his fame and +everything that did not bring in immediate aids. It was only during the +late years that he had made his name known in New York. He had been +working in Rome, and during the past three years his expositions had +made him enormously talked of. He would not have dined at the Carews' +without a reason. Henry Carew was something of a figure in the Century +Club. His pretence to dilettantism was not small. But Cedersholm had not +foreseen what a wretched dinner he would be called on to eat. Cooked by +a woman hired in for the day, half cold and wholly poor, Mr. Carew's +banquet was far from being the magnificent feast it seemed in Bella's +eyes. Somewhat cheered by his cigar and liqueur, Cedersholm found a seat +in a small reception room out of earshot of his host and hostess, and, +in company with Canon Prynne of Albany, managed to pass an agreeable +half hour. + +The Canon agreed with the Swede--he had never heard a bird sing so +divinely. + +"I told Mrs. Carew she should throw a scarf over the cage. The blackbird +will sing his heart out." + +The sculptor took up his conversation with his friend where he had left +it in the dining-room. He had been speaking of a recent commission given +him by the city for an important piece of work to be done for Central +Park. + +"You know, Canon, we have succeeded in bringing to the port of New York +the Abydos Sphinx--a marvellous, gigantic creature. It is to be placed +in Central Park, in the Mall." + +This, Canon Prynne had heard. "The base pedestal and fixtures are to be +yours, Cedersholm?" + +The sculptor nodded. "Yes, and manual labour such as this is tremendous. +If I were in France, now, or in Italy, I could find chaps to help me. As +it is, I work alone." After a pause, he said, "However, I like the sole +responsibility." + +"Now, I am not sure," returned his companion, "whether it is well to +like too sole a responsibility. As far as _I_ am concerned, no sooner do +I think myself important than I discover half a dozen persons in my +environment to whom I am doing a wrong, if I do not invite them to share +my glory." + +There was no one in the small room to which the gentlemen had withdrawn, +and their chat was suddenly interrupted by a small, clear voice asking, +"Is this Mr. Cedersholm?" Neither guest had seen steal into the room and +slip from the shadow to where they sat, a little girl, slender, +overgrown, in a ridiculously short dress, ridiculous shoes and +stockings, her arms full of treasures, her dark hair falling around her +glowing cheeks, in terror of being caught and banished and punished; but +ardent and determined, she had nevertheless braved her father's +displeasure. Bella fixed her eyes on the sculptor and said rapidly-- + +"Excuse me for coming to father's party, but I am in a great hurry. I +want to speak to you about my Cousin Antony. He is a great genius," she +informed earnestly, "a sculptor, just like you, only he can't get any +work. If he had a chance he'd make _perfectly beautiful_ things." + +The other gentleman put out his hand and drew the child to him. Unused +to fatherly caress, Bella held back, but was soon drawn within the +Canon's arm. She held out her treasures: "He did these," and she +presented to Cedersholm the white cast of her own foot. + +"Cousin Antony explained that it is only a cast, and that anybody could +do it, but it _is_ awfully natural, isn't it? only so deadly white." + +She held out a sheet of paper Fairfax had left at the last lesson. It +bore a sketch of Bella's head and several decorative studies. Cedersholm +regarded the cast and the paper. + +"Who is Cousin Antony, my child?" asked the Canon. + +"Mother's sister's son, from New Orleans--Antony Fairfax." + +Cedersholm exclaimed, "Fairfax; but yes, I have a letter from a Mr. +Fairfax. It came while I was in France." + +The drawing and the cast in Cedersholm's possession seemed to have found +their home. Bella felt all was well for Cousin Antony. + +"Oh, listen!" she exclaimed, eagerly, "listen to our blackbird. Isn't it +perfectly beautiful?" + +"Divine indeed," replied the clergyman. "Are you Carew's little +daughter?" + +"Bella Carew. And I must go now, sir. Arabella is my real name." + +She slipped from under the detaining arm. "Nobody knows I'm up. I'll +lend you those," she offered her treasures to Cedersholm, "but I am very +fond of the foot." + +It lay in Cedersholm's hand without filling it. He said kindly-- + +"I quite understand that. Will you tell your Cousin Antony that I shall +be glad to see him?" + +"Oh, thank you," she nodded. "And he'll be _very_ glad to see you." + +Cedersholm, smiling, put the cast and the bit of paper back in her +hands. + +"I won't rob you of these, Miss Bella. Your cousin shall make me +others." + +As the little girl ran quickly out it seemed to the guests as if the +blackbird's song went with her, for in a little while Jetty stopped +singing. + +"What a quaint, old-fashioned little creature," Cedersholm mused. + +"Charming," murmured Canon Prynne, "perfectly charming. Now, my dear +Cedersholm, there's your fellow for the Central Park pedestal." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The month was nearly at its end, and his money with it. Some time since, +he had given up riding in the cars, and walked everywhere. This exercise +was the one thing that tired him, because of his unequal stride. +Nevertheless, he strode, and though it seemed impossible that a chap +like himself could come to want, he finally reached his last "picayune," +and at the same time owed the week's board and washing. The excitement +of his new life thus far had stimulated him, but the time came when this +stimulus was dead, and as he went up the steps of his uncle's house to +be greeted on the stoop by a beggar woman, huddling by her basket under +her old shawl, the sculptor looked sadly down at her greasy palm which +she hopefully extended. Then, with a brilliant smile, he exclaimed-- + +"I wonder, old lady, _just_ how poor you are?" + +"Wurra," replied the woman, "if the wurrld was for sale for a cint, I +couldn't buy it." + +Beneath his breath he murmured, "Nor could I," and thought of his watch. +Curiously enough, it had not occurred to him that he might pawn his +father's watch. + +He now looked forward with pleasure to the tri-weekly drawing lessons, +for the friendly fires of his little cousins' hearts warmed his own. But +on this afternoon they failed to meet him in the hall or to cry to him +over the stairs or rush upon him like catapults from unexpected corners. +As he went through the silent house its unusual quiet struck him +forcibly, and he thought: "_What_ a tomb it would be without the +children!" + +No one responded to his "Hello you," and at the entrance of the common +play and study room Fairfax paused, to see Bella and Gardiner in their +play aprons, their backs to the door, motionless before the table, one +dark head and one light one bent over an object apparently demanding +tender, reverent care. + +At Fairfax's "Hello _you_ all!" they turned, and the big cousin never +forgot it as long as he lived--never forgot the Bella that turned, that +called out in what the French call "a torn voice"--_une voix dechiree_. +Afterwards it struck him that she called him "Antony" _tout court_, like +a grown person as she rushed to him. He never forgot how the little +thing flung herself at him, threw herself against his breast. For an +answer to her appeal with a quick comprehension of grief, Antony bent +and took her hand. + +"Cousin Antony, Cousin Antony----" + +"Why, Bella, Bella, little cousin, what's the matter?" + +And above the sobs that he felt tremble through him, he asked of +Gardiner--who, young as he was, stifled his tears back and gulped his +own grief like a man-- + +"What's the row, old chap?" + +But Bella told him passionately. "Jetty, _Jetty's dead_!" + +Soothed by her cousin's hand on her head, she calmed, buried her face in +the cool handkerchief with which he wiped her tears. In the circle of +his arms Bella stood, tearful, sobbing, nothing but a child, and yet she +appealed to Fairfax in her tears as she had not done before, and her +abandon went to the core of his being and smote a bell which from +thenceforth rang like her name--"Bella"--and he used to think that it +was from that moment.... Well, her tears at any rate stirred him as +never did any tears in the world. + +She wiped her eyes. "Jetty died last night; he sang himself to death. +You should have heard him sing! This morning when they came to give him +water and feed him, Jetty was dead." + +Gardiner pointed to the table. "See, we've made him a coffin. We're +going to his funewal now." + +A discarded cigar box lined with cotton was the only coffin the children +had found for the wild wood creature whose life had gone out in song. + +"We don't know where to buwy him, Cousin Antony." + +"I tried," Bella murmured, touching the blackbird's breast with gentle +fingers, "I tried to write him a poem, an epitaph; but I cried so I +couldn't." + +She held Antony's handkerchief to her tear-stained cheek. + +"May I keep your handkerchief for just this afternoon? It smells so +delicious. You could make a cast of him, couldn't you?--like the +death-mask of great men in father's books?" + +Fairfax dissuaded them from the funeral, at which Gardiner was to say, +"Now I lay me," and Fairfax had been elected to read the Lord's Prayer. +He rolled the bird up in another handkerchief (he appeared to be rich in +them) and put it reverently in his overcoat pocket, promising faithfully +to see that Jetty should be buried in Miss Whitcomb's back yard, under +the snow, and, moreover, to mark the place with a stick, so that the +children could find it when spring came. + +Then Bella, tear-stained but resigned, suggested that they should play +"going to Siberia." + +"I _can't_ work to-day, Cousin Antony! Don't make me. It would seem like +sewing on Sunday." + +Without comment, Fairfax accepted the feminine inconsistency, and +himself entered, with what spirit he might, into the children's game. +"Going to Siberia" laid siege to all the rooms in the upper story. It +was a mad rush on Fairfax's part, little Gardiner held in his arms, +pursued by Bella as a wolf. It was a tear over beds and chairs, around +tables,--a wild, screaming, excited journey, ending at last in the +farthest room in the middle of the children's bed, where, one after +another, they were thrown by the big cousin. The game was enriched by +Fairfax's description of Russia and the steppes and the plains. But on +this day Bella insisted that Gardiner, draped in a hearthrug, be the +wolf, and that Fairfax carry her "because her heart ached." And if +Gardiner's growls and baying failed to give the usual zest to the sport, +the carrying by Fairfax of Bella was a new emotion! The twining round +his neck of soft arms, the confusion of dark hair against his face, the +flower-like breath on his cheeks, Bella's excitement of sighs and cries +and giggles gave the game, for one player at least, fresh charm. Chased +by Ann back into the studio, the play-mates fell on the sofa, worn out +and happy; but, in the momentary calm, a little cousin on either side of +him, the poor young man felt the cruel return of his own miseries and +his own crisis. + +"Misther Fairfax," said the Irish woman, "did the childhren give ye the +letter what come to-day? I thawt Miss Bella'd not mind it, what wid +funnerals and tearin' like a mad thing over the house!" (Ann's reproof +was for Fairfax.) "Yez'll be the using up of little Gardiner, sir, the +both of ye. The letther's forbye the clock. I putt it there m'self." + +Fairfax, to whom no news could be but welcome, limped over to the +mantel, where, by the clock, he perceived a letter addressed to him on +big paper in a small, distinguished hand. He tore it open, Ann lit the +gas, and he read-- + + "DEAR MR. FAIRFAX, + + "I have not answered your letter because I was so unfortunate as to + have lost your address. Learning last night that you are a nephew + of Mr. Carew, and sure of a response if I send this to his care, I + write to ask that you will come in to see me to-day at three + o'clock. + + "Yours sincerely, + "GUNNER CEDERSHOLM." + +Fairfax gave an exclamation that was almost a cry, and looked at the +clock. It was past four! + +"When did this letter come?" His nerves were on end, his cheeks pale. + +Bella sat forward on the sofa. "Why, Mother gave it me to give to you +when you should come to-day, Cousin Antony." + +In the strain to his patience, Fairfax was sharp. He bit his lip, +snatched up his coat and hat. + +"You should have given it me at once." His blue eyes flashed. "You don't +know what you may have done. This may ruin my career! I've missed my +appointment with Cedersholm. It's too late now." + +He couldn't trust himself further, and, before Bella could regain +countenance, he was gone. + +Cut to the heart with remorse, crimson with astonishment, but more +deeply wounded in her pride, the child sat immovable on the sofa. + +"Bella," whispered her little brother, "I don't like Cousin Antony, do +you?" + +She looked at her brother, touched by Gardiner's chivalry. + +"I fink he's a mean man, Bella." + +"He's dreadful," she cried, incensed; "he's just too horrid for +anything. Anyhow, it was me made Cedersholm write that letter for him, +and he didn't _even_ say he was obliged." + +She ran to the window to watch Antony go, as he always did, on the other +side of the road, in order that the children might see him. She hoped +for a reconcilement, or a soothing wave of his hand; but Antony did not +pass, the window was icy cold, and she turned, discomfited. At her +foot--for as Antony had snatched up his coat he had wantonly desecrated +a last resting-place--at her foot lay the blackbird. With a murmured +word Bella lifted Jetty in both hands to her cheek, and on the cold +breast and toneless throat the tears fell--Bella's first real tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Fairfax went into the studio of the first sculptor in the United States +with set determination to find work. Cedersholm was cool and absorbed, +occupied and preoccupied, overburdened with orders, all of which meant +money and fame, but required time. Fairfax was an hour and a half late, +and, in spite of the refusal of the manservant, came limping in, and +found the master taking a glass of hot milk and a biscuit. Cedersholm +reposed on a divan in the corner of a vast studio giving on a less +magnificent workroom. The studio was in semi-darkness, and a table near +the sofa bore a lamp whose light lit the sculptor's face. To Fairfax, +Cedersholm was a lion and wore a mane. In reality, he was a small, +insignificant man who might have been a banker. The Southerner +introduced himself, and when he was seated by the sculptor's side, began +to expose his projects, to dream aloud. He could have talked for ever, +but the sum of what he said was that he wanted to enter Cedersholm's +studio. + +"The old Italians took subordinates, sir," he pleaded. + +"There are classes at Cooper Union," Cedersholm began. + +But Fairfax, his clear eyes on the artist, said, "But I want to work +under a genius." + +The other, complimented, pushed his milk aside and wiped his lips. + +"Well, of course, there _is_ plenty of hard work to be done right here +in this studio." He spoke cautiously and in a measured tone. "I have +workmen with me, but no artists." + +Fairfax patiently waited. He was as verdant as the young jasmine leaves, +as inexperienced and guileless as a child. + +"I had not thought of taking such an assistant as you represent, Mr. +Fairfax." The older man fixed him with clever eyes. "A man must have no +end of courage in him, no end of patience, no end of humility, to do +what you _say_ you want to do." + +The young man bowed his head. "Courage, patience, and humility are the +attributes of genius, sir." + +"Yes," admitted Cedersholm, "they are, but ordinary talent will do very +well in my workshop, and it is all that I need in a subordinate." + +Fairfax smiled lightly. "I think I may say I am a good worker, Mr. +Cedersholm. Any hod-carrier may say that without vanity, and if you turn +me out, I'll take a mason's place at two dollars a day." + +Cedersholm smiled. "You don't look like a mason," he said hesitatingly, +"though you do appear muscular. What would be your suggestion with +regard to our relations?" + +(Fairfax's eager heart was saying, "Oh, teach me, Master, all you know; +let me come and play with the clay, finger it, handle it; set me loose +in that big, cool, silent room beyond there; let me wander where I can +see the shadow of that cast and the white draped figure from where I +sit.") + +"You are a fairly good draftsman?" Cedersholm asked. "Have you any taste +for decoration and applied design?" + +"I think I have." + +The Master rose. "Come to-morrow morning at ten and I'll give you +something to do. I have just accepted a contract for interior +decoration, a new house on Fifth Avenue. I might possibly make you +useful there." + + * * * * * + +Fairfax walked home on air. He walked from Ninth Street, where the +studio was, to his boarding-house, in the cold, still winter night--a +long tramp. In spite of his limp he swung along, his coat open, his hat +on the back of his head, his cheeks bright, his lips smiling. As he +passed under the gas lamps they shone like Oriental stars. He no longer +shivered at the cold and, warm with faith and confidence, his heart +could have melted a storm. He fairly floated up Madison Avenue, and by +his side the spirits of his ideals kept him company. Oh, he would do +beautiful things for New York city. He would become great here. He would +garland the metropolis with laurel, leave statues on its places, that +should bear his name. At ten o'clock on the following day, he was to +begin his apprenticeship, and he would soon show his power to +Cedersholm. He felt that power now in him like wine, like nectar, and in +his veins the spirit of creation, the impulse to art, rose like a +draught. His aunt should be proud of him, his uncle should cease to +despise him, and the children--they would not understand--but they would +be glad. + +When he reached his boarding-house, Miss Eulalie opened the door and +cried out at the sight of his face-- + +"Oh, Mr. Antony; you've had good news, sir." + +He put both hands on the thin shoulders, he kissed her roundly on both +cheeks. The cold fresh air was on his cool fresh lips, and the kiss was +as chaste as an Alpine breeze. + +He cried: "_Good_ news; well, I reckon I have! The great Mr. Cedersholm +has given me a place in his studio." + +He laughed aloud as she hung up his coat. Miss Eulalie's glasses were +pushed up on her forehead--she might have been his grandmother. + +"The Lord be praised!" she breathed. "I have been praying for you night +and day." + +"I shall go to Cedersholm to-morrow. I have not spoken about terms, but +that will be all right, and if you ladies will be so good as to wait +until Saturday----" + +Of course they would wait. If it had not been that their means were so +cruelly limited, they would never have spoken. Didn't he think?... He +knew! he thought they were the best, dearest friends a young fortune +hunter could have. Wait, wait till they could see his name in the +papers--Antony Fairfax, the rising sculptor! Wait until they could go +with him to the unveiling of his work in Central Park! + +Supper was already on the table, and Antony talked to them both until +they _could_ hardly wait for the wonders! + +"When you're great you'll not forget us, Mr. Antony?" + +"Forget them----!" + +Over the cold mutton and the potato salad, Fairfax held out a hand to +each, and the little old ladies each laid a fluttering hand in his. But +it was at Miss Eulalie he looked, and the remembrance of his happy kiss +on this first day of his good fortune, made her more maternal than she +had ever hoped to be in her life. + +There was a note for him on the table upstairs, a note in a big envelope +with the business stamp of Mr. Carew's bank in the corner. It was +addressed to him in red ink. He didn't know the handwriting, but +guessed, and laughed, and drew the letter out. + + + "DEAR COUSIN ANTONY, + + "I feel perfectly dreadful. How _could_ I do such a selfish thing? + I hope you will forgive me and come again. I drew two whole pages + of parlel lines after you went away, some are nearly strait. I did + it for punishment. You forgot the blackbird. + + "Your little BELLA." + +What a cad he had been! He had forgotten the dead bird and been a brute +to the little living cousin. As the remembrance of how she had flown to +him in her tears came to him, a softer look crossed his face, fell like +a veil over his eyes that had been dazzled by the visions of his art. He +smiled at the childish signature, "_Your little Bella._" "Honey child!" +he murmured, and as he fell asleep that night the figure of the little +cousin mourning for her blackbird moved before him down the halls of +fame. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Before Fairfax became dead to the world he wrote his mother a letter +that made her cry, reading it on her veranda in the gentle sunlight. Her +son wrote her only good news, and when the truth was too black he +disguised it. But after his interview with Cedersholm, with these first +good tidings he had to send, he broke forth into ecstasy, and his +mother, as she read, saw her boy successful by one turn of the wheel. +Mrs. Fairfax laughed and cried over the letter. + +"Emmy, Master Tony's doing wonders, wonders! He is working under a great +genius in the North, but it is easy to see that Tony is the spirit of +the studio. He is at work from nine in the morning till dark, poor honey +boy! and he is making all the drawings and designs and sketches for a +millionaire's palace on Fifth Avenue." + +"Fo' de Lawd, Mis' Bella." + +"Think of it, we shall soon see his name in the papers--heaven knows +where he'll stop. How proud I am of my darling, darling boy." + +And she dreamed over the pages of Antony's closely-written letter, +seeing his youth and his talent burn there like flame. She sent +him--selling her watch and her drop earrings to do so--a hundred +dollars, all she could get for her jewels. And the sum of money came +like manna into his famished state. His mother's gift gave him courage +to rise early and to work late, and the silver sang in his waistcoat +pockets again, and he paid his little ladies, thanking them graciously +for their patience; he sent his aunt a bunch of flowers, bought an image +of the Virgin for old Ann, a box of colours for Gardiner, and a book for +Bella. + +Then Antony, passing over the threshold of the workshop, was swallowed +up by art. + +And he paid for his salt! + +How valuable he was to Cedersholm those days he discovered some ten +years later. Perched on his high stool at the drawing-table, his +materials before him, he drew in freehand what his ideas suggested. The +third day he went with Cedersholm to the palace of Rudolph Field on +Fifth Avenue to inspect the rooms to be decorated. Fairfax went into the +"Castle of the Chinking Guineas" (as he called it in writing to his +mother), as buoyantly as though he had not a leaking boot on one foot +and a bill for a cheap suit of clothes in his pocket. He mentally ranged +his visions on the frieze he was to consider, and as he thought, his own +stature seemed to rise gigantic in the vast salon. He was alone with +Cedersholm. The Fields were in Europe, not to return until the palace +had been made beautiful. + +Cedersholm planned out his scheme rather vaguely, discoursing on a +commonplace theme, indicating ceilings and walls, and Fairfax heard him +through his own meditations. He impulsively caught the Master's arm, and +himself pointing, "Just there," he said, "why not...." And when he had +finished, Cedersholm accepted, but without warmth. + +"Perfectly. You have caught my suggestions, Mr. Fairfax," and poor +Antony shut his lips over his next flight. + +In the same week Cedersholm left for Florida, and Fairfax, in the +deserted studio, sketched and modelled _a sa faim_, as the French say, +as old Professor Dufaucon used to say, and as the English say, less +materially, "to his soul's content." February went by in this fashion, +and Fairfax was only conscious of it when the day came round that he +must pay his board and had nothing to do it with. Cedersholm was to +return in a few days, and he would surely be reimbursed--to what extent +he had no notion. His excitement rose high as he took an inventory of +his work, of his essays and drawings and bas-reliefs, his projects for +the ceiling of the music room. At one time his labour seemed of the best +quality, and then again so poor, so abortive, that the young fellow had +more than half a mind to destroy the lot before the return of the +Master. During the last week he had a comrade, a great, soft-eyed, +curly-locked Italian, who didn't speak a word of English, who arrived +gentle as an ox to put himself under the yoke of labour. Antony, thanks +to his keenness and his gift for languages, and his knowledge of French, +made out something of what he was and from where. He had been born in +Carrara and was a worker in marble in his own land, and had come to work +on the fountain for the music room in the Field palace. + +"The fountain!" Fairfax tumbled over his sketches and showed one to his +brown-eyed friend, who told him rapidly that it was "divinely +beautiful," and asked to see the clay model. + +None had been made. + +The same night, Fairfax wrote to Cedersholm that he had begun a model of +the fountain, and in the following days was up to his ears and eyes in +clay. + + * * * * * + +The block of marble arrived from Italy, and Fairfax superintended its +difficult entry by derrick through the studio window. He restrained +"Benvenuto Cellini," as he called his comrade, from cutting into the +marble, and the Italian used to come and sit idle, for he had no work to +do, and waited Cedersholm's orders. He used to come and sit and stare at +his block of marble and sing pleasantly-- + + "Aria pura + Cielo azuro + Mia Maddelena," + +and jealously watch Fairfax who _could_ work. Fairfax could and did, in +a long blouse made for him by Miss Mitty, after his directions. With a +twenty-five cent book of phrases, Fairfax in no time mastered enough +Italian to talk with his companion, and his own baritone was sweet +enough to blend with Benvenuto Cellini's "Mia Maddelena," and other +songs of the same character, and he exulted in the companionship of the +young man, and talked at him and over him, and dreamed aloud to him, and +Benvenuto, who had only the dimmest idea of what the frenzy meant--not +so dim, possibly, for he knew it was the ravings of art--supplied the +"bellisimos" and "grandiosos," and felt the spirit of the moment, and +was young with Fairfax, if not as much of a soul or a talent. + +The model for the fountain was completed before Cedersholm's return. +After a month's rest under the palms of Florida, the sculptor lounged +into the studio, much as he might have strolled up a Paris boulevard and +ordered a liqueur at a round table before some favourite _cafe_. +Cedersholm had hot milk and biscuits in a corner instead, and Fairfax +drew off the wet covering from his clay. Cedersholm enjoyed his light +repast, considering the model which nearly filled the corner of the +room. He fitted in an eyeglass, and in a distinguished manner regarded +the modelling. Fairfax, who had been cold with excitement, felt his +blood run tepid in his veins. + +"And your sketches, Fairfax?" asked the Master, and held out his hand. + +Fairfax carried him over a goodly pile from the table. Cedersholm turned +them over for a long time, and finally held one out, and said-- + +"This seems to be in the scale of the measurements of the library +ceiling?" + +Fairfax's voice sounded childish to himself as he responded-- + +"I think it's correct, sir, to working scale." + +"It might do with a few alterations," said Cedersholm. "If you care to +try it, Fairfax, it might do. I will order the scaffolding placed +to-morrow, and you can sketch it in, in charcoal. It can always come +out, you know. You might begin the day after to-morrow." + +The Master rose leisurely and looked about him. "Jove," he murmured, +"it's good to be back again to the lares and penates." + +Fairfax left the Master among the lares and penates, left him amongst +the treasures of his own first youth, the first-fruits of his ardent +young labour, and he went out, not conscious of how he quivered until he +was on his way up-town. What an ass he was! No doubt the stuff was +rubbish! What could he hope to attain without study and long +apprenticeship? Why, he was nothing more than a boy. Cedersholm had been +decent not to laugh in his face--Cedersholm's had been at once the +kindest and the cruelest criticism. He called himself a thousand times a +fool. He had no talent, he was marked for failure. He would sweep the +streets, however, and lay bricks, before he went back to his mother in +New Orleans unsuccessful. His letters home, his excitement and +enthusiasm, how ridiculous they seemed, how fatuous his boastings before +the old ladies and little Bella! + +Fairfax passed his boarding-house and walked on, and as he walked he +recalled what Cedersholm had said the day he engaged him: "Courage, +patience, humility." These words had cooled his anger as nothing else +could have done, and laid their salutary touch on his flushed face. + +"These qualities are the attributes of genius. Mediocrity is incapable +of possessing them." He would have them _all_, every one, every one! +Courage, he was full of it. Patience he didn't know by sight. Humility +he had despised--the poor fellow did not know that its hand touched him +as he strode. + +"I ought to be thankful that he didn't kick me out," he thought. "I +daresay he was laughing in his sleeve at my abortions!" + +Then he remembered his design for the ceiling, and at the Carews' +doorstep he paused. Cedersholm had told him to draw it on the Field +ceiling. This meant that he had another chance. + +"It's perfectly ripping of the old boy," he thought, enthusiastically, +as he rang the door-bell. "I'll begin to-morrow." + +Bella opened the door to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The following year--in January--lying on his back on the scaffolding, +Fairfax drew in his designs for the millionaire's ceiling, freely, +boldly, convincingly, and it is doubtful if the eye of the +proprietor--he was a fat, practical, easy-going millionaire, who had +made money out of hog's lard--it is doubtful that Mr. Field's eyes, when +gazing upward, saw the things that Fairfax thought he drew. + +Fairfax whistled softly and drew and drew, and his cramped position was +painful to his left leg and thigh. Benvenuto Cellini came below and sang +up at him-- + + "Cielo azuro, + Giornata splendida + Ah, Maddelena," + +and told him in Italian about his own affairs, and Fairfax half heard +and less than half understood. Cedersholm came once, bade him draw on, +always comforting one of them at least, with the assurance that the work +could be taken out. + +During the following weeks, Fairfax never went back to the studio, and +one day he swung himself down when Cedersholm came in, and said-- + +"I'm a little short of money, sir." + +Cedersholm put his hand in his pocket and gave Antony a bill with the +air of a man to whom money is as disagreeable and dangerous as a +contagious disease. The bill was for fifty dollars, and seemed a great +deal to Antony; then a great deal too little, and, in comparison with +his debts, it seemed nothing at all. Cedersholm had followed up his +payment with an invitation to Antony to come to Ninth Street the +following day. + +"I am sketching out my idea for the pedestal in Central Park. Would you +care to see it? It might interest you as a student." + +The ceiling in Rudolph Field's house is not all the work of Antony +Fairfax. Half-way across the ceiling he stopped. It is easy enough to +see where the painting is carried on by another hand. He finished the +bas-reliefs at the end of March, and the fine frieze running round the +little music-room. Mr. Field liked music little and had his room in +proportion. + +Antony stood with Cedersholm in the studio where he had made his scheme +for the fountain and his first sketches. Cedersholm's design for the +base of the pedestal, designed to support the winged victory, was placed +against the wall. It was admirable, harmonious, noble. + +Fairfax had seen Cedersholm work. The sculptor wore no apron, no blouse. +He dressed with his usual fastidiousness; his eyeglass adjusted, he +worked as neatly as a little old lady at her knitting, but his work had +not the quality of wool. + +"What do you think of it, Fairfax?" + +Fairfax started from his meditation. "It's immense," he murmured. + +"You think it does not express what is intended?" Cedersholm's clever +eyes were directed at Fairfax. "What's the matter with it?" + +Without reply, the young man took up a sheet of paper and a piece of +charcoal and drew steadily for a few seconds and held out the sheet. + +"Something like this ... under the four corners ... wouldn't it give an +idea ... of life? The Sphinx is winged. Doesn't it seem as if its body +should rest on life?" + +If Cedersholm had in mind to say, "You have quite caught my suggestion," +he controlled this remark, covered his mouth with his hand, and +considered--he considered for a day or two. He then went to Washington +to talk with the architects of the new State Museum. And Fairfax once +more found the four walls of the quiet studio shutting him in ... found +himself inhabiting with the friendly silence and with the long days as +spring began to come. + + * * * * * + +He finished the modelling of his four curious, original creatures, +beasts intended to be the supports of the Sphinx. He finished his work +in Easter week, and wrote to Cedersholm begging for his directions and +authority to have them cast in bronze. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The four beasts were of heroic size. They came out of the moulds like +creatures of a prehistoric age. Benvenuto Cellini, who was to have met +his friend Antony at the foundry on the day Fairfax's first plaster cast +was carried down, failed to put in an appearance, and Fairfax had the +lonely joy, the melancholy, lonely joy, of assisting at the birth of one +of his big creatures. All four of them were ultimately cast, but they +were to remain in the foundry until Cedersholm's return. + +His plans for the future took dignity, and importance, from the fact of +his success, and he reviewed with joy the hard labour of the winter, for +which in all he had been paid one hundred dollars. He was in need of +everything new, from shoes up. He was a great dandy, or would have liked +to have afforded to be. As for a spring overcoat--well, he couldn't bear +to read the tempting advertisements, and even Gardiner's microscopic +coat, chosen by Bella, caused his big cousin a twinge of envy. Bella's +new outfit was complete, a deeper colour glowed on the robin-red dress +she wore, and Fairfax felt shabby between them as he limped along into +the Park under the budding trees, a child's hand on either arm. + +"Cousin Antony, why are there such _de_licious smells to-day?" + +Bella sniffed them. The spring was at work under the turf, the grass was +as fragrant as a bouquet. + +"Breathe it in, Cousin Antony! It makes you wish to do _heaps_ of things +you oughtn't to!" + +On the pond the little craft of the school children flew about like +butterflies, the sun on the miniature sails. + +"What kind of things does the grass cutter, shearing off a few miserable +dandelions, make you want to do, Bella? You should smell the jasmine +and the oleanders of New Orleans. These are nothing but weeds." + +"How can you say so?" she exclaimed; "besides, most of the things I want +to do are wicked, anyhow." + +"Jove!" exclaimed Fairfax. "That _is_ a confession." + +She corrected. "You ought not to say 'Jove' like that, Cousin Antony. +You can cut it and make it sound like 'Jovah,' it sounds just like it." + +"What wicked things do you want to do, Bella?" + +She pointed to the merry-go-rounds, where the giraffes, elephants, and +horses raced madly round to the plaintive tune of "Annie Laurie," ground +out by a hurdy-gurdy. + +"I'd _love_ to go on." + +Fairfax put his hand in his pocket, but she pulled it back. + +"No, Cousin Antony, please. It's not the money that keeps me back, +though I haven't any. It's Sunday, you know." + +"Oh," her cousin accepted dismally. + +And Bella indicated a small boy carrying a tray of sweets who had +advanced towards the three with a hopeful grin. + +"I'd perfectly _love_ to have some of those _lossingers_, but mother +says 'street candy isn't pure.' Besides, it's Sunday." + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Fairfax. "Do you mean to say that out here in +God's free air you are going to preach me a sermon?" + +He beckoned the boy. + +"Oh," cried Gardiner, "can't we _choose_, Cousin Antony?" + +The little cousins bent above the tray and slowly and passionately +selected, and their absorption in the essence of wintergreen, sassafras, +and peppermint showed him how much this pleasure meant to these rich +children. Their pockets full, they linked their arms in his again. + +"I have never had such fun in all my life as I do with you, Cousin +Antony," Bella told him. + +"Then come along," he suggested, recklessly. "You must ride once on the +merry-go-round." And before the little Puritans realized the extent of +their impiety, Fairfax had lifted Bella on a horse and Gardiner on an +elephant, paid their fare and started them away. He watched Bella, her +hat caught by its elastic, fallen off her head on the first round, her +cheeks flushed and her eyes like stars, and bravely her straight little +arm stretched out to catch the ring. There was triumph in her cry, "Oh, +Cousin _Antony_, Cousin Antony, I've won the ring!" + +Such flash and sparkle as there was about her, with her teeth like +grains of corn and her eyes dancing as she nodded and smiled at him! +Poor little Gardiner! Antony paid for him again and patted him on the +back. There was a pathos about the mild, sweet little face and in the +timid, ineffectual arm, too short and too weak to snap the iron ring on +to his sword. Bella rode till "Annie Laurie" changed to "Way down upon +de Swanee river," and Fairfax's heart beat for Louisiana, and he had +come to the end of his nickels. He lifted the children down. + +Bella now wound both arms firmly in her cousin's, and clung to him. + +"Think of it, I never rode before, never! All the children on the block +have, though. Isn't it perfectly delightful, Cousin Antony? I _wish_ +your legs weren't so long." + +"Cousin Antony," asked little Gardiner, "couldn't we go over to the +animals and see the seals fall off and dwown themselves?" + +They saw the lion in his lair and the "tiger, tiger burning bright," and +the shining, slippery seals, and they made an absorbed group at the +nettings where Antony discoursed about the animals as he discoursed +about art, and Spartacus talked to them about the wild beast show in +Caesar's arena. His audience shivered at his side. + +They walked up the big driveway, and Fairfax saw for the first time the +Mall, and observed that the earth was turned up round a square some +twelve feet by twelve. He half heard the children at his side; his eyes +were fastened on the excavation for the pedestal of the Sphinx; the +stone base would soon be raised there, and then his beasts would be +poised. + +"Let's walk over to the Mall, children." + +Along the walk the small goat carriages were drawn up with their teams; +little landaus, fairy-like for small folk to drive in. Fairfax stood +before the cavity in the earth and the scaffolding left by the workmen. +He was conscious of his little friends at length by the dragging on his +arms of their too affectionate weight. "Cousin Antony." + +Fairfax waved to the vacant spot. "Oh, Egypt, Egypt," he began, in his +"recitation voice," a voice that promised treats at home, but that +palled in the sunny open, with goat rides in the fore-ground. + + "Out of the soft, smooth coral of thy sands, + Out of thy Nilus tide, out of thy heart, + Such dreams have come, such mighty splendours----" + +"Bella, do you see that harmonious square?" + +"Yes," she answered casually, with a lack lustre. "And do you see the +_goats_?" + +"Goats, Bella! I see a pedestal some ten feet high, and on it at its +four corners, before they poise the Sphinx--what do you think I see, +Bella?" + +"... Cousin Antony, that boy there has the _sweetest goats_. They're +_almost_ clean! Too dear for anything! With such cunning noses!" + +He dropped his arm and put his hand on the little girl's shoulder and +turned her round. + +"I'm disappointed in you for the first time, honey," he said. + +"Oh, Cousin _Antony_." + +"Little cousin, this is where my creatures, my beautiful bronze +creatures, are to be eternally set--there, there before your eyes." He +pointed to the blue May air. + +"Cousin Antony," said Gardiner's slow voice, "the only thing I'm not too +tired to do is to wide in a goat carwage." + +Fairfax lifted the little boy in his arms. "If I lift you, Gardiner, +like this, high in my arms, you could just about see the top of the +pedestal. Wait till it's unveiled, my hearties! Wait--wait!" + +He put Gardiner down with a laugh and a happy sigh, and then he saw the +goats. + +"Do you want a ride, children?" + +"_Did_ they!" + +He ran his hands through the pockets that had been wantonly emptied. + +"Not a picayune, honey. Your poor old cousin is dead broke." + +"Then," said Bella, practically, "let's go right away from here, Cousin +Antony. I can't bear to look at those goats another minute. It hurts." + +Fairfax regarded her thoughtfully. "Bella the Desirous," he murmured. +"What are you going to be when you grow up, little cousin?" + +They started slowly away from temptation, away from the vision of the +pedestal and the shadowy creatures, and the apparition of the Sphinx +seemed to brood over them as they went, and nothing but a Sphinx's +wisdom could have answered the question Fairfax put: "What are you going +to be when you grow up, little Bella?" + +Fairfax soon carried the little boy, and Bella in a whisper said-- + +"He is almost too small for our parties, Cousin Antony." + +"Not a bit," said the limping cousin, stoically. "We couldn't get on +without him, could we, old chap?" + +But the old chap didn't answer, for he had fallen asleep as soon as his +head touched his cousin's shoulder. + +When Fairfax left them at their door, he was surprised at Bella's +melancholy. She held out to him the sticky remnant of the roll of +lozenges. + +"Please take it. I shouldn't be allowed to eat it." + +"But what on earth's the matter?" he asked. + +"Never mind," she said heroically, "you don't have to bear it. You're +Episcopalian; but _I've got to tell_!" She sighed heavily. "I don't care; +it was worth it!" + +As the door clicked behind the children, Fairfax laughed. + +"What a little trump she is! She thinks the game is worth the candle!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +That miserable foot of his gave him pain. The unusual strain of standing +long at his work, the tramps he took to save car-fare, wearied him, and +he was finally laid up for ten days. No one missed him, apparently, and +the long, painful hours dragged, and he saw no one but his little +landladies. His mother, as if she knew, sent him extra money and +wonderful letters breathing pride in him and confidence in his success. +When he was finally up and setting forth again to the studio, a visitor +was announced. Fairfax thought of Benvenuto--(he would have been +welcome)--he thought of Bella, and not of his Aunt Caroline. + +"My dear boy, why didn't you let us know you had been ill?" + +There is something exquisite to a man in the presence of a woman in his +sick-room, be she lovely or homely, old or young. + +"This is awfully, awfully good of you, Auntie. I've had a mighty bad +time with this foot of mine." + +Mrs. Carew in her street dress, ready for an all-day's shopping, came +airily in and laid her hand on her nephew's shoulder. Fairfax thought he +saw a look of Bella, a look of his mother. He eagerly leaned forward and +kissed his visitor. + +"It's mighty good of you, Auntie." + +"No, my dear boy, it isn't! I really didn't know you were ill. We would +have sent you things from the Buckingham. Our own cook is so poor." + +She couldn't sit down, she had just run in on her way to shop. She had +something to say to him.... + +"What's wrong, Aunt Caroline?" + +His aunt took a seat beside him on the bed. Her dove-like eyes wandered +about his room, bare save for the drawings on the walls and on a chair +in the corner, a cast covered by a wet cloth. Mrs. Carew's hands clasped +over her silk bead purse hanging empty between the rings. + +"I have come to ask a great favour of you, Antony." + +He repeated, in astonishment, "Of _me_--why, Auntie, anything that I can +do...." + +Mrs. Carew's slender figure undulated, the sculptor thought. She made +him think of a swan--of a lily. Her pale, ineffectual features had an +old-fashioned loveliness. He put his hand over his aunt's. He murmured +devotedly-- + +"You must let me do anything there is to do." + +"I am in debt, Tony," she murmured, tremulously. "Your uncle gives me +_so_ little money--it's impossible to run the establishment." + +He exclaimed hotly, "It's a _shame_, Aunt Caroline." + +"Henry thinks we spend a great deal of money, but I like to dress the +children well." + +Her nephew recalled Bella's wardrobe. Mrs. Carew, as though she +confessed a readily-forgiven fault, whispered-- + +"I am so fond of bric-a-brac, Antony." + +He could not help smiling. + +"Down in Maiden Lane last week I bought a beautiful lamp for the front +hall. I intended paying for it by instalments; but I've not been able to +save enough--the men are waiting at the house. I _can't_ tell your +uncle, I really _can't_. He would turn me out of doors." + +Over Fairfax's mind flashed the picture of the "Soul of honour" +confronted by a debt to a Jew ironmonger. His aunt's daily pilgrimage +began to assume a picturesqueness and complexity that were puzzling. + +"Carew's a brute," he said, shortly. "I can't see why you married him." + +Mrs. Carew, absorbed in the picture of the men waiting in the front hall +and the iron lamp waiting as well, did not reply. + +"How much do you need, Auntie?" + +"Only fifty dollars, my dear boy. I can give it back next week when +Henry pays me my allowance." + +He exclaimed: "I am lucky to have it to help you out, Auntie. I've got +it right here." + +The sense of security transformed Mrs. Carew. She laughed gently, put +her hand on her nephew's shoulder again, exclaiming-- + +"How _fortunate_! Tony, how _glad_ I am I thought of you!" + +He gave her all of his mother's gift but ten dollars, and as she +bestowed it carefully away she murmured-- + +"It _is_ a superb lamp, and a _great_ bargain. You shall see it lit +to-night." + +"I'm afraid not to-night, Aunt Caroline. I'm off to see Cedersholm now, +and I shan't be up to much, I reckon, when I get back." + +His visitor rose, and Fairfax discovered that he did not wish to detain +her as he had thought to do before she had mentioned her errand. She +seemed to have entirely escaped him. She was as intangible as air, as +unreal. + +As he opened the door for her, considering her, he said-- + +"Bella looks very much like my mother, doesn't she, Aunt Caroline?" + +Mrs. Carew thought that Bella resembled her father. + +As Fairfax took his car to go down to Ninth Street, he said to himself-- + +"If _this_ is the first sentimental history on which I am to embark, it +lacks romance from the start." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +At the studio he was informed by Cedersholm's man, Charley, that his +master was absent on a long voyage. + +"He has left me a letter, Charley, a note?" + +"Posted it, no doubt, sir." + +Charley asked Mr. Fairfax if he had been ill. Charley was thoroughly +sympathetic with the Southerner, but he was as well an excellent +servant, notwithstanding that he served a master whom he did not +understand. + +"I should like to get my traps in the studio, Charley." + +"Yes, Mr. Fairfax." But Charley did not ask him in. + +"I'll come back again to-morrow.... I'll find a note at home." + +"Sure to, Mr. Fairfax." + +"Benvenuto been around?" + +The Italian had sailed home to Italy on the last week's steamer. +Fairfax, too troubled and dazed to pursue the matter further, did not +comprehend how strange it all was. The doors of the studio were +henceforth shut against him, and Charley obeyed the mysterious orders +given him. There reigned profound mystery at the foundry. The young man +was sensible of a reticence among the men, who lacked Charley's +kindliness. Every one waited for Cedersholm's orders. + +The _Beasts_ were cast. + +"Look out how you treat those moulds," he fiercely ordered the men. +"Those colossi belong to me. What's the damage for casting them?" + +At the man's response, Fairfax winced and thrust his hands into his +empty pockets. + +Under his breath he said: "Damn Cedersholm for a cold-blooded brute! My +youth and my courage have gone into these weeks here." + +As he left the foundry he repeated his injunction about the care of the +moulds, and his personal tenderness for the bronze creatures was so keen +that he did not appreciate the significant fact that he was treated with +scant respect. He stepped in at the Field palace on the way up-town, and +a man in an official cap at the door asked him for his card of +admission. + +"Card of admission? Why, I'm one of the decorators here.... I reckon +you're new, my boy. I only quit working a fortnight ago." + +He was nervous and pale; his clothes were shabby. + +"Sorry," returned the man, "my orders are strict from Mr. Cedersholm +himself. _Nobody_ comes in without his card." + +The sculptor ground his heel on the cruel stones. + +He had been shut away by his concentrated work in Cedersholm's studio +from outside interests. He had no friends in New York but the children. +No friend but his aunt, who had borrowed of him nearly all he possessed, +no sympathizers but the little old ladies, no consolations but his +visions. In the May evenings, now warm, he sat on a bench in Central +Park, listlessly watching the wind in the young trees and the voices of +happy children on their way to the lake with their boats. He began to +have a proper conception of his own single-handed struggle. He began to +know what it is, without protection or home or any capital, to grapple +with life first-hand. + +"Why, _art is the longest way in the world_," he thought. "It's the +rudest and steepest, and to climb it successfully needs colossal +_genius_, as well as the other things, and it needs money." + +He went slowly back to his lodging and his hall room. Along the wall his +array of boots, all in bad condition--his unequal boots and his +deformity struck him and his failure. A mist rose before his eyes. Over +by the mirror he had pinned the sketch he liked the best. + + * * * * * + +On Sunday afternoon, in his desire to see the children, he forgot his +distaste of meeting the master of the house, and rang the bell at an +hour when Carew was likely to be at home. He had, too, for the first +time, a wish to see the man who had made a success of his own life. +Whatever his home and family were--_Carew_ was a success. Fairfax often +noted his uncle's name mentioned at directors' meetings and functions +where his presence indicated that the banker was an authority on +finance. Ever since Mrs. Carew had borrowed money of him, Fairfax had +been inclined to think better of his uncle. As the door opened before +him now he heard singing, and though the music was a hymn, it rolled out +so roundly, so fully, so whole-heartedly, that he knew his uncle must +be out. + +The three were alone at the piano, and the young man's face brightened +at the sight of the children. On either side of their mother Bella and +Gardiner were singing with delight the little boy's favorite hymn. + + "No parting yonder, + All light and song, + The while I ponder + And say 'how long + Shall time me sunder + From that glad throng?'" + +Curious how syllables and tones and inflections can contain and hold our +feelings, and how their memory makes a winding-sheet. + +Fairfax came in quietly, and the singers finished their hymn. Then the +children fell upon him and, as Gardiner said, "Cousin Antony _always +did_," he "gobbled them up." + +"You might have _told_ us you were ill," Bella reproved him. "When I +heard I made some wine jelly for you, but it wobbled away, and Gardiner +drank it." + +"It wasn't _weal_ wine," said the little boy, "or _weal_ jelly...." + +Fairfax glanced toward his aunt, unconsciously looking to her for +comfort on this trying day. + +Mrs. Carew was truly embarrassed at the sight of her creditor, but she +continued to play lightly among the hymns, and gave him up to the +children. But Fairfax was too desperate to be set aside. If there was +any comfort anywhere he was going to have it. He said to his aunt in a +voice deepened by feeling-- + +"Aunt Caroline, I'm a little down on my luck." + +The lady turned her doe-like eyes on her nephew. "My dear Tony...." + +He clenched his vigorous hands to keep down his emotion. + +"Yes. Cedersholm has turned his back on me, as far as I can see." + +With a short laugh he threw off his intense mood, thoroughly ashamed of +his weakness. + +"_Our_ branch of the family, Aunt Caroline, are unlucky all round, I +reckon." + +There was one thought uppermost in his aunt's mind. _She had no money +with which to pay her debt to him._ When there weren't lamps to buy +there were rugs and figures of _biscuit_ Venuses bending over _biscuit_ +streams. She had confessed her vice; she "adored bric-a-brac." The +jumble in her mind made her eyes more vague than ever. + +"Will you go back South?" she wondered. + +He started, spread out his empty hands. "Go back to mother like this? +Auntie!" + +As ineffectual as she had been on the night of his arrival, so now Mrs. +Carew sat ineffectual before his crisis. She breathed, "My poor boy!" +and her fingers strayed amongst the keys and found the melody of the +song he loved so much. + +The young traveller at her side was too much of a man, even in his state +of despair, to have expected a woman to lift his burden. If she did, he +did not think of the money she owed him. What he wanted was a soothing +touch to be laid on his heart, and the song in which, not six weeks +before, he had nearly loved his aunt, did what she did not. + +The children had gone upstairs. Mrs. Carew sang through the first verse +of the song. As far as she was concerned nothing could have been a +greater relief. The sympathy she did not know how to give, the debt she +had never discharged, the affection she had for Antony, and her own +self-pity, Mrs. Carew threw into her voice, and it shook its tremulo +through him. + +He breathed devotedly: "Thank you, _dear_," and raised one of his aunt's +hands to his lips. + +Mr. Carew had let himself in with his latchkey, and was within a few +feet of them as his wife finished her song. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Neither Antony nor Mrs. Carew had the presence of mind to stir. Mrs. +Fairfax said of her brother-in-law that he was a "vain creature whose +pomposity stood in place of dignity." Carew, at all events, came upon a +scene which he had never supposed would confront his eyes. Before him in +his own drawing-room, a whipper-snapper from the South was kissing his +wife's hands. To Carew the South was the heart of sedition, bad morals, +lackadaisical indolence. What the South could not do for him in arousing +his distaste, the word "artist" completed. He said to his wife-- + +"Is _this_ the way you pass your Sabbath afternoons, Mrs. Carew?" + +And before she could murmur, "My _dear_ Henry--" he turned on Fairfax. + +"Can't _you_ find anything better to do in New York, sir?" He could not +finish. + +Fairfax rose. "Don't say anything you will regret, sir. I kissed my +aunt's hand as I would have kissed my mother's. Not that I need to make +excuse." + +Mr. Carew's idea of his own importance, of the importance of everything +that belonged to him, was colossal, and it would have taken more than +this spectacle, unpleasant as it was, to make him fancy his wife +harboured a sentiment for her jackanapes of a nephew. If the tableau he +had had time to observe on his way across the dining-room floor had +aroused his jealousy, that sentiment was less strong that was his anger +and his dislike. Young Fairfax had been a thorn in his side for several +weeks. + +"You are wise to make no excuses," he said coldly. "I could not +understand your sentiments. I have my own ideas of how a young man +should employ his time and carve out his existence. Your romantic ideas +are as unsympathetic to me as was this exhibition." + +Mrs. Carew, who had never been so terrified in her life, thought she +should faint, but had presence of mind sufficient to realize that +unconsciousness would be prejudicial to her, and by bending over the +keys she kept her balance. + +She murmured, "My dear, you are very hard on Antony." + +Carew paid no attention to her. "Your career, sir, your manner of life, +are no affair of mine. I am concerned in you as you fetch your point of +view" (Carew was celebrated for his extempore speaking), "your customs +and your morals into my house." + +"Believe me," said Mrs. Fairfax's son, in a choked voice, "I shall take +them out of it for ever." + +Carew bowed. "You are at liberty to do so, Fairfax. You have not asked +my advice nor my opinions. You have ingratiated yourself with my +friends, to my regret and theirs." + +Antony exclaimed violently, "Now, what do you mean by _that_, sir?" + +"I am in no way obliged to explain myself to you, Fairfax." + +"But you are!" fairly shouted the young man. "With whom have I +ingratiated myself to your regret?" + +"I speak of Cedersholm, the sculptor." + +"Well, what does _he_ say of me?" pursued the poor young man. + +"It seems you have had the liberty of his workshop for months--" + +"Yes,"--Antony calmed his voice by great effort,--"I have, and I have +slaved in it like a nigger--like a slave in the sugar-cane. What of +that?" + +The fact of the matter was that Cedersholm in the Century Club had +spoken to Carew lightly of Fairfax, and slightingly. He had given the +young sculptor scant praise, and had wounded and cut Carew's pride in a +possession even so remote as an undesirable nephew by marriage. He could +not remember what Cedersholm had really said, but it had been +unfortunate. + +"I don't know what Cedersholm has said to you," cried Antony Fairfax, +"nor do I care. He has sapped my life's blood. He has taken the talent +of me for three long months. He is keeping my drawings and my designs, +and, by God--" + +"Stop!" said Mr. Carew, sharply. "How _dare_ you use such language in my +house, before my wife?" + +Antony laughed shortly. He fixed his ardent blue eyes on the older man, +and as he did so the sense of his own youth came to him. He was twenty +years this man's junior. Youth was his, if he was poor and unlucky. The +desire to say to the banker, "If I should tell you what I thought of +_you_ as a husband and a father," he checked, and instead cried hotly-- + +"God's here, at all events, sir, and perhaps my way of calling on Him is +as good as another." + +He extended his hand. It did not tremble. "Good-bye, Aunt Caroline." + +Hers, cold as ice, just touched his. "_Henry_," she gasped, "he's +Arabella's son." + +Again the scarlet Antony had seen, touched the banker's face. Fairfax +limped out of the room. His clothes were so shabby (as he had said a few +moments before, he had worked in them like a nigger), that, warm as it +was, he wore his overcoat to cover his suit. The coat lay in the hall. +Bella and Gardiner had been busy during his visit on their own affairs. +They had broken open their bank. Bella's keen ears had heard Antony's +remark to her mother about being down on his luck, and her tender heart +had recognized the heavy note in his voice. The children's bank had been +their greatest treasure for a year or two. It represented all the +"serious" money, as Bella called it, that had ever been given them. The +children had been so long breaking it open that they had not heard the +scene below in the drawing-room. + +As Fairfax lifted his coat quickly it jingled. He got into it, thrust +his hands in the pockets. They were full of coin. His sorrow, anger and +horror were so keen that he was guilty of the unkindest act of his life. + +"What's this!" he cried, and emptied out his pockets on the floor. The +precious coins fell and rolled on every side. Bella and her little +brother, who had hid on the stairs in order to watch the effect of their +surprise, saw the disaster, and heard the beloved cousin's voice in +anger. The little girl flew down. + +"Cousin _Antony_, how _could_ you? It was for _you_! Gardiner and I +broke our bank for you. There were ten dollars there and fifty-nine +cents." + +There was nothing gracious in Fairfax's face as it bent on the excited +child. + +"Pick up your money," he said harshly, his hand on the door. "Good-bye." + +"Oh," cried the child, "I didn't know you were proud like _that_. I +didn't know." + +"Proud," he breathed deeply. "I'd rather starve in the gutter than touch +a penny in this house." + +He saw the flaming cheeks and averted eyes, and was conscious of +Gardiner's little steps running down the stairs, and he heard Bella call +"Cousin _Antony_," in a heart-rent voice, as he opened the door, banged +it furiously, and strode out into the street. + + + + +BOOK II + +THE OPEN DOOR + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +He had slept all night in a strained position between a barrel of tallow +candles and a bag of potatoes. In spite of the hardness of the potatoes +on which he lay and the odour of the candles, he lost consciousness for +a part of the night, and when he awoke, bruised and weary, he found the +car stationary. As he listened he could not hear a sound, and crawling +out from between the sacks in the car, he saw the dim light of early +dawn through a crack in the door. Pushing open the sliding door he +discovered that the car had stopped on a siding in an immense +railroad-yard and that he was the only soul in sight. He climbed out +stiffly. On all sides of him ran innumerable lines of gleaming rails. +The signal house up high was alight and the green and yellow and white +signal lamps at the switches shone bright as stars. Further on he could +see the engine-house, where in lines, their cow-catchers at the +threshold, a row of engines waited, sombre, inert horses of iron and +steel, superb in their repose. Fairfax reckoned that it must be nearly +four-thirty, and as he stood, heard a switch click, saw a light change +from green to red, and with a rattle and commotion a train rolled +in--along and away. On the other side of the tracks in front of him were +barrack-like workshops, and over the closed station ran a name in black +letters, but it did not inform Fairfax as to his whereabouts except that +he was at "West Junction." He made his way across the tracks towards the +workshops, every inch of him sore from his cramped ride. + +He always thought that on that day he was as mentally unhinged as a +healthy young man can be. Unbalanced by hunger, despair and rage, his +kindly face was drawn and bore the pallor of death. He was dirty and +unshaven, his heavy boot weighed on his foot like lead. Without any +special direction he limped across the tracks and once, as he stopped to +look up and down the rails on which the daylight was beginning to +glimmer, in his eyes was the morbidness of despair. A signalman from his +box could see him over the yards, and Fairfax reflected that if he +lingered he might be arrested, and he limped away. + +"Rome, Rome," he muttered under his breath, "thou hast been a tender +nurse to me! Thou hast given to the timid shepherd-boy muscles of iron +and a heart of steel." + +The night before he had rushed headlong from his uncle's house, smarting +under injustice, and had walked blindly until he came to the +Forty-second Street station. His faint and wretched spirit longed for +nothing but escape from the brutal city where he had squandered his +talent, crushed his spirit and made a poor apprenticeship to +ingratitude. A baggage car on the main line, with an open door, was the +only means of transportation of which Fairfax could avail himself, and +he had crept into it undiscovered, stowed himself away, hoping that the +train's direction was westward and expecting to be thrown out at any +moment. Thus far his journey had been made undiscovered. He didn't +wonder where he was--he didn't care. Any place was good enough to be +penniless in and to jump off from! His one idea at the moment was food. + +"God!" he thought to himself, "to be hungry like this and not be a +beggar or a criminal, just a duffer of a gentleman of no account!" + +He reached the engine-house and passed before the line of iron +locomotives, silent and vigorous in their quiescent might, and full of +inert power. He set his teeth, for the locomotives made him think of his +beloved beasts. A choking sensation came in his throat and tears to his +blue eyes. He thrust his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and went +on. In front of him a city street came down to the tracks, and sharp +across it cut the swinging gates which fell as Fairfax approached. +Behind him the switches snapped; another train, this time a fast +express, rushed past him. He watched it mutely; the flinging up of the +dust around the wheels, the siss and roar and wind of its passing smote +through him. It was gone. + +He limped on. The street leading down to the tracks was filthy with mud +and with the effects of the late rain. It was to Fairfax an avenue into +an empty and unknown town. Small, vile, cobbled with great stones, the +alley ran between lines of two-storied frame buildings, tenement houses +which were the home of the railroad employes. The shutters were all +closed, there was not a sign of life. Fairfax came up with the +signal-box by the swinging gate, and a man with a rolled red flag stood +in the doorway. He looked at Fairfax with little curiosity and the young +man decided not to ask him any questions for fear that his stolen ride +should be discovered. As he passed on and went into the empty street, he +mused-- + +"It is curious how we are all taking pains to escape consequences to +which we say we are indifferent. What matter is it if he _does_ arrest +me? I should at least have a cup of coffee at the station house." + +On either side of the alley through which Fairfax now walked there was +not a friendly door open, or a shutter flung back from a window. At the +head of the street Fairfax stopped and looked back upon the yards and +the tracks of the workshops. The ugly scene lay in the mist of very +early morning and the increasing daylight made its crudeness each moment +more apparent. As he stood alone in Nut Street, on either side of him +hundreds of sleeping workmen, the sun rose over the yards, filling the +dreary, unlovely outlook with a pure glory. To Fairfax's senses it +brought no consolation but the sharp suffering that any beauty brings to +the poet and the seer. It was a new day--he was too young to be crushed +out of life because he had an empty pocket, and faint as he was, hungry +as he was, the visions began to rise again in his brain. The crimson +glory, as it swam over the railroad yards, over the bridge, over the +unsightly buildings, was peopled by his ideals--his breath came fast and +his heart beat. The clouds from which the sun emerged took winged +shapes and soared; the power of the iron creatures in the shed seemed to +invigorate him. Fairfax drew a deep breath and murmured: "Art has made +many victims. I won't sacrifice my life to it." And he seemed a coward +to himself to be beaten so early in the race. + +"Muscles of iron and a heart of steel," he murmured again, "_a heart of +steel_." + +He turned on his feet and limped on, and as he walked he saw a light in +an opposite window with the early opening of a cheap restaurant. The +shutters on either side of Nut Street were flung back. He heard the +clattering of feet, doors were pushed open and the workers began to +drift out into the day. Antony made for the light in the coffee house; +it was extinguished before he arrived and the growing daylight took its +place. A man from a lodging-house passed in at the restaurant door. + +Fairfax's hands were deep in the pockets of his overcoat, his fingers +touched a loose button. He turned it, but it did not feel like a button. +He drew it out; it was twenty-five cents. He had not shaken out quite +all the children's coins on the hall floor. This bit of silver had +caught between the lining and the cloth and resisted his angry fling. As +the young man looked at it, his face softened. He went into the +eating-house with the other man and said to himself as he crossed the +door-sill-- + +"Little cousin! you don't know what 'serious' money this is!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +A girl who he judged by her frowzled hair and her heavy eyes had just +been aroused from sleep, stood behind the counter pouring hot and +steaming coffee into thick china cups. The smell to the hungry man was +divine. Fairfax's mouth watered. From the one pot the coffee came out +with milk added, and from another the liquid poured clear. Fairfax asked +for coffee with milk and a sandwich, and as the girl pushed the plate +with hunks of bread and ham towards him, he asked, "How much, please?" +The girl raised her heavy lids. Her gray eyes could have sparkled if she +had been less sleepy. She glanced at him and responded in a soft +brogue-- + +"Two cints a cup. Sandwiches two cints apiece." + +He took his breakfast over to the table where a customer was already +seated before a huge breakfast. After watching Fairfax for a few +moments, this man said to him-- + +"Got a rattling good appetite, Mister." + +"I have, indeed," Fairfax returned, "and I'm going to begin over again." + +The man wore a red shirt under his coat, his battered bowler was a-cock +on his head. Antony often recalled Sanders as he looked that morning. +His face from his neck up was clean. He exuded water and brown soap; he +had a bright healthy colour; he was a good-looking workman, but his +hands! Fairfax thought them appalling--grimed with coal. They could +never be washed clean, Fairfax reflected, and one finger on the left +hand was missing. + +"Stranger?" the man asked him. "Just going through?" + +And as Fairfax replied, he thought to himself, "He doesn't dream _how_ +strange I am and that I don't even know the name of the town." + +He asked the man, "Much going on here?" + +"Yards. Up here in West Albany it's nothing but yards and railroading." + +"Ah," nodded Fairfax, and to himself: "This is the capital of New York +State--_Albany_--that's where I am." + +And it was not far enough away to please him. + +The man's breakfast, which had been fed into him by his knife, was +disposed of, and he went on-- + +"Good steady employment; they're decent to you. Have to be, good men are +scarce." + +A tall, well-set-up engineer came to the coffee counter, and Fairfax's +companion called out to him-- + +"Got your new fireman yet, Joe?" + +And the other, with a cheerful string of oaths, responded that he had +not got him, and that he didn't want anybody, either, who wasn't going +to stay more than five minutes in his cab. + +"They've got a sign out at the yards," he finished, "advertising for +hands, and when I run in at noon I'll call up and see what's doing." + +Fairfax digested his meal and watched the entrance and exit of the +railroad hands. Nearly all took their breakfast standing at the counter +jollying the girl; only a few brakemen and conductors gave themselves +the luxury of sitting down at the table. Antony went and paid what he +owed at the counter, and found that the waitress had waked up, and, in +spite of the fact that she had doled out coffee and food to some fifty +customers, she had found time to glance at "the new one." + +"Was it all right?" she asked. + +She handed him the change out of his quarter. He had had a dime's worth +of food. + +"Excellent," Fairfax assured her; "first-rate." + +Her sleeves came only to the elbow, her fore-arm was firm and white as +milk. Her hands were coarse and red; she was pretty and her cheerfulness +touched him. + +He wanted to ask for a wash-up, but he was timid. + +"I'll be back at lunchtime," he said to her, nodding, and the girl, +charmed by his smile, asked hesitatingly-- + +"Workin' here?" + +And as Fairfax said "No" rather quickly, she flashed scarlet. + +"Excuse me," she murmured. + +He was as keen to get out of the restaurant now as he had been to cross +its threshold. The room grew small around him, and he felt himself too +closely confined with these common workmen, with whom for some reason or +other he began to feel a curious fraternity. Once outside the house, +instead of taking his way into the more important part of West Albany, +he retraced his steps down Nut Street, now filled with men and women. +Opposite the gateman's house at the foot of the hill, he saw a sign +hanging in a window, "New York Central Railroad," and under this was a +poster which read, "Men wanted. Apply here between nine and twelve." + +Fairfax read the sign over once or twice, and found that it fascinated +him. This brief notice was the only call he had heard for labour, it was +the only invitation given him to make his livelihood since he had come +North. "Men wanted." + +He touched the muscles of his right arm, and repeated "Muscles of iron +and a heart of steel." There was nothing said on the sign about +sculptors and artists and men of talent, and poets who saw visions, and +young ardent fellows of good family, who thought the world was at their +feet; but it did say, "Men wanted." Well, he was a man, at any rate. He +accosted a fellow who passed him whistling. + +"Can you tell me where a chap can get a shave in this neighbourhood? Any +barbers hereabouts?" + +The other grinned. "Every feller is his own razor in Nut Street, +partner! You can find barber shops uptown." + +"I want to get a wash-up," Fairfax said, smiling on him his light smile. +"I want to get hold of a towel and some soap." + +The workman pointed across the street. "There's a hotel. They'll fix you +up." + +Fairfax followed the man's indication, and he saw the second sign that +hung in Nut Street. It gave the modest information, "Rooms and board +three dollars a week. Room one dollar a week. All at Kenny's first-class +hotel. Gents only." Of the proprietor who stood in the doorway, and +whose morning toilet had gone as far as shirt and trousers, Antony +asked-- + +"How much will it cost me to wash-up? I'd like soap and a towel and to +lie down on a bed for a couple of hours." + +The Irish hotel-keeper looked at him. Fairfax took off his hat, and he +didn't explain himself further. + +"Well," said Patrick Kenny, "yez don't look very dirthy. Charge fifteen +cents. Pay in advance." + +"Show me up," accepted Fairfax, and put the last of Bella's charity into +the man's hand. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +That was May. Five months later, when the Hudson flowed between flaming +October shores, and the mists of autumn hung like a golden grail on the +air, Fairfax leaned out of the window of the engine-cab and cried to +another man, in another cab on the opposite track-- + +"Hello, Sanders; how's your health?" + +It was the slang greeting of the time. The engineer responded that he +was fine as silk, and rang his bell and passed on his rolling way. + +Fairfax wore a red shirt, his trousers were thick with oil and grease. +His collar, open at the neck, showed how finely his head was set upon +his shoulders, and left free the magnificent column of his throat. Down +to his neck came his crisp fair hair, just curling at the ends; his +sleeves were up to his elbows and his bare arms were dirty, vigorous and +powerful, with the muscles standing out like cords. He never looked at +his hands any more, his clever sensitive hands. He had been Joe Mead's +fireman for five months, a record ticket for Joe Mead's cab. Fairfax had +borne cursing and raging from his chief, borne them with equanimity, +feeding into the belly of his engine whatever disgust he felt. Thrown +together with these strange men of a different class, he learned new +things of life, and at first he was as amused as a child at play. He +made two dollars a day. This amply fed him and kept him, and he put by, +with a miserliness that was out of all keeping with his temperament, +every cent he could spare from the necessities of life. + +Not that Fairfax had any plans. + +From the first opening of his eyes on West Albany, when he had crawled +out of the baggage car in the dawn, he shut out his past from himself. +He crushed back even his own identity. He earned his bread by the sweat +of his brow in the real sense of the word, and for what reason he saved +his money he could not have told. He had become a day labourer, a +fireman on the New York Central road, and he was a first-rate hand. His +figure in the rude, dirty clothes, his bowler always worn on the back of +his blonde head, his limp (that big boot had gone hard with him on the +day that he applied for a job at the boss's office), all were familiar +in Nut Street by this. His voice, his smile, his rare good heart, made +him a popular companion, and he was, too, popular with the women. + +His miserable reception in New York, the bruises inflicted upon him by +Cedersholm and his uncle, had embittered Tony Fairfax to an extent of +which his humble Nut Street friends were ignorant. He didn't do them any +harm, however. If any harm were done at all--and there is a question +even regarding that--it was done to himself, for he crushed down his +ambitions, he thrust them out of his heart, and he bit the dust with a +feeling of vengeance. He had been a gentleman with talent, and his own +world had not wanted him; so he went down to the people. All that his +mother knew was that he had gone on to the north of the State, to +perfect certain branches of his art, and that it was better for him to +be in Albany. Reclining under the vines, she read his letters, smiling, +fanning herself with a languid hand. + +"Emmy, Master Tony's getting on, getting on." + +"Yas'm, Mis' Bella, I do speck he is." + +"Listen, Emmy." And Mrs. Fairfax would read aloud to the devoted negro +the letters planned, concocted, by her son in his miserable lodgings, +letters which cost him the keenest pangs of his life, kind and tender +lines; things he would have done if he could; things he had hoped for +and knew would never come true; joys he meant to bring her and that he +knew she would grow old and never see; success and fame, whose very +sound to him now was like the knell of fate. At the end of the letter he +said-- + +"I am studying mechanics. I reckon you'll laugh at me, mother, but they +are useful to a sculptor." + +And she had not laughed in the way he meant as she kissed his letter and +wet it with her tears. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +No Sunday duties took him to the yards, and washed and dressed, shaved +and brushed, he became a beautiful man of the world, in a new overcoat +and a new sleek hat, and over his hands thick doeskin gloves. He could +afford to pay for his clothes, and like this he left Nut Street every +Sunday at nine o'clock, not to see West Albany again till midnight. On +the seventh day of the week he was a mystery to his chums and his +landlady, and if any one in Nut Street had had time to be suspicious and +curious they might have given themselves the trouble of following +Fairfax. There were not many idlers, however, and no saloons. Drunkards +were unwelcome, and Sunday was a day of rest for decent hard workers. +When Antony, in his elegance, came out he used to pass between fathers +of families in their shirt sleeves, if it were warm weather, and between +complacent couples, and many of the hands slept all day. The most +curious eyes were those of Molly Shannon, the girl at the restaurant, +and her eyes were more than curious. + +Fairfax had been courteous to her, bidding her good-morning in a way +that made her feel as though she were a lady. He had been there for his +breakfast and lunch several months until finally Molly Shannon drove him +away. This she did not do by her boldness, for she was not bold, but by +her comeliness and her sex and her smile. Fairfax fed his Pride in his +savage immolation before the monster of iron and steel; by his slavery +to work he revenged himself upon his class. His Pride grew; he stood up +against Fate, and he thought he was doing a very fine thing, when his +Pride also stood up in the restaurant when he took his cup of coffee +from the red-handed girl of the people, pretty Molly Shannon from +Killarney. Fairfax went farther up the street. He found another eating +house, and later ate his sandwich on his knees at noon in the cab of his +engine. + +When Molly Shannon found that he was not coming there for his coffee any +more, she grew listless, and doled out food to the other men with a lack +of science and interest that won her sharp reproofs and coarse jokes. +From her window over the restaurant she watched Mister Fairfax as every +Sunday he went limping up the street. Molly watched him, her breast +palpitating under the common shirtwaist, and the freckles on the milky +white skin died out under the red that rose. + +"He's got a girl," she reflected; "sure, he's got a girl." + +One Sunday in October, a day of yellow sunlight and autumn air, when Nut +Street and the yards and West Albany fringed the country like the hem of +an ugly garment, Molly came down and out into the street, and at a +distance she followed Fairfax. Fairfax cut down a couple of blocks +further on to the main station. He went in and bought a ticket for +Albany. He boarded the cars, and Molly followed. + +She tracked him at a safe distance up Market Street to Eagle, and the +young man walked so slowly that it was easy to keep him in sight. The +man pursued by the Irish girl suggested nothing less than a New York +Central fireman. He looked like any other well-set-up, well-made young +gentleman out on a Sunday morning. In his fashionable coat, his +fashionable hat, Molly saw him go through the doors of a stone church +whose bells rang solemnly on the October air. + +The girl was very much surprised. + +She felt him safe even within the walls of the heathen church, and she +went directly back to Nut Street, her holiday hanging heavy on her +hands, and she went in and helped her patron wash the dishes, and +upstairs that night she stopped in her simple preparations for bed and +reddened. + +"Sure, ain't I a silly! He's went to church to _meet_ his girl!" + +Her morning's outing, the tramp and the excitement, were an unusual +strain to Molly, not to speak of her emotions, and she cried herself to +sleep. + +Fairfax sat every Sunday in the same pew. The seat was to the left of +the altar, and he sang with an ardour and a mellowness that was lost +neither on the people near him nor on the choir-master. All arts were +sympathetic to him: his ear was good and his voice agreeable. His youth, +his sacrifice, his dying art he put into his church singing, and once +the choir-master, who had taken pains to mark him, stopped him in the +vestibule and spoke to him. + +"No," Fairfax said, "I am not a musician. Don't know one note from +another, and can't learn. Only sing by ear, and not very sure at that!" + +He listened indifferently. As the gentleman spoke of art and success, +over Antony's handsome mouth there flitted a smile that had something of +iron in it. + +"I don't care for any of those things, sir," he replied. "I reckon I'm a +barbarian, a rudimentary sort of man." + +He took a certain pride and glory in his station as he talked. There was +a fascination in puzzling this mild, charming man, one of his own class, +whose very voice and accent were a relief after the conversations he +heard daily. + +"You see," he said, "I happen to be a fireman in the New York Central +yards down at West Albany." + +The quiet choir-master stared at him. "Oh, come, come!" he smiled. + +Fairfax thrust his cane under his arm, drew off his glove, and held out +his hand, looking into the other man's eyes. The musician's hand closed +over Fairfax's. + +"My dear young fellow," he said gravely, "you are a terrible loss to +art. You would make your way in the musical world." + +Fairfax laughed outright, and the choir-master watched him as others did +as he limped away, his broad, fine back, his straight figure, and +Fairfax's voice swelling out in the processional came to the musician's +mind. + +"There is a mystery about that chap," he thought. "He is a gentleman. +The Bishop would be interested." + +By contrast Sundays were delightful to Antony. Amusements possible to a +workingman with the tastes of a gentleman were difficult to obtain. +Church in the morning, a lazy stroll through the town, an excellent +dinner at the Delavan House, set Fairfax up for the week. The coloured +waiter thought his new patron was a Southerner, and suspected him of +being a millionaire. + +"Yass, sar, Mr. Kunnell Fairfax, sar." + +Antony, in a moment of heart hunger for the South, had told George +Washington his name. George Washington kept the same place for him every +Sunday, and polished the stone china plates till they glistened, +displayed for Antony all his dazzling teeth, bowed himself double, his +napkin under his arm, and addressed Antony as "Kunnell"; and Antony over +his dessert laughed in his sleeve (he took great pains to keep his hands +out of sight). After luncheon he smoked and read the papers in the +lobby, lounged about, wrote a Sunday letter to his mother, and then +loitered about through old Albany. On Sunday afternoons when it was +fine, he would choose School Street and the Cathedral close, and now, +under the falling of the yellow leaves there was a beauty in the day's +end that thrilled him hour by hour. He made these pilgrimages to keep +himself from thinking, from dreaming, from suffering; to keep his hands +from pencil and design; to keep his artist soul from crying out aloud; +to keep his talent from demanding, like a starving thing, bread that he +had no means to give. Sometimes, however,--sometimes, when the stimulus +of an excellent dinner, and a restful morning, when the cheer of George +Washington's droll devotion had died, then the young man's step would +lag in the streets of Albany, and with his hands behind his back and his +bright head bowed, he would creep musing, half-seeing where he went. + +Taking advantage of his lassitude, like peris whose wings had been +folded against Paradise, and whose forms had been leaning hard against +the gate, his ideals, his visions, would rush in upon him, and he would +nearly sink under the beating of their wings--under their voluptuous +appeal, under their imperious demand. + +On these occasions Fairfax would go home oppressed, and content himself +with a glass of milk and light food at the restaurant, and dressed as he +was even to the hat on his head, he would sink by the table in his +little room and bury his face in his hands. Then he would count up his +money. Working from May until October, he had saved only fifty dollars. +After his calculations there was no magnitude in the sum to inspire him +to new plans or to tempt him to make a fresh venture for art. He often +thought, in looking back on those days, that it was nothing but his +pride and his obstinacy that kept him there. The memory of his winter's +creations, of his work in the studio, and his beasts with their powerful +bodies and their bronze beauty, came upon him always with such cruel +resentment and made him feel so impotent against the injustice of the +great, that if drink had tempted Fairfax he would have gone to the +nearest saloon and made a beast of himself. + +The working hours were long and his employment physically exhausting, +but he embraced his duties and fell in love with the great steel and +iron creature which it was his work to feed and clean and oil. And when +he left his engine silent in the shed, the roar and the motion absent, +tranquil, breathless, and yet superb, Antony left his machine with +regret, the regret of a lover for his mistress. He was fireman to a +wild-cat engineer. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Fairfax, used to the Southern climate, found no fault with the heat of +summer, bone-racking and blood-boiling though it was; but, remembering +his past experience of winds and snow in January, he wondered how winter +would seem in the yards, endured in the cab of the engine, but his toil +had now toughened him, roughened him, and strengthened his heart of +steel. November, with its Indian summer smoothness, with its fine, +glorious light that glowed over West Albany, passed, and the year went +out in beauty and December followed, still windless and mild. But that +was the last touch of mercy. January rushed down upon them, fierce, +tempestuous, and up and down the yards, from his window, Fairfax watched +the whirling shrouds of snow sweep over the ground, cover the tracks, +and through the veil the lights flickered like candles that the snuffers +of the storm were vainly trying to extinguish. He put on an extra +flannel shirt under his red shirt; he buttoned his vest high, got into +his coat, jammed his hat on fiercely and shook himself like a reluctant +dog before going to his work. Under his window he could hear the +soughing of the wind and it sucked under the door; he was sure that he +would never be warm here again. + +"Jove!" he thought, "there will be two inches of snow inside my window +when I get back at midnight." He drove his razor into the crack to +stiffen the casement, and took an old flannel shirt and laid it along +the ledge. As he did so the storm blew a whirl of snow across the pane. + +"Siberia," he muttered to himself; "don't talk to me about Russia. This +is far enough North for me!" + +He could not have said why the thought of the children came, but its +spirit came back to him. For months he had fiercely thrust out every +memory of the children, but to-night, as the wind struck him, he thought +of their games and the last time they had played that romping sport +together. Like a warm garment to shield him against the cold he was just +going to fight, he seemed to feel Bella's arms around his neck as they +had clung whilst he rushed with her through the hall. It was just a year +ago that he had arrived in the unfriendly city of his kinsmen, and as he +thought of them, going down the narrow dark stairs of the shanty hotel, +strangely enough it was not the icy welcome that he remembered, but +Bella--Bella in her corner with her book, Bella with her bright red +dress, Bella with her dancing eyes and her eager face. + +"You've got an awfully light smile, Cousin Antony." + +The door of the hotel eating-room was open and dimly lighted. Kenny and +his wife were talking before the stove. They heard their lodger's +step--a unique step in the house--and the woman, who would have gone +down on her knees and blacked his big boot and the smaller boot, called +out to him-- + +"Ah, don't yez go out unless ye have a cup of hot coffee, Misther +Fairfax. It's biting cold. Come on in now." + +Kenny's was a temperance hotel, obliged to be by the railroad. There +were two others in the room besides the landlady and Kenny: Sanders and +Molly Shannon. They sat together by the stove. As Fairfax came in Molly +drew her chair away from the engineer. Fairfax accepted gratefully Mrs. +Kenny's suggestion of hot coffee, and while she busied herself in +getting it for him, he sat down. + +"Running out at eight, Sanders?" + +"You bet," said the other shortly. "New York Central don't change its +schedule for the weather." + +Sanders was suspicious regarding Fairfax and the girl, not that the +fireman paid the least attention to Molly Shannon, but she had changed +in her attitude to all her old friends since the new-comer first drank a +cup of coffee in Sheedy's. Sanders had asked Molly to marry him every +Sunday since spring, and he firmly believed that if he had begun his +demands the Sunday before Fairfax appeared, the girl would be Mrs. +Sanders now. + +Molly wore a red merino dress. According to the fashion of the time it +fitted her closely like a glove. Its lines revealed every curve of her +young, shapely figure, and the red dress stopped short at the dazzling +whiteness of her neck. Her skin and colouring were Irish, coral-like and +pure. Her hair was auburn and the vivid tint of her costume was an +unfortunate contrast; but her grey eyes with black flecks in them and +long black lashes, her piquant nose and dimples, brought back the +artistic mistake, as the French say. She was too girlish, too young, too +pretty not to score high above her dreadful dress. + +Fairfax, who knew why he did not eat at the coffee-house any more, +looked at the reason, and the artist in him and the man simultaneously +regarded the Irish girl. + +"Somebody's got on a new frock," he said. "Did you make it, Miss Molly?" + +"Sure," she answered, without lifting her eyes, and went all red from +her dress to her hair. + +Fairfax drank the hot coffee and felt the warmth at his heart. He heard +Sanders say under his breath-- + +"Why, I bet you could make anything, Molly, you're so smart. Now I have +a rip in my coat here; if Mrs. Kenny has a needle will you be a good +girl and mend it?" + +And Fairfax heard her say, "Sanders, leave me be." + +Since Sanders had cooled to him, Fairfax took special pains to be +friendly, for his pride shrank against having any jars here in these +quarters. He could not bear the idea of a disagreement with these people +with whom he was playing a false part. He took out a couple of excellent +cigars from his waistcoat and gave one to Kenny, who stood picking his +teeth in the doorway. + +"Thank you, Mister Fairfax. For a felly who don't smoke, ye smoke the +best cigars." + +Sanders refused shortly, and as the whistle of an engine was heard above +the fierce cry of the storm, he rose. He took the eight o'clock express +from Albany to New York. He left all his work to his fireman, jumping on +his locomotive at the last moment, always hanging round Molly Shannon +till she shook him off like a burr. Fairfax put the discarded cigar +back in his pocket. He was not due for some twenty minutes at the +engine-house, and Sanders, gloomily considering his rival, was certain +that Fairfax intended remaining behind with the girl. Indeed, Antony's +impulse to do just this thing was strong. He was tempted to take +Sanders' chair and sit down by Molly. She remained quietly, her eyes +downcast, twisting her handkerchief, which she rolled and unrolled. Mrs. +Kenny cleared away the dishes, her husband lit his cigar and beamed. +Sanders got his hat off the hook, put on his coat slowly, the cloud +black on his face. Fairfax wanted to make the girl lift her eyes to him, +he wanted to look into those grey eyes with the little black flecks +along the iris. As the language of the street went, Molly was crazy +about him. He wanted to feel the sensation that her lifted lashes and +her Irish eyes would bring. Temptations are all of one kind; there are +no different kinds. What they are and where they lead depends upon the +person to whom they come. + +"Good-night," said Sanders, shortly. "Give up the door, Kenny, will you? +You're not a ghost." + +"I'm going with you, Sanders," Fairfax said; "hold on a bit." + +Sanders' heart bounded and his whole expression changed. He growled-- + +"What are you going for? You're not due. It's cold as hell down in the +yards." + +Fairfax was looking at Molly and instinctively she raised her head and +her eyes. + +"Better give this cigar to your fireman, Sandy," Fairfax said to him as +the two men buttoned up their coats and bent against the January wind. + +"All right," muttered the other graciously, "give it over here. Ain't +this the deuce of a night?" + +The wind went down Sandy's throat and neither man spoke again. They +parted at the yards, and Sanders went across the track where his fireman +waited for him on his engine, and Fairfax went to the engine-house and +found his legitimate mistress, his steel and iron friend, with whom he +was not forbidden by common-sense to play. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +By the time he reached the engine-house he was white with snow, and wet +and warm. There was no heating in the sheds where the locomotives waited +for their firemen, and the snow and wind beat in, and on the +cow-catchers of the two in line was a fringe of white like the +embroidery on a woman's dress. The gas lamps lit the big place +insufficiently, and the storm whistled through the thin wooden shed. + +Number Ten at the side of Antony's engine was the midnight express +locomotive, to be hitched at West Albany to the Far West Limited. His +own, Number Forty-one, was smaller, less powerful, more slender, +graceful, more feminine, and Antony kept it shining and gleaming and +lustreful. It was his pride to regard it as a living thing. Love was +essential to any work he did; he did not understand toil without it, and +he cared for his locomotive with enthusiasm. + +He did not draw out for half an hour. His machine was in perfect order; +the fire had already been started by one of the shed firemen, and +Fairfax shook down the coals and prepared to get up steam. They were +scheduled to leave West Albany at nine and carry a freight train into +the State as far as Utica. He would be in the train till dawn. It was +his first night's work in several weeks, and the first ever in a +temperature like this. Since morning the thermometer had fallen twenty +points. + +His thoughts kindled as his fire kindled--a red dress flashed before his +eyes. Sometimes it was vivid scarlet, too vivid and too violent, then it +changed to a warm crimson, and Bella's head was dark above it. But the +vision of the child was too young to hold Antony, now desirous and +gloomy. His point of view had changed and his face set as he worked +about in the cab and his adjustable lamp cast its light upon a face that +was grave and stern. + +He hummed under his breath the different things as they came to him. + +"_J'ai perdu ma tourterelle._" + +Dear old Professor Dufaucon, with his yellow goatee and his broken +English. And the magnolias were blooming in the yard, for the professor +lived on the veranda and liked the open air, and in the spring there +were the nightingales. + +"_J'ai perdu ma tourterelle._" + +"First catch your hare," Antony said. "I have never had a turtle-dove, +never had a sweetheart since I fell from the cherry-tree." + +Sounds that were now familiar to him came from outside, the ringing of +the bells as the locomotives drew through the storm, the high scream of +the whistles, the roll and rumble of the wheels and the calling of the +employer to the railroad hands as they passed to their duties outside +the shed. Fairfax left Louisiana and stopped singing. He threw open the +door of his furnace, and the water hissed and bubbled in the boiler. He +opened the cock and the escaping steam filled the engine-house and mixed +with the damp air. + +Looking through the window of the cab, Fairfax saw a figure pass in +under the shed. It was a woman with a shawl over her head. He climbed +down out of the cab; the woman threw the shawl back, he saw the head and +dress. + +"Why, Miss Molly!" he exclaimed. He thought she had come for Sanders. + +She held out a yellow envelope, but even though she knew she brought him +news and that he would not think of her, her big eyes fastened on him +were eloquent. Fairfax did not answer their appeal. He tore open the +telegram. + +"I brought it myself," she murmured. "I hope it ain't bad news." + +He tore it open with hands stained with grease and oil. He read it in +the light of his cab lamp, read it twice, and a man who was hanging +around for a job felt the fireman of Number Forty-one grasp his arm. + +"Tell Joe Mead to take you to-night to fire for him--tell him I've got +bad news. I'm going to New York." + +"It's too bad," said the other cheerfully. "I'll tell him." + +Fairfax had gone flying on his well foot and his lame foot like a +jackdaw. He was out of the shed without a word to Molly Shannon. + +"Your felly's got bad news," said the man, and, keenly delighted with +his sudden luck, climbed agilely into the cab of Number Forty-one, and, +leaning out of the window, looked down on Molly. + +"He ain't my felly," she responded heavily, "he boards to Kenny's. I +just brought him the despatch, but I think it's bad news, sure enough." + +And wrapping the shawl closer over her head, she passed out into the +storm whose fringe was deepening on the cow-catchers of Number Ten and +Number Forty-one. + + * * * * * + +Sanders' big locomotive ran in from the side to the main track as +smoothly as oil, and backed up the line to the cars of the night mail. +Sanders was to start at eight o'clock, and it was a minute before the +hour. The ringing of his bell and the hiss of the steam were in his +ears. He was just about to open the throttle when a voice on the other +side called to him, and Fairfax climbed up into the cab. + +"Take me in, Sanders, old man; let me hang on here, will you? I've got +to get to New York as fast as you can take me." + +Sanders nodded, the station signal had been given. He started out, and +Antony made himself as small as possible in the only available place +between the fireman, who was one of his special pals, and the engineer. +Sanders' face was towards his valves and brakes. He pulled out into the +driving sleet, scanning the tracks under the searchlight. + +"What's up, Tony?" the fireman at his side asked him as they rolled out +into the night to the ringing of the bell. Fairfax handed him his +despatch and the fireman read it, and Fairfax answered him-- + +"A little cousin. One of my little cousins. What time are we due in New +York?" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was past midnight when Antony rushed out of the Forty-second Street +station into a blizzard of sleet and snow. He stood a second looking up +and down Madison Avenue, searching vainly for a car. There were no cabs +at the station, there was nothing in sight but the blinding storm, and +he began on foot to battle his way with the elements. It had been +snowing in New York for twelve hours. The same fierce challenge met him +that he had received the year before, and he pushed his way through the +dim streets where the storm veils wrapped the gas lamps like shrouds. He +had been on duty since six that morning, except for a few hours in the +afternoon. Every now and then he had to stop for breath and to shake the +weight of snow off his collar. He was white as wool. The houses on +either side were dark with a stray light here and there, but he knew +that farther on he should find one house lit with the light that burns +for watchers. He glowed like a gladiator, panted like a runner, and he +reached the door and leaned for breath and waited for an answer to his +ring. Like a gladiator! How he had mouthed Spartacus for them! He could +see the dancing eyes, and little Gardiner touched the muscles of his +arm. + +"Feel mine, Cousin Antony." + +Heart of steel! Well, he would need it now. + +The door was opened, he never knew by whom, and a silence met him that +was profound after the voices of the storm. He stamped his feet and +shook off the drift from without, threw off his coat, caked thick and +fairly rattling with its burden, threw off his hat, heavy and dripping, +and as he was, his heart of steel beating in him like a tender human +heart, he limped up the quiet stairs. Even then he noticed that there +were signs of a feast in the house. It should have been the annual +dinner of Mr. Carew. The odours of flowers that had died were sickening +in the heat. Smilax twisted around the balustrade of the stairs met his +work-stained hand that trembled in the leaves. On the second floor, some +one, he was not clear, but afterwards he thought it must have been Miss +Eulalie, met him and took him in. + +In the feeble sick-room light, grouped a few people whose forms and +faces go to make part of the sombre pictures of watchers; that group in +which at some time or other each inhabitant of the world takes his +place. There was one kneeling figure; the others stood round the bed. +The little bark, quite big enough to carry such a small freight thus far +on the voyage, was nearly into port. + +Bella lay close to her little brother, her dark hair and dress the only +shadow on the white bed covers. Gardiner's hair was brushed back from +his brow, he looked older, but still very small to go so far alone. +Gardiner was travelling, travelling--climbing steep mountains, white +with snow, and his breath came in short laboured sighs, fast, fast--it +was the only sound in the room. Bella had not left his side for hours, +her cheek pressed the pillow by his restless head. Her tears had fallen +and dried, fallen and dried. Bella alone knew what Gardiner tried to +say. His faltering words, his halting English, were familiar to the +sister and she interpreted to the others, to whom Gardiner, too small to +reach them, had never been very near. Twenty times the kneeling figure +had asked-- + +"What does he say, Bella? What does he want?" + +"He thinks it is a game," the little sister said; "he says it's cold, he +says he wants Cousin Antony." + +Since his summons, when Gardiner found that he must gird his little +loins for the journey, his mind had gone to the big cousin who had so +triumphantly carried him over the imaginary steeps. + +From the door, where he had been standing on the edge of the group, a +tall figure in a red flannel shirt came forward, bent down, and before +any one knew that he had come, or who he was, he was speaking to the +sick child. + +"Gardiner, little cousin, here's your old cousin Antony come back." + +Gardiner was travelling hard, but his head stopped its restless turning. +He looked up into the beloved face, whose smile shone on him and lit his +dark journey. Gardiner tried to answer the brightness of that smile, he +tried to hold out his little arms. In a sob Bella whispered-- + +"He wants Cousin Antony to carry him." + +Without removing his look of tender brightness from the traveller's +face, Fairfax murmured-- + +"I reckon I'll take him in my arms, Aunt Caroline." + +And as the steepest, coldest place came in sight to little Gardiner, he +was lifted in a warm embrace. He opened his eyes upon Antony's and with +a radiant look gave up the painful climbing to the rescuer. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Fairfax himself made many cruel Siberian journeys and voyages through +hellish tropics, on his own narrow bed in the hall room overlooking the +New York Central yards. He had something close to pneumonia and turned +and cried out on his bed, too small for his big form, and in his +delirium he kicked away the footboard. His uncle's house, which he had +left as brusquely this time as before, haunted him in his mind troubled +by sickness. He cried out that it was a cursed place and that Gardiner +had been killed by neglect, and that he shook the dust of New York from +his feet. From wild blue eyes that flamed under his hair grown long, he +stared into the space peopled by delirium and called his solitary +attendant "Bella," and begged her to come away with him before it was +too late, for, as many sick people seem to be, he was travelling. In his +case he journeyed back to his boarding-house and laid his visions down +and waked up in the same old world that had treated him badly, but which +he was not ready to leave. + +It was a sunny, brilliant January day. The snow had frozen on his window +and the light played upon gleaming bands, and through the dingy yellow +shade the sunlight came determinedly. On the table by his bedside were +his medicines and milk, and he was covered by counterpanes lent by the +other lodgers. + +He felt the perspiration pour off him as his mind found its balance, and +he saw how weak he was; but though it hurt him to breathe, he could do +so, and the crisis was past. He had fallen on his bed when he came from +New York and here he had remained. He wet his cracked lips, said +"Water," and from behind him, where she had been sitting, a girl came +and held a glass to his lips. Fairfax drank, closed his eyes, made no +sign of recognition, for he knew Molly Shannon. She wiped the sweat from +his brow and face tenderly, and though her hand had not trembled before +in her ministrations, it trembled now. Her heart was beating with +gratitude for she knew he was saved. She gave him milk and brandy, after +a few moments, then sat down to her work. Fairfax, speaking each word +distinctly, said-- + +"I reckon I've been pretty sick, haven't I?" + +"You're all right now, Misther Fairfax." + +He smiled faintly. He was indifferent, very weak, but he felt a kind of +mild happiness steal over him as he lay there, a sense of being looked +after, cared for, and of having beaten the enemy which had clutched his +throat and chest. He heard the voices of Molly and the doctor, heard her +pretty Irish accent, half-opened his eyes and saw her hat and plaid +red-and-black shawl hanging by the window. The plaid danced before his +eyes, became a signal flag, and, watching it, he drowsed and then fell +into the profound sleep which means recovery. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Fairfax took Molly Shannon's presence for granted, accepted her +services, obeyed her docilely and thanked her with his smile which +regained its old radiance as he grew stronger. Lying shaven, with his +hair cut at last--for she had listened to his pleading and sent for a +barber--in clean sheets and jacket, he looked boyish and thin, and to +the Irish girl he was beautiful. She kept her eyes from him for fear +that he should see her passion and her adoration, and she effaced +herself in the nurse, the mother, the sister, in the angel. + +Sure, she hadn't sent word to any one. How should she? Sorry an idea she +had where he came from or who were his folks. + +"I am glad. I wouldn't have worried my mother." + +And answering the question that was bounding in Molly's heart, he said-- + +"There's no one else to frighten or to reassure. I must write to my +mother to-day." + +As he said this he remembered that he would be obliged to tell her of +little Gardiner, and the blood rose to his cheek, a spasm seized his +heart, and his past rushed over him and smote him like a great wave. + +Molly sat sewing in the window, mending his shirts, the light outlining +her form and her head like a red flower. He covered his face with his +hand and a smothered groan escaped him, and he fell back on the pillow. +Molly ran to him, terrified: "a relapse," that's what it was. The doctor +had warned her. + +"God in heaven!" she cried, and knowing nothing better to do, she put +her arms round him as if he had been a boy. She saw the tears trickle +through his thin hands that in his idleness had grown white, though the +dark ridges around the broken nails were blackened still. + +Fairfax quickly regained his control and made the girl go back to her +work. After a little he said-- + +"Who's been paying for all these medicines, and so forth?" + +"Lord love ye, that's nothing to cry about." + +"There is money in my vest pocket, Molly; get it, will you?" + +She found a roll of bills. There were twenty dollars. + +She exclaimed-- + +"That's riches! I've only spent the inside of a five-dollar bill." + +"And the doctor?" + +"Oh, he'll wait. He's used to waiting in Nut Street." + +Fairfax fingered the money. "And your work at Sheedy's?" + +Molly stood by the bed, his shirt in her hand, her brass thimble on one +finger, a bib apron over her bosom. + +"Don't bother." + +"You've lost your place, Molly; given it up to take care of me." + +She took a few stitches, the colour high in her face, and with a rare +sensitiveness understood that she must not let Antony see her sacrifice, +that she must not put her responsibility on Fairfax. She met his eyes +candidly. + +"If you go on like this, you'll be back again worse nor ye were. +Sheedy's afther me ivery day at the dure there, waitin' till I'm free +again. He is that. Meanwhile he's payin' me full time. He is that. He'll +keep me me place!" + +She lied sweetly, serenely, and when the look of relief crept over +Fairfax's face, she endured it as humble women in love endure, when +their natures are sweet and honey-like and their hearts are pure gold. + +She took the five dollars he paid her back. He was too delicate in +sentiment to offer her more, and he watched her, his hands idly on the +sheets. + +"I reckon Joe Mead's got another fireman, Molly?" + +"Ah, no," she laughed, "Joe's been here every day to see when you would +be working, and when Joe don't come the other felly comes to see when +you'll let _him_ off!" + +Life, then, was going on out there in the yards. He heard the shriek of +the engines, the fine voices of the whistles, and the square of his +sunny window framed the outer day. People were going on journeys, people +were coming home. He had come back, and little Gardiner.... + +"Sit down," he said brusquely to the girl who stood at his side; "sit +down, for God's sake, and talk to me; tell me something, anything, or I +shall go crazy again." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He recovered rapidly; his hard work had strengthened his constitution, +and Molly Shannon modestly withdrew, and Mary Kenny, the landlady, who +had disputed the place from the first, took it and gave Antony what +further care he needed. He missed Molly the first day she left him, +missed her shawl and hat and the music of her Irish voice. He had sent +for books through Joe Mead, and read furiously, realizing how long he +had been without intellectual food. + +But the books made him wretched. + +Not one of them was written for an artist who had been forced by hard +luck to turn into a day labourer. All the beautiful things he read made +him suffer and desire and long, and worse still, made him rebel. One +phrase out of Werther lingered and fascinated him-- + +"The miseries of mankind would be lighter if--God knows why this is +so--if they would not use all their imagination to remember their +miseries and to recall to themselves the souvenirs of their unhappy +past." + +The unhappy past! Well, was it not sad at his age to have a past so +melancholy that one could not recall it without tears? + +Every one but Sanders came to see him, and jolly him up. Joe Mead gave +him to understand that he only lived for the time when Tony should come +back to feed "the Girl," as he called his engine. Tony looked at his +chief out of cavernous eyes. Joe Mead had on his Sunday clothes and +would not light his cigar out of deference to Tony's sick-room. + +"You're forty, Mead, aren't you?" + +"About that, I guess." + +"And I am only twenty-three," returned Fairfax. "Is that going to be a +picture of me at forty?" he thought, and answered himself violently: "My +mother's pride and mine forbid." + +"Sanders doesn't come to see me, Joe?" + +"Nope," returned the other, "you bet your life. If he ain't waiting for +you at the door with a gun when you come down it's only because he is +off on his job." + +When his chief got up to leave him, Fairfax said, "I want you to get me +a book on mechanics, Joe, practical mechanics, and don't pay over a +dollar and a half." + +He owed Molly Shannon more than he could ever return. The doctor told +him, because he imagined that it would give the young fireman +satisfaction, that the nursing had saved his life. Sanders was not at +the stair-foot when Fairfax finally crept down to take his first +outing. It was the middle of February and a mild day. Indeed, he had +been at work over a fortnight when he caught sight of Molly and Sanders +standing at the head of Nut Street, talking. + +As he came up to them, Sanders turned a face clouded with passion on +Fairfax. + +"You cursed hound!" he growled under his breath, and struck out, but +before he could reach Fairfax Molly threw herself on Sanders and caught +the blow on her arm and shoulder. In spite of her courage she cried out +and would have fallen but for Fairfax. The blow, furiously directed by +an able-bodied man, had done worse work than Sanders intended, and the +poor girl's arm hung limp and she fainted away. + +"Mother of God," muttered Sanders, "I have killed you, Molly darling!" + +Her head lay on Fairfax's shoulder. "Let's get her into the coffee +house," he said shortly. + +Sanders was horrified at the sight of the girl he adored lying like +death from his blow, and with a determination which Fairfax could not +thwart the engineer took the girl in his own arms. + +"Give her to me," he said fiercely, "I'll settle with you later. Can't +take her into the coffee house: they've turned her out on account of +you. There's not a house that would take her but the hotel. I'm going to +carry her to my mother." + +Followed by a little group of people whom Fairfax refused to enlighten, +they went down the street, and Sanders disappeared within the door of +the shanty where his family lived. + +The incident gave Antony food for thought, and he chewed a bitter cud as +he shut himself into his room. He couldn't help the girl's coming to him +in his illness. He could have sent her about her business the first day +that he was conscious. She would not have gone. She had lost her place +and her reputation, according to Sanders, because of her love for him. +There was not any use in mincing the matter. That's the way it stood. +What should he do? What could he do? + +He took off his heavy overcoat and muffler, rubbed his hands, which were +taking on their accustomed dirt and healthy vigour, poured out a glass +of milk from the bottle on his window sill, and drank it, musing. The +Company had acted well to him. The paymaster was a mighty fine man, and +Antony had won his interest long ago. They had advanced him a month's +pay on account of his illness. He brushed his blonde hair meditatively +before the glass, settled the cravat under the low rolling collar of his +flannel shirt. He was a New York Central fireman on regular duty, no +further up the scale than Molly Shannon--as far as Nut Street and the +others knew. Was there any reason why he should not marry her? She had +harmed herself to do him good. He was reading his books on mechanics, a +little later he was going to night school when his hours changed; he was +going to study engineering; he had his yard ambitions, the only ones he +permitted himself to have. + +It was four o'clock of the winter afternoon, and the sunset left its red +over the sky. Through his little window he saw the smoke of a locomotive +rise in a milky column, cradle and flow and melt away. The ringing of +the bells, the crying note of the whistles, had become musical to +Fairfax. + +There was no reason why he should not marry the Irish girl who doled out +coffee to railroad hands.... Was there none? The figure of his mother +rose before him, beautiful, proud, ambitious Mrs. Fairfax. She was +waiting for his brilliant success, she was waiting to crown him when he +should bring his triumphs home. The ugly yards blurred before his eyes, +he almost fancied that a spray of jasmine blew across the pane. + +He would write-- + +"Mother, I have married an Irish girl, a loving, honest creature who +saved my life and lost her own good name doing so. It was my duty, +mother, wasn't it? I am not striving for name or fame; I don't know what +art means any more. I am a day labourer, a common fireman on an engine +in the Albany yards--that's the truth, mother." + +"Good heavens!" He turned brusquely from the window, paced his room a +few times, limping up and down it, the lame jackdaw, the crippled bird +in his cage, and his heart swelled in his breast. No--he could not do +it. The Pride that had led him here and forced him to make his way in +spite of fate, the Pride that kept him here would not let him. He had +ambitions then? He was not then dead to fame? Where were those dreams? +Let them come to him and inspire him now. He recalled the choir-master of +St. Angel's church. He could get a job to sing in St. Angel's if he +pleased. He would run away to Albany. He had run away from New York; now +he would run from Nut Street like a cad and save his Pride. He would +leave the girl with the broken arm, the coffee-house door shut against +her, to shift for herself, because he was a gentleman. Alongside the +window he had hung up his coat and hat, and they recalled to him her +things as they had hung there. There had been something dove-like and +dear in her presence in his room of sickness. His Pride! He could hear +his old Mammy say-- + +"Massa Tony, chile, you' pride's gwine to lead yo thru black waters some +day, shore." + +He said "Come in" to the short, harsh rap at the door, and Sanders +entered, slamming the door behind him. His face was hostile but not +murderous; as usual his bowler was a-cock on his head. + +"See here, Fairfax, she sent me. She ain't hurt much, just a damned +nasty bruise. I gave her my promise not to stick a knife into you." + +Fairfax pushed up his sleeves; his arms were white as snow. He had lost +flesh. + +"I'll fight you right here, Sanders," he said, "and we'll not make a +sound. I'm not as fit as you are, but I'll punish you less for that +reason. Come on." + +Molly's lover put his hand in his pockets because he was afraid to leave +them out. He shook his head. + +"I gave the girl my word, and I'd rather please Molly than break every +bone in your ---- body, and that's saying a good deal. And here on my +own hook I want to ask you a plain question." + +"I shan't answer it, Sandy." + +The other with singular patience returned, "All right. I'm going to ask +just the same. Are you ... will you ... what the hell...!" he exclaimed. + +"Don't go on," said Fairfax; "shut up and go home." + +Instead, Sanders took off his hat, a sign of unusual excitement with +him. He wiped his face and said huskily-- + +"Ain't got a chance in the world alongside you, Fairfax, and I'd go down +and crawl for her. That's how _I'm_ about her, mate." His face broke up. + +Fairfax answered quietly, "That's all right, Sanders--that's all right." + +The engineer went on: "I want you to clear out and give me my show, +Tony. I had one before you turned up in Nut Street." + +"Why, I can't do that, Sanders," said Fairfax gently; "you oughtn't to +ask a man to do that. Don't you see how it will look to the girl?" + +The other man's face whitened; he couldn't believe his ears. + +"Why, you don't mean to say...?" he wondered slowly. + +The figure under the jasmine vine, the proud form and face of his +mother, grew smaller, paler as does the fading landscape when we look +back upon it from the hill we have climbed. + +"The doctor told me Molly had saved my life," Fairfax said. "They have +turned her out of doors in ---- Street. Now you must let me make good as +far as I can." + +The young man's blue eyes rested quietly on the blood-shot eyes of his +visitor. Sanders made no direct answer; he bit his moustache, +considered his companion a second, and clapping his hat on his head, +tore the door open. + +"You are doing her a worse wrong than any," he stammered; "she ain't +your kind and you don't love her." + +His hand whitened in its grip on the door handle, then giving one look +at his companion as though he meditated repeating his unfortunate attack +upon him, he flung himself out of the door, muttering-- + +"I've got to get out of here.... I don't dare to stay!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +By the time the sublime spring days came, Fairfax discovered that he +needed consolation. He must have been a very stubborn, dull animal, he +decided, to have so successfully stuffed down and crushed out Antony +Fairfax. Antony Fairfax could not have been much of a man at any time to +have gone down so uncomplainingly in the fight. + +"A chap who is uniquely an artist and poet," he wrote to his mother, "is +not a real man, I reckon." + +But he had not described to her what kind of a fellow stood in his +stead. Instead of going to church on Sundays he exercised in the free +gymnasium, joined a base-ball team--the firemen against the +engineers--and read and studied more than he should have done whenever +he could keep his eyes open. Then spring came, and he could not deny +another moment, another day or another night, that he needed +consolation. + +The wives and daughters of the railroad hands and officials--those he +saw in Nut Street--were not likely to charm his eyes. Fairfax waited for +Easter--waited with a strange young crying voice in his heart, a +threatening softness around his heart of steel. + +He went on rapidly with his new studies; his mind grasped readily +whatever he attacked, and his teacher, less worldly than the choir-master +at St. Angel's, wondered at his quickness, and looked at his disfigured +hands. Joe Mead knew Tony's plans and his ambitions; by June they would +give Fairfax an engine and Mead would look out for another fireman to +feed "the Girl." The bulky, panting, puffing, sliding thing, feminine as +the machine seemed, could no longer charm Fairfax nor occupy all his +thoughts. + +He had been sincere when he told Sanders that he would look out for +Molly Shannon. The pinnacle this decision lifted him to, whether felt to +be the truth or purely a sentimental advance, nevertheless gave him a +view which seemed to do him good. The night after Sanders' visit, +Fairfax slept in peace, and the next day he went over to Sanders' mother +and asked to see Molly Shannon. She had left Nut Street, had run away +without leaving any address. Fairfax did not push his chivalry to try to +find her. He slept better than ever that night, and when during the +month Sanders himself went to take a job further up in the State and the +entire Sanders family moved to Buffalo, Fairfax's slumbers grew sounder +still. At length his own restless spirit broke his repose. + +April burst over the country in a mad display of blossoms, which +Fairfax, through the cab of his engine, saw lying like snow across the +hills. He passed through blossoming orchards, and above the smell of oil +and grease came the ineffable sweetness of spring, the perfume of the +earth and the trees. Just a year ago he had gone with Bella and Gardiner +to Central Park, and he remembered Gardiner's little arm outstretched +for the prize ring he could never secure, and Bella's sparkling success. +The children had been in spring attire; now Fairfax could buy himself a +new overcoat and did so, a grey one, well-made and well-fitting, a straw +hat with a crimson band, and a stick to carry on his Sunday +jauntings--but he walked alone. + +He flung his books in the bottom drawer of his bureau, locked it and +pitched the key out of the window. He would not let them tempt him, for +he had weakly bought certain volumes that he had always wanted to read, +and Nut Street did not understand them. + +"It's the books," he decided; "I can't be an engineer if I go on, nor +will I be able to bear my lonely state." + +Verse and lovely prose did not help him; their rhythm and swell drew +away the curtains from the window of his heart, and the golden light of +spring dazzled the young man's eyes. He eagerly observed the womenkind +he passed, and Easter week, with its solemn festival, ran in hymn and +prayer toward Easter Day. New frocks, new jackets, new hats were bright +in the street. On Easter Sunday Fairfax sat in his old place by the +choir and sang. The passion and tenderness brooding in him made his +voice rich and the choir-master heard him above the congregation. From +the lighted altar and the lilies, from the sunlight streaming through +the stained windows, inspiration came to him, and as Fairfax sat and +listened to the service he saw in imagination a great fountain to the +left of the altar, a fountain of his building that should stand there, a +marble fountain held by young angels with folded wings, and he would +model, as Della Robbia modelled, angels in their primitive beauty, their +bright infancy. The young man's head sank forward, he breathed a deep +sigh. He owed every penny that he had laid by to Mrs. Kenny, to the +tailor and the doctor, and in another month he would be engineer on +probation. His inspiration left him at the church door. He walked +restlessly up to the station and with a crowd of excursionists took his +train to West Albany. Luncheon baskets, crying babies, oranges, peanuts, +and the rest of the excursion paraphernalia filled the car. Fairfax +looked over the crowd, and down by the farther door caught sight of a +familiar face and figure. + +It was Molly Shannon coming back to Nut Street for Easter. For several +months the girl had been working in the Troy collar factory, and drawn +by the most powerful of magnets was reluctantly returning to Nut Street +on her holiday. Molly had no new dress for Easter. She hadn't even a new +hat. Her long hours in the factory and her state of unhappy, unrequited +love, had worn away the crude brilliance of her form. She was pale, +thinner, and in her cheap dress, her old hat with its faded ribbon, with +her hands clasped over a little imitation leather handbag, she sat +utterly alone, as youth and beauty should never be. + +Fairfax limped down the car and took his place by her side. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Mrs. Kenny, with prodigal hospitality, took Molly in for over Sunday. +Fairfax walked alongside of her to his boarding-house, carrying the +imitation leather bag, talking to her, laughing with her, calling the +colour back and making her eyes bright. He found himself, with his young +lady, before the threshold of Kenny's hotel. "Gents only." Whether this +was the rule or an idea only, Fairfax wondered, for Molly was not the +first one of the gentler sex who had been cordially entertained in the +boarding-house! Mrs. Kenny's sister and her sister's child, her mother +and aunts three, had successively come down on the hotel during +Fairfax's passing, and been lavishly entertained, anywhere and +everywhere, even under Fairfax's feet, for he had come out one morning +from his door to find two little girls sleeping on a mattress in the +hall. + +All his lifelong Fairfax retained an adoration for landladies. They had +such tempting opportunities to display qualities that console and +ennoble, and the landladies with whom he had come in contact took +advantage of their opportunities! It didn't seem enough to wait five +weeks for a chap to pay up, when one's own rent was due, but the +landlady must buy chicken at ruinous prices when a chap was ill, and +make soup and put rice in it, and carry it steaming, flecked with rich +golden grease, put pot-pie balls in it and present it to a famishing +fireman who could do no more than kiss the hand, the chapped hand, that +brought the bowl. + + * * * * * + +"Now _wud_ ye, Misther Fairfax?" + +He would, as if it had been his mother's! + +Nut Street was moral, domestic and in proportion severe. Mary Kenny had +not been born there; she had come with her husband from the +happy-go-lucky, pig-harbouring shanties of County Cork. She was the +most unprejudiced soul in the neighbourhood. Between boarders, a lazy +husband, six children and bad debts, she had little time to gossip, but +plenty of time in which to be generous. + +"I _wull_ that!" she assured Molly. "Ye'll sleep in the kitchen on a +shakedown, and the divil knows where it'll shake _from_ for I haven't a +spare bed in the house!" + +Molly would only stay till Monday.... Fairfax put her little bag on the +kitchen table, where a coarse cloth was spread, and the steam greeted +them of a real Irish stew, and the odour of less genuine coffee tickled +their appetites. + +Molly Shannon considered Fairfax in his new Easter Sunday spring +clothes. From his high collar, white as Nut Street could white it, to +his polished boots--he was a pleasant thing to look upon. His cravat was +as blue as his eyes. His moustache was brushed carefully from his young, +well-made mouth, and he beamed with good humour on every one. + +"Shure, dinner's dished, and the childer and Kenny are up to the +cemetery pickin' vi'lets. Set right down, the rest will be along. Set +down, Misther Fairfax and Molly Shannon." + +After dinner, up in his room, the walls seemed to have contracted. The +kitchen's smoky air rose even here, and he flung his window wide to the +April sweetness. The atmosphere was too windless to come in and wrestle +with the smell of frying, but he saw the day was golden as a draught +waiting to be quaffed. The restricted schedule of Sunday cast a quiet +over the yards, and from the distance Fairfax heard sounds that were not +distinguishable in the weekday confusion, the striking of the hour from +the Catholic Church bell, the voices of the children playing in the +streets. There was a letter lying on his bureau from his mother: he had +not had the heart to read it to-day. The gymnasium was shut for repairs, +there was no ball game on for Easter Day, and, after a second's +hesitation, he caught up his hat from where he had dropped it at his +feet and rushed downstairs into the kitchen. + +Molly, her sleeves rolled up, was washing dishes for Mrs. Kenny. + +"Don't you want to come out with me for a walk?" Fairfax asked her. + +"Go along," said Mrs. Kenny, giving her a shove with her bare elbow. +"I'll make out alone fine. The suds is elegant. If you meet Kenny and +the children, tell them there's not a bit left but the lashins of the +stew, and to hurry up." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +There was a divine fragrance in the air. Fairfax stopped to gather a few +anemones and handed them to his silent companion. + +"Since you have grown so pale in the collar factory, Miss Molly, you +look like these flowers." + +He stretched out his, arms, bared his head, flung it up and looked +toward the woodland up the slope and saw the snow-white stones on the +hill, above the box borders and the cedar borders of the burial place: +above, the sky was blue as a bird's wing. + +"Let me help you." He put his hand under her arm and walked with her up +the hill. They breathed together; the sweet air with its blossomy scent +touched their lips, and the ancient message of spring spoke to them. He +was on Molly's left side; beneath his arm he could feel her fluttering +heart and his own went fast. At the hill top they paused at the entrance +to a pretentious lot, with high white shafts and imposing columns, +broken by the crude whiteness of a single marble cross. Brightly it +stood out against the air and the dark green of cedar and box. + +"This is the most perfect monument," he said aloud, "the most +harmonious; indeed, it is the only relief to the eye." + +On every grave were Easter garlands, crosses and wreaths; the air was +heavy with lilac and with lily. + +Except for a few monosyllables Molly said nothing, but now, as they +paused side by side, she murmured-- + +"It's beautiful quiet after the racket of the shops; it's like heaven!" + +Fairfax's glance wandered over the acres of monuments, marking the +marble city, and came back to the living girl at his side. + +"It's a strange place for two young people to stroll about in, Miss +Molly." + +Molly Shannon stood meekly, her work-stained hands clasped loosely +before her and in her form were the beauties of youth, virginity, +chastity, promise of life and fecundity, and, for Fairfax, of passion. + +"Ah, I don't know," she answered him slowly, "I think it's lovely and +quiet here. Back in Troy next week when we work overtime and the boss +gets mad, I'll think of it likely, I guess." + +He talked to her as they strolled, realizing his need of companionship, +and his pent-up heart poured itself forth as they walked between the +graves, and he told the Irish girl of Bella and little Gardiner, and of +his grief. + +"I don't know what I did that day," he finished. "I was a brute to my +aunt and to the little girl. I laid him down on his bed and rushed out +like a crazy man; the house seemed to haunt me. I must have been ill +then. I recall that my aunt called to me and that Bella hung on my arm +and that I shook her off. I recall that my uncle followed me downstairs +and stood by me while I got into my overcoat, but I was too savage and +too miserably proud to answer him. I left him talking to me and the +little girl crying on the stairs." + +She asked him timidly, "What had they done to make you hate them so?" +She told herself in her humility that he was a gentleman and not for +her. + +He continued, carried away by the fact of a good listener, and, although +she listened, she understood less than Benvenuto Cellini, less, even, +than the children. He came up against so many things that were +impossible to tell her that he stopped at length, laughing. + +"You see how a chap runs on when he has a friend by him, Miss Molly. Why +do you go back to the collar factory?" + +He stopped short, remembering what Sanders had said, and that Nut Street +had shut its doors against her. They had come down through the cemetery +to the main avenue that stretched, spacious and broad, between the +dwellings of the dead. They sauntered slowly side by side, an +incongruous, appealing couple. He saw her worn shoes, the poor skirt, +the hands discoloured as were his, through toil, and his glance +followed up the line of her form and his artistic sense told him that it +was lovely. Under her coarse bodice the breast gently swelled with her +breath, her eyes were downcast, and there was an appealing charm about +her that a young man in need of love could not gainsay. Pity for her had +been growing long in Fairfax--since the first day he saw her in the +coffee house, since the time when he had decided to go elsewhere for his +meals. + +She stopped at the foot of the avenue and said something was beautiful, +and he looked up. The marble figure of an angel on a grey pedestal rose +at the gate, a colossal figure in snowy marble, with folded wings and +one uplifted hand. There was a solemn majesty in the creation, a fine, +noble, holy majesty, and the sculptor halted before it so long, his face +grave and his eyes absorbed, that when Molly sighed, he started. Along +the base ran the words-- + +"_Why seek ye the living among the dead?_" + +"Come," he said brusquely to his companion; "come. This is no place for +us." And he hurried her out of the grounds. + +On the way home his silence was not flattering to his companion, who was +too meek to be offended. Already the pleasure of being by his side was +well-nigh too much for her swelling heart to bear. The lengthening +twilight filled Nut Street as they turned into it, and very nearly every +member of the little working colony was out of doors, including the +Sheedys and the new tenants of Sanders' old room. Walking alongside of +Molly Shannon, Fairfax understood what his promenade would mean. He +glanced at his companion and saw her colour, and she raised her head +with a dignity that touched him, and as they passed the Sheedys he said +"Good-evening" in his pleasant Southern voice, lifting his hat as though +they had been of his own kind. He drew the Irish girl's arm within his +own. + +For Molly, she walked a gamut of misery, and the sudden realization of +the solemnity of the thing he was doing made the young man's heart beat +heavily. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +He had been gone from home more than a year, his mother wrote. "One +cannot expect to carve a career in twelve months' time, Tony, and yet I +am so impatient for you, my darling, I am certain you have gone far and +have splendid things to show me. Are you sure that Albany is the place +for you? Would it not have been better to have stayed on with +Cedersholm? When will you run down to your old mother, dearest? I long +for the sound of your footstep, the dear broken footstep, Tony...." Then +she went on to say not to mind her foolishness, not to think of her as +mourning, but to continue with his beautiful things. She had not been +very well of late--a touch of fever, she reckoned: Emmeline took the +best of care of her. She was better. + +He let the pages fall, reading them hastily, eagerly, approaching in his +thought of her everything he had longed to be, had yearned to be, might +have been, and the letter with its elegant fine writing and the +fluttering thin sheets rustled ghost-like in his hand. As he turned the +pages a leaf of jasmine she had put between the sheets fell unseen to +the floor. + +He would go to New Orleans at once: he would throw himself at his +mother's knees and tell her his failures, his temptations, his griefs: +he would get a transfer to some Southern train, he would steal a ride, +but he would go. His mother's pride would suffer when she saw what he +had become, but he was not bringing her home a shameful story. She would +ask to see his beautiful creations--alas! even his ideals were buried +under grime and smoke, their voices drowned in whistles and bells! He +folded his arms across his breast, the last sheet of the long letter in +his hand, and again his room stifled him as it had done before when he +had flown out to walk with the Irish girl. The walls closed in upon him. +The ceiling seemed to confine him like a coffin lid, and the flickering +gas jet over his bureau burned pale like a burial candle.... + +He groaned, started forward to the door as though he would begin his +journey home immediately, but like many a wanderer who starts on his +voyage home and finds the old landmarks displaced, before Fairfax could +take the first step forward, his course was for ever changed.... He had +not heard Molly's knock at the door. The girl came in timidly, holding +out a telegram; she brought it as she had brought the other, without +comment, but with the Irish presentiment of ill, she remained waiting +silently, knowing in her humble breast that she was all he had. + +Fairfax opened the despatch, held it transfixed, gave a cry and said to +Molly, staring her wildly in the eyes: "My mother, my mother!" and went +and fell on his knees by his bed and flung his arms across it as though +across a beloved form. He shook, agonized for a few moments, then sprang +up and stared at the desertion before him, the tears salt on his face +and his heart of steel broken. And the girl by the door, where she had +clung like a leaf blown there by a wind of grief, came up to him. He +felt her take his arm between her hands, he felt her close to him. + +"It cuts the heart o' me to see ye. It's like death to see ye. Is it +your mother gone? The dear mother ye must be like? God knows there's no +comfort for that kind, but," she breathed devotedly, "I'd give the life +o' me to comfort ye." + +He hardly heard her, but her presence was all he had. Her human +companionship was all that was left him in the world. He put his hand on +her shoulder and said brokenly-- + +"You don't know what this means. It is the end of me, the end. To think +I shall never see her again! Oh, _Mother_!" he cried, and threw up his +arms. The loving woman put hers about him as the gesture left him shorn +of his strength, and when his arms fell they were around her. He held +her for a moment as a drowning man holds to that which is flung out to +him to save his life; then he pushed her from him. "Let me get out of +this. I must get out of the room." + +"You'll not do anything to yourself? Ah, tell me that." + +He snatched up his hat and fled from her without reply. + +He wandered like a madman all night long. Whither he did not know or +care. He was walking down his anguish, burying his new grief deep, deep. +His nails clenched into his palms, the tears ran over his face. One by +one as the pictures of his mother came to him, imperious, graceful, +enchanting, one by one he blessed them, worshipped before them until the +curtain fell at the end--he could not picture that. Had she called for +him in vain? Had she watched the open door to see him enter? In God's +name why hadn't they sent for him? "Suddenly of heart disease ..." the +morning of this very day--this very day. And on he tramped, +unconsciously going in the direction he had taken that morning, and at a +late hour found himself without the gates of the cemetery where he and +Molly Shannon had spent the late afternoon. The iron gates were closed; +within stretched the shining rows of the houses and palaces of the dead, +and on their snowy portals and their marble doors fell the first tender +glimmer of the day. Holding the gate between his convulsive hands, +staring in as though he begged an entrance as a lodger, Fairfax saw rise +before him the angel with the benign uplifting hand, and the lettering, +large and clear, seemed written that day for him as much as for any +man-- + +"_Why seek ye the living among the dead?_" + +He raised his eyes to the angel face on whose brow and lips the light of +his visions had gathered for him that morning; and as he looked the +angelic figure brightened in the dawn; and after a few moments in which +he remained blotted against the rails like an aspirant at Heaven's gate, +he turned and more quietly took his way home. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +He did not go South. There was nothing for him to go for. The idea of +his home uninhabited by her made him a coward. Emmeline sent him her +thimble, her lace collar, her wedding ring and a lock of her hair, +shining still and without a touch of grey. The packet, wrapped up in +soft paper and folded by jasmine leaves and buds, whose withered petals +were like a faded dress, Fairfax put away in his trunk and did not +untie; he did not wish to open his wound. And his face, thinner from his +illness and his loss, looked ten years older. The early happy ecstasy of +youth was gone, and a bitter, mature recklessness took its place, and +there was no hand to soothe him but Molly's, and she had gone back to +Troy. He tried what ways were open to a man of his age and the class he +had adopted, and he turned for distraction and relief and consolation to +their doors. But at those portals, at the threshold of the houses where +other men went in, he stopped. If his angel had deserted him, at any +rate the beast had not taken its place. The vast solitude and the cruel +loneliness, the isolation from his kind, made him an outcast too +wretched not to cry for help and too clean to wallow in order to forget +his state. His work saved his health and his brain. He made a model of +an engine in plaster and went mad over it; he set it on a shelf in his +room and when in June he drove his own engine and was an engineer on the +New York Central, he knew his locomotive, body and soul and parts, as no +other mechanic in the Company knew it. His chiefs were conscious of his +skill and intelligence. There were jealousies and enmities, and instead +of driving the express as he had hoped, he was delegated to a local on a +branch line, with an Italian for fireman who could not speak a word of +any but his own language. + +"You speak Italian, don't you, Fairfax?" his boss at the office asked +him. + +("Cielo azuro ... Giornata splendida...!") and he smelt the wet clay. + +"I can _point_," laughed the engineer, "in _any_ language! and I reckon +I'll get on with Falutini." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The boss was a Massachusetts man and new to Nut Street, and Fairfax, +when he took the paper with his orders from Rainsford's hand, saw for +the first time in months a man of his own class, sitting in the +revolving chair before the desk where his papers and schedules and +ledgers were filed. The man's clothes were too thin for the season, his +linen was old and his appearance meagre, and in his face with its sunken +cheeks, the drooping of the eyes and the thinness of the brow, were the +marks of the sea of life and its waste, and the scars of the storm. A +year ago Fairfax would have passed Rainsford by as a rather +pitiful-looking man of middle age. + +The boss, his thin hand opening and shutting over a small book which +looked like a daily ledger, regarded the engineer in his red shirt as +Fairfax paused. + +"Irish, I expect? Your name, Fairfax, is Irish. I understand you've had +a hard blow this year, been sick and lost your mother." + +At the quiet statement of this sacred fact Fairfax started painfully, +his face flushed. + +"He would not have spoken to me like that," he thought, "if he had not +imagined me a working man." + +"Work is the best friend a young man can have," Rainsford went on; "it +is a great safeguard. I take it that you are about thirty?" + +"Twenty-three," said Fairfax, shortly. + +His report was brief. Just then his fireman came in, a black-haired, +tall young fellow with whom Fairfax knew he should never sing "Mia +Maddelena." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +He avoided Rainsford, gave himself up to his engine and his train, and +took a dislike to his black-headed fireman, who dared to be Italian and +to recall the aurora of days he had buried fathoms deep. The heat +pouring on him in summer time made him suffer physically. He rather +welcomed the discomfort; his skin grew hardened and tanned and oiled and +grimed, and his whole body strong and supple; and his devotion to his +work, the air that filled him as he flew, made him the perfect, splendid +animal that he was. + +At night, when the darkness blotted out the steel rails, and the breeze +blowing through the car-window fluttered his sleeve till it bellied, and +the cinders, red and biting, whirled by, and on either side the country +lay dark and fragrant with its summery wealth--at night his eyes, fixed +on the track under the searchlight, showed him more than once a way to +end his unhappy life, but his confused reveries and his battle, +spiritual and physical, helped him, and he came out of it with a love +for life and a stronger hold upon it each time than the last. He gave up +wearing his Sunday clothes, he went as the others did; he had not been +for months to Albany or to Troy. + +One Sunday in midsummer his local did not run on the seventh day. He +considered his own image in the glass over his bureau and communed with +his reflection. The result of his musings was that he opened his trunk +and took out the precious packet; started to unfold it, turned it over +in his uncertain hands, thrust it back, set his teeth and went out to +the junction and took the train for Troy. + +He found her in the boarding-house where she was passing her Sunday, +rocking the landlady's teething baby. He bade her to come as she was, +not to fix up. The idea of a toilet which would end in a horrible frock +rasped his nerves. She detected a great change in him, simple-minded +though she was, and she tried to get him to talk and failed. Down at the +Erie Canal, by the moored boats and the motionless water, he seized her +arm and facing her, said, his lips working-- + +"I have come to ask you to marry me, Molly." + +She grew as white as the drying linen on the windless air, as the family +wash hung on the canal boat lines behind her. Her grey eyes opened wide +on Antony. + +"I'm making a good living: too much for me alone." + +He saw her try to find her voice and her senses, and with something of +his old radiance, he said-- + +"I'm a brute. I reckon I don't know how to make love. I've startled +you." + +"Ah, shure, ye don't know what ye're saying," she whispered; "the likes +o' me ain't good enough." + +"Hush, hush," he answered, "don't say foolish things." + +She gasped and shook her head. "Ye shouldn't tempt me so. It's crool. Ye +shouldn't tempt me so." + +With a self-abandonment and a humility which he never afterward forgot, +as her life and colour came back Molly said under her breath-- + +"Take me as I am, shure, if I'm the least bit of good to ye. I love ye +enough for both." + +He exclaimed and kissed her. + +Dreams of women! Visions of the ecstasy of first love, ideals and +aspirations, palpitating, holy, the young man's impassioned dream of The +Woman, the Only Woman, the notion and conception that the man of nature +and of talent and of keen imagination sleeps upon and follows and seeks +and seeks and follows all his life, from boyhood to the grave--where +were they then? + +He had brushed his aunt's cheek, he had touched her hand and trembled; +now he kissed fresh young lips that had yearned for his, and he gave his +first embrace to woman, put his arms round Molly Shannon and her young +body filled them. As she had said, she had love enough for both. He felt +a great gratitude to her, a relaxation of his tense senses, a melting of +his heart, and his tenderness was deep for her when his next kiss met +her tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +He returned to Nut Street dazed, excited but less sentimentally +miserable and more profoundly touched. He had made himself a mechanical +career; he had assumed the responsibilities of a man. He might have been +a miserable failure as a sculptor, perhaps he would be a good mechanic. +Who knows where any flight will carry a man? Making his life, married +and founding a home, he would be a factor in the world's progress, and a +self-supporting citizen. He tried to fire himself with this sacrifice. +At any rate, in order to save his body he had lost his soul--that is, +his spiritual soul. "Is not the life more than the meat?" In the +recesses of his artist's mind a voice which he had strangled tried to +tell him that he had done his soul a great, great wrong. Nevertheless, a +solemn feeling of responsibility and of manhood came upon him, a grave +quiet strength was his, and as he journeyed back to his lodgings, he did +not then regret. + +Mrs. Kenny and her husband and the children were in the kitchen as he +passed and the landlady called out something, but he did not hear for he +was half-way upstairs. As he opened the door and went into his room he +saw some one was standing by the window--no, leaning far out of the +window, very far; a small figure in a black dress. + +"Bella!" he cried. + +She flashed about, rushed at him, and for the first time since "Going to +Siberia" he felt the entwining arms. He suffered the dashing embrace, +then, freeing himself, saw her hair dark under her black hat, and that +she had grown in eighteen months, and he heard-- + +"Oh, Cousin Antony, how long you have been coming home! I have been +waiting for your engine to come under the window, but I didn't see you. +How did you get here without my seeing you?" + +If the sky had opened and shown him the vision of his own mother he +could not have been more overwhelmed with surprise. + +"Where did you come from, Bella? Who is with you?" + +She took her hat off, dropped it easily on the floor, and he saw that +her hair was braided in a great braid. She sat on the ledge of the open +window and swung her feet. Her skirts had been lengthened, but she was +still a little girl. The charming affectionate eyes beamed on him. + +"But you are like anybody else, Cousin Antony, to-day. When I saw you in +your flannel shirt I thought you were a fireman." + +At the remembrance of when she had seen him, a look of distress crossed +her mobile face. She burst out crying, sprang up and ran to him. + +"Oh, Cousin Antony, I want him so, my little brother, my little +playmate." + +He soothed her, made her sit on his bed and dried her tears, as he had +dried them when she had cried over the blackbird. + +"Who is with you, honey? Who brought you here?" + +As though she had stored up all her sorrow, as though she had waited +with a child's loyal tenderness for this moment, she wound her arms +around Fairfax's neck and brought her face close to his cheek. + +"I miss him perfectly dreadfully, Cousin Antony. Nobody took care of him +much but me. Now father is broken-hearted. You loved him, didn't you? He +perfectly worshipped you." + +"There, Bella, you choke me, honey. I can't breathe. Now tell me who let +you come. Is Aunt Caroline here?" + +She had no intention of answering him, and wiped her eyes briskly on the +handkerchief that he gave her. + +"Tobacco," she sniffed, "your handkerchief has got little wisps of +tobacco on it. I think it is perfectly splendid to be an engineer! I +wouldn't have thought so though, if I hadn't seen you in the flannel +shirt. Wouldn't you rather be a _genius_ as you used to think? Don't +you make casts any more? Isn't it _sweet_ in your little room, and +aren't the tracks mixing? How do you ever know which ones to go on, +Cousin Antony? And _which_ is your engine? Take me down to see it. How +Gardiner would have loved to ride!" + +She was a startling combination of child and woman. Her slenderness, her +grace, her tender words, the easy flow of speech, the choice of words +caught and remembered from the varied books she devoured, her ardour and +her rare brilliant little face, all made her an unusual companion. + +"Now answer me," he ordered, "who came with you to Albany?" + +"No one, Cousin Antony." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I came alone." + +"From New York? You're crazy, Bella!" + +She sat up with spirit, brought her heavy braid around over her shoulder +and fastened the black ribbon securely. + +"I lose my hair ribbons like anything," she said. "Why, I've done things +alone for years, Cousin Antony. I've been all over New York matching +things. I used to buy all Gardiner's things alone and have them charged. +I know my way. I'm going on fourteen. You dropped your telegram, the one +Miss Mitty sent you, when you rushed out that night. I found it on the +stairs." She fished it out of her pocket. "Mr. Antony Fairfax, 42, Nut +Street, West Albany. I had to watch for a good chance to come, and when +I got to Forty-second Street I just took a ticket for West Albany, and +no one ever asked me my name or address, and the people in the cars gave +me candy and oranges. At the station down here I asked the ticket man +where Nut Street was, and he said: 'Right over those tracks, young +lady,' and laughed at me. Downstairs the woman gave me a glass of +milk--and aren't the children too sweet, Cousin Antony, with so many +freckles? And doesn't she speak with a brogue just like old Ann's?" + +"This is the wildest thing I ever heard of," said her cousin. "I must +telegraph your mother and take you home at once." + +She gasped. "Oh, you wouldn't do that? I'm not going home. I have run +away for good." + +"Don't be a goose, little cousin." + +"I hate home," she said hotly, "it's lonely, and I miss my little +brother. They won't let me go to school, and mother takes lessons from +an opera singer, and there is no quiet place to read. I never go to the +Top Floor where we used to play." She clung to his hand. "Let me stay, +Cousin Antony," she pleaded, "I want to live with you." + +She coloured furiously and stopped. And Fairfax saw that she was like +his mother, and that the promises were fulfilled. Her low collar, edged +with fine lace, fell away from the pure young throat. Her mouth, piquant +and soft, half-coaxing and half-humorous, and her glorious eyes fast +losing the look of childhood, were becoming mysterious. + +"You are too big a girl," he said sternly, "to talk such nonsense. You +are too old to be so silly, Bella. Why, your people must be insane with +anxiety." + +But her people, as it turned out, were at Long Branch for the summer, +and Bella, presumably to go to the dentist, had come up to stay for a +day or two with the little Whitcomb ladies. She had chosen her time +well. + +"No one knows where I am. The Whitcombs don't know I am coming to New +York, and the family think I am with Miss Eulalie and Miss Mitty." + +"There is a train to New York," he said, "in half an hour." + +"Oh," she cried, "Cousin Antony, how horrid! You've changed perfectly +dreadfully. I see it now. You used to be fond of me. I thought you were +fond of me. I don't want to force myself on you, Cousin Antony." + +Fairfax was amazed, charmed and bewildered by her. What did Mrs. Kenny +think? He opened the door and called her, and said over his shoulder to +Bella-- + +"What did you tell the woman downstairs?" + +Bella picked her hat up from the floor and wound the elastic around her +fingers. Her face clouded. + +"Tell me," Antony urged, "what did you say to Mrs. Kenny?" He saw her +embarrassment, and repeated seriously: "For heaven's sake, Bella, tell +me." + +"No," she whispered, "I can't." + +He shrugged in despair. "Come, it can't be anything very dreadful. I've +got to know, you see." + +The bell of the Catholic Church tolled out eight o'clock. + +"Come, little cousin." + +Half-defiantly and half-shamefacedly, she raised her eyes. + +"It's rather hard to tell you," she stammered, "you seem to be so mad at +me." She put a brave face on it. "I just told them that I was engaged to +you and that I had come to marry you." And she stood her ground, her +little head held up. + +Fairfax stifled a shout, but was obliged to laugh gently. + +"Why, Bella, you are the most ridiculous little cousin in the world. You +have read too much. Now, please don't cry, Bella." + +He flung the door open and called: "Mrs. Kenny, Mrs. Kenny! Will you +come up-stairs?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Those five hours were short to him travelling back to New York. Bella +talked to Fairfax until she was completely talked out. Leaning on him, +pouring out her childish confidences, telling him things, asking him +things, until his heart yearned over her, and he stored away the tones +of her sweet gay voice, exquisite with pathos when she spoke of +Gardiner, and naively tender when she said-- + +"Cousin Antony, I love you better than any one else. Why can't I stay +with you and be happy? I want to work for my living too. I could be a +factory girl." + +_A factory girl!_ + +Then she fell asleep, her head on his shoulder, and was hardly awake +when they reached Miss Mitty's house and the cab stopped. + +He said, "Bella, we are home." + +She did not answer, and, big girl as she was, he carried her in asleep. + +"I wish you could make her believe it's all a dream," he said to the +Whitcombs. "I don't want the Carews to know about it. It would be far +better if she could be induced to keep the secret." + +"I am afraid you can't make Bella believe anything unless she likes, Mr. +Antony." + +No one had missed her. From the Long Branch boat she had gone directly +to the Forty-second Street station, and started bravely away on her +sentimental journey. + +The little ladies induced him to eat what they could prepare for him, +and he hurried away. He was obliged to take his train out at nine Monday +morning. + +He bade them look after bold Bella and teach her reason, and before he +left he went in and looked at the little girl lying with her face on +her hand, the stains of tears and travel on her face. + +"I told her that I had come to marry you, Cousin Antony...." + +"Little cousin! Honey child!" + +His heart was tender to his discarded little love. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Bella Carew's visit did disastrous work for Fairfax. The day following +he was like a dead man at his engine, mechanically fulfilling his +duties, his eyes blood-shot, his face worn and desperate. The fireman +Falutini bore Fairfax's rudeness with astonishing patience. Their run +was from nine until four, with a couple of hours lying off at Fonda, and +back again to Albany along in the night. + +The fatality of what he had been doing appeared to Antony Fairfax in its +full magnitude. He had cut himself off from his class, from his kind for +ever. Bella Carew, baby though she was, exquisite, refined, brilliant, +what a woman she would be! At sixteen she would be a woman, at eighteen +any chap, who had the luck and the fortune, could marry her. She would +be the kind of woman that a man would climb for, achieve for, go mad +for. As far as he was concerned, he had made his choice. He was engaged +to be married to an Irish factory girl, and her words came back to him-- + +"If I'm any good, take me as I am. You couldn't marry the likes o' me." + +Why had he ever been such a short-sighted Puritan, so little of a +worldling as to entangle himself in marriage? More terribly the sense of +his lost art had come in with the little figure he had admitted. + +When he flung himself into his room Monday morning his brain was beyond +his usual control, it worked like magic, and one by one they passed +before him, the tauntingly beautiful aerial figures of his visions, the +angelic forms of his ideals, and if under his hands there had been any +tools he would have fallen upon them and upon the clay like a famished +man on bread. He threw himself down on his lonely bed in his room +through which magic had passed, and slept heavily until Mrs. Kenny +pounded on the door and roused him an hour before his train. + + * * * * * + +At Fonda, in the shed, he climbed stiffly from his cab, his head aching, +his eyes drunk with sleep. All there was of brute in him was rampant, +and anything that came in his way would have to bear the brunt of his +unbalanced spleen. + +Falutini, a great bunch of rags in his hand, was at the side of the +engine, wiping the brass and softly humming. Fairfax heard it-- + + "Azuro puro, + Cielo azuro, + Mia Maddalena..." + +"Stop that infernal bellow," he said, "will you?" + +The Italian lifted himself upright and responded in his own tongue-- + +"I work, I slave, I endure. Now I may not sing? Macche," he cried +defiantly, "I will sing, I will." + +He threw his chest out, his black eyes on Tony's cross blue ones. He +burst out carolling-- + +"Ah Mia Maddalena." + +Fairfax struck his face; the Italian sprang at him like a cat. Falutini +was as tall as Fairfax, more agile and with a hard head. However, with +one big blow, Fairfax sent him whirling, and as he struck and felt the +flesh and blood he discovered how glorious a thing a fight is, how nerve +relaxing, and he received the other's assault with a kind of ecstasy. +They were not unequally matched. Falutini's skin and muscles were like +toughened velvet; he was the cock of his village, a first-rate boxer; +and Tony's muscles were of iron, but Fairfax was mad and gloomy, and the +Italian was desperate and disgusted, and he made the better show. + +A few men lounged in and one called out: "You darned cusses are due to +start in ten minutes." + +Fairfax just then had his arm round the Italian's neck, the close +cropped head came under his chin, and as Fairfax panted and as he smelt +the garlic that at first had nauseated him in his companion, he was +about to lay his man when the same voice that called before, yelled in +horror-- + +"Look out, for God's sake, Fairfax, he's got a knife." + +At the word, Fairfax gave a wrench, caught his companion's right hand +with his left and twisted the wrist, and before he knew how he had +accomplished it, he had flung the man and knife from him. The knife hit +Number Twenty-four and rattled and the fireman fell in a lump on the +ground. Fairfax stood over him. + +"What a mean lout you are," he said in the jargon he had learned to +speak, "what a mean pup. Now you get up, Tito, and clear out." + +The fellow rose with difficulty, white, trembling, punched a little +about the face, and breathing like a saw-mill. Some one handed the knife +to Fairfax. + +"It never was made in America. It's a deadly weapon. Ugh, you onion!" + +The Italian wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shirt sleeve and +spat out on the floor. + +Fairfax felt better than he had felt for years. He went back to his +engine. + +"Get up, Tito," he commanded his fireman; "you get in quickly or I'll +help you up. Give me the oil can, will you?" he said. And Tito, +trembling, his teeth dry between his lips, obeyed. + +Fairfax extended his hand, meeting his companion's eyes for the first +time, and said frankly-- + +"My fault. No hard feeling, Tito. Bene benissimo." + +He smiled and slapped the Italian on the back almost affectionately. +Tito saw that radiant light for the first time--the light smile. The old +gentleman had said a man could win the world with an expression like +that upon his face. + +"Keep your knife, Falutini; cut up garlic with it: don't use it on me, +amico--partner." + +They went to work without a word further on the part of either, and +Number Twenty-four slipped out on to the switch and was wedded to the +local on the main line. + +Fairfax was relieved in mind, and the morbid horror of his crisis had +been beaten and shaken out. + +"What brutes we are," he thought, "what brutes and animals. It is a +wonder that any spirit can grow its wings at any time." + +He drew up into a station and stopped, and, leaning out of his window, +watched the passengers board the train. Pluff, pluff, pant, pant. The +steal and flow and glide, the run and the motion that his hand on the +throttle controlled and regulated, became oftentimes musical to him, and +when he was morose he would not let the glide and the roll run to +familiar melodies in his head, above all, no Southern melodies. "Tramp, +tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," that was the favourite with Number +Twenty-four. He had used to whistle it as he modelled in his room in New +Orleans, where the vines grew around his window and Maris made molasses +cake and brought it up hot when the syrup was thick on the side, and +downstairs a voice would call, "Emmeline, oh, Emmeline." That sacred +voice...! When Number Twenty-four was doing her thirty miles an hour, +that was the maximum speed of the local, her wheels were inclined to +sing-- + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton, + Among thy green braes: + Flow gently, I'll sing thee + A song in thy praise. + My Mary's asleep + By thy murmuring stream, + Flow gently, sweet Afton, + Disturb not her dream." + +And little Gardiner leaned hard against his arm and Bella ran upstairs +to escape the music because she did not like to cry, and his aunt's +dove-like eyes reproached him for his brutal flight. He would not hear +any ballads; but to-night, no sooner had he rolled out again into the +open country than he began to hum unconsciously the first tune the +wheels suggested. They were between the harvest fields and in the +moonlight lay the grain left by the reapers. + + "Cielo azuro + Giornata splendida, + Mia Maddalena." + +Fairfax laughed when he recognized it. He glanced over at Falutini who +was leaning out of his window dejectedly. At the next station, whilst +the engine let off steam, Fairfax called to his fireman, and the man, as +he turned his face to his chief, looked more miserably homesick than +revengeful. + +"_I_ used to know a chap from Italy!" Fairfax said in his halting +Italian, "a molto bravo diavolo. Shake her down, Tito, and brace her up +a little, will you?" + +The fireman bent to the furnace, its blast red on his face; from under +the belly of the engine the sparks sang as they fell into the water +gutter along the track. + +"My chap was a marble cutter from Carrara." + +Tito banged the door of the furnace. "_I_ too am from Carrara." + +"Good!" cried Fairfax, "good enough." And to himself he said: "I'll be +darned if I ever knew Benvenuto Cellini's real name!" + +"Carrara," continued his companion, "is small. He may have been a +cousin. What was his name?" + +"Benvenuto Cellini," replied Tony, easily, and rang his bell. + +Once more they rolled out into the night. As they drove through the +country Fairfax saw the early moonlight lie along the tracks, sifting +from the heavens like a luminous snow. No breeze stirred and over the +grain fields the atmosphere hung hot and heavy, and they rushed through +a sea of heat and wheat and harvest smells. The wind of their going made +a stir, and as Fairfax peered out from his window his head was blown +upon by the wind of the speed. + +Falutini from his side of the cab said, "Benvenuto Cellini. That is not +a Carrara man, no, no." + +"I never knew him by any other name," said the engineer. "I like +Italians." He threw this cheerfully over his shoulder at his inferior. + +There was a childlike and confiding smile on the Italian's face; brutal +as all Italian peasants are, brutal but kindly and unsuspicious as a +child, ready to love and ready to hate. + +"Only you mustn't use your knife; it's not well thought of in America. +You'll get sent to gaol." + +The Limited whistled from around a curve, came roaring toward them, tore +past them, cutting the air, and Fairfax's local plugged along when the +mile-a-minute left them. Tony was conscious that as he hummed the sound +grew full and louder; he was accompanied by a voice more assured than +his own, and in melodious fraternity the two men sang together. So they +took their train in. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +The Kennys did not know what had happened to Misther Fairfax. He sang on +the stairs now and again as he had done when he first came to Nut +Street. He bought the children sweet Jackson balls and the baby nearly +died from "wan in its troat," and his mother picked him up by his socks +and rattled the sticky sweet out of the child's larynx, and the cat +finished it. + +Tony's foreman was asked in to have supper and a late cup of coffee, and +Miss Cora Kenny, whom "Pop" had sent to the Troy convent the first week +of Antony's appearance in the Gents' Boarding and Lodging House, came +home for a Catholic holiday, and she helped her mother. They made +macaroni for Tito Falutini--"high Falutini," as Mrs. Kenny called him. +The name stuck, and the macaroni stuck as well, fast to the plate; but +the Italian, in bashful gratitude, his eyes suffused with smoke and +tears, ate gratefully, gesticulating his satisfaction, and Cora Kenny +studied him from the stove where she slaved to tempt the appetites of +Fairfax and his friend. + +Fairfax was proud of Falutini: he was not an ordinary acquaintance; he +sang after supper, standing stiffly in a corner of the kitchen, his red +shirt well opened at the throat, and his moustache like black velvet +above his red lips. + +"He sings betther than the theayter, Misther Fairfax," Mr. Kenny said; +"it makes yer eyes thrick ye," and blew his nose, and Cora asked the +singer softly if he could give them "When the band begins to play," or +"Gallagher's Daughter Belle." Tito smiled hopefully, and when Fairfax +laughingly translated, assured Cora Kenny by means of Fairfax again, +that if determination could make a man learn a foreign song, he would +sing her "Gallagher's Daughter Belle" next Saturday night. + +"Ah," she breathed, "she'd not be home then!" + +"No," said Kenny, who was a lazy husband but a remarkable father, "that +she _wud_ not!" + +The Italian fireman and the Irish lodging-house keeper's daughter gazed +in each other's eyes. "Gallagher's Daughter Belle" ... dum ... dum ... +Fairfax hummed it, he knew it. Kenny's daughter Cora--_that_ would be +more to the point: and he thought of Molly. He had not seen her since he +had kissed her a fortnight before. Cora said she had never been bold +before, had never let herself think how jealous she was, but to-night +Mr. Tito High-Falutini's eyes made her a new woman. Cora said to her +mother over her shoulder-- + +"Shure, Molly Shannon's the onlucky gurl." + +"How's that, Cora?" + +"Lost her job." + +"No!" exclaimed Mrs. Kenny, sympathetically, "and with what doin'?" + +Shure, the foreman's daughter was a chum with Cora. The boss had made +the girl prisents of collars, and it seemed, so Bridget said--Cora with +exquisite subtlety dropped her voice, and after a second Mrs. Kenny +exclaimed-- + +"Cora, you're a bad gurl to hark to such goings on, much less belave +thim," and pushed her daughter back and brought out herself the crowning +delicacy of the feast, a dish that needed no foreign help to compose, +steaming praties cooked in their shimmies, as she expressed it. Cora sat +down by High-Falutini, Mrs. Kenny went into the next room to her +littlest children, and Kenny lit a fresh pipe, held the bowl in his +hand, and opposite his distractingly pretty little daughter kept a +thoughtful eye upon the pair. And Fairfax went upstairs two steps at a +time. + + * * * * * + +It was after eleven, dense and hot, but he had gone up eagerly. Of late, +whenever he had a few spare moments he took them, and all Sundays he +remained in his room. There was an odour in the apartment, one that +persistently rose above the tenement smells, a damp, moist, earthy +perfume, to Fairfax delicious beyond words. Mosquitoes were rampant, +but he had been brought up in a mosquito-ridden country, and he had +rigged a bit of muslin across his window, and burned Mrs. Kenny's gas +with heartless inconsideration. + +On a small wooden stool stood something covered with cloths damped night +and morning by Fairfax, and during the day by Matty Kenny, a +public-school girl of twelve years of age, a pretty, half-witted little +creature, whom of all Nut Street Fairfax liked and whom he blindly +trusted. Between school hours the little girl ran up and patted with a +sponge the mysterious image in Misther Fairfax's hall room. Tell? Ah, +shure, Misther Fairfax, cross her heart and hope to die but she'd not. +As her duties consisted in tidying Antony's room, her visits were not +remarked. Now Antony lifted off the first cloth; he drew out the stool +under the light, flung off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, loosened his +cravat, got from his drawer a small spatular instrument, and looking at +his unveiled work, meditatively wiped the dried clay from his tool. Then +he drew off the last bit of cheesecloth, uncovering a statuette modelled +in clay with great delicacy and great assurance. The gaslight fell +yellow on it and the little statue seemed to swim, to oscillate and +illumine. It was the figure of a little girl, her hair loose around her +face, holding to her cheek a dead blackbird. The art of the work was its +great sincerity, the calm, assured modelling, the tender truthfulness; +the form of the child, her dress, even her strapped shoes were only +indicated, nevertheless it was a perfect bit of realism, though crude. +But the head, the attitude, the cheek and the face, the little caressing +enfolding hands, were Greek in their perfect execution. + +A flush rose on the young man's face, his eyes brightened, he gave a +soft touch here and there with the little instrument, but he had done +all he could to this creation. It was only in perishable clay, it must +crumble and dry; how could he perpetuate it? He thought of having it +cast in terra-cotta, but how and where? The figure vacillated in the +gaslight, and taunted him with its perishability, its evanescence, +frail, transient as childhood is transient. "Bella," he mused before it, +"little cousin." His right hand had not quite lost its cunning, then? +He could construct and direct a locomotive, but he had not lost all his +skill. For what the statue proved to him, for its evidence of his living +art and his talent, he loved it, he turned it and viewed it on all +sides, whistling softly under his breath, not morbid about his tunes +now. + +Tito High-Falutini pushed the door open. "Goin' home, Tony, la Signora +Kenni has turned me out." + +Fairfax pointed to his statue. "Look. If we were in Carrara somebody +would lend me a quarry or I would steal one, and turn little Bella into +a snow image." He spoke in English, entirely uncomprehended by his +companion. He put his hand on Tito's arm. + +"Did you do that, Tony? It is valuable. In Italy we make terra-cotta +figures like that and sell them." + +"Do you think, Tito," his companion replied, "that I would sell little +Bella for a few lire, you commercial traveller?" + +Tito was acquainted with the Italian quarter, he would find some one who +baked in terra-cotta. They had brought their trades with them. Tony +could do others: a Savoyard with a hand-organ, those things were very +gentile, very brave indeed, and money, said Tito, gloating, money,--why +that would cost a dollar at least. + +Fairfax covered up the clay and pushed the stool back in its corner. + +"You can make a fool of yourself, too," he said good-humouredly, and +pushed Falutini out. "Go home and dream of Kenny's daughter Cora, and +don't forget to buy a can of crude oil and order a half dozen of those +cock-screws. Good-night." He banged the door. + +He undressed, still softly whistling, unpinned the curtain from the +window, and what there was of heat and freshness came into the room with +the mosquitoes that had huddled at the glass and the sill. He had heard +Cora Kenny's information: Molly had lost her place because she would not +do what the boss wanted. They always wanted one thing in the collar +factories. The boss was a beast. He heaved a deep sigh. He had not been +lonely the last fortnight, his work had absorbed him. There was no way +for him to go on with it, he had no time, nor means. It had brought him +near to his people, to his mother, to his kinsmen, to the child who had +died, to the one that remained. But he knew his loneliness would return, +his need of companionship, of expression and life, and he was too +healthy, too strong to be nourished by his sentimental thought of the +child-woman or to live on the sale of terra-cotta statues. He cradled +his young head with its fair hair on his arm and fell asleep, and over +the yards the harvest moon rose yellow and shone through the small +window and on Antony. He might have been a boy asleep at school, his +face looked so young and so unstained, and the same light shone on the +angel of the resurrection at the gate of the rural cemetery, on +Gardiner's little grave in Woodlawn, and on his mother's grave in New +Orleans, where the brick walls keep the coffins high above the +Mississippi's tide and silt. + +The moonlight could not penetrate to the corner where, under the damp +cloths, Bella wept over the blackbird pressed against her cheek. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Fairfax expected to find a melancholy, wet-eyed little creature with a +hard-luck story when he went to Troy, and although he knew that Molly +would never reproach him, he knew as well that he had treated her very +badly. From the day he had asked her to become Mrs. Antony Fairfax, and +heard Cora Kenny's news, he had not been near his sweetheart. His +sweetheart! Since he had read "The Idylls of the King" in his boyhood, +no woman had seemed too high or too fine for him: he had been Lancelot +to Guinevere, the Knight to the Lady: Molly Shannon had not been in any +romance he had ever read. + +He found her sitting among her lodging-house keeper's children in a room +tidied by her own hands. During her leisure, she had made herself a pink +gingham dress with small white rosebuds on it, and around her neck a low +white collar she had pinned with a tortoise-shell brooch. Her dress was +the simplest Fairfax had ever seen her wear. It was cool and plain, and +the Irish girl's milk-white skin, her auburn hair, her eyes with the +black flecks in them, her young round breast, her bare fore-arm, as she +rocked Patsy O'Brien, were charming, and her cry, as Fairfax came in, +and the hands she pressed to her heart were no less charming. + +She sprang up, her work fell to the floor: she stood deathly white and +trembling. Her emotion, her love, affected the young man very deeply. He +did not think of the obstacles between them, of her station, or of +anything as he came into Mrs. O'Brien's parlour-bedroom amongst her six +ubiquitous children and disturbed the cradle to get to Molly Shannon. He +thought of one fact only, that he had kissed her: how had he forgotten +the honey of it for a fortnight? Without so much as bidding her +good-morning, he repeated the ecstasy and kissed her. She had time to +grow faint and to regain her life in his arms, and under her happy +breath she whispered: "Ah, I must quiet Patsy. Ah, let me go, he'll hurt +his throat." And she bent, blooming and heart-breakingly happy, over the +cradle. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Kenny called him as he went past the door. "Shure," she said, "I've +got bad news for ye, Misther Fairfax, dear." + +He stopped on the threshold. "There is only one death on the earth that +could give me any pain, Mrs. Kenny. I reckon it's----" + +"It's not death then," she hastened, "shure it's a little thing, but +poor Matty's that crazy that the child has gone out to her aunty's and +wurra a bit will she come home." + +"Matty!" Fairfax exclaimed. + +"Shure, the moniment in your bedroom, Misther Fairfax." + +He flew upstairs. The corner inhabited for him by a fairy companion was +empty. The image of his talent, of his little love, of his heart's hope, +had disappeared. Mrs. Kenny did not follow him upstairs as one would +have supposed that she would do. He locked his door, the cloths lay in a +pile, damp and soggy. Why had they not left the fragments--the precious +morsels? His eyes filled with impotent, angry grief; he tore his table +drawer open and found the designs which he had made for the figure. The +sketches seemed crude and poor beside the finished work whose execution +had been inspired. This destruction unchained again his melancholy. He +was overwhelmed; the accident seemed like a brutal insistence of +Destiny, and he seemed bound to the coarse, hard existence to which he +had taken in desperation. With this destruction he saw as well the +wiping out of his life of Bella. + +Ah, at Troy that day he had done more than break a clay image of her. He +opened the door as if he would have called to Mrs. Kenny, then slammed +it, unable to speak from excitement, and a dogged look crossed his face. +The night was muggy, his throat burned with a sudden thirst, and he +exulted that it did so. On his empty room, empty to him for ever, for +the figure in the corner had disenchanted it of all its horrors for +fourteen happy days and nights, he looked once and then he fled. He +threw himself down the stairs and out into the late mid-summer night. + + * * * * * + +The coloured porter at the Delavan put him to bed at one o'clock in a +comfortable room. As the fellow's black face bent above him, Tony, who +saw it blur and waver before his intoxicated eyes, murmured-- + +"Emmy, Emmy, don't tell my mother, and wake me at seven, for I run out +at nine sharp." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +The paymaster, Peter Rainsford, had found little in West Albany to +excite the tepid interest he still retained in life, but Tony Fairfax, +the driver of Number Twenty-four, had attracted his attention. Each time +that Fairfax came to report Rainsford made a vain effort to engage him +in conversation. The agent wondered what the engine-driver's story was, +and having one of his own, hoped for Fairfax's sake that there was +anything but a class resemblance between them. + +Detained late this night at his desk, he pushed back his lamp to +contemplate Tito Falutini, who, his hat pressed against his red flannel +breast, his teeth sparkling, came in to report. Tito told a tale in a +jargon which only an etymologist could have sifted into words. + +"Well, what do you think has become of him?" Rainsford asked. + +The Italian gesticulated with his hat far and wide. + +"_You_ took the train to Fonda alone, without an engineer, Falutini? How +was it the fellows didn't stop you at Fonda? It doesn't seem possible." + +The official opened a ledger and ran his eye over the names. + +"I can put Steve Brodie on Number Twenty-four to-morrow morning. You +should have reported at once in West Albany, Falutini." + +The name of Steve Brodie was intelligible to Tito. "Nota io," he said, +"not a fire for any man, only Toni." + +Rainsford wrote a few moments in his ledger. "Want me to strike your +name right off the books now, Falutini? I've a good mind to do it +anyway. You should have reported at nine this morning." + +"Want to find Fairfax," said the Italian. + +The disappearance did not speak well for the young man in whom the boss +had taken an interest. + +"Has he paid up at Kenny's?" Rainsford asked hopelessly. + +Falutini did not understand. "Signora Kenni," informed the fireman, +"mutche cri, kids mutche cri, altro." Fairfax, the fellow made Rainsford +understand, had left his clothes and belongings. + +"Ah," Rainsford thought, "it looks worse than at first." + +"No," Falutini explained, "no fight." Then he broke forth into an +explanation from which Rainsford vainly tried to create some order. +Statues and terra-cotta figures mingled with an explanation of theft of +some property of Fairfax's and his flight in consequence. + +"I'll close up here in a quarter of an hour, and go over and see Mrs. +Kenny. Steve Brodie will take your engine, and you look out for +yourself, my man, and don't get bounced when you come in to report +to-morrow." + +Rainsford saw Mrs. Kenny in the kitchen-bedroom-parlour of the +first-class hotel (Gents only). When he came in and sat down in the +midst of the Irish family Rainsford did not know that he was the second +gentleman that had crossed the threshold since the sign had swung in the +window. Mary Kenny was intelligible, charmingly so, and her account was +full of colour; and the young man's character was drawn by a woman's +lips, with a woman's tenderness. + +"Ah, wurra sor," she finished, "Oi cud go down on me knees to him if it +wasn't for Pathrick Kenny. It was an evil day when that Hitalian came to +the dure. Wud ye now?" she offered, as though she suggested that he +should view sacred relics, "wud ye feel like goin' up to his room and +castin' an eye?" + +Peter Rainsford did so, feeling that he was taking a man at a +disadvantage, but consoling himself with the thought that Fairfax's +disappearance warranted the invasion. Mrs. Kenny, the baby on her arm, +stood by his side, and called over the objects as though she were a +showman at a museum. + +"That's his bury, sor, and the best wan in the hotel, and them's his +little ornyments an' foolin's in order on the top. Matty reds his room +up, an' never a hand but mine puts his wash to rights." She pulled a +drawer open. "His beautiful starched shirts, I doos them with me own +hands and charges him as though he was me son; an' there is his +crayvats, an' over there," she pointed with her thumb, "stud the image, +bad cess to the Hitalian an' his likes, Mr. Rainsford, an' many's the +time I've stud beyont the dure an' heard him sing and whustle beautiful, +whilst he was a-carvin' of it." + +Rainsford looked at a small design pinned against the wall: he +considered it long. + +"Do ye think that he's kilt then?" asked the Irish woman. + +The paymaster returned briskly. "No, I don't think so. I hope he has not +come to any harm." + +"His readin' buks, sor," she said, "wud ye cast an eye?" + +But here Rainsford refused, and returning to his own lodgings higher up +in the town, and on a better scale, went home thoughtful, touched, and +with a feeling of kinship with the truant engineer. Before, however, he +could take any steps to look for Fairfax, a coloured man from somewhere +appeared with the request that Mrs. Kenny send all Fairfax's things. The +mysterious lodger enclosed, moreover, a week's board in advance, but no +address; nor had the coloured man any information for Nut Street, and a +decided antipathy existed between George Washington and Mary Kenny. She +was pale when she packed up Fairfax's belongings and cried into his +trunk, as she laid the drawing of Bella Carew next to the unopened +packet of his mother's treasures. She was unconscious of what sacred +thing she touched, but she was cut to the heart, as was poor Falutini. +Peter Rainsford, who had not gone far in his friendship with the elusive +Fairfax, was only disappointed. + + * * * * * + +At the close of the following Sunday afternoon, Rainsford was reading in +his room when Fairfax himself came in. + +"Why, hello, Fairfax," the paymaster's tone was not that of a +disaffected patron to a delinquent engineer. "You are just two weeks +late in reporting Number Twenty-four. But I'm sincerely glad you came, +whatever the reason for the delay." + +Rainsford's greeting was that of a friend to a friend. Fairfax, +surprised, lifted his eyebrows and smiled "thanks." He took the chair +Rainsford offered. "Why _thank_ you, Rainsford." He took a cigar which +Rainsford handed him. He was in the dress of a railroad man off duty. + +"Now I don't know anybody I've been more curious about," said the +paymaster. "Where on earth did you go to, Fairfax? You don't know how +you have mystified us all here, and in fact, me from the first." + +"There are no end of mysteries in life," said the young man, still +smiling; "I should have wondered about you, Mr. Rainsford, if I had had +either the time or the courage!" + +"Courage, Fairfax?" + +"Why yes," returned the engineer, twisting his cigar between his +fingers, "courage to break away from the routine I've been obliged to +follow." + +Fairfax saw before him a spare man of about forty years of age. The thin +hair, early grey, came meekly around the temples of a finely made and +serious brow, but the features of Rainsford's face were delicate, the +skin was drawn tightly over the high cheek-bones. There was an extreme +melancholy in his expression; when defeat had begun to write its lines +upon his face, over the humiliating stain, Resignation had laid a hand. + +"Well, I'll spare you wondering about me, Fairfax," the agent said; "I +am just a plain fellow, that's all, and for that reason, when I saw that +one of the hands on my pay-roll was clearly a gentleman, and a very +young one too, it interested me, and since I have been to Kenny's"--he +hesitated a little--"since I have heard something about you from that +good soul, why, I am more than interested, I am determined!" + +Fairfax, his head thrown back, smoked thoughtfully, and Rainsford noted +the youthfulness of the line of his neck and face, the high idealism of +the brow, the beautiful mouth, the breeding and the sensitiveness there. + +"Why, it's a crime, that's what it is. You are young, you're a boy. +Thank God for it, it is not too late. Would you care to tell me what +brought you here like this? I won't say what misfortune brought you +here, Fairfax,"--he put his nervous hand to his lips--"but what folly on +your part." + +Rainsford took for granted the ordinary reasons for hard luck and the +harvest of wild oats. + +Fairfax said, "I have no people, Rainsford; they are all dead." + +"But you have influential friends?" + +"No," said Fairfax, "not one." + +"You have extraordinary talent, Fairfax." + +The young man started. "But what makes you think that?" + +"Falutini told me." + +Fairfax laughed harshly. "Poor Tito. He's a judge, I daresay." His face +clouded, grew quite stern before Rainsford's intent eyes. "Yes," he said +slowly, "I think I have talent; I think I must have a lot somewhere, but +I have got a mighty dangerous Pride and it has driven me to a sort of +revenge on Fate, an arrogant showing of my disdain--God knows of what +and of whom!" More quietly he said: "Whilst my mother lived I could not +beg, Rainsford, I couldn't starve, I couldn't scratch and crawl and live +as a starving artist must when he is making his way. I wanted to make a +living first, and I was too proud to take the thorny way an artist +must." + +Fairfax got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked across +Rainsford's small room. It was in excellent order, plainly furnished but +well supplied with the things a man needs to make him comfortable. There +were even a few luxuries, like pillows on the hard sofa, bookshelves +filled with books and a student's lamp soft under a green shade. As he +turned back to the paymaster Fairfax had composed himself and said +tranquilly-- + +"I reckon you've got a pretty bad note against me in the ledger, haven't +you, Rainsford?" + +"Note?" repeated the other vaguely. "Oh, your bad conduct report. Well, +rather." + +"Who has got my job on Number Twenty-four?" + +"Steve Brodie." + +Fairfax nodded. "He surely does know how to drive an engine all right, +and so do I, Rainsford." + +"You mustn't run any more engines, Fairfax." + +"I don't want to come back to West Albany and to the yards," said the +engineer. + +"I haven't much influence now," Rainsford said musingly, "but I have +some friends still. I want you to let me lend you some money, a very +small sum." + +The blood rushed to Fairfax's face. He extended his hand impulsively. + +"There, Rainsford, you needn't go on. You are the first chap who has put +out a rope to me. I did have twenty-five cents given me once, but +otherwise----" + +"I mean it sincerely, Fairfax." + +"Rainsford," said the young man, with emotion in his voice, "you are a +fine brand of failure." + +"Will you let me stand by you, Fairfax?" + +"Yes, indeed," said the other, "I will, but not in the way you mean. I +reckon I must have felt what kind of a fellow you were or I wouldn't be +here. At any rate you're the only person I wanted to see. I quite +understand you can't take me back at the yards, and I don't want to +drive in and out from West Albany. Could you do anything for me at the +general company, Rainsford? Would they give me a job in Albany? I'd take +a local though I'm up to an express." + +"No," said Rainsford, "you mustn't think of driving engines; I won't +lift my hand to help you." + +"It is all I can do," returned the engineer quietly, after a second, +"all I want." Then he said, "I've _got_ to have it...." + +"Why I'll _lend_ you enough money, Fairfax, to pay your passage to +France!" + +"Stop!" cried the young man with emotion, "it's too late." + +"Nonsense," said the other warmly, Fairfax's voice and personality +charming him as it charmed others. "Why, you are nothing but a big, +headlong boy! You have committed a tremendous folly; you've got art at +your finger tips. Are you going to sweat and stew all your life in the +cab of an engine? Why, you are insane." + +"Stop," cried Fairfax again, "for the love of heaven...." + +Rainsford regarded him, fascinated. He saw in him his own lost +promises, his own lost chance; it seemed to him that through this young +man he might in a way buy back the lost years. + +"I'll _not_ stop till I have used every means to make you see the +hideous mistake you're making." + +"Rainsford," said Antony, paling, "if you had made me this offer the day +before I left Nut Street, I would have been in France by this. My God!" +he murmured beneath his breath. "_How_ I would have escaped!"--checked +himself with great control for so young a man and so ardent a man. He +was a foot taller than his desk-bowed pale companion, and he laid his +hand impulsively on his chief's shoulder. + +"If you can give me a _job_, Rainsford, do so, will you? I know I have +no right to ask you, after the way I have treated the Company, but I am +married. I have married Molly Shannon. You know her, the girl at +Sheedy's." He waited a second, looking the other man in the eyes, then, +with something of his old humour, he said, "There are two of us now, +Rainsford, and I have got to make our living." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Death does not always make the deepest graves. His art was buried +deepest of all, and there was just one interest in his life, and that +was not his wife. He was kind to her, but if he had beaten her she would +have kissed his hand; she could not have loved him better. Her life was +"just wrapped round him." He treated her as a lady, and he was a +gentleman. Her manners were always soft and gentle, coming from a sweet +good heart. She grew thinner, and her pride in him and her love for him +and her humility made Molly Fairfax beautiful. There was a great deal of +cruelty in the marriage and in their mating. It was no one's fault, and +the woman suffered the most. Their rooms were in a white frame building +with green blinds, one of the old wooden houses that remained long in +Albany. It did not overlook the yards, for Fairfax wanted a new horizon. +From her window, Molly could see the docks, the river, the night and day +boats as they anchored, and she had time to watch and know them all. +Nothing in his working life or in his associations coarsened Antony +Fairfax; it would have been better for him had it done so. She was not +married to an engineer, but to a gentleman, and he was as chivalrous to +her as though she had been the woman of his dreams; but she spent much +of the time weeping and hiding the traces from him, and in the evenings, +when he came home to the meal that she prepared each day with a greater +skill and care, sometimes after greeting her he would not break the +silence throughout the evening, and he did not dream that he had +forgotten her. His new express engine became his life. He drove her, +cared for her, oiled and tended her with art and passion. There were no +bad notes against him at the office. His records were excellent, and +Rainsford had the satisfaction of knowing that the man whom he had +recommended was in the right place. The irony of it all was that his +marrying Molly Shannon did not bring him peace, although it +tranquillized him, and kept part of his nature silent. He had meditated +as he drove his engine, facing the miles before him as the machine ate +them up, and these miles began to take him into other countries. There +was a far-awayness in the heavens to him now, and as he used to glance +up at the telegraph wires and poles they became to him masts and +riggings of vessels putting out to sea, and from his own window of his +little tenement apartment of two bedrooms and a kitchen, he watched the +old river boats and the scows and the turtle-like canal boats that +hugged the shore, and they became vessels whose bows had kissed ports +whose names were thrilling, and in the nest he had made his own, +thinking to rest there, his growing wings began to unprison and the nest +to be too small. There was no intoxication in the speed of his +locomotive to him, and he felt a grave sense of power as he regulated +and slowed and accelerated, and the smooth response of his locomotive +delighted him. She flew to his hand, and the speed gave him joy. + +At lunch time Falutini had told him of Italy, and the glow and the +glamour, the cypress and the pines, the azure skies, olive and grape +vines brought their enchantment around Fairfax, until No. 111 stood in +an enchanted country, and not under the shed with whirling snows or +blinding American glare without. He exchanged ideas with Rainsford. The +agent became his friend, and one Sunday Fairfax led him into the Delavan +House, and George Washington nearly broke his neck and spilled the soup +on the shoulder of the uninteresting patron he was at the moment +serving, in his endeavour to get across the floor to Antony. + +"Yas, _sah_, Mistah Kunnell Fairfax, sah! Mighty glad to see yo', and +the Capting?--Hyah in de window?" + +"Rainsford," said the young man, "isn't it queer? I feel at home here. +This dingy hotel and this smiling old nigger, they are joys to me--joys. +To this very table I have brought my own bitter food to eat and bitter +water to drink, and half forgotten their tastes as I have eaten the +Delavan fare, and been cheered by this faithful old darkey. Perhaps all +the chaps round here aren't millionaires or Depuysters, but there are no +railroad men such as I am lunching here, and I breathe again." + +The two ate their tomato soup with relish. Poor Molly was an indifferent +cook, and the food at Rainsford's hash-house was horrible. + +"Don't come here often now, Fairfax, do you?" + +"Every Sunday." + +"_Really?_ And do you bring Mrs. Fairfax?" + +"No," frowned the young man, "and I wonder you ask. Don't you understand +that this is my holiday? God knows I earn it." + +Rainsford finished his soup. The plate was whisked away, was briskly +replaced by a quantity of small dishes containing everything on the bill +of fare from chicken to pot-pie, and as Rainsford meditated upon the +outlay, he said-- + +"She's a gentle, lovely creature, Fairfax. I don't wonder you were +charmed by her. She has a heart and a soul." + +Fairfax stared. "Why when did you see her?" + +He had never referred to his wife since the day he had announced his +marriage to his chief. + +"She came on the day of the blizzard to the office to bring a parcel for +you. She wanted me to send it up the line by the Limited to catch you at +Utica." + +"My knit waistcoat," nodded Fairfax. "I remember. It saved my getting a +chill. I had clean forgotten it. She's a good girl." + +Rainsford chose amongst the specimens of food. + +"She is a sweet woman." + +Here George Washington brought Fairfax the Sunday morning _Tribune_, and +folded it before his gentleman and presented it almost on his knees. + +"Let me git ye a teenty weenty bit mo' salid, Kunnell?" + +Fairfax unfolded the _Tribune_ leisurely. "Bring some ice-cream, George, +and some good cigars, and a little old brandy. Yes, Rainsford, it isn't +poison." + +Fairfax read attentively, and his companion watched him patiently, his +own face lightened by the companionship of the younger man. Fairfax +glanced at the headlines of the _Tribune_, said "By George!" under his +breath, and bent over the paper. His face underwent a transformation; he +grew pale, read fixedly, then laughed, said "By George!" again, folded +the paper up and put it in his pocket. + +The ice-cream was brought and described as "_Panillapolitan_ cream, +sah," and Fairfax lit a cigar and puffed it fast and then said +suddenly-- + +"Do you know what hate is, Rainsford? I reckon you don't. Your face +doesn't bear any traces of it." + +"Yes, Fairfax," said the other, "I know what it is--it's a disease which +means battle, murder, and sudden death." + +The young man took the paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, and +Rainsford was surprised to see his hands tremble, the beautiful clever +hands with the stained finger ends and the clean, beautiful palm. +Falutini did more work than Fairfax now. He slaved for his master. + +"Read that, Rainsford." He tapped a headline with his forefinger. "It +sounds like an event." + + THE UNVEILING OF THE ABYDOS SPHINX IN CENTRAL PARK + CEDERSHOLM'S WONDERFUL PEDESTAL. + THE DIFFICULT TRANSPORTATION OF THE EGYPTIAN + MONUMENT FROM THE PORT TO THE PARK. + UNVEILING TO TAKE PLACE NEXT SATURDAY. + +The article went on to speak of the dignified marble support, and hinted +at four prehistoric creatures in bronze which were supposed to be the +masterpieces of modern sculpture. + +Rainsford read it through. "Very interesting. An event, as you say, +Tony. Cedersholm has made himself a great reputation." + +"_Damn him!_" breathed the engineer. His heart was beating wildly, he +felt a suffocation in his breast. A torrent of feeling swept up in him. +No words could say what a storm and a tempest the notice caused. + +"Jealous," Rainsford thought. "Cedersholm has all that poor Fairfax +desires." + +Overcome by the memories the headlines recalled, overcome by his anger +and the injustice, Fairfax's face grew white. + +"Take a little more coffee, Kunnell," said George Washington at his +elbow. + +"No." Antony repulsed him rudely. "Did you read it all, Rainsford?" + +"I think so. I dare say this will bring Cedersholm close on a hundred +thousand dollars." + +"It will pave his way to hell one day, Rainsford," said the engineer, +leaning across the table. "It will indeed! Why, it is a monument of +injustice and dishonour. Do you know what that Sphinx rests on, +Rainsford, do you know?" + +For a moment the railroad agent thought his friend had lost his senses +brooding over his discarded art, his spoiled life. + +"Four huge prehistoric creatures," Rainsford read mildly. + +Fairfax's lips trembled. "It rests on a man's heart and soul, on his +flesh and blood, on his bleeding wounds, Rainsford. I worked in +Cedersholm's studio, I slaved for him night and day for eighteen months. +I spilled my youth and heart's blood there, I did indeed." His face +working, he tapped his friend's arm with his hand. "I made the moulds +for those beasts. I cast them in bronze, right there in his studio. +Every inch of them is mine, Rainsford, mine. By ... you can't take it +in, of course, you don't believe me, nobody would believe me, that's why +I can do nothing, can't say anything, or I'd be arrested as a lunatic. +But Cedersholm's fame in this instance is mine, and he has stolen it +from me and shut me out like a whipped dog. He thinks I am poor and +unbefriended, and he knows that I have no case. Why, he's a _hound_, +Rainsford, the meanest hound on the face of the earth." + +Rainsford soothed his friend, but Fairfax's voice was low with passion, +no one could overhear its intense tone. + +"Don't for a moment think I have lost my senses. If you don't believe +me, give me a pencil and paper and I'll sketch you what I mean." + +Rainsford was very much impressed and startled. "If what you say is +true," he murmured. + +And Fairfax, who had regained some of his control--he knew better than +any one the futility of his miserable adventure--exclaimed-- + +"Oh, it's true enough; but there is nothing to do about it. Cedersholm +knows that better than any one else." + +He sat back, and his face grew dark and heavy with its brooding. His +companion watched him helplessly, only half convinced of the truth of +the statement. Fairfax lifted his eyes and naively exclaimed-- + +"Isn't it cruel, Rainsford? You speak of failures; did you ever see such +a useless one as this? Cedersholm and his beasts which they say right +here are the best things in modern sculpture, and me with my engine and +my--" He stopped. "Give me the bill," he called to George Washington. + +The old darkey, used as he was to his gentleman's moods, found this one +stranger than usual. + +"Anythin' wrong with the dinner, Kunnell?" he asked tremulously. "Very +sorry, Capting. Fust time yo'--" + +Fairfax put the money in his hand. "All right, George," he assured +kindly, "your dinner's all right--don't worry. Good-bye." And he did not +say as he usually did, "See you next Sunday." For he had determined to +go down to New York for the unveiling of the monument. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The May afternoon, all sunshine and sparkle, had a wine to make young +hope spring from old graves and age forget its years, and youth mad with +its handicaps; a day to inspire passion, talent, desire, and to make +even goodness take new wings. + +With the crowd of interested and curious, Antony Fairfax entered Central +Park through the Seventy-second Street gate. Lines of carriages extended +far into Fifth Avenue, and he walked along by the side of a smart +victoria where a pretty woman sat under her sunshade and smiled on the +world and spring. Fairfax saw that she was young and worldly, and +thought for some time of his mother, of women he might have known, and +when the victoria passed him, caught the lady's glance as her look +wandered over the crowd. A May-day party of school children spread over +the lawn at his left, the pole's bright streamers fluttering in the +breeze. The children danced gaily, too small to care for the unveiling +of statues or for ancient Egypt. The bright scene and the day's gladness +struck Antony harsh as a glare in weakened eyes. He was gloomy and +sardonic, his heart beating out of tune, his genial nature had been +turned to gall. + +The Mall was roped off, and at an extempore gate a man in uniform +received the cards of admission. Fairfax remembered the day he had +endeavoured to enter the Field Palace and his failure. + +"I'm a mechanic," he said hastily to the gateman, "one of Mr. +Cedersholm's workmen." + +The man pushed him through, and he went in with a group of students from +Columbia College. + +In a corner of the Mall, on the site he had indicated to the little +cousins, rose a white object covered by a sheeting, which fell to the +ground. Among the two hundred persons gathered were people of +distinction. There was to be speech-making. Fairfax did not know this or +who the speakers were to be. All that he knew or cared was that at three +o'clock of this Saturday his Beasts--his four primitive creatures--were +to be unveiled. He wore his workday clothes, his Pride had led him to +make the arrogant display of his contempt of the class he had deserted. +His hat was pushed back on his blond head. His blue eyes sparkled and he +thrust his disfigured hands into his pockets to keep them quiet. The +lady beside whose carriage he had stood came into the roped-off +enclosure, and found a place opposite Fairfax. Once more her eyes fell +on the workman's handsome face. He looked out of harmony with the people +who had gathered to see the unveiling of Mr. Cedersholm's pedestal. + +For the speakers, a desk and platform had been arranged, draped with an +American flag. Antony listened coldly to the first address, a _resume_ +of the dynasty in whose dim years the Abydos Sphinx was hewn, and the +Egyptologist's learning, the dust he stirred of golden tombs, and the +perfumes of the times that he evoked, were lost to the up-state engineer +who only gazed on the veiled monument. + +His look, however, returned to the desk, when Cedersholm took the place, +and Fairfax, from the sole of his lame foot to his fair head, grew cold. +His bronze beasts were not more hard and cold in their metallic bodies, +nor was the Sphinx more petrified. Cedersholm had aged, and seemed to +Fairfax to have warped and shrunk and to stand little more than a +pitiful suit of clothes with a _boutonniere_ in the lapel of the +pepper-and-salt coat. There was nothing impressive about the sleek grey +head, though his single eye-glass gave him distinction. The Columbia +student next to Fairfax, pushed by the crowd, touched Antony Fairfax's +great form and felt as though he had touched a colossus. + +Cedersholm spoke on art, on the sublimity of plastic expression. He +spoke rapidly and cleverly. His audience interrupted him by gratifying +whispers of "Bravo, bravo," and the gentle tapping of hands. He was +clearly a favourite, a great citizen, a great New Yorker, and a great +man. Directly opposite the desk was a delegation from the Century Club, +Cedersholm's friends all around him. To Fairfax, they were only brutes, +black and white creatures, no more--mummers in a farce. Cedersholm did +not speak of his own work. With much delicacy he confined his address to +the past. And his adulation of antiquity showed him to be a real artist, +and he spoke with love of the relics of the perfect age. In closing he +said-- + +"Warm as may be our inspirations, great as may be any modern genius, +ardent as may be our labour, let each artist look at the Abydos Sphinx +and know that the climax has been attained. We can never touch the +antique perfection again." + +Glancing as he did from face to face, Cedersholm turned toward the +Columbia students who adored him and whose professor in art he was. +Searching the young faces for sympathy, he caught sight of Fairfax. He +remembered who he was, their eyes met. Cedersholm drank a glass of water +at his hand, bowed to his audience, and stepped down. He moved briskly, +his head a little bent, crossed the enclosure, and joined the lady whom +Fairfax had observed. + +"That," Fairfax heard one of his neighbours say, "is Mr. Cedersholm's +fiancee, Mrs. Faversham." + +Fairfax raised his eyes to the statue. There was a slight commotion as +the workmen ranged the ropes. Then, very gracefully, evidently proud as +a queen, the lady, followed by Mr. Cedersholm, went up to the pedestal, +took the ropes in her gloved hands, and there was a flutter and the +conventional covering slipped and fell to the earth. There was an +exclamation, a murmur, the released voices murmured their praise, +Cedersholm was surrounded. Fairfax, immovable, stood and gazed. + +The pedestal was of shell-pink marble, carved in delicate bas-relief. +Many of the drawings Antony had made. Isis with her cap of Upper and +Lower Egypt, Hathor with the eternal oblation--the Sphinx.... God and +the Immortals alone knew who had made it. + +On its great, impassive face, on its ponderous body, there was no +signature, no name. Under the four corners, between Sphinx and pedestal, +crouched four bronze creatures, their forms and bodies visible between +the stones of the pink pedestal and the soft blue of the Egyptian +granite. The bold, severe modelling, their curious primitive conception, +the life and realism of the creatures were poignant in their suggestion +of power. The colour of the bronze was beautiful, would be more +beautiful still as the years went on. The beasts supported the Egyptian +monument. They rested between the pedestal and the Sphinx; they were the +support and they were his. They seemed, to the man who had made them, +beautiful indeed. Forgetting his outrage and his revenge, in the artist, +Fairfax listened timidly, eagerly, for some word to be murmured in the +crowd, some praise for his Beasts. + +He heard many. + +The students at his side were enthusiastic, they had made studies from +the moulds; moulds of the Beasts were already in the Metropolitan +Museum. The young critics were lavish, profuse. They compared the +creatures with the productions of the Ancients. + +"Cedersholm is a magician, he is one of the greatest men of his +time...." + +The man in working clothes smiled, but his expression was gentler than +it had been hitherto. He lifted his soft hat and ran his fingers through +his blond hair and remained bareheaded in the May air that blew about +him; his fascinated eyes were fastened on the Abydos Sphinx, magnetized +by the calm, inscrutable melancholy, by the serene indifference. The +stony eyes were fixed on the vistas of the new world, the crude Western +continent, as they had been fixed for centuries on the sands of the +pathless desert, on the shifting sands that relentlessly effaced +footsteps of artist and Pharaoh, dynasty and race. + +Who knew who had made this wonder? + +How small and puny Cedersholm seemed in his pepper-and-salt suit, his +_boutonniere_ and single eye-glass, his trembling heart. His heart +trembled, but only Fairfax knew it; he felt that he held it between his +hands. "He must have thought I was dead," he reflected. "What difference +did it make," Fairfax thought, "whether or not the Egyptian who had hewn +the Sphinx had murdered another man for stealing his renown? After four +thousand years, all the footsteps were effaced." His heart grew +somewhat lighter, and between himself and the unknown sculptor there +seemed a bond of union. + +The students and the master had drifted away. Cedersholm was in the +midst of his friends. Fairfax would not have put out his hand to take +his laurel. His spirit and soul had gone into communion with a greater +sculptor of the Sphinx, the unknown Egyptian. Standing apart from the +crowd where Cedersholm was being congratulated, Fairfax remarked the +lady again, and that she stood alone as was he. She seemed pensive, +turning her lace parasol between her hands, her eyes on the ground. The +young man supposed her to be dreaming of her lover's greatness. He +recalled the day, two years ago, when with Bella and Gardiner he had +come up before the opening in the earth prepared for the pedestal. +"Wait, wait, my hearties!" he had said. + +Well, one of them had gone on, impatient, to the unveiling of greater +wonders, and Antony had come to his unclaimed festival alone.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +He said to Rainsford at luncheon, over nuts and raisins, and coffee as +black as George Washington's smiling face-- + +"I reckon you think I've got a heart of cotton, don't you? I reckon you +think I don't come up to the scratch, do you, old man? I assure you that +I went down to New York seeing scarlet. I had made my plans. Afterward, +mind you, Rainsford, not of course before a whole lot of people,--but in +his own studio, I intended to tell Cedersholm a few truths. Upon my +honour, I believe I _could_ have killed him." + +Rainsford held a pecan nut between the crackers which he pressed slowly +as he listened to his friend. Antony's big hand was spread out on the +table; its grip would have been powerful on a man's throat. + +"We often get rid of our furies on the way," said Rainsford, slowly. "We +keep them housed so long that they fly away unobserved at length. And +when at last we open the door, and expect to find them ready with their +poisons, they've gone, vanished every one." + +"Not in this case," Fairfax shook his head. "I shall call on them all +some day and they will all answer me. But yesterday wasn't the time. +You'll think me poorer-spirited than ever, I daresay, but the woman he +is going to marry was there, a pretty woman, and she seemed to love +him." + +Fairfax glanced up at the agent and saw only comprehension. + +"Quite right, Tony." Rainsford returned Fairfax's look over his +glistening eyeglasses, cracked the pecan nut and took out the meat. "I +am not surprised." + +Antony, who had taken a clipping from his wallet, held it out. + +"Read this. I cut it out a week ago. Yesterday in the Central Park old +ambitions struck me hard. Read it." + +The notice was from a Western paper, and spoke in detail of a +competition offered to American sculptors by the State of California, +for the design in plaster of a tomb. The finished work was to be placed +in the great new cemetery in Southern California. The prize to be +awarded was ten thousand dollars and the time for handing in the design +a year. + +"Not a very cheerful or inspiring subject, Tony." + +On the contrary, Fairfax thought so. He leaned forward eagerly, and +Rainsford, watching him, saw a transfigured man. + +"Death," said the engineer, "has taken everything from me. Life has +given me nothing, old man. I have a feeling that perhaps now, through +this, I may regain what I have lost.... I long to take my chance." + +The other exclaimed sympathetically, "My dear fellow, you must take it +by all means." + +Fairfax remained thoughtful a moment, then asked almost appealingly---- + +"Why, how can I do so? Such an effort would cost my living, _her_ +living, the renting of a place to work in...." As he watched Rainsford's +face his eyes kindled. + +"I offered to lend you money once, Tony," recalled his friend, "and I +wish to God you'd taken the loan then, because just at present--" + +The Utter Failure raised his near-sighted eyes, and the look of +disappointment on the bright countenance of the engineer cut him to the +heart. + +"Never mind." Fairfax's voice was forced in its cheerfulness. "Something +or other will turn up, I shall work Sundays and half-days, and I reckon +I can put it through. I am bound to," he finished ardently, "just bound +to." + +Rainsford said musingly, "I made a little investment, but it went to +pot. I hoped--I'm always hoping--but the money didn't double itself." + +The engineer didn't hear him. He was already thinking how he could +transform his kitchen into a studio, although it had an east light. Just +here Rainsford leaned over and put his hand on Antony's sleeve. "I want +to say a word to you about your wife. I don't think she's very well." + +"Molly?" answered his companion calmly. "She's all right. She has a +mighty fine constitution, and I never heard her complain. When did you +see her, Rainsford?" He frowned. + +"Saturday, when you were in New York. You forgot to send your pass-book, +and I went for it myself." + +"Well?" queried Antony. "What then?" + +"Mrs. Fairfax gave me the book, and I stopped to speak with her for a +few moments. I find her very much changed." + +The light died from the young man's illumined face where his visions had +kindled a sacred fire. The realities of life blotted it out. + +"I'm not able to give Molly any distractions, that you know." + +"She doesn't want them, Tony." Rainsford looked kindly and +affectionately, almost tenderly, at him, and repeated gently: "She +doesn't want amusement, Tony." + +And Fairfax threw up his head with a sort of despair on his face-- + +"My God, Rainsford," he murmured, "what can I do?" + +"I'm afraid she's breaking her heart," said the older man. "Poor little +woman!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +In the little room they used as parlour-kitchen and which to one of the +inhabitants at least was lovely, Fairfax found Molly sitting by the +window through which the spring light fell. The evening was warm. Molly +wore a print dress, and in her bodice he saw that she had thrust a spray +of pink geranium from the window-boxes that Antony had made and filled +for her. Nothing that had claim to beauty failed to touch his senses, +and he saw the charm of the picture in the pale spring light. He had +softly turned the door-handle, and as there was a hand-organ playing +without and Molly listening to the music, he entered without her hearing +him. + +"Is it yourself?" she exclaimed, startled. "You're home early, Tony." + +He told her that he had come to take her for a little walk, and as she +moved out of the light and came toward him, he thought he knew what +Rainsford had meant. She was thin and yet not thin. The roundness had +gone from her cheeks, and there was a mild sadness in her eyes. +Reproached and impatient, suffering as keenly as she, he was +nevertheless too kind of heart and nature not to feel the tragedy of her +life. He drew her to him and kissed her. She made no response, and +feeling her a dead weight he found that as he held her she had fainted +away. He laid her on the bed, loosened her dress, and bathed her icy +temples. Before she regained consciousness he saw her pallor, and that +she had greatly changed. He was very gentle and tender with her when she +came to herself; and, holding her, said-- + +"Molly, why didn't you tell me, dear? Why didn't you tell me?" + +She had thought he would be angry with her. + +He exclaimed, hurt: "Am I such a brute to you, Molly?" + +Ah, no; not that. But two was all he could look out for. + +He kneeled, supporting her. Oh, if he could only be glad of it, then she +would be happy. She'd not let it disturb him. It would be sure to be +beautiful and have his eyes and hair. + +He listened, touched. There was a mystery, a beauty in her voice with +its rich cadence, her trembling breath, her fast beating pulse, her +excitement. Below in the street the organ played, "Gallagher's Daughter +Belle," then changed to--ah, how could he bear it!--"My Old Kentucky +Home." Tears sprang to his eyes. Motherhood was sacred to him. Was he to +have a son? Was he to be a father? He must make her happy, this modest, +undemanding girl whom he had made woman and a wife. He kissed her and +she clung to him, daring to whisper something of her adoration and her +gratitude. + +When after supper he stood with her in the window and looked out over +the river where the anchored steamers were in port for over Sunday, and +the May sunset covered the crude brick buildings with a garment of +glory, he was astonished to find that the stone at his heart which had +lain there so long was rolled a little away. He picked up the geranium +which Molly had worn at her breast and which had fallen when she +fainted, and put it in his button-hole. It was crushed and sweet. Molly +whispered that he would kill her with goodness, and that "she was heart +happy." + +"Are you, really?" he asked her eagerly. "Then we'll have old Rainsford +to supper, and you must tell him so!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Fairfax, stirred as he had been to the depths by his visit to New York, +awake again to the voices of his visions, could give but little of +himself to his home life or to his work. The greatest proof of his +kindly heart was that he did not let Molly see his irritation or his +agony of discontent. If he were only nothing but an engineer with an +Irish wife! Why, why, was he otherwise? In his useless rebellion the +visions came and told him why--told him that to be born as he was, +gifted as he was, was the most glorious thing and the most suffering +thing in the world. + +To the agent who had accepted the Fairfax hospitality and come to +supper, Tony said-- + +"To ease my soul, Peter, I want to tell you of something I did." + +Molly had washed the dishes and put them away, and, with a delicate +appreciation of her husband's wish to be alone with his friend, went +into the next room. + +"After mother died my old nigger mammy in New Orleans sent me a packet +of little things. I could never open the parcel until the other day. +Amongst the treasures was a diamond ring, Rainsford, one I had seen her +wear when I was a little boy. I took it to a jeweller on Market Street, +and he told me it was worth a thousand dollars." + +Here Tony remained silent so long that his companion said-- + +"That's a lot of money, Tony." + +"Well, it came to me," said the young man simply, "like a gift from her. +I asked them to lend me five hundred dollars on it for a year. It seems +that it's a peculiarly fine stone, and they didn't hesitate." + +Rainsford was smoking a peaceful pipe, and he held the bowl +affectionately in his hand, his attention fixed on the blond young man +sitting in the full light of the evening. The night was warm, Fairfax +was in snowy shirt-sleeves, his bright hair cropped close revealed the +beautiful lines of his head; he was a powerful man, clean in habits of +body and mind, and his expression as he talked was brilliant and +fascinating, his eyes profound and blue. Around his knees he clasped the +hands that drove an engine and ached to model in plaster and clay. His +big shoe was a deformity, otherwise he was superb. + +"I've taken a studio, Rainsford," he smiled. "Tito Falutini found it for +me. It is a shed next to the lime-kiln in Canal Street. I've got my +material and I'm going to begin my work for the California competition." + +The older, to whom enthusiasm was as past a joy as success was a dim +possibility, said thoughtfully-- + +"When will you work?" + +"Sundays, half-holidays and nights. God!" he exclaimed in anticipation, +holding out his strong arms, "it seems too good to be true!" + +And Rainsford said, "I think I can contrive to get Saturdays off for +you. The Commodore is coming up next week. He owes me a favour or two. I +think I can make it for _you_, old man." + +There was a little stir in the next room. Fairfax called "Molly!" and +she came in. She might have been a lady. Long association with Fairfax +and her love had taught her wonders. Her hair was carefully arranged and +brushed until it shone like glass. Her dress was simple and refined; her +face had the beauty on it that a great and unselfish love sheds. + +"It means," said Rainsford to himself as he rose and placed a chair for +her, "that Molly will be left entirely alone." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +What Rainsford procured for him in the Saturday holidays was worth the +weight of its hours in gold. This, with Sundays, gave him two working +days, and no lover went more eagerly to his mistress than Antony to the +barracks where he toiled and dreamed. He began with too mad enthusiasm, +lacking the patience to wait until his conceptions ripened. He roughly +made his studies for an Angel of the Resurrection, inspired by the +figure in the West Albany Cemetery. As he progressed he was conscious +that his hand had been idle, as far as his art was concerned, too long; +his fingers were blunted and awkward, and many an hour he paced his shed +in agony of soul, conscious of his lack of technique. He was too +engrossed to be aware of the passing months, but autumn came again with +its wonderful haze, veiling death, decay and destruction, and Fairfax +found himself but little more advanced than in May, when he had shut +himself in his studio, a happy man. + +He grew moody and tried to keep his despair from his wife, for not the +least of his unrest was caused by the knowledge that he was selfish with +her for the sake of his art. By October he had destroyed a hundred +little figures, crushed his abortive efforts to bits, and made a clean +sweep of six months' work and stood among the ruins. He never in these +moments thought of his wife as a comforter, having never opened his +heart to her regarding his art. He shrank from giving her entrance into +his sanctuaries. He was alone in his crisis of artistic infecundity. + +On this Sunday morning he left his studio early, turned the key and +walked up Eagle Street toward the church he had not entered since he was +married. Led by discontent and by a hope that beneath the altar in his +old place he might find peace and possibly hear a voice which would tell +him as every creator must be told--HOW. He listened to the music and to +the Litany, the rich, full voices singing their grave, solemn pagan +appeal; but the sensuous ecstasy left Fairfax indifferent and cold. +To-day there were no visions around the altar through whose high windows +came the autumn glory staining the chancel like the Grail. His glance +wandered to the opposite side of the church where in the front pew were +the young scholars of Canon's School, a bevy of girls; and he thought +with a pang of Bella. She wouldn't be little Bella Carew much longer, +for she was nearly sixteen, charming little Bella. He thought of the +statue he had made and which had been so wantonly destroyed, and with +this came the feeling that everything he touched had been warped and +distorted. Ashamed of this point of view, he sighed and rose with the +others at the Creed. He repeated it with conviction, and at the words, +"Resurrection and the Life Everlasting," he dwelt upon "Everlasting +Life" as though he would draw from the expression such consolation as +should make him belittle the transient show with its mass of failures +and unhappy things, and render immortal only that in him which was still +aspiring, still his highest. He was glad to see instead of the curate a +man with a red hood mount the pulpit steps, and he knew it was the Canon +himself. With a new interest in his mind he sat erect. + +For the first time since he had come to the North a man whom he could +revere and admire stood before him. The Canon's clear-cut heavenly face, +his gracious voice, his outstretched hand as he blessed his people, made +an agreeable impression on the young man out of his element, nearly +shipwrecked and entirely alone. It occurred to him to speak to the Canon +after service; but what should he say? What appeal could he make? He was +an engineer married to a Roman Catholic woman of the other class, too +poor a specimen of his own class to remain in it. Since his marriage he +had felt degraded in society, out of place. If the Canon had advice to +give him, it would be to shut up his studio and devote himself to his +wife. + +He wandered slowly out of the building amongst the others into the +golden autumn day, and the music of the organ rolled after him like a +rich blessing. He waited to let the line of schoolgirls pass him, and +all of a sudden as he looked at them their ranks broke, he heard a cry, +an exclamation, and a call-- + +"_Cousin Antony!_" + +Before she could be prevented she had flown to him. Not throwing herself +against him in the old mad sweetness of her impulsive nature,--both +pretty gloved hands were held out to him and her upturned face lifted +all sparkle and brilliance, her red lips parted. "Oh, Cousin Antony!" + +Both Fairfax's hands held hers. + +"Quick!" she cried, "before Miss Jackson comes out. Where do you live? +When will you come to see me? But you can't come! We're not allowed to +have gentlemen callers! When can I come to see you? Dear Cousin Antony, +how glad I am!" + +"Bella!" he murmured, and gazed at her. + +The rank-and-file of schoolgirls, giggling, outraged and diverted, +passed them by, and the stiff teachers were the last to appear from the +church. + +"Tell me," Bella repeated, "where do you live? I'll write you. I've +composed tons of letters, but I forgot the number in Nut Street. Here's +Miss Jackson, the horrid thing! Hurry, Cousin Antony." + +He said, "Forty, Canal Street," and wondered why he had told her. + +Miss Jackson and Miss Teeter passed the two, and were so absorbed in +discussing the text of the sermon that neither saw Mistress Bella Carew. + +"I'm safe," she cried, "the old cats! The girls will never tell--they're +all too sweet. But I must go; I'll just say I've dropped my Prayer-book. +There, you take it!" + +And she was gone. + +Antony stood staring at the flitting figure as Bella ran after the +others down the steps like an autumn leaf blown by a light wind. She +wore a brown dress down to her boot tops (her boots too were brown with +bows at the tops); her little brown gloves had held his hand in what had +been the warmest, friendliest clasp imaginable. She wore a brown hat +with a plume in it that drooped and dangled, and Antony had looked into +her brown eyes and seen their bright affection once more. + +Well, he had known that she was going to be like this! Not quite, +though; no man ever knows what a woman can be, will be, or ever is. He +felt fifty years old as he walked down the steps and turned towards +Canal Street to the door he had fastened four hours before on his +formless visions. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +He did not go home that day. + +Towards late evening he sat in the twilight, his head in his hands, a +pile of smoked cigarettes and Bella's Prayer-book on the table before +him.... In the wretched afternoon he had read, one after another, the +services: Marriage ... for better or for worse, till death do us +part.... The Baptismal service, and the Burial for the Dead. + +At six he rose with a sigh, and, though it was growing dark, he began to +draw aimlessly, and Rainsford, when he came in, found Tony sketching, +and the young man said-- + +"You don't give a fellow much of your company these days, Peter. Have a +cigarette? I've smoked a whole box myself." + +"I'm glad to see you working, Fairfax." + +"You don't know how glad I am," Fairfax exclaimed; "but the light's +bad." + +Putting aside his drawing-board, he turned to his friend, and, with an +ardour such as he had not displayed since the old days at the Delavan, +began to tell of his conception. + +"I have given up my idea of a single figure. I shall make a bas-relief, +a great circular tablet, if you understand, a wall with curving sides, +and emblematic figures in high relief. It will be a mighty fine piece of +work, Rainsford, if it's ever done." + +"What will your figures be, Tony?" + +"Ah, they won't let me see their forms or faces yet." He changed the +subject. "What have you done with your Sunday, old man? Slept all day?" + +"No, I've been sitting for an hour or two with Mrs. Fairfax." + +Molly's husband murmured, "I'm a brute, and no one knows it better than +I do." + +Rainsford made no refutation of his friend's accusation of himself, but +suggested-- + +"She might bring her sewing in the afternoons, Tony; it would be less +lonely for her?" + +Fairfax noticed the flush that rose along the agent's thin cheek. + +"By Jove!" Fairfax reflected. "I wonder if old Rainsford is in love with +Molly?" The supposition did not make him jealous. + +The two men went home together, and Rainsford stayed to supper as he had +taken a habit of doing, for Fairfax did not wish to be alone. But when +at ten o'clock the guest had gone and the engineer and his wife were +alone together in their homely room, Fairfax said-- + +"Don't judge me too harshly, Molly." + +Judge him? Did he think she did? + +"You might well, my dear." + +He took the hand that did all the work for his life and home and which +she tried to keep as "ladylike" as she knew, and said, his eyes full on +her-- + +"I do the best I can. I'm an artist, that's the truth of it! There's +something in me that's stronger than anything else in the world. I +reckon it's talent. I don't know how good it is or how ignoble; but it's +brutal, and I've got to satisfy it, Molly." + +Didn't she know it, didn't Mr. Rainsford tell her? Didn't she want to +leave him free? + +"You're the best girl in the world!" he cried contritely, and checked +the words, "You should never have married me." + +She couldn't see the struggle in him, but she could observe how pale he +was. She never caressed him. She had long since learned that it was not +what he wanted; but she laid her hand on his head, for he was sitting on +the bed, and it might have been his mother who spoke-- + +"You're clear tired out," she said gently. "Will I fix up a bed for you +in the kitchen to-night? You'll lie better." + +He accepted gratefully. To-morrow, being Monday, was the longest day in +the week for him. + +He could not permit himself to go to church again, but during the next +few days he half expected to hear a knock at the door which should +announce Bella. But she did not come, and he was glad that she did not, +and more than once, in the evening, he walked around the school +building, up ---- Street, looking at the lighted windows of the house +where the doves were safely coted, and thought of the schoolgirl, with +her books and her companions. + +"... Not any more perfectly straight lines, Cousin Antony ..." + +And the leaves fell, piles of them, red and yellow, and were swept and +burned in fires whose incense was sweet to him, and the trees in the +school garden grew bare. + +In the first days of his Albany life, his Visions had used to meet him +in those streets; now there seemed to be no inspiration for him +anywhere, and he wondered if it were his marriage that had levelled all +pinnacles for him or his daily mechanical work? His associations with +Tito Falutini? Or if it were only that he was no sculptor at all, not +equal to his dreams! + +In the leaf-strewn street, near the Canon's School, he called on the +Images to return, and, half halting in his walk, he looked up at one +lighted window as if he expected to see a girlish figure there and catch +sight of a friendly little hand that waved to him; but there was no such +greeting. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon, as he went into his studio, some one rose from the sofa, +and his wife's voice called to him-- + +"Don't be startled, Tony. I just came for awhile to sit with you." + +He was amazed. Molly had never crossed the threshold of the workroom +before, not having been invited. She had brought her sewing. It was so +lonely in the little rooms, she wondered if it wasn't lonesome in the +studio as well? + +Smoking and walking to and fro, his hands in his pockets, Fairfax +glanced at his wife as she took up the little garments on which she was +at work. Her skin was stainless as a lily save here and there where the +golden fleck of a freckle marred its whiteness. Her reddish hair, +braided in strands, was wound flatly around her head. There was a +purity in her face, a Mystery that was holy to him. He crossed over to +her side and lit the lamp for her. + +"Who suggested your coming? Rainsford?" + +"Nobody. I wanted to come, just." + +He threw himself down on the sofa near her. "I can't work!" he +exclaimed. "I've not been able to do anything for weeks. I reckon I'm no +good. I'm going to let the whole thing go." + +Molly folded her sewing and laid it on the table. "Would you show me +what you've been workin' at, Tony?" + +The softness of her brogue had not gone, but she had been a rapid pupil +unconsciously taught, and her speech had improved. + +"I've destroyed most of my work," he said, hopelessly; "but this is +something of the new scheme I've planned." + +He went over to the other part of the studio and uncovered the clay in +which he had begun to work, and mused before it. He took some clay from +the barrel, mixed it and began to model. Molly watched him. + +"I get an idea," he murmured; "but when I go to fix it it escapes and +eludes me. It has no form. I want a group of figures in the foreground +and the idea of distance and far-away on the other side." + +"It will be lovely, Tony," she encouraged him. "I mind the day we walked +in the cemetery for the first time and you looked at the angel so long." + +"Yes." He was kneeling, bending forward, putting the clay on with his +thumb. + +"Ever since then"--Molly's tone was meditative--"that angel seems like a +friend to me. Many's the time when there's a hard thing to do he seems +to open the door and I go through, and it's not so hard." + +She was imaginative, Fairfax knew it. She was superstitious, like the +people of her country. The things she said were often full of fancy, +like the legends and stories of the Celts; but now he hardly heard her, +for he was working, and she went back to her task by the lamp, and, +under the quiet of her presence and its companionship, his modelling +grew. He heard her finally stir, and the clock struck seven, and they +had had no supper. Until she crossed the floor, he did not speak. Then +he turned-- + +"I'll work on a little longer. I want to finish this hand." + +"Take your time, Tony. I'll be going home slowly, anyway." + +She was at the door, stood in it, held it half-open, her arm out along +the panel looking back at him. Her figure was in the shadow, but the +light fell on her face, on her hair and on her hand. The unconscious +charm of her pose, her slow pause, her attitude of farewell and waiting, +the solemnity of it, the effect of light and shadow, struck Fairfax. + +"Molly," he cried, "wait!" + +But she had dropped her arm. "You'll be coming along," she said, +smiling, "and it's getting late." + + * * * * * + +He found that the spell for work was broken after she left, though a +fleeting idea, a picture, an image he could not fix, tantalized him. He +followed his wife. He had passed the most peaceful hour in his Canal +Street studio since he had signed the lease with the money of his +mother's ring. He would have told Molly this, but Rainsford was there +for supper. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Molly came and sat with him Saturday afternoons and Sundays. Fairfax +made studies of his wife as she sewed, a modern conception of a woman +sitting under a lamp, her face lifted, dreaming. He told Rainsford that +when the lease was up he should vacate the studio, for he could not go +on with his scheme for the monument. He had the memories of Molly's +coming to him during the late autumn and winter afternoons. The +remembrance of these holidays soothed and pardoned many faults and +delinquencies. She seemed another Molly to the Sheedy counter girl, the +Troy collar factory girl, and an indefinable Presence came with her, +lingered as she sewed or read some book she had picked up, and if +Fairfax the artist watched the change and transformation of her face as +it refined and thinned, grew more delicate and meditative, it was +Fairfax the man who recalled the picture afterward. + +She was exceedingly gentle, very silent, ready with a word of +encouragement and admiration if he spoke to her. She knew nothing of the +art he adored, but seemed to know his temperament and to understand. She +posed tranquilly while the short days met the early nights; she +disguised her fatigue and her ennui, so that he never knew she grew +tired, and the Presence surrounded her like an envelope, until Antony, +drawing and modelling, wondered if it were not the soul of the child +about to be born to him, and if from the new emotion his inspiration +would not stir and bless him at the last? + +What there was of humour and fantasy in her Irish heart, how imaginative +and tender she was, he might have gathered in those hours, if he had +chosen to talk with her and make her his companion. But he was reserved, +mentally and spiritually, and he kept the depths of himself down, nor +could he reveal his soul which from boyhood he had dreamed to give to +One Woman with his whole being. He felt himself condemned to silence and +only partially to develop, and no one but Molly Fairfax, with her +humility and her admiration, could have kept him from unholy dreams and +unfaithfulness. + +His life on the engine was hard in the winter. He felt the cold +intensely, and as his art steadily advanced, his daily labour in the +yards grew hateful, and he pushed the days of the week through till +Sunday should come and he be free. His face was set and white when +Rainsford informed him that it would be impossible to give him +"Saturdays off" any longer. Antony turned on his heel and left the +office without response to his chief, and thought as he strode back to +his tenement: "It's Peter's personal feeling. He's in love with Molly, +and those days in the studio gall him." + +Molly, who was lying down when he came in, brushed her hand across her +eyes as if to brush away whatever was there before he came. She took his +hat and coat; his slippers and warm jacket were before the stove. + +"Rainsford has knocked me off my Saturdays," he said bitterly. + +She stopped at the hook, the things in her hand. "That's hard on you, +Tony, and you getting on so well with your work." + +She didn't say that she could not have gone on any more ... that the +walk she took the week before to Canal Street had been her last; but +Fairfax, observing her, rendered keen by his own disappointment, +understood. He called her to him, made her sit down on the sofa beside +him. + +"Peter has been better to you than I have," he said sadly. "I've tired +you out, my dear, and I've been a selfish brute to you." + +He saw that his words gave her pain, and desisted. He was going to be +nothing more from henceforth but an engineer. He would shut the studio +and take her out on Sundays. She received his decision meekly, without +rebuffing it, and he said-- + +"Molly, if I had not come along, I reckon you would have married Peter +Rainsford. There! Don't look like that!" + +"Tony," she replied, "I'd rather be wretched with you--if I were, and +I'm not, dear. I'd rather be unhappy along of you than the happiest +queen." + +He kissed her hand with a gallantry new to her and which made her +crimson, and half laugh and half cry. + +She went early to bed, and Antony, alone in the kitchen, raked down the +coals, covered the fire in the stove, heard the clock tick and the +whistles of the boat on the river. In the silence of the winter night, +as it fell around him, he thought: "I reckon I'll have to try to make +her happy, even if I cut out my miserable talent and kill it." And as he +straightened himself he felt the Presence there. The solemn Presence +that had come with her to his workshop and kept him company, and it was +so impressive that he passed his hand across his forehead as though +dazed, and opened the door of his bedroom to see her and be assured. She +was already asleep; by her side, the little basket prepared, waited for +the life to come. He stepped in softly, and his heart melted. He knelt +down and buried his face in the pillow by her side, and without waking +she turned her face toward him in her sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +He did not go to the studio for a month, but though he remained with her +the poor girl profited little by his company. He smoked countless +cigarettes, in spite of the fact that he had doctor's bills to look +forward to. In the long winter evenings he read books that he fetched +from the library while the blizzards and storms swept round the window, +and the next day his duties stared him in the face. He dreamed before +the stove, his cigarette between his fingers, and Molly watched him; but +Rainsford, when he came, did not find her any more alone. + +Finally, in the last Sunday of January, after the noon dinner, she +fetched him his coat and muffler. + +"I can't let you stay home any more like this, Tony," she told him. +"Take your things and go to the studio; I'm sure you're dying to, and +don't hurry back. I'm feeling fine." + +He caught her suggestion with an eagerness that made her bite her lip; +she kept her face from him lest he should see her disappointment. He +exclaimed joyously-- + +"Why, I reckon you're right, Molly. I _will_ go for awhile. I'll work +all the better for the holiday." + +He might have said "sacrifice." + +As he got into his things he asked her: "You're sure you'll not need +anything, Molly? You think it's all right for me to go?" + +She assured him she would rest and sleep, and that the woman "below +stairs" would come up if she wanted anything. He mustn't hurry. + +He took the studio key. He was gone, his uneven step echoed on the +narrow stairs. She listened till it died away. + +Fairfax before his panel during the afternoon worked as though Fate were +at his heels. When he came in the room was bitter cold, and it took the +big fire he built long to make the shed inhabitable; but no sooner had +the chill left the air, and he unwrapped his plaster, than a score of +ideas came beating upon him like emancipated ghosts and shades, and he +saw the forms, though the faces were still veiled. He sang and whistled, +he declaimed aloud as the clay he mixed softened and rolled under his +fingers.... It let him shape it, its magic was under his thumb, its +plasticity, its response fascinated the sculptor. He tried now with the +intensity of his being to fix his conception for the gate of Death and +Eternal Life. He had already made his drawing for the new scaffolding, +and it would take him two Sundays to build it up. Falutini would help +him. + +It seemed strange to work without Molly sitting in her corner. He +wondered how long the daylight would last; he had three months still +until spring; that meant twelve Sundays. He thought of Molly's +approaching illness, and a shadow crossed his face. Why had he come back +only to tempt and tantalize himself with freedom and the joy of +creation? + +Sunday-Albany outside was as tranquil as the tomb, and scarcely a +footstep passed under his window. The snow lay light upon the +window-ledge and the roof, and as the room grew warmer the cordial light +fell upon him as he worked, and a sense of the right to labour, the +right to be free, made him take heart and inspired his hand. He began +the sketch of his group on a large scale. + +As he bent over his board the snow without shifted rustling from the +roof, and the slipping, feathery shower fell gleaming before his window; +the sound made him glance up and back towards the door. As he did so he +recalled, with the artist's vivid vision, the form of his wife, as she +had stood in the opened door, her arm along the panel, in the attitude +of waiting and parting. + +"By Jove!" he murmured, gazing as though it were reality. Half +wondering, but with assurance, he indicated what he recalled, and was +drawing in rapidly, absorbed in his idea, when some one struck the door +harshly from without, and Rainsford called him. + +Fairfax started, threw down his pencil, and seized his hat and +muffler--he worked in his overcoat because he was cold--to follow the +man who had come to fetch him in haste. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +Over and over again that night in his watch that lasted until dawn, as +he walked the floor of his little parlour-kitchen and listened, as he +stood in the window before the soundless winter night and listened, +Fairfax said the word he had said to her when she had paused in the +doorway-- + +"Wait...!" + +For what should she wait? + +Did he want her to wait until he had caught the image of her on his mind +and brain that he might call upon it for his inspiration? + +He called her to "wait!" + +Until he should become a great master and need her with her simplicity +and her humble mind less than ever? Until he should be honoured by his +kind and crowned successful and come at last into his own, and she be +the only shadow on his glory? Not for that! + +Until Fairfax one day should need the warmth of a perfectly unselfish +woman's heart, a self-effacing tenderness, a breast to lean upon? She +had given him all this. + +He smelled the ether and strange drugs. The doctor came and went. The +nurse he had engaged from the hospital, "the woman from below stairs" as +well, came and went, spoke to him and shut him out. + +He was conscious that in a chair in a corner, in a desperate position, +his head in his hands, Rainsford was sitting. Of these things he was +conscious afterward, but he felt now that he only listened, his every +emotion concentrated in the sense of hearing. What was it he was so +intent to hear? The passing of the Irrevocable or the advent of a new +life? He stood at length close to her door, and it was nearly morning. A +clock somewhere struck four presently, and the whistle of the Limited +blew; but those were not the sounds he waited to hear. + +At five o'clock, whilst it was still dark in the winter morning, he +started, his heart thumping against his breast, a sob in his throat. Out +of the stillness which to him had been unbroken, came a cry, then +another, terribly sweet and heart-touching--the cry of life. He opened +the door of his wife's room and entered softly in his stocking feet. +There seemed to be a multitude between him and his wife and child. He +did not dare to approach, but stood leaning against the wall, cold with +apprehension and stirred to his depths. He seemed to stand there for a +lifetime, and his knees nearly gave way beneath him. His hand pressed +against his cheek. He leaned forward. + +"_Wait!_" + +He almost murmured the word that came to his lips. + +For what should Molly Fairfax wait? Life had given her a state too high. +She had brought much grace to it and much love. She had given a great +deal. To wait for return, for such gifts, was to wait for the +unattainable. + +She went through the open door that she saw open, perhaps not all +unwillingly; and she was not alone, for the child went with her, and +they came to Fairfax and told him that she had gone through gently +murmuring his name. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +As Nut Street, with the destruction of his little statue, had been wiped +out of his history, so the two rooms overlooking the river and +steamboats knew Antony Fairfax no more. He turned the key in the door +the day they carried away the body of his wife, and when he came back +from the snowy earth and the snowy white city where he left her with his +hour-old child, he went to the Delavan House as he had done before, and +buried his head in his arms on his lowly bed in a hotel room and wept. + +The following day he sent word to Rainsford to look out for another +engineer in his place. He had driven his last trip. + +Tito Falutini wrung his friend's hand, and told Fairfax, in his broken +Italian-English, that he knew a fellow would take the rooms as they +stood. "Would Tony give the job to him?" Save for his clothes and +Molly's things, and they were few, he took nothing, not even the +drawings decorating the wall on which other Irish eyes should look with +admiration. + +He interviewed the jewellers again. They gave him four hundred dollars +and took his mother's ring. He paid his doctor's bills and funeral +expenses, and had fifty dollars left until he should finish his +bas-relief. He went to live at the Canal Street studio and shut himself +up with his visions, his freedom, his strange reproach and his sense of +untrammelled wings. + +He worked with impassioned fervour, for now he _knew_. He modelled with +assurance, for now he _saw_. His hands were so eager to create the idea +of his brain that he sighed as he worked, fairly panted at his task as +though he ran a race with inspiration. Half-fed, sometimes quite +sleepless, he lost weight and flesh. He missed the open-air life of the +engine and the air at his ears. But now at his ears were the audible +voices of his conceptions. February and March passed. His models were, a +mannequin, his studies of Molly Fairfax, and once the daughter of the +man who rented him the workshop stood before him draped in the long +garment; but he sent her away: she was too _living_ for his use. He ate +in little cheap restaurants down by the riverside, or cooked himself +coffee and eggs over his lamp, and wondered who would be the first to +break the silence and isolation, for it was six weeks before he saw a +single human being save those he passed in the street. + +"Rainsford," he said to the agent, who on the last day of March came +slowly in at noon, walking like a man just out of a long illness, "I +reckoned you'd be along when you were ready. I've waited for you here." + +Fairfax's hand was listlessly touched by his friend's, then Rainsford +went over and took Molly's place by the lamp. Fairfax checked the words, +"Not _there_, for God's sake, Rainsford!" He thought, "Let the living +come. Nothing can brush away the image of her sitting there in the +lamplight, no matter how many fill the place." + +Rainsford's eyes were hollow, and his tone as pale as his face, whose +sunken cheeks and hollows, to Fairfax, marked the progress of a fatal +disease. His voice sounded hoarse and strained; he spoke with effort. + +"I've come to say good-bye. I've given up my job here in West Albany. +I'm going to try another country, Tony." + +The sculptor sat down on the lounge where he had used to sit near his +wife, and said solicitously-- + +"I see you're not well, old man. I don't wonder you're going to try a +better climate. I hope to heaven I shall never see another snow-flake +fall. I assure you I feel them fall on graves." + +There was a moment's silence. The agent passed his hand across his face +and said, as if reluctant to speak at all-- + +"Yes, I am going to try another country." He glanced at Fairfax and +coughed. + +"California?" questioned Antony. "I hope you'll get a job in some such +paradise. Do you think you will?" + +The other man did not reply. He looked about the studio, now living-room +and workshop, and said-- + +"I should like to see what you have been doing, Fairfax. How are you +getting on?" + +Tony, however, did not rise from the sofa nor show any inclination to +comply, and his friend irrelevantly, as though he took up the young +man's problems where he had left them, before his own sentiment for +Molly had estranged him from her husband-- + +"You must be pretty hard up by now, Tony." He drew from his waistcoat +pocket his wallet, and took out a roll of bills which he folded +mechanically and held in his transparent hand. "Ever since the day you +came in to take your orders from me in West Albany, I've wanted to help +you. Now I've got the money to do so, old man." + +"No, my kind friend." + +"Don't refuse me then, if I am that." The other's lip twitched. "Take +it, Tony." + +"You mustn't ask me to, Peter." + +"I made a turnover last week in N. Y. U. I can afford it. I ask you for +the sake of old times." + +Fairfax covered the slender hand with his. He shook it warmly. + +"I'm sorry, old man. I can't do it." + +The near-sighted eyes of the paymaster met those of Fairfax with a +melancholy appeal, and the other responded to his unspoken words-- + +"No, Rainsford, not for anything in the world." + +"It's your _Pride_," Rainsford murmured, and he put on his shining +glasses and looked through them fully at Fairfax. "It's your Pride, +Tony. What are you going to do?" + +For answer, Fairfax rose, stretched out his arms, walked toward his +covered bas-relief and drew away the curtain. + +His friend followed him, stood by his side, and, with his thin hand +covering his eyes, looked without speaking at the bas-relief. When he +finally removed his hand and turned, Fairfax saw that his friend's face +was transformed. Rainsford wore a strangely peaceful look, even an +uplifted expression, such as a traveller might wear who sees the door +open to a friendly shelter and foretastes his repose. + +Rainsford held out his hand. "Thank you, Tony," and his voice was clear. +"You're a great artist." + +When he had gone, Fairfax recalled his rapt expression, and thought, +sadly, "I'm afraid he's a doomed man, dear old Rainsford! Poor old +Peter, I doubt if any climate can save him now." And went heavy-hearted +to prepare his little luncheon of sandwiches and milk. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Fairfax had finished his lunch and was preparing to work again when, in +answer to a knock, he opened the door for Tito Falutini, who bore in in +his Sunday clothes, behind him a rosy, smiling, embarrassed lady, whom +Fairfax had not seen for a "weary while." + +"_Mrs._ Falutini," grinned his fireman. "_I_ married! Shakka de han." + +"Cora!" exclaimed Fairfax, kissing the bride on both her cheeks; "I +would have come to see your mother and you long ago, but I couldn't." + +"Shure," said the Irish girl tenderly, her eyes full of tears. "I know, +Mr. Fairfax, dear, and so does the all of us." + +He realized more and more how well these simple people knew and how +kindly is the heart of the poor, and he wondered if "Blessed are the +poor in spirit" that the Canon had spoken of in church on Sunday did not +refer to some peculiar kind of richness of which the millionaires of the +world are ignorant. He made Falutini and his bride welcome, and Cora's +brogue and her sympathy caused his grief to freshen. But their +boisterous happiness and their own content was stronger than all else, +and when at last Cora said, "Och, show us the statywary 't you're +makin', Misther Fairfax, dear," he languidly rose and uncovered again +his bas-relief. Then he watched curiously the Irish girl and the Italian +workman before his labour. + +"Shure," Cora murmured, her eyes full of tears, "it's Molly herself, Mr. +Fairfax, dear. It's _living_." + +He let the covering fall, and its folds suggested the garments of the +tomb. + +The young couple, starting out in life arm-in-arm, had seen only life +in his production, and he was glad. He let them go without reluctance, +eager to return to his modelling, and to retouch a line in the woman's +figure, for the bas-relief was still warm clay, and had not been cast in +plaster, and he kept at his work until five o'clock in the afternoon, +when there was another knock at his door. He bade the intruder absently +"Come in," heard the door softly open and close, and the sound jarred +his nerves, as did every sound at that door, and with his scalpel in his +hand, turned sharply. In the door close to his shadow stood the figure +of a slender young girl. There was only the space of the room between +them, and even in his surprise he thought, "_Now_, there is nothing +else!" + +"Cousin Antony," she said from the doorway where he had seen the vision, +"aren't you going to speak to me? Aren't you glad to see me?" + +Her words were the first Fairfax had heard in the rich voice of a woman, +for the child tone had changed, and there was a "timbre" now in the tone +that struck the old and a new thrill. Her boldness, the bright assurance +seemed gone. He thought her voice trembled. + +"Why don't you speak to me, Cousin Antony? Do you think I'm a _ghost_?" + +(A ghost!) + +Bella came forward as she spoke, and he saw that she wore a girlish +dress, a long dress, a womanly dress. With her old affectionate gesture +she held out her hand, and on her dark hair was a little red bonnet of +some fashion too modish for him to find familiar, but very bewitching +and becoming, and he saw that she was a lovely woman, nearly seventeen. + +"I lost the precious little paper you gave me, Cousin Antony, that day +at church, and I only found it to-day in packing. I'm going home for the +Easter holidays." + +He realized that she was close to him, and that she innocently lifted up +her face. Fairfax bent and kissed her under the red hat on the hair. + +"Now," she cried, nodding at him, "I've hunted you down, tracked you to +your lair, and you _can't_ escape. I want to see your work. Show me +everything." + +But Fairfax put his hand up quickly, and before her eyes rested on the +bas-relief he had let the curtain fall. + +"You're not an engineer any more, then, Cousin Antony?" + +"No, Bella." + +"Tell me why you ran away from us as you did? Oh!" she exclaimed, +clasping her pretty hands, "I've thought over and over the questions I +wanted to ask you, things I wanted to tell you, and now I forget them +all. Cousin Antony, it wasn't _kind_ to leave us as you did,--Gardiner +and me." + +He watched her as she took a chair, half-leaning on its back before his +covered work. Bella's pose was graceful and elegant. Girl as she was, +she was a little woman of the world. She swung her gloves between her +fingers, looking up at him. + +"It's nearly five years, Cousin Antony." + +"I know it." + +She laughed and blushed. "I've been running after you, _shockingly_, +haven't I? I ran away from home and found you in the queer little street +in the queer little home with those _angel_ Irish people! How are they +all, Cousin Antony, and the freckled children?" + +"Bella," her cousin asked, "haven't they nearly finished with you in +school? You are grown up." + +She shook her head vehemently. "Nonsense, I'm a dreadful hoyden still. +Think of it! I've never been on the roll of honour yet at St. Mary's." + +"No?" he smiled. "They were wrong not to put you there. How is Aunt +Caroline?" + +The girl's face clouded, and she said half under her breath-- + +"_Why, don't you know?_" + +Ah, there was another grave, then? What did Bella mean? + +She exclaimed, stopped swinging her gloves, folded her hands gravely-- + +"Why, Cousin Antony, didn't you read in the papers?" + +He saw a rush of colour fill her cheeks. It wasn't death, then? He +hadn't seen any papers for some time, and he never should have expected +to find his aunt's name in the papers. + +"I don't believe I can tell you, Cousin Antony." + +He drew up a chair and sat down by her. "Yes, you can, little cousin." + +Her face was troubled, but she smiled. "Yes, that was what you used to +call me, didn't you? You see, I'm hardly supposed to know. It's not a +thing a girl _should_ know, Cousin Antony. Can't you guess?" + +"Hardly, Bella." + +Fairfax wiped his hands on a bunch of cloths, and the dry morsels of +clay fell to the floor. + +"Tell me what it is about Aunt Caroline." + +"She is not my mother any more, Cousin Antony, nor father's wife +either." + +He waited. Bella's tone was low and embarrassed. + +"I don't know how to tell it. She had a lovely voice, Cousin Antony." + +"She had indeed, Bella." + +"Well," slowly commented the young girl, "she took music lessons from a +teacher who sang in the opera, and I used to hear them at it until I +nearly lost my mind sometimes. I _hate music_--I mean that kind, Cousin +Antony." + +"Well," he interrupted, impatient to hear the _denouement_. "What then, +honey?" + +"One night at dinner-time mother didn't come home; but she is often +late, and we waited, and then went on without her.... She never came +home, and no one ever told me anything, not even old Ann. Father said I +was not to speak my mother's name again. And I never have, until now, to +you." + +Fairfax took in his Bella's hands that turned the little rolled kid +gloves; they were cold. He bent his eyes on her. Young as she was, she +saw there and recognized compassion and human understanding, qualities +which, although she hardly knew their names, were sympathetic to her. He +bent his eyes on her. + +"Honey," Fairfax said, "you have spoken your mother's name in the right +place. Don't judge her, Bella!" + +"Oh!" exclaimed the young girl, crimsoning. She tossed her proud, dark +head. "I do judge her, Cousin Antony, I do." + +"Hush!" he exclaimed sternly, "as you say, you are too young to +understand what she has done, but not too young to be merciful." + +She snatched her hands away, and sprang up, her eyes rebellious. + +"Why should I not judge her?" Her voice was indignant. "It's a disgrace +to my honourable father, to our name. How can you, Cousin Antony?" +Fairfax did not remove his eyes from her intense little face. "She was +never a mother to us," the young girl judged, with the cruelty of youth. +"Think how I ran wild! Do you remember my awful clothes? My things that +never met, the buttons off my shoes? Think of darling little Gardiner, +Cousin Antony...!" + +Her cousin again bade her be silent. She stamped her foot passionately. + +"But I will speak! Why should you take her part?" + +With an expression which Bella felt to be grave, Fairfax repeated-- + +"You must not speak her name, as your father told you. It's a mighty +hard thing for one woman to judge another, little cousin. Wait until you +are a woman yourself." + +Fairfax understood. He thought how the way had opened to his weak, +sentimental aunt; he fancied that he saw again the doe at the gate of +the imposing park of the unreal forest; the gate had swung open, and, +her eyes as mild as ever, the doe had entered the mystic world. To him +this image of his aunt was perfect. Oh! mysterious, dreadful, wonderful +heart of woman! + +Bella stood by his side, looking up at him. "Cousin Antony," she +breathed, "why do you take her part?" + +"I want her daughter to take it, Bella, or say nothing." + +Her dark eyes were on him intently, curiously. His throat was bare, his +blond hair cut close around his neck; the marks of his recent grief and +struggle had thinned and saddened his face. He had altered very much in +five years. + +"I remember," Bella said sharply, "you used to seem fond of her;" and +added, "I loved my father best." + +Fairfax made no reply, and Bella walked slowly across the studio, and +started to sit down under the green lamp. + +"No," cried Fairfax, "not there, Bella!" + +Her hand on the back of the chair, the young girl paused in surprise. + +"Why, why not, Cousin Antony?" + +Why not, indeed! He had not prevented Rainsford from sitting there. + +"Is the chair weak in its legs?" she laughed. "I'm light--I'll risk it," +and, half defiantly, she seated herself by the table, leaning both +elbows on it. She looked back at him. "Now, make a little drawing of me +as you used to do. I'll show it to the girls in school to prove what a +genius we have in the family; and I must go back, too, or I'll have more +bad marks than ever." + +Fairfax did not obey her. Instead, he looked at her as though he saw +through her to eternity. + +Bella sprang up impulsively, and came toward him. "Cousin Antony," she +murmured, "I'm perfectly dreadful. I'm selfish and inconsiderate. It's +only because I'm a little wild. I don't mean it. You've told me +nothing." She lifted his cravat from the chair. "You wear a black cravat +and your clothes are black. Is it for Aunt Arabella still?" + +Fairfax seemed to himself to look down on her from a height. Her +brilliance, her sparkle and youth were far away. His heart ached within +him. + +"One goes mighty far in five years, Bella.... One loses many things." + +"I know--Gardiner and your mother. But who else?" + +He saw her face sadden; the young girl extended her hand to him, her +eyes darkened. + +"Who else?" she breathed. + +Fairfax put out his arms toward her, but did not enfold her. He let his +hands rest on her shoulders and murmured, "Bella, little Bella," and +choked the other words back. + +"No," she said, "I'm not little Bella any more. Please answer me, Cousin +Antony." + +He could not have told her for his life. He could tell her nothing; her +charm, her lifted face, beautiful, ardent, were the most real, the most +vital things the world had ever held for him. The fascination found him +under his new grief. He exclaimed, turning brusquely toward his covered +scaffolding-- + +"Don't you want to see my work, Bella? I've been at it nearly a year." + +He rapidly drew the curtain and exposed his bas-relief. + +There was in the distance a vague indication of distant sky-line--a far +horizon--upon which, into which, a door opened, held ajar by a woman's +arm and hand. The woman's figure, draped in the clinging garment of the +grave, was passing through, but in going her face was turned, uplifted, +to look back at a man without, who, apparently unconscious of her, gazed +upon life and the world. That was all--the two figures and the feeling +of the vast illimitable far-away. + +It seemed to Fairfax as he unveiled his work that he looked upon it +himself for the first time; it seemed to him finished, moreover, +complete. He knew that he could do nothing more with it. He heard Bella +ask, "Who is it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful!" her old +enthusiasm soft and warm in her voice. + +At her repeated question, "Who is it?" he replied, "A dream woman." And +his cousin said, "You have lovely dreams, but it is too sad." + +He told her for what it was destined, and she listened, musing, and when +she turned her face to him again there were tears in her eyes. She +pointed to the panel. + +"There should be a child there," she said, with trembling lips. "They go +in too, Cousin Antony." + +"Yes," he responded, "they go in too." + +He crossed the floor with her toward the door, neither of them speaking. +She drew on her gloves, but at the door he said-- + +"Stop a moment. I'm going a little way with you." + +"No, Cousin Antony, you can't. Myra Scutfield, my best friend, is +waiting for me with her brother. I'm supposed to be visiting her for +Sunday. You mustn't come." + +Her hand was on the door latch. He gently took her hand and pushed it +aside. He did not wish her to open that door or to go through it alone. +As they stood there silent, she lifted her face and said-- + +"I'm going away for the Easter holidays. Kiss me good-bye." + +And he stooped and kissed her--kissed Bella, the little cousin, the +honey child--no, kissed Bella, the woman, on her lips. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +From the window he watched her fly up the street like a scarlet bird, +and realized what a child she was still, and, whereas he had felt a +hundred that day at church, he now felt as old as the ancient Egyptians, +as the Sphinx, a Sage in suffering and knowledge of life, beside his +cousin. He called her little, but she was tall and slender, standing as +high as his shoulder. + +He turned heavily about to his room which the night now filled. The +street lamps were lit, and their frail glimmer flickered in, like the +fingers of a ghost. His money was nearly gone. There was the expense of +casting his work in plaster, the packing and shipping of the bas-relief. +He lit his lamp, and, as he adjusted the green shade, under which Molly +had used to sit and sew, he saw on the table the roll of bills which +Rainsford had offered to him that morning. He picked up the money with a +smile. + +"Poor old Rainsford, dear old chap. He was determined, wasn't he?" + +Fairfax wrapped up the heavy roll of money, marked it with Rainsford's +name, and stood musing on his friend's failing health, his passion for +Molly, and the fruitless, vanishing story that ended, as all seemed to +end for him, in death. Suddenly, over his intense feelings, came the +need of nourishment, and he wanted to escape from the room where he had +been caged all day. + +At the Delavan, George Washington welcomed him with delight. + +"Yo' dun forgit yo' ol' friends, Massa' Kunnell Fairfax, sah. Yo doan +favour dis ol' nigger any moh." + +Fairfax told him that he was an expensive luxury, and enjoyed his quiet +meal and his cigar, took a walk in a different direction from Canal +Street, and at ten o'clock returned to find a boy waiting at the door +with a note, whistling and staring up and down the street, waiting for +the gentleman to whom he was to deliver his note in person. + +Fairfax went in with his letter, knowing before he opened it that +Rainsford had something grave to tell him. He sat down in Molly's chair, +around which the Presence had gathered and brooded until the young man's +soul had seemed engulfed in the shadow of Death. + + "MY DEAR TONY, + + "When you read this letter, it will be of no use to come to me. + Don't come. I said my final word to you to-day when I went to make + my will and testament. You will discover on your table all my + fortune. It counts up to a thousand dollars. I have a feeling that + it may help you to success. You know what a failure I have been. I + should have been one right along. Now that I have found out that a + mortal disease is upon me, my last spurt of courage is gone. When I + stood before your work to-day, Tony, it was a benediction to me. + Although I had fully decided to _go out_, I should have gone + hopelessly; now there is something grand to me in the retreat. The + uplift and the solemnity of the far horizon charm me, and though I + open the door for myself and have no right to any claim for mercy, + nevertheless I think that I shall find it there, and I am going + through the open door. God bless you, Fairfax. Don't let the + incidents of your life in Albany cloud what I believe will be a + great career. + + "THOMAS RAINSFORD." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +He was too young to be engulfed by death. + +But he did not think or understand then that the great events which had +racked his nerves in suffering were only incidents. Nor did he know that +neither his soul nor his heart had suffered all they were capable of +enduring. In spite of his deep heart-ache and his feelings that quivered +with the memories of his wife, he was above all an artist, a creator. +Hope sprang from this last grave. Desire in Fairfax had never been fully +born; how then could it be fully satisfied or grow old and cold before +it had lived! + +Tony Fairfax was the sole mourner that followed Rainsford's coffin to +the Potter's Field. They would not bury him in consecrated ground. Canon +Prynne had been surprised by a visit at eight o'clock in the morning. + +Fairfax was received by the Bishop in his bedroom, where the Bishop was +shaving. Fairfax, as he talked, caught sight of his own face in the +glass, deathly white, his burning eyes as blue as the heavens to which +he was sure Rainsford had gone. + +"My friend," the ecclesiastic said, "my friend, I have nothing to do +with laws, thank God. I am glad that no responsibility has been given me +but to do my work. But let me say, to comfort you, is not every whit of +the earth that God made holy? What could make it more sacred than the +fact that He created it?" + +Fairfax thought of these words as he saw the dust scatter and heard the +rattle of the stones on the lid of Rainsford's coffin, and in a clear +and assured voice of one who knows in whom he has believed, he read from +Bella's Prayer-book (he had never given it back to her), "I am the +Resurrection and the Life." He could find no parson to go with him. + +On the way back to Albany he met the spring everywhere; it was just +before the Easter holidays. Overhead the clouds rolled across a +stainless sky, and they took ship-like forms to him and he felt a strong +wish to escape--to depart. Rainsford had set him free. It would be +months before he could hear from his competition. There was nothing in +this continent to keep him. He had come North full of living hope and +vital purpose, and meekly, solemnly, his graves had laid themselves out +around him, and he alone stood living. + +Was there nothing to keep him? + +Bella Carew. + +He had, of all people in the world, possibly the least right to her. She +was his first cousin, nothing but a child; worth, the papers had said, a +million in her own right. The heiress of a man who despised him. + +But her name was music still; music as yet too delicate, sweet as it +was, not to be drowned by the deeper, graver notes that were sounding +through Fairfax. There was a call to labour, there was the imperious +demand of his art. In him, something sang Glory, and if the other tones +meant struggle and battle, nevertheless his desire was all toward them. + + + + +BOOK III + +THE VISIONS + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The sea which he had just crossed lay gleaming behind him, every lovely +ripple washing the shores of a new continent. + +The cliffs which he saw rising white in the sunlight were the Norman +cliffs. Beyond them the fields waved in the summer air and the June sky +spread blue over France. + +As he stepped down from the gang-plank and touched French soil, he gazed +about him in delight. + +The air was salt and indescribably sweet. The breeze came to him over +the ripening fields and mingled with the breath of the sea. + +They passed his luggage through the Customs quickly, and Antony was free +to wonder and to explore. Not since he had left the oleanders and +jasmines of New Orleans had he smelled such delicious odours as those of +sea-girdled Havre. A few soldiers in red uniforms tramped down the +streets singing the Marseillaise. A group of fish-wives offered him +mussels and crabs. + +In his grey travelling clothes, his soft grey hat, his bag in his hand, +he went away from the port toward the wide avenue. + +The bright colour of a red awning of a cafe caught his eye; he decided +to breakfast before going on to Paris. + +Paris! The word thrilled him through and through. + +At a small table out of doors he ordered "boeuf a la mode" and "pommes +de terre." It seemed agreeable to speak French again and his soft Creole +accent charmed the ear of the waiter who bent smiling to take his order. + +Antony watched with interest the scene around him; those about him +seemed to be good-humoured, contented travellers on the road of life. +There was a neat alacrity about the waiters in their white aprons. + +A girl with a bouquet of roses came up to him. Antony gave her a sou and +in exchange she gave him a white rose. + +"Thank you, Monsieur the Englishman." + +He had never tasted steak and potatoes like these. He had never tasted +red wine like this. And it cost only a franc! He ordered his coffee and +smoked and mused in the bland June light. + +He was happier than he had been for many a long day. + + * * * * * + +Eventful, tremulous, terrible and expressive, his past lay behind him on +another shore. He felt as though he were about to seek his fortune for +the first time. + +As soon as Rainsford's generous gift became his own, the possession of +his little fortune, even at such a tragic price, made a new man of +Fairfax. He magnified its power, but it proved sufficient to buy him a +gentlemanly outfit, the ticket to France, and leave him a little +capital. + +His plans unfolded themselves to him now, as he sat musing before the +restaurant. He would study in the schools with Cormon or Julian. He had +brought with him his studies of Molly--he would have them criticized by +the great masters. All Paris was before him. The wonders of the +galleries, whose masterpieces were familiar to him in casts and +photographs, would disclose themselves to him now. He would see the +Louvre, Notre Dame de Paris.... + +His spirits rose as he touched the soil of France. Now Paris should be +his mistress, and art should be his passion! + + * * * * * + +His ticket took him second-class on a slow train and he found a seat +amongst the humble travelling world; between a priest and a soldier, he +smoked his cigarettes and offered them to his companions, and watched +the river flowing between the poplars, the fields red with poppies, +yellow with wheat. The summer light shining on all shone on him through +the small window of the carriage, and though it was sunset it seemed to +Fairfax sunrise. The hour grew late. The darkness fell and the motion of +the cars made him drowsy, and he fell asleep. + + * * * * * + +He was awakened by the stirring of his fellow-passengers, by the rich +Norman voices, by the jostling and moving among the occupants of the +carriage, and he gathered his thoughts together, took his valise in his +hand and climbed down from the car. + +He passed out with the crowd through the St. Lazare station. He had in +Havre observed with interest the novel constructions of the engines and +the rolling stock. The crowd of market-women, peasants, cures, was +anonymous to him, but as he passed the engine which had brought him from +Havre, he glanced up at the mechanician, a big, blond-moustached fellow +in a blue blouse. The engineer's face streamed with perspiration and he +was smoking a cigarette. + +He had shunned engines and yards, and everything that had to do with his +old existence, for months; now he nodded with a friendly sympathetic +smile to the engine-driver. + +"Bien le bonjour," he said cheerfully, as he had heard the people in the +train say it, "Bien le bonjour." + +The Frenchman nodded and grinned and watched him limp down and out with +the others to the waiting-room called, picturesquely, the Hall of the +Lost Footsteps--"La Salle des Pas Perdus." + +And Antony's light step and his heavy step fell among the countless +millions that come and go, go and come, unmarked, forgotten--to walk +with the Paris multitudes into paths of obscurity or fame--"_les pas +perdus_." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +It was the first beginning of summer dawn when he turned breathlessly +into the Rue de Rome and stood at length in Paris. He shouldered his big +bag and took his bearings. At that early hour there were few people +abroad--here and there a small open carriage, drawn by a limp, +melancholy horse and dominated by what he thought a picturesque cabby, +passed him invitingly. A drive in a cab in America is not for a man of +uncertain means, and the folly of taking a vehicle did not occur to him. +Along the broad avenue at the street's foot, lights were still lit in +the massive lamps, shops and houses were closed, and by a blue sign on +the wall he read that he was crossing a great avenue. The Boulevard +Haussmann was as tranquil as a village street. A couple of good-looking +men, whom he thought were soldiers, caught his eye in their uniforms of +white trousers and blue coats. He asked them, touching his hat, the +first thing that came to his mind: "La Rue Mazarine, Messieurs--would +they direct him?" + +When he came out on the Place de la Concorde at four o'clock he was +actually the only speck visible in the great circle. He stopped, +enchanted, to look about him. The imaginative and inadequate picture of +the Place de la Concorde his idea had drawn, faded. The light mists of +the morning swept up the Avenue des Champs Elysees, and there stood out +before his eyes the lines of the Triumphal Arch, which to Antony said: +Napoleon! + +On the left stretched gardens toward a great palace, all that has been +left to France and the glory which was her doom. + +From the spectral line of the Louvre, his eyes came back to the +melancholy statues that rose near him--Strassburg, Luxemburg, Alsace +and Lorraine. Huge iron wreaths hung about their bases, wreaths that +blossomed as he looked, like flowers of blood and lilies of death. + +Then in front of him the calm, rose-hued obelisk lifted its finger, and +once again the shadow of Egypt fell across the heart of a modern city. +To Antony, the obelisk had an affinity with the Abydos Sphinx, but this +obelisk did not rest on the backs of four bronze creatures! + +The small cabs continued to tinkle slowly across the Place; a group of +young fellows passed by, singing on their way to the Latin Quarter, from +some fete in Montmartre--they were students going home before morning. +In the distance, here and there, were a few foot passengers like +himself, but to Antony it seemed that he was alone in Paris. And in the +fresh beginning of a day untried and momentous, the city was like a +personality. In the summer softness, in the tender, agreeable light, the +welcome to him was caressing and as lovely as New York had been brutal. + +Antony resumed his way to the river, followed the quays where at his +side the Seine ran along, reddening in the summer's sunrise. Along the +river, when he crossed the Pont des Arts, he saw the stirring of +Parisian life. He went on down the quays, past quaint old houses whose +traditions and history he wanted to know, turned off into a dark +street--la Rue Mazarine. He smiled as he read the sign. What had this +narrow Parisian alley to do with him? He had adopted it out of caprice, +distinguished it from all Paris. + +He scanned the shops and houses; many were still closed, neither +milk-shops nor antiquity dealers suggested shelter. A modest sign over a +dingy-looking building caught his eye. In the courtyard, in green wooden +tubs, flourished two bay-trees. + +"Hotel of the Universe"--Hotel de l'Univers. + +That was hospitable enough, wide enough to take Antony Fairfax in. +Behind the bay-trees a dirty, discouraged looking waiter, to whom the +universe had apparently not been generous, welcomed, or at least +glanced, at Fairfax. The fellow wore a frayed, colourless dress-suit; +his linen was suspicious, but his head at this early hour was sleekly +brushed and oiled. + +"No, the hotel is not yet full," he told the stranger, as though he +said, "The entire universe, thank God, has not yet descended upon us." + +For one franc fifty a room could be had on the sixth floor. Antony +yielded up his bag and bade the man show the way. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +He could hardly wait to make his hasty toilet and set forth into the +city. He saw something of it from the eave-window in his microscopic +room. Chimney-pots, stained, mossy roofs, the flash of old spires, the +round of a dome, the river, the bridges, all under the supernal blue of, +to him, a friendly sky--he felt that he must quaff it all at a draught. +But the fatigue of his lame limb began to oppress him. There was the +weight of sleep on his eyelids, and he turned gratefully to the small +bed under the red rep curtains. It was ridiculously small for his six +feet of body, but he threw himself down thankfully and slept. + +Dreams chased each other through his brain and he stretched out his +hands toward elusive forms in his sleep. He seized upon one, thinking it +was Bella, and when he pressed his cheek to hers, the cheek was cold and +the form was cold. He slept till afternoon and rose still with the daze +upon him of his arrival and his dreams, and the first excitement +somewhat calmed. He had enough change for his lodging and dinner, but +nothing more. + +He walked across the bridge and the light and brilliance of the city +dazzled him. He went into the Louvre, and the coolness and breadth of +the place fell on him like a spell. He wondered if any in that vast +place was as athirst as he was and as mad for beauty. He wandered +through the rooms enthralled, and made libations to the relics of old +Egypt; he sent up hymns to the remains of ancient Greece, and before the +Venus of Milo gave up his heart, standing long absorbed before the +statue, swearing to slave for the production of beauty. He found himself +stirred to his most passionate depths, musing on form and artistic +creation, and when the pulse in his heart became too strong and the +Venus oppressed his sense, he wandered out, limped up the staircase and +delivered up his soul at the foot of the pedestal of the Winged Victory. +He did not go to the paintings; the feast had been tremendous--he could +bear no more. + +On his way out of the Louvre he passed through the Egyptian room. Ever +since the Abydos Sphinx had been brought to America, from the Nile, +Egypt had charmed him. He had read of Egypt, its treasures, in the +Albany library now and then on Sunday afternoons. It had a tremendous +attraction for him, and he entered the room where its relics were with +worship of the antique in his soul. + +He turned to go, when his foot touched something on the floor and he +stooped to pick it up--a fine chain purse heavy with pieces of gold. He +balanced it in his hand and looked around for the possible owner, but he +was the only sightseer. He went, however, quickly from the museum, not +knowing in just what manner to restore this property, and in front of +him, passing out on to the gallery above the grand staircase, he saw a +lady leisurely making her exit. She was beautifully dressed and had such +an air of riches about her that he thought to himself, with every +reason, why should she not be the possessor of a gold purse? He went up +to her. + +"I beg pardon," he began, and as she turned he recognized her in a +moment as the woman by whose carriage he had stood in the crowd on the +day of the unveiling of his statue--he recognized her as the woman who +had drawn the veil of the Sphinx. She was Cedersholm's fiancee. "Have +you lost anything, Madame?" + +She exclaimed: "My purse! Oh, thank you very much." Then looked at him, +smiling, and said, "But I think I have seen you before. Whom must I +thank?" + +He had his hat in his hand. His fine, clear brow over which the hair +grew heavily, his beautiful face, his strength and figure, once seen and +remembered as she had remembered them in that brief instant in New York, +were not to be forgotten. Still the resemblance puzzled her. + +"My name is Rainsford," he said quietly, "Thomas Rainsford. I am one of +Mr Cedersholm's pupils." + +"If that is so," she said, "you are welcome at my house at any time. I +am home Sundays. Won't you give me the pleasure of calling, Mr. +Rainsford?" + +He bowed, thanked her, and they walked down the stairs together, and she +was unable to recall where she had seen this handsome young man. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +In his little hotel that night he lighted a candle in a tall nickel +candlestick, and, when he was ready for bed, he peered into his mirror +at his own face, which he took pains to consider thoughtfully. Like a +friend's it looked back at him, the marks of Life deep upon it. + +At two o'clock he was in a heavy sleep when he was roused by the turning +of the handle of his door. Some one had come into the room and Antony, +bolt upright, heard the door drawn and the key turned. Then something +slipped and fell with a thud. He lit his candle, shielded it, and to his +amazement saw sitting on the floor, his big form taking up half the +little room, a young fellow in full evening dress, an opera hat on the +back of his head. + +"Don't squeal," said the visitor gently with a hiccough; "I see I'm too +late or too early, or shomething or other." + +He was evidently a gentleman out of his room and evidently drunk. Antony +laughed and got half-way out of bed. + +"You're in the wrong room, that's clear, and how are you going to get +out of it? Can you get up with a lift?" + +"Look here"--the young man who was an American and who would have been +agreeable-looking if he had not been drunk and hebetated, sat back and +leaned comfortably against the door--"roomsh all right, good roomsh, +just like mine; don't mind me, old man, go back to bed." + +Antony came over and tried to pull him up, but the stranger was immense, +as big as himself, and determined and happy. He had made up his mind to +pass his night on the floor. + +Antony rang his bell in vain, then sighed, himself overcome with sleep. +To the young man who barricaded the door, and who was already beginning +to drowse, he said pleasantly---- + +"Give us your hat, anyway, and take off your coat." + +"Now you go back to bed, sir," ordered the other with solemn dignity, +"go back to bed, don't mind me. I'm nothing but a little mountain +flower," he quoted pathetically. His head fell over, his big body +followed it. + +Antony took one of his pillows, put it under the fellow's head, and +turned in himself, amused by his singularly companioned night. + + * * * * * + +"What the deuce!" he heard the next morning from a voice not unpleasant, +although markedly Western. And he opened his eyes to see bending over +him a ruffled, untidy, pasty-looking individual whom he remembered to +have last seen sprawling on the floor. + +"Say, are you in my bed or am I only out of my own?" asked the young +man. + +Antony told him. + +"George!" exclaimed the other, sitting down on the bed and taking his +head in his hands, "I was screwed all right, and I fell like a barrel in +the Falls of Niagara. I'm ever so much obliged to you for not kicking up +a row here. My room is next or opposite or somewhere, I guess--that is, +if I'm in the Universe." + +Antony said that he was. + +"I feel," said the young man, "as though its revolutions had +accelerated." + +"There's water over there," said Antony; "you're welcome to have it." + +"See here," said the total stranger, "if you're half the brick you +seem--and you are or you wouldn't have let me snore all night on the +carpet--ring for Alphonse and send him out to get some bromo seltzer. +There's a chemist's bang up against the hotel, and he's got that line of +drugs." + +Fairfax put out his arm and rang from the bed. The young man waited +dejectedly; having taken off his coat and collar, he looked somewhat +mournfully at his silk hat which, the worse for his usage of it, had +rolled in a corner of Fairfax's room. + +Alphonse, who for a wonder was within a few steps of the room, answered +the bell, his advent announced by the shuffling of his old slippers; but +before he had knocked the young man slid across the room and stood flat +behind the door so that, when it opened, his presence would not be +observed by the valet. + +The man, for whom Fairfax had not yet had occasion to ring, opened the +door and stood waiting for the order. He was a small, round-faced fellow +in a green barege apron, that came up and down and all over him. In his +hand he carried a melancholy feather duster. + +"Le dejeuner, Monsieur?" smiled Alphonse cordially, "un cafe complet?" + +"Yes," acquiesced Antony eagerly, "and as well, would you go to the +pharmacy and get me a bottle of bromo seltzer?" + +"Bien, Monsieur." The valet looked much surprised and considered +Fairfax's handsome, healthy face. "Bien, Monsieur," and he waited. + +Fairfax was about to say: "Give me my waistcoat," but remembering his +secluded friend, sprang out of bed and gave to Alphonse a five-franc +piece. + +"You're a brick," said the young man, coming out from behind the door. +"I'm awfully obliged. Now let me get my head in a basin of water and +I'll be back with you in a jiffy." And he darted out evidently into the +next room, for Fairfax heard the door bang and lock. + +Fairfax threw back his head and laughed. He was not utterly alone in +France, he had a drunken neighbour, a fellow companion on the sixth +floor of the Universe, which, after all, divides itself more or less +into stories in more ways than one. He opened his window and let in the +June morning, serene and lovely. It shone on him over chimney-pots and +many roofs and slender towers in the far distance. He heard the dim +noise of the streets. He had gone as far in his toilet as mixing the +shaving water, when the valet returned with a tray and presented Fairfax +with his first "petit dejeuner" in France. The young man thought it +tempting--butter in a golden pat, with a flower stamped on it. The +little rolls and something about the appearance of the little meal +suggested his New Orleans home--he half looked to see a dusky face beam +on him--"Massa Tony, chile"--and the vines at the window. + +"Voici, Monsieur." Alphonse indicated the bromide. "I think everything +is here." The intelligent servant had perceived the crushed silk hat in +the corner and gave a little cough behind his hand. + +Fairfax, six feet and more in his stockings, blond and good to look at, +his bright humour, his charm, his soft Creole accent, pleased Alphonse. + +"I see Monsieur has not unpacked his things. If I can serve Monsieur he +has only to ask me." Alphonse picked up the opera hat, straightened it +out and looked at it. "Shall I hang this up, Monsieur?" + +"Do, behind the door, Alphonse." + +The man did so and withdrew, and no sooner his rapid, light footsteps +patted down the hall-way than Fairfax eagerly seated himself before his +breakfast and poured out his excellent cafe au lait. The door was softly +pushed in again, shut to and locked--the dissipated young gentleman +seemed extremely partial to locked doors--and Fairfax's companion of the +night before said in an undertone---- + +"Go slow, nobody in the hotel knows I'm in it." + +Fairfax, who was not going slow over his breakfast, indicated the opera +hat behind the door and the bromide. + +"Hurrah for you and Alphonse," exclaimed the young fellow, who prepared +himself a pick-me-up eagerly, and without invitation seated himself at +Fairfax's table. + +A good-looking young man of twenty-five, not more, with a cheerful, +intelligent face in sober moments, now pale, with parched lips and eyes +not clear yet. He had washed and his hair was smoothly brushed. He had +no regularity of features such as Fairfax, being a well-set-up, ordinary +young fellow, such as one might see in any American college or +university. But there was a fineness in the lines of his mouth, a +drollery and wit in his eyes, and he was thoroughly agreeable. + +"I'm from the West," he said, putting his glass down empty. "Robert +Dearborn, from Cincinnati--and I'm no end obliged to you, old chap, +whoever you are. You've got a good breakfast there, haven't you?" + +"Have some," Antony offered with real generosity, for he was famished. + +"Well," returned Dearborn, "to tell you the truth, I feel as if I were +robbing a sleeping man to take it, for I know how fiendishly hungry you +must be. But, by Jove, I haven't had a thing to eat since"--and he +laughed--"since I was a child." + +He rinsed the glass that had held the bromide, poured out some black +coffee for himself and took half of Fairfax's bread and half of his +flower-stamped butter, and devoured it eagerly. When he had finished he +wiped his mouth and genially held out his hand. + +"Ever been hungry?" + +Antony did not tell him how lately. + +"Good," nodded Dearborn, "I understand. Passing through Paris?" + +"Just arrived." + +"Well, I've been here for two whole years. By the way," he questioned +Antony, "you haven't told me your name." + +Fairfax hesitated because of a fancy that had come into his mind when he +had discovered the loss of his fortune. + +"Thomas Rainsford," he said; then, for he could not deny his home, "from +New Orleans." + +"Ah!" exclaimed his companion, "that's why you speak such ripping +French. Now, do you know, to hear me you wouldn't think I'd seen a +gendarme or a Parisian pavement. My Western accent, you must have +remarked it, refuses to mix with a foreign language. I can speak +French," he said calmly, "but they can't understand me yet; I have been +here two years." + +There was a knock at the door. Dearborn started and held up his hand. + +"If Monsieur will give me his boots," suggested the mellow voice of +Alphonse, "I will clean them." + +Fairfax picked up his boots, the big shoe and the smaller one, and +handed out the pair through a crack in the door. + +When once again the rabbit steps had pattered away--"Go on dressing," +Dearborn said, "don't let me stop you. You don't mind my sitting here a +minute until Alphonse does with his boot-cleaning operations. He's a +magician at that. They keep their boots clean, here, if they don't +wash." + +Dearborn made himself comfortable, accepted a cigarette from the packet +the landlady had given Fairfax, and put his feet on the chair that +Fairfax had vacated. + +"I went out last night to a little supper with some friends of mine. The +banquet rather used me up." + +He smiled, and Fairfax saw how he looked when he was more himself. His +hair, as the water dried on it, was reddish, he was clean-shaven, his +teeth were white and sound, his smile agreeable. + +"Now, if I hadn't been drunk, I shouldn't have come back to the +Universe. I was due a quarter of a mile away from here. They'll keep me +when they find me. I haven't paid my bill here to Madame Poulet for six +weeks. But they are decent, trustful sort of people and can't believe a +chap won't ever pay. But I was fool enough to leave my father's cable in +my room and Madame Poulet had it translated. I grant you it wasn't +encouraging for a creditor, Rainsford." + +Antony heard his name used for the first time, the R's rolled and made +the most of. It seemed to bring back the dead. + +"Listen to the cable," said the communicative young man: "'You can go to +the devil. Not a cent more from me or your mother.'" + +Fairfax, who was tying his cravat, turned around and smiled, and he +limped over to his visitor. + +"It's not the most friendly telegram I ever heard," he said. + +"Step-father," returned the other briefly. "She knows nothing about +it--my mother, I mean. I've been living on her money here for two years +and over and it's gone; but before I take a penny from him ..." + +"I understand," said Fairfax, going back to the mirror and beginning to +brush his hair. + +"Did you ever have a mother?" asked the red-haired young man with a +queer look on his face, and added, "I see you have. Well, let's drop the +subject, then, but you may discuss step-fathers all you choose." + +Fairfax, for he was not Rainsford, yet, took a fancy to his visitor, a +fancy to his rough, deep voice; he liked the eyes that were clearing +fast, liked the kindly spirited face and the ready, boy-like confidence. + +"What are you up to in Paris?" he asked Dearborn, regarding him with +interest. + +"I'm a playwright," said the other simply. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +"A playwright," Fairfax repeated softly. If Dearborn had said "Ali +Baba," Fairfax would scarcely have been more surprised. + +"You must know the Bohemian life here?" he asked, "even possibly know +some artists?" + +"Well, rather," drawled his companion; "I live among them. I don't know +a single chap who isn't doing something, burning the midnight oil or +using the daylight in a studio." + +As Dearborn spoke, Fairfax, looking at him more observantly, saw +something in his countenance that responded to his own feelings. + +"What are you over here for, Rainsford?" asked the Westerner. + +"I am a sculptor." + +"Delightful!" exclaimed his companion. "Where are you going to work? +With Carrier-Belleuse or Rude?" + +"Ah, I don't know--I don't know where I can go or what I can do." + +His companion, with an understanding nod, said, "Didn't bring over a +gold-mine with you, perhaps?" + +As he said this he laughed, extended both his hands and jumped up from +his seat. + +"I like you exceedingly," he exclaimed heartily. "The governor had +telegraphed me to go to the devil and I thought I'd take his advice. The +little supper I was giving last night was to say good-bye to a +hundred-franc note, some money that I won at poker. I might have paid +some of this hotel bill, but I didn't. I wish you had been there, +Rainsford! But, never mind, you had the afterglow anyway! No," he +laughed, "let us surprise them at home. I don't quite know how, but +let's surprise them." + +Fairfax shook his head as though he didn't quite understand. + +"Is there no one who thinks you an insane fool for going in for art? +Nobody that your success will be gall to?" + +"No, I'm all alone." + +"Come," urged the other, too excited to see the sadness on his +companion's face. "Come, isn't there some one who will cringe when your +statues are unveiled?" + +"Stop!" cried Fairfax eagerly. + +"Come on then," cried the boy; "whoever it may be, your enemy or my +stepfather--we will surprise them yet!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +In January of the following year he leaned out of the window and smelled +Paris, drank it in, penetrated by its fragrance and perfume. He saw the +river milkily flowing between the shores, the stones of the quay +parapet, the arches of the bridges, the wide domain of roofs and towers. + +The Sacre-Coeur on Montmartre had not yet begun to rise, though they +were laying its foundation stones, and his eyes travelled, as they +always did, through the fog to the towers of Notre-Dame with its black, +mellow front and its melancholy beauty. The bourdon of the bells smote +sympathetically through him. No matter what his state of mind might be, +Paris took him out of himself, and he adored it. + +He was looking upon the first of the winter mists. The first grey +mystery had obscured the form of the city. Paris had a new seduction. He +could not believe now that he had not been born in France and been +always part of the country he had adopted by temperament and spirit. +Like all artists, his country was where he worked the best. For him now, +unless the place were a workshop, it could never be a hearthstone, and +he took satisfaction in recalling his ancestry on his mother's +side--Debaillet, or, as they called it in New Orleans, Ballet. As +Arabella Ballet his mother had been beautiful; as Mrs. Fairfax she had +given him Irish and French blood. + +"Atavism," he said to Dearborn, "you cannot love this place as I do, +Bob. My grandfather escaped in the disguise of a French cook to save his +head in 1793. I seem to see his figure walking before me when I cross +the Place de la Concorde, and the shadow of the guillotine falls across +his path." + +From his corner of the room Dearborn drawled, "If the substance of the +guillotine had fallen across his neck, Tony, where would you be in our +mutual history?" + +Antony had asked his companion to call him Tony. He had not been able to +disassociate himself with everything that recalled the past. + +Fairfax's figure as he turned was dark against the light of the window +and the room was full of the shadows of the early January twilight. He +wore a pair of velveteen breeches whose original colour might have been +a dark, rich blue. His flannel shirt (no longer red) was fastened +loosely at the neck by a soft black cravat under a rolling collar. It +was Sunday and he was working, the clay white upon his fingers and +nails. He wore an old pair of slippers, and Dearborn on a couch in a +corner watched him, a Turkish drapery wound around his shoulders, for +the big room was chilly and it smelled of clay and tobacco smoke. The +studio was an enormous attic, running the length of an hotel once of +some magnificence, now a tumble-down bit of still beautiful +architecture. The room was portioned off for the use of two people. Two +couches served in the night-time as their beds, there was a small stove +guiltless of fire, a few pieces of studio property, a skylight, a desk +covered with papers and books and manuscripts, and in the part of the +room near the window and under the skylight, Tony Fairfax, now Thomas +Rainsford, worked among his casts and drawings, amidst the barrels of +clay and plaster. To him, in spite of being almost always hungry, in +spite of the discomfort, of the constant presence and companionship of +another when he often longed for solitude, in spite of this, his domain +was a heaven. He had come into the place in June with Dearborn. + +Tony had paid a year's rent in advance. He was working as a common +journeyman in the studio of Barye, and early in the morning, late at +night, and on Sundays, worked for himself eagerly, hungrily, like the +slave of old in Albany, and yet, with what a difference! He had no one +but himself to consider, but had the interest of the atelier where he +studied, even as he sold his skill that it might be lost in the +creations of more advanced artists, and there, during the days of his +apprenticeship, his visions came to him, and what conceptions he then +had he tried to work out and to mature, when he had the chance, in his +own room. + +Dearborn, who never left the studio except to eat, smoked and worked and +read all day. + +The two men were sufficiently of a size to wear each other's clothes. +They had thought it out carefully and had preserved from the holocaust, +of the different financial crises, one complete out-of-door outfit, from +hat to boots--and those boots! + +It was "deplorable" the bookseller, whose little shelf of books lay on +the stone wall of the quay, said, it was "deplorable" that such a fine +pair of men should be lame and in exactly the same fashion. Fairfax +could not walk at all in the other man's shoes, so his normal friend +made the sacrifice and the proper shoes were pawned, and Robert Dearborn +and Tony Fairfax had shared alternately the big boot and the small one, +the light and the heavy step. And they were directed by such different +individuals, the boots went through Paris in such diverse ways! + +"By Jove!" exclaimed Dearborn, examining the boots carefully, "it isn't +fair. You're walking these boots of ours to death! Who the deuce will +take them out in his bare feet to be repaired?" + +They were just as absurdly poor as this. Nobody whose soul is not +absorbed in art can ever understand what it is to be so stupidly poor. + +Dearborn, when he could be forced out of the house, put on the shoes +with reluctance; he was greatly annoyed by the clatter of the big boot. +The shoes didn't fit him in the least. He would shuffle into the nearest +cafe, if his credit was good enough to permit it, and there, under the +small table on which he wrote page after page over his cigarette and cup +of black coffee, he hid the big awkward shoe for as long as he could +endure exile from the studio. Then he came home. + +Fairfax swung the boot down the stairs, he swung it along the pavements +of Paris! What distance he took it! It seemed to have a wing at the +heel. It tramped through the quarters of the city from the quays to +fine old streets, to forgotten alleys, to the Cite on the Ile, then +again by the fresh gay avenues of the Champs Elysees to the Bois, again +to the quays, and, when well up the river, he would sometimes board the +boat and come back down the Seine, dreaming, musing, creating, and, +floating home, would take the big boot upstairs. + +"By Jove, Tony!" Dearborn remarked, examining the boots closely, "it's +not fair! One of us will have to _drive_ if you don't let up, old man!" + +Dearborn, when he did not haunt his cafe and when inspiration failed, +would haunt the Bibliotheque Nationale, and amongst the "Rats de +litterature"--savant, actor, poet, amongst the cold and weary who lounge +in the chairs of the library to dream, to get warm, and to imagine real +firesides with one's own books and one's own walls around them--Dearborn +would sit for hours poring over old manuscripts from which he had hoped +to extract inspiration, listening, as do his sort, for "the voices." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was a year of privation, but there were moments spent on the +threshold of Paradise. + +His materials, barrels of clay and plaster, were costly. Dearborn said +that he thanked God he had a "metier" requiring no further expenditure +than a pot of ink and a lot of paper. + +"The ideas," he told Fairfax, "are expensive, and I think, old man, that +I shall have to _buy_ some. I find that they will not come unless I +invite them to dinner!" + +Neither of the young men had made a hearty meal for an unconsciously +long time. The weather grew colder and they lived as they could on +Fairfax's day wage. + +At this time, when during the hours of his freedom he was housed with +his companion, Fairfax was overwhelmed by the rush of his ideas and his +desire to create. He would not let himself long for solitude, for he was +devoted to his friend and grateful for his companionship and affection, +but a certain piece of work had haunted him since his first Sunday +afternoon at the Louvre, and he was eager to finish the statue he had +begun and to send it to the Salon. + +The Visions no longer eluded him--ever present, sometimes they +overpowered him by their obsession. They flattered the young man, +seeming to embrace him, called to him, uplifted him until heights +levelled before his eyes and became roads upon which he walked lightly, +and his pride in his own power grew. Antony forgot to be humble. He was +his own master--he had scorned the Academies. For several weeks, when he +first came to Paris, he had posed as a model. Sitting there before the +students, glowing with shame and pride, his heart was defiant, and not +one of the students, who modelled the fine bust and head, imagined how +ardent his heart was or what an artist posed for them. Often he longed +to seize a tool from inefficient hands and say, "Here, my children, like +this, don't you see?" + +He learned much from the rare visits of the Master and his cursory, +hasty criticism, but he welcomed the impersonal labour in the atelier of +Barye, where he was not a student but a worker, mechanical supposedly, +yet creative to his fingertips. And as he watched Barye work, admiring +him profoundly, eager for the man's praise, crushing down his own +individuality, careful to do nothing but the technical, mechanical +things he was given to do there--before his hand grew tired, while his +brain was fresh, he would plan and dream of what he would do in his own +attic, and he went back as a thirsty man to a source. + +There came the dead season. Barye shut his atelier and went to Spain. +There was nothing to do for Antony Fairfax and he was without any means +of making his bread. After a few days of idleness, when his hands and +feet were chilblained and he could hardly pass the cafes and +restaurants, where the meals were cooking, without a tightening of the +chest, he thought to himself, "Now is the time for the competition money +to fall among us like a shower of gold"; but he had not heard one word +from America or from Falutini, to whom the result was to have been +written and who had Fairfax's address. + +Dearborn, in a pair of old tennis trousers, a shabby black velvet +jacket, sat Turkish fashion on his divan, his writing tablet on his +knees. For weeks past he had been writing a five-act play-- + +"Too hungry, Tony, by Jove, to go on. Every time I start to write, the +lines of some old-time menu run across the page--Canards a la presse, +Potage a la Reine. Just now it was only pie and yellow cheese, such as +we have out in Cincinnati." + +Fairfax was breaking a mould. By common consent a fire had been built in +the stove. Tony had taken advantage of the warm water to mix his +plaster. Dearborn came over from his sofa. + +"I wouldn't care to have a barrel of plaster roll on those chilblains +of mine, Tony. It's a toss up with us now, isn't it, which of us _can_ +wear the boots?" + +Pinched and haggard, his hands in his pockets, the young fellow watched +the sculptor. Fairfax skilfully released his statue from the mould. He +had been working on this, with other things, for a month. He unprisoned +the little figurine, a little nude dancer, her arms above her head, the +face and smile faun-like. + +"Pleine de malice," said Dearborn, "extremement fine, my dear Tony. As +an object of 'luxe' I find it as exquisite as an article of food, if not +as satisfying. It's not good enough to _eat_, Tony, and those are the +only standards I judge by now." + +Fairfax turned the figure between his fingers lovingly--lily-white, +freshly cold, bits of the mould clinging to it, small and fine, it lay +in the palm of his shapely hand. + +"If you don't want the boots, Bob," he said, "I think I'll go out in +them." + +The legal owner of the boots went out in them into the damp, bitter +cold. His big figure cut along through the mist and he limped over the +Pont des Arts towards the Louvre. All Paris seemed to him blue with +cold. The river flowed between its banks with suppressed intent and +powerful westward rush, and its mighty flow expressed indifference to +the life and passion of existence along its shores. + +He leaned a moment on the bridge. Paris was personal to him and the +river was like its soul. He was faint from lack of food and overstrain. + +In the Louvre, other men of conglomerate costumes as well as he sought +the warm rooms. Tramps, vagrants in pitiful rags, affected interest in +the works of art, resting their worn figures on the benches, exulting in +the public welcome of the museum. Fairfax was more presentable, if as +poor. He wore a soft black hat of good make and quality, bought in a +sporting moment by Dearborn early in his career. Tony wore his own +clothes, retained because they were the newest and a soft black scarf, +the vogue in the quarter, was tied under his collar in rather an +extravagant bow. He wandered aimlessly through the rooms, glanced at the +visitors and saw that they were many, and when he had become thoroughly +warm, screwed his courage to the sticking point and went out of the +front entrance. A little way from the guides he took his place, and from +his pocket his figurine. It showed quite as a lily in the foggy light, +pale and ashamed. Its nudity appealed more to the sculptor because of +this wanton exposure to the vulgar herd. He trembled, began to regret, +but offered it, holding it out for sale. + +Some dozen people passed him, glanced at him and his small statue, but +he would have passed unnoticed had a lady not come slowly down the steps +and seen him, stopped and looked at him, though he did not see her until +she had approached. He flamed scarlet, covered his statuette and wished +that the cobbles of the pavement would open and swallow him. + +She was--he thought of it afterward a hundred times--a woman of singular +tact and an illumined sympathy, as well as a woman of exquisite +comprehension. + +"Mr. Rainsford!" she exclaimed. "You have something to sell?" she added, +and simply, as though she spoke to an ordinary vendor, yet he saw that +as she spoke a lovely colour rose in her cheek under her veil, and he +found that he was not ashamed any more. + +She put out her hand. It came from a mantle of velvet and a cuff of +costly fur--he couldn't have dreamt then how costly. He lifted his hat, +bareheaded in the cold, and laid the little figure in her hand. + +"How perfectly charming!" she murmured, holding it. And the dryad-like +figure, with its slender arms above its head and the faun-like, +brilliant little face, seemed perfection to her. She said so. "What a +perfect thing! Of course, you have the clay original?" + +Fairfax could not speak. The sight of this woman so worldly, elegant, +sumptuous, at the first praise of his little statue, he realized that he +was selling it, and it struck him as a crime--his creation, his vision, +hawking it as a fish-wife might hawk crabs in the public street! + +He felt a great humiliation and could have wept--indeed, tears did +spring to his eyes and the cold dried them. + +Two "sergents de ville" came up to them. + +"Pardon, Monsieur," asked one of them, "have you a license?" + +Fairfax started, but the lady holding the little statue turned quickly +to the officials-- + +"A license? _Pourquoi faire, mes amis?_" + +"It is against the rules to sell anything in the streets of Paris +without a license," said the policeman. + +"Well," she exclaimed, "my friend has just made me a gift. This +gentleman is a friend of mine for whom I am waiting to take me to my +carriage. Allez vous en," she smiled at them, "I will excuse you, and so +will Monsieur." + +She was so perfectly mistress of the situation that he had nothing to do +but leave himself in her hands. + +"You will let me take you home," she said, "in whatever direction you +are going," and he followed her to her little carriage, waiting before +the curb. + +She got in, gave the address of his studio to her coachman, and the next +thing he knew was that he was rolling over the pavement he had so +painfully traversed a few hours before. + +She talked to him of the master, Cedersholm, and Antony listened. She +talked enthusiastically, admiringly, and he parried her questions as to +when and where he had worked with the Swedish sculptor. The statuette +lay on her lap. + +At the studio door, when Fairfax left her, she said, taking up the +self-same gold purse that he had restored to her in the Louvre seven +months ago-- + +"I hope that I have enough money to pay for this treasure, Mr. +Rainsford. It's so beautiful that it must be very dear. What is the +price?" + +And Fairfax, hot all over, warm indeed for the first time in long, +stammered-- + +"Don't speak of price--of course, I don't know you well enough, but if +you really like it, please take it." + +"Take it!" Mrs. Faversham had cried, "but I mean to--I adore it. Mr. +Cedersholm will tell you how valuable it is, but I must pay you for it, +my dear Mr. Rainsford." + +Holding the carriage door open, his fine face on fire and his blue eyes +illumined, he had insisted, and Antony's voice, his personality, his +outstretched hand bare, cold, shapely, charmed her and impressed her, +and he saw her slowly, unwillingly accept his sudden gift. He had seen +her embarrassed suddenly, as he was. Then she had driven away in her +carriage, to be lost in the mists with other people who did not matter +to him, and poor as he had started out, poorer, for he had not the +statuette, he limped down the stairs again and into the street to forage +for them both. + +He thought whimsically: "I must feed up the whole dramatis personae of +old Bob's play, for he can't get on until he's fed up the cast!" + +He limped along the Rue du Bac, his cold hands in his pockets, his head +a little bent. But no battle with life now, be it what it would, could +compare with his battle in New York. Now, indeed, though he was cold and +hungry and tired, he was the inhabitant of a city that he loved, he was +working alone for the art he adored. He believed in himself--not once +had he yet come to the period of artistic despair. + +During these seven months the little personal work he had been able to +do had only whetted his desire; he was young, possessed of great talent +and of brilliant imagination, and he was happy and hopeful and +determined; the physical wants did not weigh on his spirit nor did the +long period of labour injure his power of production. He chafed, indeed, +but he felt his strength even as he pulled against the material things +from which he had to free himself. + +And as Fairfax, part of the throng, walked aimlessly up the Rue du Bac +with his problems, he walked less alone that night than ever in his +life, for he was absorbed in the thought of the woman. + +He realized now how keenly he had observed her, that she was very +charming and very beautiful. He could have drawn those dear features, +the contour of her neck and chin, the poise of her head, the curve of +her shoulder, and, imperceptible, but no less real and strong, her grace +and charm made her an entity to him, so much so that she actually seemed +to have remained by his side, and he almost fancied, as he breathed the +misty air, that he breathed again the odour of the scent that she used, +sweet and delicate, and that he felt the touch of her velvet sleeve +against his coat. + +He still had in his possession one object, which, if pawned, might +furnish enough money to pay for a meal. It was a little seal, belonging +to his mother, set in old gold. + +This afternoon, before leaving the studio, he had thrust it in his +waistcoat pocket, in case the little statuette did not sell. + +They gave him five francs for it, and he laid in a stock of provisions, +and with his little parcel once more he limped up the studio stairs to +Dearborn, who, wrapped in the coverlet, waited by the stove. + +He told his story, and Dearborn listened delightedly, his literary and +dramatic sense pleased by the adventure. + +They were talking of the lady when the concierge, toward nine o'clock, +tapped at the door and handed Antony a thick blue envelope, inscribed +"Mr. Thomas Rainsford" by a woman's hand. + +"Tony, old man," said the playwright, as Antony's fingers trembled +turning the page, "the romance of a poor young man has begun." + +The letter ran as follows:-- + + "MY DEAR MR. RAINSFORD, + + "I am anxious to have a small bas-relief of me, to give to Mr. + Cedersholm when he shall come over. Would you have time to + undertake this work? I can pose when you like. + + "I know how many claims a man of talent has upon his time, and I + want to secure some of yours and make it mine. I venture to send + this sum in advance. I hope you will not refuse it. Perhaps you + will dine with me to-morrow and we will talk things over. + + "Yours faithfully, + "MARY FAVERSHAM." + +Fairfax read this letter twice--the second time the words were not quite +clear. He handed it across the table to his companion silently. The +five-hundred-franc bill lay between the plate where the veal had been +and the empty coffee cup. + +Dearborn, when he had eagerly read the note, glanced up to speak to +Fairfax and saw that he had turned away from him. In his figure, as he +bowed over, leaning his head upon his hands, there were the first marks +of weariness that Dearborn had ever seen. There had been weariness in +the step that limped up the stairs and crossed the room when Fairfax had +entered with the meagre bundle of food. Dearborn leaned over and saw his +friend's fine profile, and there was unmistakably the mark of fatigue on +the face, flushed by fire and lamp-light. Dearborn knew of his companion +very little. The two had housed together, come together, bits of +driftwood on the river of life, drawn by sympathy in the current, and +few questions had been asked. He knew that Rainsford was from New +Orleans, that he had studied in New York. Of Antony's life he knew +nothing, although he had wondered much. + +He said now, lightly, as he handed the letter back, "You haven't been +playing perfectly square with me, Tony. I'm afraid you have been wearing +the boots under false pretences, but, nevertheless, I guess you will +have to wear them to-morrow night, old man." + +As Fairfax did not move, Dearborn finished more gravely-- + +"I would be glad to hear anything you are willing to tell me about it." + +Fairfax turned slowly and put the letter back in his pocket. Then +leaning across the table, in an undertone, he told Dearborn +everything--everything. He spoke quietly and did not linger, sketching +for him rapidly his life as far as it had gone. Twice Dearborn rose and +fed the stove recklessly with fuel. Once he stood up, took a coverlet +and wrapped it around him, and sat blinking like a resurrected mummy. +And Fairfax talked till Bella flashed like a red bird across the +shadows, lifted her lips to his and was gone. Molly shone from the +shadows and passed like light through the open door. And, last of all, +Mrs. Faversham came and brought a magic wand and she lingered, for +Fairfax stopped here. + +He had talked until morning. The dawn was grey across the frosty pane +when he rose to throw himself down on his bed to sleep. The +five-hundred-franc note lay where he had left it on the table between +the empty plate and the empty cup. The fire was dead in the stove and +the room was cold. + +Dearborn, excited and interested, watched with the visions of Antony's +past and the visions of his own creations for a long time. And Fairfax, +exhausted by the eventful day, troubled by it, touched by it, watched +the vision of a woman coming toward him, coming fatally toward him, +wonderfully toward him--but he was tired, and, before she had reached +him, he fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Antony waited in the drawing-room of her hotel in the Avenue du Bois de +Boulogne some quarter of an hour before she came downstairs. He thought +later that she had purposely given him this time to look about and grow +accustomed to the atmosphere, to the room in which he afterward more or +less lived for several months. + +There was not a false note to disturb his beauty-loving sense. He stood +waiting, on one side a long window giving on a rose garden, as he +afterward discovered, on the other a group in marble by Cedersholm. He +was studying this with interest when he heard Mrs. Faversham enter the +room. She had foreseen that he would not be likely to wear an evening +dress and she herself had put on the simplest of her frocks. But he +thought her quite dazzling, and the grace of her hands, and her welcome +as she greeted him, were divine to the young man. + +"I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Rainsford." + +Instantly he bent and kissed her hand. She saw him flush to his fair +hair. He felt a gratitude to her, a thankfulness, which awakened in him +immediately the strongest of emotions. + +She seemed to consider him a distinguished guest. She told him that she +was going to Rome when Mr. Cedersholm came over--there would be a little +party going down to Italy. + +Fairfax's eyes kindled, and in the few moments he stood with her there, +in her fragrant drawing-room, where the fire in the logs sang and +whispered and the lamp-light threw its long, fair shadows on the crimson +floors and melted in the crimson hangings, he felt that he stood with an +old friend, with some one he had known his life long and known well, +even before he had known--and there was a poignancy in his +treason--even before he had known his mother. + +When the doors were thrown open and another visitor was announced, he +was jealous and regretful and glanced at Mrs. Faversham as though he +thought she had done him a wrong. + +"My vife, oui," said the gentleman who came in and who was of a +nationality whose type was not yet familiar to Fairfax. "My wife is +horsed to-night, chere Madame; she cannot come to the dinner--a thousand +pardons." + +"I am sorry the Countess is ill." + +Potowski, who had been told by his hostess not to dress, had made up for +the sacrifice as brilliantly as he could. His waistcoat was of +embroidered satin, his cravat a flaming scarlet, and in his button-hole +an exotic flower which went well with his dark, exotic face. He was a +little ridiculous: short and fat, with a fashion of gesticulating with +his hands as though he were swimming into society, but his expression +was agreeable and candid. His near-sighted eyes were naive, his voice +sweet and caressing. Rainsford saw that his hostess liked Potowski. She +was too sweet a lady to be annoyed by peculiarities. + +In a few moments, the lame sculptor on one side and the flashy Slav on +the other, she led them to the little dining-room, to an exquisite +table, served by two men in livery. + +There was an intimacy in the apartment shut in by the panelling from +floor to ceiling of the walls. The windows were covered with yellow +damask curtains and the footfalls made no sound on the thick carpet. + +"Mr. Rainsford is a sculptor," his hostess told Potowski. "He has +studied with Cedersholm, but we shall soon forget whose pupil he is when +he is a master himself." + +"Ah," murmured the young man, who was nevertheless thrilled. + +"He is going to do a bas-relief of me, Potowski--that is, I hope he will +not refuse to make my portrait." + +"Ah, no," exclaimed Potowski, clasping his soft hands, "not a +bas-relief, chere Madame, but a statuary, all of it. The figure, is not +it, Mr. Rainsford? You hear people say of the face it is beautiful, or +the hand, or the head of a woman. I think it is all of her. It should +be the entirety always, I think. I think it is monstrous to dissect the +parts of the human body even in art. When I go to the _Museo_ and see a +hand here, a foot there, a torso somewhere else--you will laugh, I am +ridiculous, but it makes me think I look at a _haccident_. + +"_Therefore_," exclaimed Potowski, gaily swimming toward the fruit and +flowers with his soft hand, "begin, cher Monsieur, by making a whole +woman! I never, never sing part of a _hopera_. I sing a lyric, a little +complete song, but in its entirety." + +"But, my dear Potowski," Mrs. Faversham laughed, "a bas-relief or a bust +is complete." + +"But why," cried the Pole, "why behead a lady? As for a profile, it is +destruction to the human face." He turned to Fairfax. "You think I am a +pagan. In France they have an impolite proverb, 'Stupid as a musician,' +but don't think it is true. We see harmony and melody in everything." + +Apparently Potowski's lunacy had suggested something to Fairfax, for he +said seriously---- + +"Perhaps Mrs. Faversham will let me make a figure of her some day"--he +hesitated--"in the entirety," he quoted; and the words sounded madness, +tremendously personal, tremendously daring. "A figure of her standing in +a long cloak edged with fur, holding a little statuette in her hand." + +"Charming," gurgled Potowski--he had a grape in his mouth which he had +culled unceremoniously from the fruit dish. "That is a very modern idea, +Rainsford, but I don't understand why she should hold a statuette in her +hand." + +"For my part," said the hostess, "I only understand what I have been +taught. I am a common-place public, and I prefer a classic bas-relief, a +profile, just a little delicate study. Will you make it for me, Mr. +Rainsford?" + +The new name he had chosen, and which was never real to him, sounded +pleasantly on her lips, and it gave him, for the first time, a +personality. His past was slipping from him; he glanced around the oval +room with its soft lights and its warm colouring. It glowed like a +beautiful setting for the pearl which was the lady. The dinner before +him was delicious. It ceased to be food--it was a delicate refreshment. +The perfume of the flowers and wines and the cooking was intoxicating. + +"You eat and drink nothing," Mrs. Faversham said to him. + +"No," exclaimed Potowski, sympathetically, peering across the table at +Rainsford. "You are suffering perhaps--you diet?" + +Antony drank the champagne in his glass and said he was thinking of his +bas-relief. + +Potowski, adjusting a single eye-glass in his eye, stared through it at +Rainsford. + +"You should do everything in its entirety, Mr. Rainsford. Eat, drink, +sculpt and sing," and he swam out again gently toward Rainsford and Mrs. +Faversham, "and love." + +Antony smiled on them both his radiant smile. "Ah, sir," he said, "is +not that just the thing it is hard for us all not to do? We mutilate the +rest, our art and our endeavours, but a young man usually once in his +life loves in entirety." + +"I don't know," said the Pole thoughtfully, "I think perhaps not. +Sometimes it's the head, or the hands, or the figure, something we call +perfect or beautiful as long as it lasts, Mr. Rainsford, but if we loved +the entirety there would be no broken marriages." + +Mrs. Faversham, whom the musician entertained and amused, laughed softly +and rose, and, a man on each side of her, went into the drawing-room, to +the fire burning across the andirons. Coffee and liqueurs were brought +and put on a small table. + +"Potowski is a philosopher, is he not, Mr. Rainsford? When you hear him +sing, though, you will find that his best argument." + +Potowski stirred six lumps of sugar into his small coffee cup, drank the +syrup, drank a glass of liqueur with a sort of cheerful eagerness, and +stood without speaking, dangling his eyeglass and looking into the fire. +Mrs. Faversham took a deep chair and her dark, slim figure was lost in +it, and Antony, who had lit his cigarette, leaned on the chimney-piece +near her. + +She glanced at him, at the deformed shoe, at his shabby clothes. He had +made his toilet as carefully as he could; his linen was spotless, his +cravat new and fashioned in a big bow. His fine, thoughtful face, lit +now by the pleasure of the evening, where spirit and courage were never +absent if other marks were there; his fine brow with the slightly +curling blond hair bright upon it, and the profound blue of his eyes--he +was different from any man she had seen, and she had known many men and +been a great favourite with them. It pleased her to think that she knew +and understood them fairly well. She was thinking what she could do for +this man. She had wondered this suddenly, the day Fairfax had met her +and left her in the Louvre; she had wondered more sincerely the evening +she left him at his door. She had asked him to her house in a spirit of +real kindness, although she had already felt his charm. Looking at him +now, she thought that no woman could see him and hear him speak, watch +him for an hour, and not be conscious of that charm. She wondered what +she could do for Mr. Rainsford. + +"Sit there, won't you?"--she indicated the sofa near her--"you will find +that a comfortable place in which to listen. Count Potowski is the one +unmaterial musician I ever knew. Time and place, food or feast, make no +difference to him." + +Potowski, without replying, turned abruptly and went toward the next +room, separated from the salon by glass doors. In another moment they +heard the prelude of Bohm's "Still as the Night," and then Potowski +began to sing. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The studio underwent something of a transformation. Dearborn devoted +himself to its decoration. The crisp banknote was divided between the +two companions. + +Fairfax ordered a suit of clothes on trust, a new pair of boots on +trust, and bought outright sundry necessaries for his appearance in the +world. + +And Dearborn spent too much in making the studio decent, and bought an +outfit of writing materials, a wadded dressing-gown with fur collar and +deep pockets, the cast-off garment of some elegant rastaquouere, in a +second-hand clothing shop on the boulevard. He had no plans for +enjoying Paris. He philosophically looked at the cast-off shoes that had +gallantly limped with the two of them up and down the stairs and here +and there in the streets on such devious missions. If he should be +inclined to go out he would wear them. His slippers were his real +comfort. He devoted himself to the interior life and to his play. He had +the place to himself, and after a long day's work he would read or plan, +looking out on the quays and the Louvre, biting his fingers and weaving +new plots and making youthful reflections upon life. + +In the evenings Fairfax would limp home. Five days of the week he went +to Barye's studio and worked for the master. Twice a week he went to the +Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. Just how his friend spent his time when he +was not in the studio Dearborn wondered vainly. The sculptor grew less +and less communicative, almost morose. Tony took to smoking countless +cigarettes and sitting in the corner of the big divan, his arms folded +across his chest, his eyes fixed on some object which Dearborn could not +see. He would listen, or appear to, whilst Dearborn read his play; or +draw for him the scenario for a new play; or the young man would read +aloud bits of verse or prose that he loved and found inspiring. And +Antony, more than once, could hear his own voice as he had declaimed +aloud to the little cousins on a winter's afternoon, "St. Agnes' Eve, +how bitter chill it was," or some other favourite repeated to shining +eyes and flushed attention. Very often what Dearborn read was neither +familiar nor distinguishable, for Fairfax was thinking about other +things. They were not always alone in the workroom. Dearborn had +friends, and those of them who had not gone away on other quests or been +starved out or pushed out, would come noisily in of an evening, bringing +with them perhaps a man with a fiddle and a man with a flute, and they +would dance and there would be beer and "madeleines" and gay amusement +of a very inoffensive kind, of a youthful kind. There would be dancing +and singing, and sometimes Fairfax would take part in it all and sing +with them in his pleasant baritone and smile upon them; but he liked it +best when they were alone, and Dearborn did too; and in Fairfax's +silence and the other man's absorption they nevertheless daily grew +firmer and faster friends. + +"Bob," Fairfax said--and as he spoke he abruptly interrupted Dearborn in +the most vital scene of his act--"I can't take a penny from her for this +portrait." + +Dearborn dropped his manuscript on his knee. His expression was that of +a slightly hurt egotism, for he had sat up all night working over this +scene and burned all day to read it to Fairfax. + +"Well, anyhow, don't ask me to cough up the two hundred and fifty +francs. That's all I ask," he said a little curtly. + +"I shall give her some study, one of these other statuettes," Fairfax +said moodily, "some kind of return for the five hundred francs." + +"She wouldn't care for anything I have got, would she, Tony?" Dearborn +put his hands in the ample pockets and displayed his voluminous wrapper. +"I'm crazy about this dressing-gown," he said affectionately. "It has +warmed and sheltered my best thoughts. It has wrapped around and +comforted my fainting heart. It's hatched ideas for me; it's been a +plaidie to the angry airs. Tony, she wouldn't take the dressing-gown, +would she?" + +"Rot!" exclaimed his friend fiercely. "Don't be an ass. Don't you see +how I feel?" + +"No, I don't," said the other simply. "I am not a mind reader. I'm an +imaginator. I can make up a lot of stuff about your feeling. I daresay I +do invent. You will see this in my play some day. You are really an +inspiration, old man, but as for having an accurate idea of your +feelings...! For three weeks, ever since that banknote fluttered amongst +the crumbs of our table, you have scarcely said a word to me, not a +whole paragraph." He shook his finger emphatically. "If I were not +absorbed myself, no doubt I should be beastly, diabolically lonesome." + +Antony seemed entirely unmoved by this picture. "I think I shall go to +Rome, Bob," he began, then cried: "No, I mean to St. Petersburg." + +"It will be less expensive," Dearborn suggested dryly, "and considerably +less travel, not to go to the Bois de Boulogne." + +"I shall finish this portrait this week," Fairfax went on. "Now I can't +scrape it out and begin again. I have done it twice. It would be +desecration, for it's mightily like her, and my reason for my going +there is over." + +"Well, how about that full-length figure of her in furs and velvets, +holding a little statuette in her hands, that you used to rave about +doing? If at first you make a bas-relief, begin and begin again! There +are busts and statues, as there are odes and sonnets and curtain-raisers +and five-act tragedies." + +"Yes," returned Fairfax, "there are tragedies, no doubt about it." + +Fairfax, smoking, struggled with the emotions rising in him and which he +had no notion of betraying to his friend. In the corner where Dearborn +had rolled it, for he made the whole studio pretty much his own now, was +the statue Fairfax was making of his mother. It was covered with a white +cloth which took the lines and form of the head and shoulders. It stood +ghostly amongst the shadows of the room and near it, on a stool, were +Antony's sculpting tools, his broad wooden knives and a barrel of +plaster. His gaze wandered to these inanimate objects, nothing in +themselves, but which suggested and made possible and real his art--the +reason for his existence. Now, when he stopped modelling Mrs. Faversham, +he would go on with the bust of his mother. He turned his eyes to +Dearborn. + +"I have been up there for five weeks; I have been entertained there like +a friend; I have eaten and drunk; I have accepted her hospitality; I +have gone with her to the plays and opera. I have pretty well lived on +her money." + +"All men of the world do that," Dearborn said reasonably. "It's an +awfully nice thing for a woman to have a handsome young man whom she can +call on when she likes." + +Fairfax ignored this and went on. "I have met her friends, delightful +and distinguished people, who have invited me to their houses. I have +never gone, not once, not even to see Potowski. Now I shall go up next +Sunday and finish my work, and then I'm going away." + +Dearborn crossed his thin legs, his beloved knit slippers, a remnant of +his mother's affection, dangling on the toe of his foot. He made a +telescope of his manuscript and peered through it as though he saw some +illumination at the other end. + +"You are not serious, Tony?" + +Antony left the sofa and came over to his friend. Five weeks of +comparative comfort and comparative release from the anxiety of +existence--that is, of material existence--had changed him wonderfully. +His contact with worldly people, the entertainments of Paris, the +stimulant to his mind and senses, his pleasures, had done him good. His +face was something fuller. He had come home early from dining with Mrs. +Faversham, and in his evening dress there was an elegance about him that +added to his natural distinction. In the lapel of his coat drooped a few +violets from the _boutonniere_ that had been placed by his plate. + +"Cedersholm is coming next week." He lit a fresh cigarette. + +"Well," returned Dearborn, coolly, "he is neither the deluge nor the +earthquake, but he may be the plague. What has he got to do with you, +old man?" + +"She is going to marry him." + +"That," said Dearborn with spirit, "is rotten. Now, I will grant you +that, Tony. It's rotten for her. Things have got so mixed up in your +scenario that you cannot frankly go and tell her what a hog he is. That +is what ought to be done, though. She ought to know what kind of a cheat +and poor sort she is going to marry. In real life or drama the simple +thing never happens." Dearborn smiled finely. "She ought to know, but +you can't tell her." + +"No," said his friend slowly, "nor would I. But neither can I meet him +in her house or anywhere else. I think I should strike him." + +"You didn't strike him, though," said Dearborn, meaningly, "when you had +a good impersonal chance." + +"I wish I had." + +"I thought you told me they were all going to Rome?" + +"Mrs. Faversham doesn't want to go." + +"Ah," murmured Dearborn, nodding, "she doesn't." + +"No." Fairfax did not seem to observe his friend's tone. "She is +mightily set on having me meet Cedersholm. She wants to have him +patronize me, help me!" He laughed dryly and walked up and down the +studio into the cold, away from the fire, and then back to Dearborn in +his dressing-gown and slippers. "Patronize me, encourage me, pat me on +the back--put me in the way of meeting men of the world of art and +letters, possibly work with him. She has all sorts of kindly patronizing +schemes. But she doesn't know that I have been hungry and cold, and have +been housed and fed by her money. Perhaps she does, though," he cried +furiously to Dearborn. "No doubt she does. Do you think she does, Bob?" + +"No, no--don't be an ass, Tony, old man." + +"You see, now don't you, that I can't stay in Paris, that I can't meet +that man and knock him down--not tell her that I am not the poor +insignificant creature that she thinks, that without me Cedersholm could +not have whipped up his old brain and his tired imagination to have done +the work that brought him so marked a success. I would have to tell her +what I did, and that, crude and unschooled as I was, she would have to +see that he was afraid of me, afraid of my future and my talent. Oh, +Dearborn!" he cried, throwing up his arms. + +Dearborn left his chair and went to Fairfax and put his hand on his +shoulder. + +"That's right," he said heartily, "blurt it all out, old man. Some day, +when the right time comes, you will let it out to him." + +Fairfax leaned on Dearborn's arm. "There were eight of us at dinner +to-night," he said, "and Cedersholm was the general topic. He is much +admired. He is to have the Legion of Honour. Much of what they said +about him was just, of course, perfectly just and fair, but it sickened +me. They were enthusiastic about his character, his generosity to his +pupils, his sympathy with struggling artists, and one man, who had been +at the unveiling of the Sphinx, spoke of my Beasts." + +Dearborn felt Antony's hand trembling on his arm. + +"The gall rose up in my throat, Bob. I saw myself working in a sacred +frenzy in his studio, sweating blood, and my joy over my creations. I +saw myself eager, hopeful, ardent, devoted, with a happy, cheerful +belief in everybody. I had it then, I did indeed. Then I saw my ruined +life, my wasted years as an engineer in Albany, my miserable, my cruel +marriage, the things I stooped to and the degradation I might have +known. My mother, whom I never saw again, called me--my wife, my child, +passed before me like ghosts. If I could have had a little encouragement +from him then, only just my due, well.... I was thinking of all those +things whilst they spoke of him, and then I looked over to her...." As +he spoke Mrs. Faversham's name, Antony's voice softened. "... And she +was looking at me so strangely, strangely, as though she felt something, +knew something, and my silence seemed ungracious and proof of my +jealousy; but I could not have said a warm word in praise of him to save +my character in her eyes. When we were alone after dinner she asked me, +in a voice different to any tone I have heard from her, 'Don't you like +Mr. Cedersholm? You don't seem to admire him. I have never heard you +speak his name, or say a friendly word about him,' and I couldn't answer +her properly, and she seemed troubled." + +Fairfax stopped speaking. The two friends stood mutely side by side. +Then Antony said more naturally-- + +"You see a little of how I feel, Bob." + +And the other replied, "Yes, I see a little of how you feel"; but he +continued with something of his old drollery: "I would like to know a +little of how _she_ feels." + +"What do you mean?" + +Antony's voice was so curt, and his words were so short, that Dearborn +was quick to understand that it would not be wise to touch on the +subject of the woman. + +"Why, I mean, Tony, that it is a valuable study for a playwright. I +should like to understand the psychology of all characters." + +Fairfax shrugged impatiently. "Confound you, you are a brute. All +artists are, I reckon. You drive your chariot over human hearts in order +to get a dramatic point." + +Here the post came and with it a blue letter whose colour was familiar +to Dearborn now, and he busied himself with his own mail under the lamp. +Fairfax opened his note. It had no beginning. + + * * * * * + +"If it does not rain to-morrow, will you take me to Versailles? Unless +you send me word that you cannot go, I will call for you at ten o'clock. +We will drive through the Bois and lunch at the Reservoirs." + + * * * * * + +For a moment it seemed as though Antony would hand over his note to +Dearborn, as he had handed Mrs. Faversham's first letter the night it +came. But he replaced it in its envelope and put it in his pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He wrote her that he should not be able to go to Versailles. He deserted +his day's work at Barye's and remained at home modelling. And Dearborn, +seeing Fairfax's distraction, went out early and did not return until +dark. Fairfax found himself alone again, alone with his visions, alone +with his pride, alone with powerful and new emotions. + +Sometimes in January, in the middle of the month, days come that +surprise the Parisians with their inconstancy and their softness. The +sun shone out suddenly and the sky was as blue as in Italy. + +Fairfax could see the people strolling along the quays, with coats open, +and the little booksellers did a thriving business and the "_bateaux +mouche_" shot off into the sunlight bound toward the suburbs which +Fairfax had learned in the summer time to know and love. Versailles +would be divine on such a day. + +His hours spent at the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne must have been +impersonal. His first essay he destroyed and began again. He did not +want to bring these intimate visits suddenly to an end. But when his +sitter very courteously began to question him, he was uncommunicative. +He could not tell her the truth. He did not wish to romance or to lie to +her. Mrs. Faversham, both sensitive and "fine," respected his reticence. +But she found out about him. They talked of art and letters and life in +general, circling around life in particular, and Fairfax revealed +himself more than he knew, although of his actual existence he told +nothing. He enjoyed the charm of the society of a worldly woman, of a +clever woman. He fed his mind and cultivated his taste, delighted his +eyes with the graceful picture she made, sitting, her head on her hand, +posing for her portrait. Her features were not perfect, but the +ensemble was lovely and he modelled with tenderness and pleasure until +the little bas-relief was magically like her. He was forced to remember +that the study was intended as a present for Cedersholm. He was very +silent and very often wondered why she asked him so constantly to her +house, why she should be so interested in so ungracious a companion. +This morning, in his studio on the Quai, he unwrapped his statue of his +mother. It was a figure sitting in her chair, a book in her hand, as he +had seen her countless times on the veranda of the New Orleans house, +dreaming, her face lifted, her eyes looking into the distance. He went +back to his work with complicated feelings and a heart at which there +was a new ache. He had hardly expected that this statue, left when he +had gone to take up the study of another woman, would charm him as it +did. He began to model. As he worked, he thought the face was singularly +like Bella's--a touch to the head, to the lips, and it was still more +like the young girl. Another year was gone. Bella was a woman now. +Everything, as he modelled, came back to him vividly--all the American +life, with its rush and struggle. So closely did it come, so near to +him, that he threw down his tools to walk up and down in the sunlight +pouring through the big window. He took up his tools and began modelling +again. The statuette was tenderly like his mother. He smoothed the folds +at her waist--and saw under the clay the colour of the violet lawn with +its sprinkling flowers of darker violet. He touched the frills he had +indicated around the throat--and felt the stirring of the Southern +breeze across his hand and smelled the jasmine. He paused after working +for two hours, standing back, resting his lame limb and musing on the +little figure. It grew to suggest all womanhood: Molly, as he had seen +her under the lamp-light--Mrs. Faversham, as he had watched her leaning +on her hand--not Bella. He looked and thought. Bella was a child, a +little girl. There was nothing reposeful or meditative about Bella, yet +he had seen her pore over a book, her hair about her face. Would she +ever sit like this, tranquil, reposeful, reading, dreaming? The face was +like her, but the resemblance passed. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Mrs. Faversham's dresses and jewels, her luxuries, her carriages and her +horses, the extravagance of her life, had not dazzled Antony; his eyes +had been pleased, but her possessions were a distinct envelope +surrounding her and separating them. After watching Potowski's +natatorial gestures, Fairfax had longed to swim out of the elegance into +a freer sea. + +He had told her nothing of his companion or of his life. He often longed +to stuff some of the dainties of the table into his pockets for +Dearborn, to carry away some of the fire in his hands, to bring +something of the comfort back, but he would not have spoken for the +world. Once she had broached the subject of further payment, and had +seen by his tightening lips that she had made a mistake. In spite of the +fact of his reserve and that he was proud to coldness and sometimes not +quite kind, intimacy grew between them. Mrs. Faversham was engaged to be +married, but Fairfax did not believe that she loved Cedersholm. What her +feelings were, or why she wanted to marry him, he could not guess. The +intimacy between them was caused by what they knew of each other as +human beings, unknown, unexplained, unformulated. There was a tremendous +sympathy, and neither the man nor the woman knew how real it was. And +although there was her life--she was five years his senior--and his life +with its tragedies, its depths and its ascensions, although there was +all this unread and unspoken between them, neither of them, when they +were together, was conscious of any past. A word, a touch, a look, a +hazard chance would have revealed to them how near they stood. + +As he went on modelling, he found that he was beginning to think of her +as he had not let himself do during the weeks when she had sat for him. +He found that he could not go on with his work now and think of her. He +had voluntarily denied himself this day at Versailles where he might +have enjoyed her for hours. When she had told him that she had written +to Cedersholm about him he had smiled. + +"He will not recall my name. I was an obscure pupil with others. He will +not remember Tom Rainsford." + +Evidently Cedersholm had not remembered him. The subject was never +mentioned between them again. Except as he heard it in general +conversation, Cedersholm's name was no longer frequently on Mrs. +Faversham's lips. He stopped working, wrapped his plaster carefully and +pushed the stool back into the corner. Near it was a pile of books which +he had carefully done up to return to Mrs. Faversham. She had obtained +orders for him from her friends, none of which he had accepted. Why +should he be so churlish? Why should he refuse to take advantage of her +kindness and generosity? Why should not her influence help him on his +stony way? What part did his pride play in it? Was it on account of +Cedersholm, or was it something else? + +At noon he went out to eat his luncheon in a little cafe where he was +known and popular. The little room was across a court-yard filled with +potted plants on which the winter had laid icy fingers, but which to-day +in the sunshine seemed to have garbed themselves with something like +spring. The little restaurant was low, noisy, filled with the clatter +and bustle of the noon meal served to hungry students and artists. The +walls were painted by the brush of different skilful craftsmen, young +artists who could not pay their accounts and had settled their scores by +leaving paintings on the walls, and one could read distinguished names. +When Fairfax came here, as he sometimes did, he always took a little +table in the second and darker room by another window which gave on a +quiet court on whose stones were heaped up the statues and remains of an +old Louis XV palace. This room was reserved for the older and quieter +clients, and here, at another table in the corner, a pretty girl with a +shock of curly hair under a soft hat and an old cape and an old +portfolio, always ate, and she sometimes smiled at him. He would catch +her eye, and she was, as Fairfax, always alone. + +Girl-students and grisettes, and others less respectable, had eyed him +and elbowed him, but not one had tempted him. There was no merit in his +celibacy, but to-day, as he glanced over at the English girl-student, +something about her caught his attention as never before. She was half +turned to him; her portfolio lay on the table at her side with the +remains of a scanty lunch. Her head was bowed on her hands. She looked +dejected, forlorn, bringing her little unhappiness to the small +restaurant where so many strugglers and aspirants brought their hopes +and their inspirations. This little bit of humanity seemed on this day +uninspired, cast down, and he had remarked her generally before because +of her gaiety, her eagerness, and he had avoided her because he knew +that she would be sympathetic with him. + +In a sort of revenge possible on himself, and feeling his own +loneliness, he permitted himself to look long at her and saw how +miserably poor her dress was, how rusty and dusty her cape, how trodden +down were her little shoes. She was all in brown, from the old beaver +hat to her boots, in a soft, old-faded note of colour, and her hair was +gloriously golden like a chrysanthemum. As Antony looked at her she took +out her handkerchief and wiped something off her cheek and from her +eyes. His luncheon of steak and potatoes had been served him. He took up +his napkin and his dinner and limped over to the table where the English +girl sat bowed over. + +"Would you like a comrade for luncheon? Say so, if you don't want me." +He saw her start, wipe her eyes and look up with a sob on her lips. + +"Oh, yes, I don't mind." Her voice was stifled. "Sit down, it is good of +you." + +The girl covered her face with her hands for a second and then wiped her +eyes determinedly, as if she fetched herself out of stony depths. She +smiled tremulously and her lips were as red and full and sweet as a +rose. + +"Garcon," he ordered, "fetch two bocks. Yes, mademoiselle, it will do +you good." + +"I say," she fluttered, "were you lonely over there in your corner?" + +Fairfax nodded. She put out her little hand, stained with paint and oil, +and it was cold and delicate as it touched his. It seemed to need the +strength of the man's big, warm grasp. + +"I have always liked your face, do you know--always," she said. "I knew +that you could be a real pal if you wanted. You are not like the others. +I expect you are a great swell at something. Writing?" + +"No, I am a workman in Barye's studio--a sculptor." + +"Oh," she said incredulously. "You look '_arrive_,' awfully +distinguished. I expect you really _are_ something splendid." + +The beer came foaming. The girl lifted her glass with a hand which +trembled. Tears hung on her lashes still, ready to fall, but she was a +little sport and full of character and life. She nodded at Fairfax and +murmured-- + +"Here's to our being friends." + +Her voice was sweet and musical. They drank the draught to friendship. + +Fairfax asked cruelly: "What made you cry?" + +She touched her portfolio. "There," she said, "that is the reason. My +last fortnight's work. I draw at Julian's, and I had a fearful criticism +this morning, most discouraging. I am here on my own." She stopped and +said rather faintly: "Why should I tell you?" + +"We drank just now to the reason why you should." + +"That's true," she laughed. "Well, then, this is my last week in Paris. +I will have to go back to England and drop painting, unless they tell me +that I am sure to have a career and that it is worth while." + +A career! She was a soft, sweet, tender little creature in spite of her +good comradeship and the brave little tilt to her hat, and she was fit +for a home nest, and no more fit to battle with the storm of a career +than a young bird with a tempest. + +"Let me see your portfolio, will you?" + +"First," she said practically, "eat your steak and your potatoes." +Touching her eyes, she added: "I thought of what Goethe said as I cried +here--'Wer nie sein Brot mit Thraenen ass'--only it's not the first +bread and tears that have gone together in this room, I expect." + +"No," returned Fairfax, "I reckon not, and you are lucky to have the +bread, Mademoiselle. Some have only tears." + +"I know," she returned softly, "and I have been most awfully lucky so +far." + +When they had finished he made the man clear away the things, and she +spread out the contents of her portfolio before him, watching his face, +as he felt, for every expression. He handled thoughtfully the bits of +card-board and paper, seeing on them only the evidence of a mediocre +talent, a great deal of feeling, and the indications of a sensitive +nature. One by one he looked at them and turned them over, and put them +back and tied up the green portfolio by its black tapes. Then he looked +at her, saw how white her little face had grown, how big and blue her +eyes were, how childlike and inadequate she seemed to life. + +"You need not speak," she faltered. "You were going to say I'm no good. +I don't want to hear you say it." + +Impulsively, he put out his strong hands and took hers that fluttered at +her coat. + +"Why should you care for what I say? You have your masters and your +chiefs." + +"Yes," she nodded, "and they have been awfully encouraging, all of them, +until to-day." + +Fairfax looked at her earnestly. "You must not mind if you feel that you +have got it in you. Don't seek to hear others' opinions, just go boldly, +courageously on. What I say has no meaning." + +He dropped her hands and the colour came back somewhat into her face. + +"What you say has importance, though," she answered. "I have the feeling +that you are somebody. Anyhow, I have watched you every time you came. I +think you know things. I believe you must be a great artist. I should +believe you--I do believe you. I see you don't think I'm any good. +Besnard didn't think so when he came to-day. I don't want to go on being +a fool." + +As she spoke, from the other restaurant came the notes of a fiddle and +a flute, for two wandering musicians, habitues of these smaller cafes, +had wandered in to earn the price of their luncheon. They were playing, +not very well, but very plaintively, an old French song, one in vogue in +the Latin Quarter. The sun, still magnificently brilliant, had found its +way around to the back of the place, and over the court with the ruined +marbles the light streamed through the window and fell on Fairfax and +the little girl. + +"What do you say," he suggested abruptly, "to coming with me for the +afternoon? Let's go on the top of a tram and ride off somewhere." + +He rose, paid the man who came for his luncheon (the girl's score had +already been settled), and stood waiting. She fingered the tapes of her +closed portfolio, her lips still trembled. The sunlight was full on her, +shining on her hair, on her old worn cape, on the worn felt hat, on the +little figure which had been so full of courage and of dreams. Then she +looked up at Antony and rose. + +"I will go," she said, and he picked up the portfolio, tucked it under +his arm, and they walked out together, through the smoky larger room +where part of the lunchers were joining in the chorus of the song the +musicians played. And this little handful of the Latin Quarter saw the +two pass out together, as two pass together often from those Bohemian +refuges. Some one, as the door opened and shut on Antony and the girl, +cried: "Vive l'amour!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +On the way out to Versailles from the top of the tram, lifted high above +Paris and the river, alongside of the vulgar head, alongside of the +strange little English girl, Fairfax listened to the outpouring of her +heart. She took his interest for granted. With an appreciative +understanding of human nature, and as though she had been bearing a +burden for years which she had never let slip, she rested it now, and +her blue eyes on his, her hands in the old woollen gloves, which she had +slipped on before they started, clasped in her lap, she talked to +Fairfax. By the time the tram stopped before the Palace of Versailles, +he had heard her story. She was the daughter of an Irish clergyman. Nora +Scarlet was her name. + +Nora and Molly! + +But they were very different. This girl was as gay as a lark. She +laughed frankly aloud, musically, and put her hand on his with a free +"camaraderie." She made sparkling little faces at him and called him +softly, "Ami." + +"My name is Nora, Nora Scarlet, but I don't want you to tell me your +name until the end of the day, please. It is just a silly idea, but I +will call you 'Ami.' I daresay it is a great name you have got, and I +would rather feel that I don't want to know it too soon." + +She had shown talent in the school where she had started in Ireland, and +had taken a scholarship and had come to Paris to study, to venture +unprepared and quite wildly into the student life, to struggle on small +means and insufficient food uphill toward art. She displayed in talking +a touching confidence in herself and worship of beauty, as well as a +simple and loyal attitude toward life in general. She occupied a +furnished room near the studio and, as she expressed it, "fished for +herself." She was the oldest of seven children, with a weight of +responsibility on herself. Her father's salary was ridiculous, she told +him, not enough to bring up one hungry child well, much less half a +dozen. + +"I thought that I could support myself with my art," she told Fairfax, +"and that I should soon be _arrivee, lancee_, but to-day, when the +criticism discouraged me and I knew that I should have to write home for +money soon, well ... I'd not like to tell you what strange fancies +came." She lifted up her finger and pointed at the river as it lay +between its shores. "And now," she glanced at him, "when you tell me, +too, that I am no good at painting!" + +"I haven't said that," remonstrated Fairfax; "but don't let's talk about +work now, what do you say? Let's have a holiday." + +They walked up the Palace over the cobbles of the courtyard and paused +to look back at the Route de Paris, that Miss Nora Scarlet might +thoroughly picture the procession of the fish-wives and the march of the +Paris populace up to Versailles, where the people swept its violent sea +over the royal courts and the foam rose to the windows where royal faces +whitened against the panes. Nora Scarlet and Fairfax wandered through +the great rooms, part of the tourist crowd. The handsome man limped, a +student's stoop across his shoulders, by the side of the small blond +girl with her student cape and her soft hat, her hair like chrysanthemum +petals. Fairfax took occasion in the portrait room to tell her that she +looked like a Greuze. Nora Scarlet was an appreciative sightseer. + +"Oh, if I could only paint," she murmured, "if I could only paint!" and +she clasped her woollen gloves prayerfully before the portraits of the +Filles de France. But the Nattiers and the Fragonards mocked her, and +the green portfolio under Fairfax's arm mocked her still more. Side by +side, they penetrated into the little rooms where a Queen lived, +intrigued, loved, and played her part. And Fairfax had his envies before +Houdon's head of Marie Antoinette. + +The wide, sweet, leaf-strewn alleys were very nearly deserted where they +stood, for the day had grown colder and the winter sunlight left early +to give place to a long still winter evening. Their footsteps made no +sound on the brown carpet of the park. Antony had not stopped to ask +what kind of a woman the girl student was when he spontaneously left his +lonely seat in the restaurant to take his place at her side, but +everything she said to him revealed a frank, innocent mind. He saw that +she had come with him without thinking twice, and he should have been +touched by it. He drew her arm within his as they passed the great +fountain. The basin was empty and its curve as round and smooth as human +lips. + +"Now," he said, "the time has come to talk of you and what you want to +do and can do, and how you can do it." + +"That's awfully kind." + +"No, those are just the questions that I have to ask myself every day +and find on some days that I haven't got the answer. It's a riddle, you +know. We don't every day quite find the answer to it. I reckon we would +never go on if we did, but it's good sport to ask and try to find out, +and, believe me, Miss Nora Scarlet, two are better than one at a riddle, +aren't they?" + +"Oh, very much." They went along leisurely and after a second she +continued: "It's lonely in Paris for a girl who doesn't want to go in +for lots of things, and I have been getting muddled. But the worst +muddle is pounds, shillings and pence"--she laughed musically--"it's +reduced to pence at last, but I don't find the muddle reduced a bit." + +"You want to do portraits?" he asked. + +"Yes, I haven't an idea about anything else." + +The trees above their heads made leafy bowers in summer, but now between +the fine bare branches, they saw the delicate wintry sky, pale with the +fading light of what had been a rare January day. + +"Suppose I get an order for you to paint a portrait and you are paid in +advance." + +She stopped, holding him back by the arm, and exclaimed, joyously-- + +"Oh, but you could not!" + +"Suppose that I can. If I do succeed and you paint the portrait, will +you do something for me?" + +She looked up at him quickly. He was much above her. Nora Scarlet had +seen Fairfax several times a week for many months. She knew him as well +as any person can know another by sight--she knew his clothes, the way +he wore them. It had been easy to study his face attentively, for he was +so absorbed in general that he was unconscious of scrutiny. She had +learned every one of his features pretty well by heart. Solitary as she +was, without companions or friends except for her studio mates, she had +grown to think as women do of a man they choose, to surround him with +fancies and images. She had idealized this unknown artist, and her +thoughts kept her company, and he had become almost part of her life +already. She looked up at him now and blushed. He put his hand down over +hers lightly. + +"I mean that when the portrait is finished, we will have it criticized +by the subject first, then by some one in whom you have great +confidence, and if you are certain then that you have a vocation, we +will see what can be done--some way will open up. There is always sure +to be a path toward the thing that is to be. But if the criticism is +unfavourable, I want you to promise me to go back to England and to your +people, and to give up art as bravely as you can--I mean, courageously, +like a good soldier who has fought well and lost the battle. Perhaps," +Fairfax said, smiling, "if I were not an artist my advice would be worth +less, but the place is too full of half-successes. If you can't be at +the top, don't fill up the ranks. Get down as soon as you can and be +another kind of success." + +The advice was sound and practical. She listened to his agreeable voice, +softened by the Southern accent. She watched him as he talked, but his +face was not that of an adviser. It was charmingly personal and his +smile the sweetest she had ever seen. She murmured-- + +"You are awfully kind. I promise." + +"Good," he exclaimed heartily, "you are a first-rate sort; however it +turns out, you are plucky." + +The most delicious odours of moist earth, blessed with the day's +unexpected warmth, rose on the winter air. Their footfalls were lost in +the leaves. Far down at the end of the alley they could see other +strollers, but where they stood they were quite alone. The excitement of +the unusual outing, the pleasure of companionship, brought the colour to +their cheeks, a light to their eyes. The girl's helplessness, the human +struggle so like to his own, her admiration and her frankness, appealed +to him greatly. His late agitation, useless, hopeless, perilous +moreover, and which he felt he must overcome because it could have +neither issue nor satisfaction, made Fairfax turn here for satisfaction +and repose. They wandered slowly down the alley, her hand within his +arm, and he said, looking down at her-- + +"Meanwhile, you belong to me." + +The words passed his lips before he realized what they meant, or their +importance. He did so as soon as he spoke. He felt her start. She +withdrew the hand from his arm. He stopped and said-- + +"Did I frighten you?" He took her little hand. + +"A little," Nora Scarlet said. Her eyes were round and wide. + +Antony held her hand, looking at her, trying to see a deeper beauty in +her face than was there, greater depths in her eyes than they could +contain, more of the woman to fill his need and his loneliness. He +realized how great that loneliness was and how demanding. She seemed +like a child or a bird that he had caught ruthlessly. + +"Didn't you drink just now to our friendship?" + +She nodded, bit her lips, smiled, and her humour returned. + +"Yes, I drank to our friendship." + +"Well," he said, and hesitated, "well...." He drew her a little toward +him; she resisted faintly, and Fairfax stopped and quickly kissed her, a +feeling of shame in his soul. He kissed her again, murmured something to +her, and she kissed him. Then she pushed him gently away, her face +crimson, her eyes full of tears. + +"No, no," she murmured, "you shouldn't have done it. It is too awful. +It's unworthy. Ami," she gasped, "do you know you are the first man I +ever let do that? Do you believe me?" She was clinging to his hands, +half laughing, half sobbing, and the kiss was sweet, sweet, and the +moment was sweet. To one of them it was eternal, and could never come in +all her lifetime like that again. + +He stifled his self-reproach. He would have taken her in his arms again, +but she ran from him, swiftly, like the bird set free. + +"Wait," he called; "Nora Scarlet, I promise." He hurried to her. "You +forget I am a lame jackdaw." + +Then she stood still. They were walking together, his arm around her +waist, when they came out at the alley's end. Standing by a marble bust +on its pedestal, quite alone and meditative, as if she had just looked +up, seen something and nevertheless decided to wait, Fairfax saw Mrs. +Faversham. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +His first sensation, as he saw her, was as if a sudden light had broken +upon a soul's darkness which until this moment had blinded him, +oppressed him, condemned him; then there came a great revulsion against +himself. Mrs. Faversham was very pale, as white as the bust by whose +side she stood. She held out her hand, in its delicate glove, and tried +to greet him naturally. + +"How do you do, Mr. Rainsford?" + +He was conscious of how kind she was, how womanly. He had refused her +invitation and flaunted in her sight a vulgar pastoral. His cheeks were +hot, his lips hardly formed a greeting. This was the work he had offered +as an excuse to her when he had said that he could not go to Versailles. +"Then what is it to her?" he thought; "she is engaged to be married to +Cedersholm. What am I or my vulgarities to her?" There was a fresh +revulsion. + +"Will you let me present Miss Scarlet," he said quietly, "Mrs. +Faversham?" + +Mrs. Faversham, who had recovered herself, gave her hand into the +woollen glove of Nora Scarlet, and, looking at the young girl, said that +perhaps they had been sketching. + +"Not in January," replied Nora with perfect self-possession. From the +crown of Mrs. Faversham's fur hat to the lady's shoes, the girl's honest +eyes had taken in her elegance and her grace. "We have been walking a +bit after Paris." + +Fairfax felt as though he had been separated from this lady for a long +time, as though he had just come back, after a voyage whose details were +tiresome. She seemed too divine to him and at once cruelly near and +cruelly removed, in her dark dress, her small walking hat with a spray +of mistletoe shining against the fur, her faultless shoes, her face so +sweet and high-bred under her veil, her aloofness from everything with +which he came in contact, her freedom from care and struggle, from +temptation, from the sordidness of which he had long been a part. He +suffered horribly; short as the moment was, the acuteness of its +sensations comprised for him a miserable eternity. + +"I have my carriage here, Mr. Rainsford. Will you not let me drive you +both back to Paris?" + +He wanted nothing but to go with her then, any way, the farther the +better, and for ever. It came upon him suddenly, and he knew it. He +refused, of course, angry to be obliged to do so, angrier still at what +he was sure she would think was the reason for his doing so. She bade +them both good-bye, now thoroughly mistress of herself, and reminded him +that she would expect him the next day at three. She asked Miss Scarlet +many questions about her work and the schools, as they walked along a +little together, before Mrs. Faversham took the path that led to the +gate where her carriage waited. + + * * * * * + +When they were together again alone, Fairfax and his companion, in the +tram, he felt as though he had cut himself off once again, by his folly, +from everything desirable in the world. The night was cold. He did not +realize how silent he was or how silent she was. When they had nearly +reached Paris, Miss Scarlet said-- + +"Is it her portrait you thought I might get to paint?" + +The question startled him, the voice as well. It was like being spoken +to suddenly by a perfect stranger. + +"Yes," he answered, "she is wonderfully generous and open-hearted. I am +sure that she would give you an order." + +"Please don't bother," said the girl proudly. "I would not take the +order." + +Her tone was so curt and short that it brought Fairfax back to +realities. + +"Why, pray, don't you find her paintable?" he asked. + +The girl's voice was contemptuous. "I don't know. I didn't look at her +with that idea." + +Fairfax had nothing left him but his self-reproach, his humiliation, his +sense of degradation, though God knows the outing was innocent enough! +The Thing had happened. The Event had transpired. The veil had been +drawn away from his heart when he saw her there in the park and spoke to +her. The idea that she must think him light and vulgar-minded, an +ordinary Bohemian, amusing himself as is the fashion in the Latin +Quarter, was unbearable to him. He would have given his right hand to +have been alone in the park and to have met her alone. Under the spell +of his suffering, he said cruelly to the girl whom he had so wantonly +captured-- + +"If you won't let me help you in my way, I'm afraid I can't help you at +all." + +And she returned, controlling her voice: "No, I am afraid you cannot +help me." + +He was unconscious of her until they reached the centre of Paris and he +found himself in the street by her side, and they were crossing the Pond +des Arts on foot. The lamps were lit. The tumult and stir of the city +was around them, the odour of fires and the perfume of the city pungent +to their nostrils. They walked along silently, and Fairfax asked her +suddenly-- + +"Where shall I take you? Where do you live?" and realized as he spoke +how little he knew of her, how unknown they were to each other, and yet +what a factor she had been in his emotional life. He had held her in his +arms and kissed her not three hours ago. + +She put her hand out to him. "We will say good-bye here," she said +evenly. "I can go home alone." + +"Oh no," he objected, but he saw by her face that in her, too, a +revulsion had taken place, perhaps stronger than his own. He was ashamed +and annoyed. He put out his hand and hers just touched it. + +"Thank you," she said, "for the excursion, and would you please give me +my portfolio?" + +He handed it to her. Then quite impulsively: "I don't want to part from +you like this. Why should I? Let me take you home, won't you?" + +He wanted to say, "Forgive me," but she had possessed herself of her +little sketches, the poor, inadequate work of fruitless months. She +turned and was gone almost running up the quays, as she had run before +him down the alley of Versailles. He saw her go with great relief, and, +when the little brown figure was lost in the Paris multitude, he turned +and limped home to the studio in the Quais. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +He did not go to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne at the appointed hour, +and was so ungracious as not to send her any word. He took the time for +his own work, and from thence on devoted himself to finishing the +portrait of his mother. Meanwhile, Dearborn, enveloped in smoke, dug +into the mine of his imagination and brought up treasures and nearly +completed his play. He recited from it copiously, read it aloud, wept at +certain scenes which he assured Tony would never be as sad to any +spectator as they were to him. + +"I wrote them on an empty stomach," he said. + +Fairfax, meanwhile, finished his statuette and decided to send it to an +exhibition of sculpture to be opened in the Rue de Sevres. He had +bitterly renounced his worldly life, and was shortly obliged to pawn his +dress suit, and, indeed, anything else that the young men could gather +together went to the Mont de Piete, and once more the comrades were +nearly destitute and were really clad and fed by their visions and their +dreams. + +"You see," he said one day, shortly, to Dearborn, when the silence +between the quays and the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne had grown +intolerable to him, "you see how indifferent she is. She doesn't know +what has become of me. For all she knows I may be drowned in the Seine." + +"Or imprisoned for debt," said Dearborn, cheerfully, "that's more +likely. The tailor doesn't believe you have gone to London, Fairfax. Try +a more congenial place, Tony. Let it be Monte Carlo next time--every one +goes there sooner or later." + +When he came back from Versailles he told Dearborn nothing about his +escapade in detail, simply mentioning the fact that he had taken out a +little girl to spend the day in the woods and that she had bored him in +the end, and that he had had the misfortune to meet Mrs. Faversham +unexpectedly. + +Dearborn was one of those subtle spirits who do not need to be told +everything. He rated Antony for playing what he called an ungallant part +to the little Bohemian. + +"You say her hair was like chrysanthemums and that she had violet eyes? +Why, she is a priceless treasure, Tony! How could you desert her?" + +And several times Dearborn tried to extract something more about the +deserted little girl from his friend, but it was in vain. + +"I am sorry," Dearborn said. "We need women, Tony--we need to see the +flutter of their dresses, to watch them come and go in this little room. +By Jove, I often want to open the door and invite up the concierge, the +concierge's wife, his aunt 'and children three' or any, or all of Paris +who would come and infuse new life into us. Anything that is real flesh +and blood, to chase for a moment visions and dreams away and let us +touch real hands." + +"You don't go out enough, old man." + +"And you went out too much, Fairfax. It's not going out--I want some one +to come in. I want to see the studio peopled. You have grown so morose +and I have become such a navvy that our points of view will be false the +first thing we know." + +The snow had been falling lightly. There was a little fringe of it along +the sill, and toward sunset it had turned cold, and under the winter fog +the sun hung like an orange ball behind a veil. The Seine flowed tawny +and yellow under their eyes, as they stood together talking in the +window. + +Fairfax was in his painting clothes, the playwright in his beloved +dressing-gown that Fairfax had not the heart to pawn for coffee and +coal. There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs without. + +"It's the fellows coming to take my statuette," said Fairfax. + +"It's the tailor, the bootmaker and the shirtmaker," said Dearborn. "Go +behind the screen, Tony--run to Monte Carlo." + +There was a tap at the door and a cheerful voice called-- + +"Mr. Rainsford, _c'est moi_." + +"It is Potowski. I will have to let him in, Bob. Here's all Paris for +you. You wanted it." + +He opened the door for Count Potowski. + +The Polish singer came quickly in, his silk hat and his cane in his +hand. He looked around brightly. + +"You don't hide from me," he said. "I have a fatal grasp when I take +hold. You never call on me, Monsieur--so I call on you. Guerrea!--which +means in Polish what 'altro' means in Italian, 'Doch' in German, 'Voila' +in French, and in unenthusiastic English, nothing at all." + +Fairfax presented the Count to Dearborn, who beamed on him, amused, and +Potowski glanced at the cold, cheerless Bohemia. It was meagre. It was +cold. Privation was apparent. The place was not without a charm, and it +had distinction. There were the evidences of intense work, of devotion +to the ideal. There were the evidences of good taste and good breeding. +The few bits of furniture were old and had been bought for a song, but +selected with judgment. Fairfax's statuette waited on its pedestal to be +carried away--in the winter light, softened and subdued by mist, Mrs. +Fairfax read in her chair. Dearborn's table, strewn with his papers and +books, told of hours spent at a beloved labour. There was nothing +material to attract--no studio properties or decorations to speak of. +Two long divans were placed against a wall of agreeable colour. There +was nothing but the spirit of art and work, and the spirit of youth as +well, but Potowski was delighted. He pointed to the statuette. + +"This," he said, "is the lovely lady with whom you have been shut up all +these days. It is charming, Monsieur." + +"It is a study of my mother as I remember her." + +"I salute it," said Potowski, making a little inclination. "I salute +_you_. It is beautiful." He put his hand on Fairfax's arm. "You do my +wife. You do the Contessa," said Potowski, "the same. I adore it. It +looks my wife. It might be her, Monsieur. But all beauty is alike, is +not it? One lovely woman is all women. Are you not of my opinion?" + +He swam toward Dearborn who was fascinated by Potowski's overcoat lined +with fur, and with the huge fur collar, with his patent shoes with their +white tops, with his bright waistcoat, his single eyeglass, his shining +silk hat and, above all, by the gay foreign face, its waxed moustache +and its sparkling dark eyes. + +Dearborn wrapped his dressing-gown modestly around him to conceal his +shirtless, collarless condition. Running his hands through dishevelled +red hair, he responded-- + +"No, I don't agree with you. I guess your feminine psychology is at +fault there, Count." + +"_Rreally_ not," murmured the Count, looking at him eagerly. + +"Mr. Dearborn is a playwright," said Antony. "He is a great student of +character." + +Potowski waved his hand in its light glove. "You write plays, Monsieur? +You shall write me a libretto. I have been looking for ever for some one +to write the words for a _hopera_ I am making." + +Dearborn nodded. "Far from being all alike, I don't think that there +have been two women alike since Eve." + +"_Rreally!_" + +Potowski looked at the red-headed man as if he wondered whether he had +met and known all women. + +"You find it so, Monsieur? Now I have been married three times. Every +one of them were lovely women. I find them all the same." + +"You must have a very adaptable, assimilating and modifying nature," +said Dearborn, smiling. + +"Modifying? What is that?" asked the Pole sweetly. + +Neither of the young men made excuses for the icy cold room. They were +too proud. They had nothing to offer Potowski, not even a cigarette, but +the Pole forced his cigar-case upon them, telling them that he made his +cigarettes with a machine by the thousand. + +"My wife, Contessa Potowski, makes them, I mean. I do myself the +pleasure to send you a box. They're contraband. You will be arrested if +the police knows so." + +"That," said Dearborn, "would really disappoint the tailor. I think he +would like to get in his own score first. But I would rather go to +prison as a contrabander than as a debtor." + +They sat on the sofa together and smoked, their breath white in the cold +room. But the amiable Potowski beamed on them, and Antony saw Dearborn's +delight at the outside element. And Dearborn sketched his scenario, the +colour hot in his thin cheeks, and Potowski, rubbing his hands to warm +them, hummed airs from his own opera in a heavenly voice, and the voice +and the enthusiasm magnetized poor Dearborn, carried out of his rut, and +before he knew it he had promised to write a libretto for "Fiametta." + +Whilst they talked the porters came and took away the statuette of Mrs. +Fairfax, and Potowski said-- + +"It was like seeing _they_ carry away my wife." And, when they had gone, +Antony lighted the candles and Potowski rose and cried, as though the +idea had just come to him: "Guerrea! My friends, I am alone to-night. My +wife has gone to sing in Brussels. I implore you to come out to dinner +with me--I know not where." He glanced at the sculptor and playwright, +as they stood in the candle light. He had only seen Fairfax a +well-dressed visitor at Mrs. Faversham's entertainments. On him now a +different light fell. In his working clothes, there was nothing +poverty-stricken about him, but the marks of need were unmistakably in +the environment. He spoke to Dearborn, but he looked at Fairfax. "I have +grown very fond of him. I love to speak my thoughts at him. We don't +always agree, but we are always good for each other. I have not seen him +for some time. I thought he go away." + +Dearborn smiled. "He _was_ just going to Monte Carlo," he murmured. + +Potowski, who did not hear, went on: "We will go and eat in some +restaurant on this side of the river. I am tired of the Cafe de Paris. +We will see a play afterwards. There is 'La Dame aux Camelias' with the +divine Sarah. We laugh at dinner and we shall go and sob at La Dame aux +Camelias. I like a happy weeping now and then." He swam toward them +affably and appealingly. "I don't dress. I go as I am." + +Dearborn grasped one of the yellow-gloved hands and shook it. + +"Hang it all! I'm going, Tony. There are two pair of boots, anyhow. I +haven't been to a play," he laughed excitedly, "since I was a child. +Hustle, Tony, we will toss up for the best suit of clothes." + +The drama of Dumas gave Antony a beautiful escape from reality. La Dame +aux Camelias disenchanted him from his own problems for the time. In the +Count's box he sat in the background and fed his eyes and his ears with +the romantic and ardent art of the Second Empire. He found the piece +great, mobile, and palpitating, and he was not ashamed. The divine Sarah +and Marguerite Gautier died before his eyes, and out of the ashes +womanhood arose and called to him, as the Venus de Milo had called to +him down the long gallery, and distractions he had known seemed soulless +and unreal shapes. He worshipped Dumas in his creation. + +"Rainsford," whispered Potowski, laying his hand on Antony's knee, "what +do you t'ink, my friend?" The tears were raining down his mobile face; +he sighed. "_Arrt_," he said in his mellow whisper, "is only the +expression of the feeling, the beautiful expression of the feeling. That +is the meaning of all _arrt_." + +The big red curtain fell slowly and the three men, poet, singer and +sculptor, kept their seats as though still under the spell of Dumas and +unable to break it. + +"Tony," said Dearborn, as they went out together, "I am going to burn up +all four acts." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The middle of January arrived, and he thought Cedersholm would have come +by that time and supposed that they would be off for Rome. + +The study of his mother was accepted by the jury for the exhibition in +the Rue de Sevres, and Fairfax went on the opening day, saw his name in +the catalogue, and his study on the red pedestal made a dark mellow note +amongst the marbles. He stood with the crowd and listened with beating +heart to the comments of the public. He watched the long-haired +Bohemians and the worldly people, the Philistine and the elite as they +surged, a little sea of criticism, approval, praise and blame, through +the rooms. + +"Pas mal, ca." "Here is a study that is worth looking at." "By whom is +this?" + +And each time that he heard his name read aloud--Thomas Rainsford--he +was jealous of it for Antony. It seemed a sacrilege, a treachery. He +wandered about, looking at the other exhibits, but could not keep away +from his own, and came back timidly, happily, to stand by the figure of +his mother in her chair. There was much peace in the little work of art, +much repose. He seemed to see himself again a boy, as he had been that +day when she asked for the cherries and he had run off to climb for +them--and had gone limping ever since. She had sat languidly with her +book that day, as she sat now, immortalized by her son in clay. + +Some one came up and touched his arm. "Bonjour, Rainsford." It was +Barye, his chief. He had been looking at the group behind the sculptor. +He said briefly: "Je vous felicite, monsieur." He smiled on his +journeyman from under shaggy brows. "They will talk about you in the +_Figaro_. C'est exquis." + +Fairfax thanked him and watched Barye's face as the master scrutinized +and went around the little figure. He put out his hand to Fairfax. + +"Come and see me to-morrow. I want to talk to you." + +Fairfax answered that he would be sure to come, just as though he were +not modelling at the studio for ten francs a day. He had been careful +all along not to repeat his error of years before. He had avoided +personalities with his master, as he toiled like a common day-labourer, +content to make his living and to display no originality; but now he +felt a sense of fellowship with the great Frenchman and walked along by +Barye's side to the door, proud to be so distinguished. He glanced over +the crowd in the hope of seeing Her, but instead, walking through the +rooms, his eyeglass in his eye, the little red badge of the Legion of +Honour in his coat, he saw Cedersholm. + +The following day, when he went to the exhibition, the man at the door +handed a catalogue to Fairfax and pointed to No. 102, against which was +the word "Sold." His price had been unpretentious. + +"Moreover," said the man, "No. 102 will certainly have a medal." + +Fairfax, his hands in his empty pockets, was less impressed by that +prognostication than by the fact that there was money for him somewhere. +The man opened the desk and handed Fairfax an envelope with five hundred +francs in it. + +"Who was the purchaser?" Fairfax looked at the receipt he was given to +sign and read: "Sold to Mr. Cedersholm." + +"Mais non," he exclaimed shortly, "ca, non!" + +He was assured, however, that it was the American sculptor and no other. +On his way home he reflected, "She sent him to purchase it." And the +five hundred francs bill burned in his pocket. Then he called himself a +fool and asked what possible interest she could still have in Thomas +Rainsford, whose news she had not taken in four weeks. And also, he +reflected, that so far as Cedersholm was concerned, Thomas Rainsford had +nothing to do with Antony Fairfax. "He merely admired my work," he +reflected bitterly. "He has seemed always singularly to admire it." + +He paid some pressing debts, got his clothes out of pawn, left Dearborn +what he wanted, and was relieved when the last sou of the money was +gone. + +"I wonder, Bob," he said to Dearborn, "when I shall ever have any +'serious money.'" And with sudden tenderness he thought of Bella. + +Dearborn, who had also recovered a partially decent suit of clothes, +displayed his trousers and said-- + +"I think some chap has been wearing my clothes and stretched them." They +hung loose on him. + +Fairfax laughed. "You have only shrunk, Bob, that's all. You need +feeding up." + +The studio had undergone a slight transformation, which the young men +had been forced to accede to. A grand piano covered with a bright bit of +brocade stood in the centre of the studio, a huge armchair, with a +revolving smoking-table, by its side. The chair was for Dearborn to loll +in and dream in whilst Potowski played and sang at the piano. Dearborn +was thus supposed to work the libretto for "Fiametta." + +Potowski, who came in at all hours, charmed the very walls with his +voice, sang and improvised; Fairfax worked on the study he was making +for Barye, and Dearborn, in the big chair, swathed in his wrapper, made +notes, or more often fell serenely to sleep, for he worked all night on +his own beloved drama, and if it had not been for Potowski he would have +slept nearly all day. The Pole, at present, had gone to Belgium to fetch +his wife, who had been away for several weeks. + +When there was a knock on the door on this afternoon, the young men, +used to unexpected visitors, cried out-- + +"Come in--entrez donc!" + +But there was the murmur of a woman's voice without, and Fairfax, his +sculpting tools in his hands, opened the door. It was Mrs. Faversham. + +He stood for a dazed second unable even to welcome her. Dearborn sprang +up in embarrassment and amusement. Mrs. Faversham herself was not +embarrassed. + +"Is not Potowski here?" shaking hands with Antony. "I had expected to +meet him. Didn't he tell you that I was coming? I understood that you +expected me." + +Fairfax shut the door behind her. "You are more than welcome. This is my +friend, Mr. Dearborn. You may have heard Potowski speak of him." + +She shook hands with the red-haired playwright, whom she captivated at +once by her cordiality and her sweet smile. Of course she had heard of +him and the libretto. Potowski had given her to understand that she +might hear the overture of "Fiametta." + +The young men exchanged glances and neither of them told her that +Potowski was in Belgium. Dearborn rolled the chair toward her and waved +to it gracefully. + +"This is the chair of the muses, Mrs. Faversham, and not one of them has +been good enough to sit in it before now." + +She laughed and sat down, and Fairfax looked at her with joy. + +"We must give Mrs. Faversham some tea," said Dearborn, "and if you will +excuse me while we wait for Potowski, I will pop out and get some milk +and you boil the tea-kettle." + +He took his hat and cape and ran out, leaving them alone. + +Mrs. Faversham looked at the sculptor in his velveteen working clothes, +the background of his workshop, its disorder and its poverty around him. + +"How nice it is here," she said. "I don't wonder you are a hermit." + +"Oh," he exclaimed, "don't compliment this desolation." + +She interrupted him. "I think it is charming. You feel the atmosphere of +living and of work. You seem to see things here that are not visible in +rooms where nothing is accomplished." + +He sat down beside her. "Are there such rooms?" he asked. "I don't +believe it. The most thrilling dramas take place, don't they, in the +most commonplace settings?" + +As though she feared that Dearborn would come back, she said quickly-- + +"I don't know why you should have been so unkind. I have heard nothing +of you for weeks, do you know, excepting through Potowski. It wasn't +kind, was it?" + +"I was rude and ungrateful, but I could not do otherwise." + +She bent forward to him as he sat on the divan. "I wonder why?" she +asked. "Were we not friends? Could you not have trusted me? Do you think +me so narrow and conventional--so stupid?" + +"Oh!" he exclaimed, and he smiled a little, thinking of Nora Scarlet. +"It is not quite what you think." + +He was angry with her, with the facts of their existence, with her great +fortune, and her engagement to the man he despised above all others, his +own incognito and the fact that she had sent Cedersholm to buy his +study, and that he could not express to her, without insult, his +feelings or tell her frankly who he was. + +"You were not kind, Mr. Rainsford." + +He reflected that she thought him the lover of a Latin Quarter student, +if she thought at all, which she probably did not. Without humility he +confessed-- + +"Yes, I have been very rude indeed." He wiped his clay-covered hands +slowly, each finger separately, his eyes bent. He rose abruptly. "Would +you care to look at a study I am making for Barye?" He drew off the +cloths from the clay he was engaged in modelling. She only glanced at +the group and he asked her, almost roughly: "Why did you buy by proxy my +little study in the exhibition? Why did you ask Cedersholm to do so?" + +Mrs. Faversham looked at him in frank surprise. "Your study in the +exhibition? I knew nothing of it. I did not know you had exhibited. I +have been ill for a fortnight, and have not seen a paper or heard a hit +of news." + +He was softened. His emotions violently contradicted themselves, and he +saw now that she had grown a little thinner and looked pale. + +"Have you been ill? What a boor you must think me never to have +returned!" + +She was standing close to the pedestal and rested her hand on the +support near his wooden tools. She wore a beautiful grey drees, such a +one as only certain Parisian hands can create. It fitted her to +perfection, displaying her shape, and, where the fur opened at the neck, +amongst the lace he saw the gleaming and flashing of a jewel whose value +would have made a man rich. Already the air was sweet with the fragrance +of the scent she used. She had been in grey when he had first seen her +on the day of the unveiling of the monument. Fairfax passed his hand +across his eyes, as though to brush away a vision which, like a mist, +was still between them. He put his hand down over hers on the pedestal. + +"I love you," he said very low. "That is the matter. That is the +trouble. I love you. I want you to know it. I dare love you. I am +perfectly penniless and I am glad of it. I want to owe everything to my +art, to climb through the thorns to where I shall some day reach. I am +proud of my poverty and of my emancipation from everything that others +think is necessary to happiness. I am rude. I cannot help it. I shall +never see you again. I ought not to speak to you in my barren room. I +know that you are not free and that you are going to be married, but you +must hear once what I have to tell you. I love you.... I love you." + +She was as motionless as the grey study. He might himself have made and +carved "the woman in her entirety," for she stood motionless before him. + +"Tell Cedersholm," he said bitterly, "tell him that a poor sculptor, a +struggler who lives to climb beyond him, who will some day climb beyond +him, loves you." + +The arrogance and pride of his words and her immobility affected him +more than a reproof or even speech. He took her in his arms, and she was +neither marble nor clay, but a woman there. + +"Tell him," he murmured close to her cheek, "that I have kissed you and +held you." + +And here she said; "Hush!" almost inaudibly, and released herself. She +was trembling. She put her hands to her eyes. "I shall tell him nothing. +He is nothing to me. I sent him away when he first came, a fortnight +ago. I shall never see Cedersholm again." + +"What!" cried Tony, looking at her in rapture, "what, you are _free_?" +At his heart there was triumph, excitement, wonder, all blending with +the bigger emotion. He heard himself ask her eagerly: "Why, why did you +do this?" + +There were tears on her eyelids. + +His face flushing, his eyes illumined, he looked down on her and lifted +her face to him in both his hands. + +"Why?" + +"I think you know," she murmured, her lips trembling. + +He gave a cry, and as he was about again to embrace her they heard +Dearborn's step upon the stairs. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Faversham was in the window looking out upon Paris, and Fairfax was +modelling on his study when the playwright came in with a can of milk, +some madeleines and a pot of jam. + +After she had gone he wanted to escape and be alone, but Dearborn +chatted, pacing the studio, whilst Fairfax dressed and shaved, praising +the visitor. + +"She's a great lady, Tony. What breeding and race! And she's not what +the books call 'indifferent' to you." + +"Go to the devil, Dearborn!" + +Dearborn went to work instead, not to lose the inspiration of the lovely +woman. He began a new scene, and dressed his character in dove grey with +silver fox at her throat. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Fairfax, at the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, found instead of the +entrance he had expected, a note for him. + + "I cannot see you to-night. Be generous,--understand me. Mr. + Cedersholm leaves for Russia to-morrow, he has asked me as a last + favour to let him see me. I have done him so much wrong that I + cannot refuse him. Come early to-morrow morning, and we will walk + in the Bois together. I am yours, + + "MARY." + +He read the letter before the footman, and the "yours, Mary" made his +heart bound and his throat contract. He walked toward the Champs Elysees +slowly, thinking. Cedersholm sailed to-morrow, away from France. He was +sent away beaten, bruised, conquered. He must have loved her. No man +could help it. Was this the beginning of Fairfax's triumph? Well, he +could not help it--he was glad. Cedersholm had stolen his fire, the +labour of his youth, and now he would not have been human if there had +not been a thrill through him that the conqueror knows. He could spare +him this farewell evening with the woman who signed herself "I am yours, +Mary." + +"Vade in Pace," he murmured. + +Then the vision of the woman rose more poignant than anything else, and +he saw her as she had stood under his hands, the tears in her eyes, and +the fire and pallor of passion on her face. + +What should he do now? Marry her, of course. He would be married, then, +twice at thirty. He shook his broad shoulders as though instinctively he +chafed under the sudden adjusting to them of a burden. He limped out +into the Champs Elysees, under the rows of light where the lamps were +like illumined oranges. The vehicles twinkled by like fire-flies in the +mist. Before him was the Palais de l'Industrie and back of it stretched +the Champ de Mars and Napoleon's tomb. The freedom of the night and the +hour was sweet to him; and he dreamed as he limped slowly down the +Avenue under the leafless trees. Probably wisdom would tell him that, if +he married now, it would be the end of his career. Love was an +inspiration, a sharp impelling power to art, but marriage, a home, +another household, another hearth and family, beautiful as the picture +was, seemed to him, even bright and keen as was his passion, to be +captivity. And the memory of Albany came back to him, the cold winter +months, the days on the engine, the blizzards against the tenement +panes, household cares, small and petty, the buying of coal and food, +and the constant duties which no man can shrink from and be a man, and +which fret the free spirit of the creator. Moreover, the anguish of +those days returned, biting his very entrails at the remembrance of his +griefs, his remorse, his regrets. Molly by the study light, patient and +wifely, rose before his eyes. There was his wife, and she seemed holy +and stainless, set apart for that position and very perfect. He saw her +lying pale and cold, beautiful as marble, with the little swathed form +on her bosom, which had given and never nourished. He saw them both--his +wife and child. Can a man begin over again? Can he create anew, +perfectly anew, the same vision? He saw her go through the open door, +holding it wide for him. So she should hold it at the last. He could +give her this. He had defrauded her of so much. He could give to her to +eternity a certain faithfulness. + +He was exalted. He walked freely, with his head uplifted. It was a misty +evening and the mists blew about him as he limped along in his student's +cape, his spirit communing with his ideals and with his dead. Before, +his visions took form and floated down the Avenue. Now they seemed +unearthly, without any stain of human desire, without any worldly +tarnish. He must be free. The latitude of his life must be unbounded by +any human law, otherwise he would never attain. The flying forms were +sexless and his eyes pursued them like a worshipper. They were angelic. +For the moment he had emancipated himself from passion. + +He reached the Place de la Concorde. It was ten o'clock. He could not go +home to be questioned by Dearborn--indeed, he could not have stood a +companion. He called a cab and told the man to drive him up to the Bois +de Boulogne, and they rolled slowly up the Avenue down which he had just +come. But in what position did he stand toward Mary Faversham? She had +refused Cedersholm because she loved him and he loved her--more than he +ever could love, more than he ever had loved. A cab passed him in which +two forms were enlaced. The figures of two lovers blotted in the +darkness. Along the alleys, under the winter trees, every now and then +he saw other lovers walking arm-in-arm, even in winter warmed by the +eternal fire. He touched his pocket where her note lay and his emotions +stirred afresh. + +He dreamed of her. + +He had been tortured day by day, these weeks, by jealousy of Cedersholm, +and this helped him on in his sentimental progress. They passed the +street, which a moment before he had taken from her house, to come out +upon the Champs Elysees. They rolled into the Bois, under the damp +darkness and the night, and the forest odours came to him through the +window of the cab. She would have to wait until he was rich and famous. +As far as her fortune was concerned, if she loved him she could give it +to the poor. He could tell her how to use it. She should never spend a +cent of it on herself. He must be able to suffice for her and for him. +Rich or poor, the woman who married him would have to take him as he +was. On the lake the mists blew over the water. They lay white as +spirits among the trees. Everything about the dark and silent night was +beautiful to him, made beautiful by the sacred warfare in his own mind. +Above all came the human eagerness to see her again, to touch her again, +to tell his love, to hear her say what Dearborn's coming had prevented. +And he would see her to-morrow morning. It was profanity to walk in +these woods without her. + +"Go back," he called to the coachman, "go back quietly to the Quais." + +He hoped that he should be able to sleep and that the next day would +come quickly. He became ardent and devoted as he dreamed, and all the +way back his heart ached for her. + +When he entered the studio and called Dearborn he received no response. +There was a note from the playwright on the table--he would not be +back until the next morning. + +Fairfax, his hand under his pillow, crushed her letter, and the words: +"I am yours, Mary," flushed his palm and his cheek. + + * * * * * + +He had been awake since dawn, fire in his blood and heart animating his +brain and stimulating his creative power. In the early light he had +seated himself to make a few sketches, drawing little exquisite studies +of her, and the face on the paper was ideal, irritatingly so. The chin +and the cheek was young and soft, too youthful for Mrs. Faversham. It +suggested Bella. + +When he went to see her that afternoon, for the first time he was shown +upstairs. Each step was sacred to him as he mounted to the part of the +house in which she lived her intimate life. The stairs were marble, +covered by thick rugs; the iron balustrade had been brought from a +chateau in the days of the Revolution. Along the wall at his side hung +splendid tapestries, whose colours would have delighted him at another +time. But his eyes now were blinded to material things. His soul, heart +and nature were aflame, and he walked on air. When he was shown into a +small room, Mrs. Faversham's own sitting-room, his agitation was so +great that he seemed to walk through a mist. + +She was not there. The day was fresh and the wood fire burning across +the andirons called to him with a friendly voice. The objects by which +she surrounded herself represented a fortune; the clock before him, +which marked the hour in which he first came to see his love, had +belonged to Marie Antoinette, and it beamed on the lover from its wise +old clever face,--crystal water fell noiselessly, as the minutes passed, +from a little golden mill over which watched two Loves like millers. +There were her books on the table, bound with art and taste. There were +her writing things on her desk, and a half-finished letter on the +blotter. There was her "chaise-longue" with its protective pillows, its +sable cover, and between the lace curtains Antony could see the trees of +the park. On the footstool a Pekinese dog sat looking at him +malevolently. It lifted its fluffy body daintily and raised its +impertinent little face to the visitor. Then a door opened and she came +in murmuring his name. Antony, seeing her through a mist of love which +had not yet cleared, took her in his arms, calling her "Mary, Mary!" He +felt the form and shape of her in his arms. As dream women had never +given themselves to him, so she seemed to yield. + +When they sat side by side on the little sofa the Pekinese dog jumped up +and sat between them. She caressed it with one hand, laying the other on +Antony's shoulder. + +"I must tell you my life," he said, and his sight cleared as he spoke, +and he saw her face transformed by its emotion, her eyes adoring and +beautiful, her lips parted as if the breath of life he had given to her +left her wondering still. + +"Don't tell me of anything to-day." + +He took the hand that lay on his shoulder and raised it. "I must tell +you now." + +"I ask for nothing, Antony. What does the past matter?" She bent forward +and kissed him on his eyes. "I would like to think they had never looked +at anything before to-day." + +He smiled. "But they have looked hard at many things, Mary. They will +always look deeply, and I want you to look back with me." + +She sighed. "Then, forward with me." The Pekinese dog sprang into her +lap. "Go on," she said docilely; "but I am so divinely happy! Why should +we think of anything else?" + +He brushed away the mist that threatened again to cloud his vision. He +took her hand and held it firmly and, lifting up his head, began frankly +to tell her of his past. + +"I am a Southerner, born in New Orleans...." + +As he talked she listened spellbound by his power of narrative. In his +speech he was as charming a creator as in his art. She saw the picture +of his Louisiana home; she saw the exquisite figure of his mother; she +saw the beginning of his genius and his poetic, dreaming years. When he +began the more realistic part of his story, talking aloud like this of +himself for the first time to a woman he loved, he forgot her entirely, +carried back by a strong force to the beginning of his struggles in New +York. She listened, unchanged and a little terrified, as he told her of +his work in the sculptor's studio, disguising the name of the man for +whom he worked. She stopped him, her hand on his. So had she asked +previously Cedersholm. Her voice brought him back to the present, to a +feeling that for nothing in the world would he tell her yet, and he said +"No, no," veiling the fact so that he could not guess, and passed over +the misery of his master's treachery and his defeat. But through his +narrative like a flame, charming, brilliant, vivifying, flashed the +personality of Bella, though a child only, still a woman, and again Mary +Faversham, with her hand on his stopped him-- + +"What a bewitching child," she said. "Don't speak of her with such fire. +I believe you loved her! She must be a woman." + +Antony stirred. He rose from the divan where he was sitting and crossed +over to the fireplace and stood by the eighteenth-century clock where +the crystal water fell with the passing moments. She looked at him as he +stood there, powerfully built, strong, the light of his feeling and of +his introspection kindling in his eyes and on his brow. It had been +three o'clock when he began his story. The afternoon grew paler, the +fire died down to ashes on the little hearth. He took a cigarette from +his pocket, lit it and stood smoking a few moments. Then he went in his +imagination to Albany and carried his hearer with him, and he began to +speak of Molly. He waited for a moment before laying bare to her his +intimate life. As he turned and met her eyes, he said-- + +"I do not know how to tell you this. You must listen as well as you can. +It is life, you know, and there are many kinds." + +Antony, absorbed in his speech, forgot her entirely. He told her of +Molly Shannon with a tenderness that would have moved any woman. When +he closed the chapter of his married life, with his last words a silence +fell, and he saw that she was moved beyond what he had dreamed she would +be. He went back to her, waited a moment, then sat down and put his arm +around her. + +"That is my past," he murmured. "Can you forget what there is in it of +defeat and forget its sorrow?" + +She kissed him and murmured: "I love you the better for it. It seems you +have come to me through thorny ways, Antony. Perhaps I can make you +forget them." + +He did not tell her that she would. Even in this moment, when she was in +his arms, he knew that in her there would be no such oblivion for him. +The marks were too deep upon him. He felt them now. With what he had +been saying, there came back to him a sense of the tremendous burden he +had borne when poor, a sense of the common burden we all bear and which +in the heart of the poet nothing ever entirely lifts. + +"Listen," he said urgently and with a certain solemnity. "Any other man +would speak to you about nothing but love. I can do it some day perhaps +too easily, but not now, for this is our beginning and between us both +there must be nothing to conceal." He thought she started a little, and +said hastily: "I mean, nothing for our souls to hide. What I have told +you is my life, but it does not end there. I adore my work. I am a +worker born, I don't know how much of one, but I must give my time and +my talent to it." + +"I know, I know," she breathed. "Do you think I don't realize it, +Antony? Do you think I don't adore you for it? Why, it is part of what +makes me love you." + +"That is all," he said. "I could no more emancipate myself from my work +than I can from my ideals; they are part of me. I am perfectly poor." + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, softly, "don't, don't speak of that." + +He turned his fine eyes on her with a light in them whose courage and +beauty she did not understand. + +"Why not speak of it?" he asked quietly. "I am not ashamed of the fact +that I have no money. Such as money is, I shall make it some day, and I +shall not value it then any more than I do now. It is necessary, I +begin to see, but only that. Its only importance is the importance we +give to it: to keep straight with our kind; to justify our existence, +and," he continued, "to help the next man." + +His face took a firmer expression. More than in his recitation of his +life he seemed to forget her. As he said so, his arms fell a little way +away from her--she grew cold--he seemed a stranger. Only for a moment, +however, for he turned, put out his arms, and drew her to him. He kissed +her as he had not kissed her yet, and after a few moments said-- + +"Mary, I bring you my talent, and my manhood, and my courage--nothing +else--and I want it to be enough for you." + +She said that it was. That it was more than enough. + +Fairfax sighed, his arms dropped, he smiled and looked at her, and +said-- + +"I wonder if it is?" He glanced round the room quietly, with an +arrogance of which he was unconscious. "You must give all this up, +Mary." + +"Must I?" She flushed and laughed. "You mean to say you want me to come +to Bohemia?" + +"I want you to live as I can live," he said, "share what I must have ... +that is, I should ask you that if you married me now ..." + +He watched her face. It was still illuminated. Her love for him was too +vital to be touched by this proposition which she did not wholly +understand. + +"Most men shrink," Fairfax said, "from taking the woman they love from +her luxuries. I believe that I shall not be poor very long. It will be a +struggle. If you marry me now, you will share it with me, otherwise ..." +He waited a moment. + +And she repeated: "Otherwise, Antony?" + +"I shall go away," he answered, "and not come back again until I am rich +and great." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +After he had left her he was dazed and incredulous. His egoism, his +enthusiasm, his idea of his own self-sufficiency seemed preposterous. A +man in love should entertain no idea but the thought of the woman +herself. He began to chafe at poverty which he had assured her made no +difference to him. Did he wish to live again terrible years of sacrifice +and sordidness? If so, he could not hope a woman accustomed to luxury +would choose to share his struggle. He was absurd. + + * * * * * + +"Money," Dearborn said, regarding his shabby cuffs, "opens many doors. I +am inclined also to think that it shuts many doors. You remember the +Kingdom of Heaven and the needle's eye; but," he continued whimsically, +"I should not think of comparing Mrs. Faversham to a camel, Tony!" + +"Don't be an ass," said Antony, proudly. "Mrs. Faversham and I feel +alike about it. Money will play no part in our mutual future." And, as +he said this, was sure neither of her nor of himself. + +"Under which circumstances," said his companion, "I shall offer you +another cup of coffee and tell you my secret. Going with my play to +London is not the only one. I am in love. When you have drunk your +coffee we'll go home. Potowski is going to play for us, and he is going +to bring his wife at last." + +The two friends sat that evening in a corner of a cafe on the Boulevard +Montparnasse. There were Bohemians around them at their table, and they +themselves were part of that happy, struggling world. Dearborn dropped +his voice, and said softly to Fairfax-- + +"And I have asked my little girl to come as well to-night to hear the +music." + +Fairfax, instead of drinking his coffee, stared at Dearborn, and when +Dearborn murmured, "Nora Scarlet is her name. Isn't it a name for a +drama?" Fairfax stared still harder and repeated the girl's name under +his breath, flushing, but Dearborn did not observe it. + +"I want you to see her, Tony; she is sweet and good." + +"Bob," said Fairfax gravely, "you mean to tell me you have been falling +in love and carrying on a romance without telling me a word about it?" + +Dearborn smiled. "To tell the truth, old man," he replied, "you have +been so absorbed; there was not room for two romances in the studio. + +"I met her in the springtime, Gentle Annie," Dearborn said whimsically, +"and it was raining cats and dogs--but for me it rained just love and +Nora. We were both waiting for a 'bus. Neither one of us had an +umbrella. Now that you speak of it, Tony, I think we have never mended +that lack in our possessions. We climbed to the _imperiale_ together, +and the rain beat upon us both. We laughed, and I said to myself, a girl +that can laugh like that in a shower should be put aside for a rainy +day. We talked and we giggled. The rain stopped. We forgot to get down. +We went to the end of the line and still we forgot to get down. The +conductor collected a double fare, and afterward I took her home." + +(Antony thought to himself, "Just what I did not do.") + +"She is angelic, Tony, delightful, an artist's dream, a writer's +inspiration, and a poor man's fairy." + +Fairfax laughed. + +"Don't laugh, old man," said Dearborn simply. "I have never heard you +rave like this about the peerless Mary." + +Fairfax said, "No. But then you talk better than I do." He shook +Dearborn's hand warmly. "You know I am most awfully glad, don't you?" + +"I know I am," said Dearborn, lighting a cigarette. + +He settled himself with a beautiful content, asking nothing better than +to go on rehearsing his love affair. + +"We have been engaged a long time, Tony. It is only a question of how +little two people can dare to try to get on with, you know, and I have +determined to risk it." + +As they went up the steps of the studio together, Fairfax said-- + +"She is coming to-night, Bob, you say? Does she know anything about me?" + +At this Dearborn laughed aloud. "She knows a great deal about me, Tony. +My dear boy, do you think we have talked much about anything but each +other? Do you talk with Mrs. Faversham about me? Nora knows I live here +with a chum. She doesn't even know your name." + +As Dearborn threw open the door they could hear Potowski playing softly +the old French ballad, "J'ai perdu ma tourterelle." + +A woman sat by Potowski in a big chair, and the lamp on the piano shone +yellow upon her. When the two men entered the studio she rose, and +Potowski, still playing, said-- + +"Let me present, at last, my better half. Mes amis, la Comtesse +Potowski." + +Dearborn greeted her enthusiastically, and Tony stood petrified. The +comtesse, more mistress of the moment than Tony was, put out one hand +and smiled, but she had turned very pale. + +It was his Aunt Caroline.... + +"Mr. Rainsford," she lifted her brows, "I think I have seen you before." + +Tony bowed over her hand and Potowski, still smiling and nodding, +cried-- + +"These are great men and geniuses, _ma cherie_. You have here two great +artists together. They both have wings on their shoulders. Before they +fly away from us and are lost on Olympus, be charming to them. Carolina, +_ma cherie_, they shall hear you sing." + +Robert Dearborn put his hand on Potowski's shoulder and said-- + +"We love your husband, madame. He has been such a bully friend to us, +such a wonderful friend." + +"Poof, my dear Bobbie," murmured Potowski. + +("J'ai perdu ma tourterelle.") + +Fairfax asked, looking directly at her, "Will you really sing for us, +Madame Potowski? Can you sing some old English ballad? We have not heard +a word of English for many a long day." + +Potowski wandered softly into a familiar tune. He smiled over his +shoulder at his wife, and, standing by the piano, Caroline +Carew--Carolina Potowski--put her hands over her husband's on the keys +and indicated an accompaniment, humming. + +"If you can, dear, I will sing Mr. Rainsford _this_." + +Tony took his place on the divan. + +Then Madame Potowski sang: + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton." + +In New York Tony had said, as he sat in the big Puritan parlour, that +her voice was divine. No one who has ever heard Carolina Potowski sing +"Flow gently, sweet Afton" can ever forget it. Tony covered his face +with his hands and said to himself, being an artist as well, "No matter +what she has done, it was worth it to produce such art as that." + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes + Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise, + My Mary is asleep by your turbulent stream, + Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream." + +Little Gardiner once more leaned against his arm; restless little Bella +in red, her hair down her back, slipped out of the room to read in +peace, and he sat there, a homeless stranger in a Northern city without +a cent of money in his pocket, and the desires of life and art shining +in his soul. + + "Flow gently, sweet Afton." + +He indistinctly heard Dearborn open the door. A woman slipped in and +went over and sat down by her lover. The two sat together holding hands, +and "Sweet Afton" flowed on, and nobody's dream was disturbed. Little +Gardiner slept his peaceful sleep in his child's grave; his mother slept +her sleep in a Southern cemetery; the Angel of Resurrection raised his +spotless wings over the city of the silent dead, and Antony's heart +swelled in his breast. + +When the Comtesse Potowski stopped singing no one said a word. Her +husband played a few bars of Werther and she sang the "Love Letters." +Then, before she ceased, Antony was conscious that Nora Scarlet had +recognized him. Before any embarrassment could be between them, he went +over to her and took her hand, saying warmly-- + +"I am so glad, Miss Scarlet. Dearborn has told me of his good fortune. +He is the best fellow in the world, and I know how lucky he is," and +Nora Scarlet murmured something, with her eyes turned away from him. + +Tony turned to Madame Potowski and said ardently, "You must let me come +to see you to-morrow. I want to thank you for this wonderful treat." + +And when Potowski and his Aunt Caroline had gone, and when Dearborn had +taken Nora Scarlet home, Antony stood in the studio, which still +vibrated with the tones of the lovely voice. He had lived once again a +part of his old life. This was his mother's sister, and she had made +havoc of her home. He thought of little Bella's visit to him in Albany. + +"Mother has done something perfectly terrible, Cousin Antony--something +a daughter is not supposed to know." + +Well, the something perfectly terrible was, she had set herself free +from a man she did not love; that she was making Potowski happy; that +she had found her sphere and soared into it. + +Fairfax tried in vain to think of himself now and Mary Faversham, but he +could not. The past rushed on him with its palpitating wings. He groaned +and stretched out his arms into the shadows of the room. + +"There is something that chains me, holds me prisoner. I am wedded to +something--is it death and a tomb?" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +During the following weeks it seemed to him he was chasing his soul and +her own. In their daily intercourse--sweet, of course, tender, of +course--there was a constant sense of limitation. He wanted her to share +with him his love of the beautiful, but Mary Faversham was conventional. +He would have spent hours with her in the Louvre, hanging over +treasures, musing before pictures whose art he felt he could never +sufficiently make his own. Mrs. Faversham followed him closely, but +after a time watched the people. Whilst her lover--in love with all +beauty--remained transfixed over the contemplation of a petrified rose +found in the ruins of Pompeii, or intoxicated himself with the beauty of +an urn, she would interrupt his meditation by speaking to him of +unimportant things. She found resemblances in the little Grecian statues +to her friends in society. Tony sighed and relinquished seeing museums +with Mary. She patronized art with _largesse_ and generosity but he +discovered it was one way to her of spending money, an agreeable, +satisfying way to a woman of breeding and refinement. + +The bewitching charm of her clothes, her great expenditures on herself, +made him open his blue eyes. Once he held her exquisitely shod foot in +his hand, admiring its beauty and its slenderness. On the polished +leather was the sparkle of her paste buckles; he admired the ephemeral +web of her silk stocking, and was ashamed that the thought should cross +his mind as to what this lovely foot represented of extravagance. But he +had been with her when she bought the buckles on the Rue de la Paix; he +knew the price they cost. Was the money making him sordid--hypercritical, +unkind? + +Life for six months whirled round him. Mary Faversham dazzled and +bewitched him, charmed and flattered him. Their engagement had not been +made public. He ceased to work; he was at her beck and call; he went +with her everywhere. At her house, in her box at the opera, he met all +Paris. She was hardly ever alone with him; he made one of a group. +Nevertheless, they were talked about. Several orders for busts were the +outcome of his meeting fashionable Paris; but he did not work. Toward +March he received word from America that his bas-relief under the name +of Thomas Rainsford had won the ten thousand dollar prize. He felt like +a prince. For some singular reason he told no one, not even Dearborn. In +writing to him the committee had told him that according to the +contracts the money would not be forthcoming until July. He had gone +through so many bitter disappointments in his life that he did not want +in the minds of his friends to anticipate this payment and be +disappointed anew. + +Among his fellow-workers in the Barye studio was the son of a +millionaire pork-packer from Chicago. The young man took a tremendous +liking to Antony. With a certain perspicacity, the rich young fellow +divined much of his new friend's needs. He came to the studio, to their +different reunions, and chummed heartily with Dearborn and Fairfax. +Peterson was singularly lacking in talent and tremendously +over-furnished with heart. One day, as they worked side by side in the +studio of the big man, Peterson watched Antony's handling of a tiger's +head. + +"By Jove!" cried the Chicagoan, "you are simply great--you are simply +great! I wonder if you would be furious with me if I said something to +you that is on my mind?" + +The something on the simple young man's mind was that he wanted to lend +Fairfax a sum of money, to be paid back when the sculptor saw fit. After +a moment's hesitation Antony accepted the loan, making it one-third as +much as the big-hearted chap had suggested. Fairfax set July as the date +of payment, when his competitive money should come in. He borrowed just +enough to keep him in food and clothes for the following months. + +There were no motors in Paris then. In the mornings he drove with Mrs. +Faversham to the Bois and limped by her side in the _allees_, whilst the +worldly people stared at the distinguished, conspicuous couple. One day +Barye himself stopped them, and to the big man Antony presented Mrs. +Faversham who did not happen to know her fiance's chief. + +Fairfax looked at her critically as she laughed and was sweet and +gracious. Carriages filed past them; shining equipages, the froth and +wine of life flowed around them under the trees, whose chestnut torches +were lit with spring. + +Barye said to Antony, "Not working, are you, Rainsford? _C'est +dommage_", and turning to Mrs. Faversham he added, nodding, "_C'est +dommage_." + +Antony heard the words throughout the day, and they haunted him--_c'est +dommage_. Barye's voice had been light, but the sculptor knew the +underlying ring in it. There is, indeed, no greater pity than for a man +of talent not to work. That day he lunched with her on the terrace of +her hotel overlooking the rose garden. Fairfax ate scarcely anything. +Below his eyes spread a _parterre_ of perfect purple heliotropes. The +roses were beginning to bloom on their high trees, and the moist earth +odours from the garden he had thought so exquisite came to him +delicately on the warm breeze. But this day the place seemed oppressive, +shut in by its high iron walls. In the corner of the garden, the +gardener, an old man in blue overalls, bent industriously over his +potting, and to Antony he seemed the single worthy figure. At the table +he was surrounded by idlers and millionaires. He judged them bitterly +to-day, brutally and unreasonably, and hastily looked toward Mrs. +Faversham, his future life's companion, hoping that something in her +expression or in her would disenchant him from the growing horror that +was threatening to destroy his peace of mind. Mary Faversham was all in +white; from her ears hung the pearls given her by her husband, whom she +had never loved; around her neck hung a creamy rope of pearls; she was +discussing with her neighbour the rising value of different jewels. It +seemed to them both a vital and interesting subject. + +It was the end of luncheon; the fragrance of the strawberries, the +fragrance of the roses came heavily to Antony's nostrils. + +His aunt, the Comtesse Potowski, sat at his right. She was saying-- + +"My dear boy, when are you going to be married? There is nothing like a +happy marriage, Tony. A woman may have children, you know, and be +miserable; she has not found the right man. I hope you will be very +happy, Tony." + +Some one asked her to sing, and Madame Potowski, languid, slim, with +unmistakable distinction, rose to play. She suggested his mother to +Antony. She sang selections from the opera then in vogue. Tony stood +near the piano and listened. Her voice always affected him deeply, and +as he had responded to it in the old days in New York he responded now, +and there was a sense of misery at his heart as he listened to her +singing the music of old times when he had been unable to carry out his +ideals because of his suffering and poverty. + +There was now a sense of soul discontent, of pitiless remorse. As if +again to disenchant himself, he glanced at Mary as she, too, listened. +Back of her in the vases were high branches of lilac, white and +delicate, with the first beauty of spring; she sat gracefully indolent, +smoking a cigarette, evidently dreaming of pleasant things. To Antony +there was a blank wall now between him and his visions. How unreal +everything but money seemed, and his soul stifled and his senses numbed. +In this atmosphere of riches and luxury what place had he? Penniless, +unknown, his stature stunted--for it had been dwarfed by his idleness. +Again he heard Barye say, "_C'est dommage_." + +His aunt's voice, bright as silver, filled the room. He believed she was +singing for him expressly, for she had chosen an English ballad--"Roll +on, silvery moon." Again, with a sadness which all imaginative and +poetic natures understand, his present slipped away. He was back in +Albany in the cab of his engine; the air bellied in his sleeve, the air +of home whipped in his veins--he saw the fields as the engine flashed by +them, whitening under the moonlight as the silvery moon rolled on! How +he had sweated to keep himself a man, how he had toiled to keep his hope +up and to live his life well, what a fight he had made in order that his +visions might declare themselves to him! + +When his aunt ceased to sing and people gathered around her, Tony rose +and limped over to Mrs. Faversham. He put out his hand. + +"I must go, Mary," he said. "I have some work to do this afternoon." + +She smiled at him. "Don't be ridiculous, Tony." + +The others had moved away to speak to the Comtesse Potowski, and they +were alone. + +"I am becoming ridiculous," said Antony, "that is true, but it is not +because I am going to work." + +She did not seem to notice anything in his gravity. "Don't forget we are +dining and driving out to Versailles; don't forget, Tony." + +Fairfax made no response. On his face was a pitiless look, but Mrs. +Faversham, happy in her successful breakfast and enchanted with the +music, did not read his expression. + +"I will come in to-morrow, Mary." + +Mrs. Faversham, turning to a man who had come up to her, still +understood nothing. + +"Don't forget, Tony,"--she nodded at him--"this afternoon." + +Antony bade her good-bye. He looked back at her across the room, and she +seemed to him then the greatest stranger of them all. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +He went upstairs to his atelier with a strange eager hammering at his +heart. For several weeks the studio had been, for him, little more than +an ante-chamber--a dressing-room where he had made careful toilettes +before going to Mrs. Faversham. His constant attendance upon a beautiful +woman had turned him into something of a dandy, and the purchase of fine +clothes and linen had eaten well into his borrowed money, which had been +frankly used by Dearborn when in need. + +"Dearborn, wear any of my things you like, only don't get ink spots on +them, for God's sake!" + +And Dearborn had responded, "I don't need to go courting in +four-hundred-franc suits, Tony; Nora is my kind, you know." + +And when Antony had flashed out, "What the devil do you mean?" Dearborn +explained-- + +"Only that Nora and I are poor together. I didn't intend to be rude, old +man." + +Dearborn had gone to London third-class with his play under his arm and +hope in his heart. Antony had not been sorry to find himself alone. When +he was not with Mary he paced the floor, his idle hands in his pockets. +At night he was restless, and he did not disturb any one when at two +o'clock he would rise to smoke, and, leaning out of the window, watch +the dawn come up over the Louvre, over the river and the quays. His +easels, his tools, his covered busts mocked him as the dust settled down +upon them. His part of the big room had fallen into disuse. In the +salons of Mary Faversham nothing seemed important but the possession of +riches; they talked of art there, but they discussed it easily, and no +one ever spoke of work. They talked of books there, but the makers of +them seemed men of another sphere. His aunt and the Comte Potowski sang +there indeed, but to Antony their voices were only echoes. He had grown +accustomed to objects whose possession meant small fortunes. His own few +belongings seemed pitiful and sordid. Poverty at Albany had appalled +him, but as yet his soul had been untarnished. Life seemed then a +beautiful struggle. Here in Paris, too, as he worked with Dearborn in +his studio, the lack of money had been unimportant, and privation only a +step on which men of talent poised before going on. Lessons had been +precious to him, and in his meagre existence all his untrammelled senses +had been keen. Now his lack of material resource was terrible, +degrading, sickening. + +He threw open wide the window and let in the May sunlight, and the noise +of the streets came with it. Below his window paused the "goat's +milkman," calling sweetly on his little pipe; a girl cried lilies of the +valley; there was a cracking of whips, the clattering of horses' feet, +and the rattling of the little cabs. The peculiar impersonality of the +few of the big city, the passing of the anonymous throng, had a soothing +effect upon him. The river flowed quietly, swiftly past the Louvre, on +which great white clouds massed themselves like snow. Fairfax drew a +long breath and turned to the studio, put on his old corduroy clothes, +filled himself a pipe, and uncovered one of his statues in the corner, +and with his tools in his hand took his position before his discarded +work. + +This study had not struck him as being successful when he had thrown the +cloth over it in February, when he had gone up to the Avenue du Bois de +Boulogne. Since that time he had not touched his clay. Now the piece of +work struck his critical sense with its several qualities of merit. He +was too real an artist not to see its value and to judge it. Was it +possible that he had created that charming thing--had there been in him +sufficient talent to form those plastic lines? It was impossible for +Antony to put himself in the frame of mind in which he had been before +he left his work; in vain he tried to bring back the old inspiration of +feeling. The work was strange to him, and almost beautiful too. He was +jealous of it, angry at it. Had he become in so short a time a useless +man? He should have been gaining in experience. A man is all the richer +for being in love and being loved. The image of Mary would not come to +him to soothe his irritation. He seemed to see her surrounded by people +and things. Evidently his love had not inspired him, nor did luxury and +the intercourse with worldly people. He had been the day before with +Mary to see the crowning exhibition of a celebrated painter's work, the +fruits of four years of labour. The artist himself, frightfully obese, +smiling and self-satisfied, stood surrounded by his canvases. None of +the paintings had the spontaneity and beauty of his early works--not +one. Fairfax had heard a Latin Quarter student say, "B---- used to paint +with his soul before he was rich, now he paints with his stomach." The +marks of the beast had stamped out the divine seal. + +As Fairfax mixed his clay in the silent room where he and Dearborn had +half starved together, he said, "I have never yet become so frightfully +rich as to imperil my soul." + +In the declining spring light he began to model. He did not look like a +happy man, like a happy lover, like a man destined to marry a beautiful +woman with several millions of dollars. "Damn money," he muttered as he +worked, and, after a little, "Damn poverty," he murmured. What was it, +then, he could bless? In his present point of view nothing seemed +blessed. He was working savagely and heavily, but hungrily too, as +though he besought his hands to find again for him the sacred touch that +should electrify him again, or as though he prayed his brain to send its +enlightened message to his hand, or as though he called on his emotion +to warm his hardened heart--a combination which he believed was needful +to work and art. Fairfax was so working when the porter brought him a +letter. + +It was from Dearborn, and Antony read it eagerly, holding it up to the +fading light. As he saw Dearborn's handwriting he realized that he +missed his companion, and also realized the strong link between them +which is so defined between those who work at a kindred art. + +"Dear old man,"--the letter was dated London--"I am sky-high in a room +for which I pay a shilling a night. A thing in the roof is called a +window. Through it I see a field of pots--not flower-pots, but +chimney-pots--and the smoke from them is hyacinthine. The smoke of +endless winters and innumerable fogs has grimed every blessed thing in +this filthy room. My bed-spread is grey cloth, once meant to be white. +Other lodgers have left burnt matches on the faded carpet, whose flowers +have long since been put out by the soot. Out of this hole in the roof I +see London, the sky-line of London in a spring sky. There is a singular +sort of beauty in this sky, as if it had trailed its cerulean mantle +over fields of English bluebells. For another shilling I dine; for +another I lunch. I skip breakfast. I calculate I can stay here ten days, +then the shillings will be all gone, Tony. In these ten days, old man, I +shall sell my play. I am writing you this on the window-sill; without is +the mutter of soft thunder of London--the very word London thrills me to +the marrow. Such great things have come out of London--such prose--such +verse--such immortality! + +"To-day I passed 'Jo,' Dickens's street-sweeper, in Dickens's 'Bleak +House.' I felt like saying to him, 'I am as poor as you are, Jo, +to-day,' but I remembered there were a few shillings between us. + +"Well, old man, as I sit here I seem to have risen high above the +roof-tops and to look down on the struggle in this great vortex of life, +and here and there a man goes amongst them all, carrying a wreath of +laurel. Tony, my eyes are upon him! Call me a fool if you will, call me +mad; at any rate I have faith. I know I will succeed. Something tells me +I will stand before the curtain when they call my name. It is growing +late. I must go out and forage for food ... Tony. I kiss the hand of the +beautiful Mrs. Faversham." + +Antony turned the pages between his fingers. The reading of the letter +had smoothed the creases from his brow. He sighed as he lifted his head +to say "Come in," for some one had knocked timidly at the door. + +"Hello!" Fairfax said, and now that they were alone he called her "Aunt +Caroline." + +Madame Potowski came forward and kissed him. + +He drew a big chair into the window. He was always solicitous of her and +a little pitiful. + +Madame Potowski's hair had been soft brown once; it was golden, frankly +so, now, and her fine lips were a little rouged. In her dress of +changeable silk, her cape of tulle, her hat with a bunch of roses, her +tiny gloved hands, she was a very elegant little lady. She rested her +hands on her parasol and had suggested his mother to Antony. Then, as +that resemblance passed, came the fleeting suggestion which he never +cared to hold--of Bella. + +"I have come, my dear Tony, to see you. I wanted to see you alone." + +Tony lit a cigar and sat by her side. The Comtesse Potowski had a little +diamond watch with a chain on her breast. Outside the clock struck five. + +"I have only a second to stay--my husband misses me if I am five minutes +out of his sight." + +"I do not wonder, Aunt Caroline." + +"Isn't it all strange, Tony," she asked, "how very far up we have come?" + +He shook the ashes off his cigar. "Well, I don't feel myself very far +up, Aunt Caroline." + +"My dear Tony, aren't you going to marry an immense fortune?" + +"Is that what people say, Aunt Caroline?" + +"You are going to do a very brilliant thing, Tony." + +"Is that what you call going very far up?" + +His aunt shook her pretty head. "Money is the greatest power in the +world, dear boy. Art is very well, but there is nothing in the wide +world like an income, dear." + +Her nephew stirred in his chair. Caroline Potowski looked down at her +little diamond watch, her dress shining like a bunch of many-hued roses. +Antony knew that her husband was rich; he also made a good income from +his singing and she must have made not an inconsiderable fortune. + +"What are you thinking about?" said his aunt later, her hand on his own. +"You have shown great wisdom, great worldly wisdom." + +"My God!" exclaimed her nephew between his teeth. + +If Madame Potowski heard this exclamation, it was not tragic to her. She +lowered her tone, although there was no one to hear them. + +"Tony, I am very anxious about money." + +Her nephew laughed aloud. In spite of himself there came over him in a +flash the memory of the day nearly ten years ago when she sat on the +side of his miserable little bed in his miserable little room in New +York and took from him as a loan--which she never meant to pay back--all +the money he had in the world. He put his hands in his pockets. + +"Has your husband any financial difficulties?" + +"My husband knows nothing about it," she said serenely. "You don't +suppose I could tell him, do you? I must have five thousand francs, dear +Tony, before to-morrow." + +Tony said lightly, "I am afraid economy is not your strong point." + +"Tony," she exclaimed reproachfully, "I am a wonderful manager; I can +make a franc go further than my husband can a louis, and I have a real +gift for bargains. Think of it! I only had one hundred dollars a month +to dress myself and Bella and poor little Gardiner, and for all my +little expenses." The children's names on her lips seemed sacrilege to +him. He did not wish her to speak those sacred names, or destroy his +sacred past, whose charm and tenderness persisted over all the suffering +and which nothing could destroy. "I have been buying a quantity of old +Chinese paintings--a great bargain; in ten years they will be worth +double the money. You must come and see them. The dealer will deliver +them to-morrow." + +"History," Antony thought, "how it repeats itself!" + +Caroline Potowski leaned toward her nephew persuasively, and even in the +softened twilight he saw the weakness and the caprices of her pretty +face, and he pitied Potowski. + +"I must have five thousand francs before to-morrow," said his aunt, +"otherwise these dealers will make me trouble." + +Fairfax laughed again. With a touch of bitterness he said-- + +"And I must have an income of five times as much as that a year--ten +times as much as that a year--unless I wish to feel degraded because I +am a poor labourer." + +The comtesse did not reply to this. As she did not, Fairfax saw the +humour of it. + +"You do not really think I could give you five thousand francs, auntie?" + +"I know you haven't a great deal of money, dear boy----" + +"Not a great deal, auntie." + +"But you seem to have such a lot of time to spend to amuse yourself." + +He nodded. "So I seem to have." + +The comtesse looked at him a little askance. "You are going to make such +a brilliant marriage. Mrs. Faversham is so fearfully rich." + +Fairfax exclaimed, but shut down on the words that came to his lips. He +realized that his aunt was a toy woman, utterly irresponsible, a pretty +fool. He said simply-- + +"You had better frankly tell your husband." + +She swung her parasol to and fro. "You think so, Tony?" + +"Decidedly." + +"And you couldn't possibly manage, Tony?" + +Tony pointed to his studies. "These are my only assets; these are my +finances, auntie. I shall have to sell something to live on--if I am so +lucky as to be able to find a customer." + +"If I could give the dealer a thousand francs to-morrow I think he would +wait," said his aunt. + +Tony shook his head. "I wish I were a millionaire for five minutes, Aunt +Caroline." + +His aunt rose and smoothed her glove. "I shall have to pawn my watch and +necklace," she said tranquilly. "Bella is fearfully rich," she drawled, +nodding at him, "and she is of age. Her father will settle a million on +her when she marries." + +A pang went through Fairfax's heart. Another heiress! + +"They say she is awfully pretty and awfully sought after." + +Antony murmured, "Yes, yes, of course," and took a few paces up and down +the room. + +"Do you know," said his aunt, who had slowly walked over to the door +and stood with her hand on the knob, "I used to think you were a little +in love with Bella. She was such a funny, old-fashioned child, so grown +up." + +Fairfax exclaimed fiercely, "Aunt Caroline, I don't like to re-live the +past!" + +"I don't wonder," she murmured quietly; "and you are going to make such +a brilliant marriage." + +He saw her go with relief. She was terrible to him--like a vampire in +her silks and jewels. Would she ruin her innocent, kindly husband? What +would she do if she could not raise the money? He believed her capable +of anything. + +For three days he worked feverishly, and then he wrote to Mrs. Faversham +that he was a little seedy and working, and that as Dearborn was away he +would rather she would not come to the studio. Mrs. Faversham accepted +his decision and wrote that she was organizing a charity concert for +some fearfully poor people whom the Comtesse Potowski was patronizing; +the comte and comtesse would both sing at the _musicale_, and he must +surely come. "We must raise five thousand francs," she wrote, "and +perhaps you may have some little figurine that we could raffle off in +chances." + +Tony laughed as he read the letter. He sent her a statuette to be +raffled off for his aunt's Chinese paintings. She was ignorant of any +sense of honour. + + * * * * * + +When Dearborn came back from London he found Antony working like mad. + +Dearborn threw his suit-case down in the corner, his hat on top of it, +and extended his hands. + +"Empty-handed, Tony!" + +But Fairfax, as he scanned his friend's face, saw no expression of +defeat there. + +"Which means you left your play in London, Bob." + +"Tony," said Dearborn, linking his arm in Fairfax's and marching him up +and down the studio, "we are going to be very rich." + +"Only that," said Tony shortly. + +"This is the beginning of fame and fortune, old man!" + +Dearborn sat down on the worn sofa, drew his wallet out of his pocket, +took from it a sheaf of English notes, which he held up to Fairfax. + +"Count it, old chap." + +Fairfax shook his head. "No; tell me how much for two years' flesh and +blood and soul--how you worked here, Bob, starved here, how you felt and +suffered!" + +"I forget it all," said the playwright quietly; "but it can never be +paid for with such chaff as this,"--he touched the notes. "But the +applause, the people's voices, the tears and laughter, that will pay." + +"By heaven!" exclaimed Fairfax, grasping Dearborn's hand, "I bless you +for saying that!" + +Dearborn regarded him quietly. "Do you think I care for money?" he said +simply. "I thought you knew me better than that." + +Fairfax exclaimed, "Oh, I don't know what I know or think; I am in a bad +dream." + +Dearborn laid the notes down on the sofa. "It is for you and me and +Nora, the bunch, just as long as it lasts." + +Between Dearborn and himself, since Antony's engagement, there had been +a distinct reserve. + +Antony lit a cigarette and Dearborn lighted his from Antony's. The two +friends settled themselves comfortably. It was the close of the day. +Without, as usual, rolled the sea of the Paris streets, going to, going +with the river's tide, and going away from it; the impersonal noise +always made for them an accompaniment not disagreeable. The last light +of the spring day fell on Fairfax's uncovered work, on the damp clay +with the fresh marks of his instruments. He sat in his corduroys, a red +scarf at his throat, a beautiful manly figure half curled up on the +divan. The last of the day's light fell too on Dearborn's reddish hair, +on his fine intelligent face. Fairfax said-- + +"Now tell me everything, Bob, from the beginning, from the window as you +looked over the chimney-pots with the hyacinthine smoke curling up in +the air--tell me everything, to the last word the manager said." + +"Hark!" exclaimed Dearborn, lifting his hand. "Nora is coming. I want +to tell it to her as well. No one can tell twice alike the story of his +first success--the first agony of first success." He caught his breath +and struck Fairfax a friendly blow on his chest. "It will be a success, +thank God! There is Nora," and he crossed the studio to let Nora Scarlet +in. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +The third day he went up to see her and found her in the garden, a +basket on her arm, cutting flowers. She wore a garden hat covered with +roses and carried a pair of gilded shears with which to snip her +flowers. As Antony came down the steps of the house she dropped the +scissors into the basket with her garden gloves. She lifted her cheek to +him. + +"You may kiss me, dear," she said; "no one will see us but the flowers +and the birds." + +Antony bent to kiss her. It seemed to him as though his arms were full +of flowers. + +"If you had not come to-day, I should have gone to you. You look well, +Tony," she said. "I don't believe you have been ill at all." + +"My work, Mary." + +She took his arm and started towards the house. "You must let me come +and see what wonderful things you are doing." + +"I am doing nothing wonderful," he said slowly. "It has taken me all +this time to realize I was never a sculptor; I have been so atrociously +idle, Mary." + +"But you need rest, my dear Tony." + +"I shall not need any rest until I am an old man." + +He caressed the hand that lay on his arm. They walked past the +flower-beds, and she picked the dead roses, cutting the withered leaves, +and talking to him gaily, telling him all she had done during the days +of their separation, and suddenly he said-- + +"You do not seem to have missed me." + +"Everywhere," she answered, pressing his arm. + +They walked together slowly to the house, where she left her roses in +the hall and took him into the music-room, where they had been last +when he left her, the afternoon following the luncheon. + +"I must impress her indelibly on my mind," Antony thought. "I may never +see her again." + +When she had seated herself by the window through which he could see the +roses on the high rose trees and the iron balcony on whose other side +was the rumble of Paris, he stood before her gravely. + +"Come and sit beside me," she invited, slowly. "You seem suddenly like a +stranger." + +"Mary," he said simply, "the time has come for me to ask you----" The +words stuck in his throat. What in God's name was he going to ask her? +What a fanatic he was! Utterly unconscious of his thoughts, she +interrupted him. + +"I know what you want to ask me, Tony, and I have been waiting." She +leaned against him. "You see, I have had the foolish feeling that +perhaps you didn't care as you thought you did. It is that dreadful +difference in our age." + +"Do you care, Mary?" + +She might have answered him, "Why otherwise should I marry a penniless +man, five years my junior, when the world is before me?" + +She said, "Yes, I care deeply." + +"Ah," he breathed, "then it is all right, Mary; that is all we need." +After a few seconds he said gently: "Now look at me." Her face was +flushed and her eyes humid. She raised them to him. He was holding one +of her hands in both of his as he spoke, and from time to time touched +it with his lips. "Listen to me; try to understand. I am a Bohemian, an +artist; say that over and over. Do you think me crazy? I have not been +ill. I went into a retreat. I shut myself up with my soul. This life +here,"--he gestured to the room as though it held a host of +enemies,--"this life here has crushed me. I had begun to think myself a +miserable creature just because I am poor. Now, if money is the only +thing that counts in the world, of course I am a miserable creature, and +then let us drink life to its dregs; and if it is not the only thing, +well then, let us drink the other things to their dregs." She said, +"What other things?" + +"Why, the beauty of struggling together with every material +consideration cast out! Think how beautiful it is to work for one you +love; think of the beauty of being all in all to each other, Mary!" + +"But we are that, Tony." + +Now that Antony had embarked, he spoke rapidly. "You owe your luxury to +your husband whom you never loved. Now I cannot let you owe him anything +more, Mary." + +She began, "But I don't think of my fortune in connection with him." + +Antony did not hear her. "I feel lately as though I had been selling my +soul," he said passionately. "And what can a man have in exchange for +his soul? Of course, it was presumptuous folly of me to have asked you +to marry me." + +She put both her hands over his and breathed his name. He spoke +desperately, and the picture rose up before him of his bare studio and +his meagre life. + +"Will you marry me now?" + +"I said I was quite ready." + +"The day will come when I will be rich and great." He paused. He saw +that her eyes were already troubled, and asked eagerly, "You believe +that, don't you?" + +"Of course." + +"Great enough, rich enough, not to make a woman ashamed. You must wait +for that time with me." + +Mary Faversham said quietly, "You have been shutting yourself up with a +lot of fanatical ideas." + +He covered her lips gently with his hands. His face became grave. + +"Oh," he said, "don't speak--wait. You don't dream what every word you +say is going to mean--wait. You don't understand what I mean!" + +And he began to tell her the gigantic sacrifice he was about to impose +upon her. If he had been assured of his love for her, assured of her +love for him, he might have made a magnetic appeal, but he seemed to be +talking to her through a veil. He shook his head. + +"No, I cannot ask it, Mary." + +Mary Faversham's face had undergone a change. It was never lovelier +than now, as with gravity and sweetness she put her arms around his neck +and looked up at him with great tenderness. She said-- + +"I think I know what you mean. You want me to give up my fortune and go +to you." + +She seemed to radiate before Fairfax's eyes, and his worship of her at +this moment increased a thousandfold. He leaned forward and laid his +head against her breast. + +In the love of all women there is a strong quality of the maternal. Mary +bent over the blond head and pressed her lips to his hair. When Antony +lifted his face there were tears in his eyes. He cried-- + +"Heaven bless you, darling! You don't know how high I will take you, how +far I will carry us both. The world shall talk of us! Mary--Mary!" + +She smoothed his forehead. She knew there would never be another moment +in her life like this one. + +He said, "I will take you to the studio, of course. I haven't told you +that in June I shall have fifty thousand francs, and from then on I will +be succeeding so fast that we will forget we were ever poor." He saw her +faintly smile, and said sharply, "I suppose you spend fifty thousand +francs now on your clothes!" + +She said frankly, "And more; but that makes no difference," and +ventured, "You don't seem to think, Tony, what a pleasure it would be to +me to do for you." She paused at his exclamation. "Oh, of course, I +understand your pride," and asked, "What shall I do with my fortune, +Tony?" + +"This money on which you are living," he said gravely, "that you have +accepted from a man you never loved, give it all to the poor. Keep the +commandment for once, and we will see what the treasures of heaven are +like." + +He thought she clung to him desperately, and there was an ardour in the +return of her caress that made him say-- + +"Mary, don't answer me to-day, please; I want you to think it calmly +over. Just now you have shown me what I wanted to see." + +She asked, "What?" + +"That you love me." + +She said, "Yes, I do love you. Will you believe it always?" + +Bending over her he said passionately, "I shall believe it when I have +your answer, and you are going to make me divinely happy." + +She echoed the word softly, "Happy!" and her lips trembled. Across the +ante-chamber came the sound of voices. Their retreat was about to be +invaded by the people of the world who never very long left Mary +Faversham alone. + +"Oh!" she cried, "I cannot see any one. Why did they let any one in?" +And, lifting her face to him, she said in a low tone, "Tony, kiss me +again." + +Antony, indifferent as to who might come and who might not, caught her +to him and held her for a second, then crossed the room to the curtained +door and went down the terrace steps and across the garden. + +By the big wall he turned and looked back to where, through the long +French windows, he could see the music-room with the palms and gilt +furniture. Mary Faversham was already surrounded by the Comte de B---- +and the Baron de F----. He knew them vaguely. Before going to get his +hat and stick from the vestibule, he watched her for a few moments, with +a strange adoration in his heart. She was his, she was ready to give up +everything for the sake of his ideals. He thought he could never love +more than at this moment. He believed that he was not asking her to make +a ridiculous sacrifice, but on the contrary to accept a spiritual +gain--a sacrifice of all for love and art and honour, too! As he looked +across the room a distinguished figure came to Mary Faversham. He was +welcomed very cordially. It was Cedersholm. He had been in Russia for +months. Fairfax's heart grew cold. + +As though Mary fancied that her mad lover might linger, she came over to +the window and drew down the Venetian shade. It fell, rippling softly, +and blotted out the room for Fairfax. A wave of anger swept him, a +sudden uncertainty regarding the woman herself followed, and immediately +he saw himself ridiculous, crude and utterly fantastical in his +ultimatum. The egoism and childishness of what he had done stood out to +him, and in that second he knew that he had lost her--lost her for +ever. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +He did not go home. He went into the Bois and walked for miles. His +unequal, limping strides tired him to death and he was finally the only +wanderer there. Over the exquisite forest of new-leaf trees the stars +came out at length, and the guardians began to observe him. At eight +o'clock in the morning he had not eaten. He went into a small restaurant +and made a light meal. For the first time since Albany, when he had +drank too much in despair and grief, he took now too much red wine. He +walked on feathers and felt his blood dance. He rang the bell at Mary +Faversham's at nine-thirty in the morning, and the butler, intensely +surprised, informed him that Mary had gone out riding in the Bois with +Monsieur Cedersholm. Antony had given this servant more fees that he +could afford. He found a piece of money in his pocket and gave it to +Ferdinand. + +"But, monsieur," said the man, embarrassed, and handled the piece. It +was a louis. Antony waved magnificently and started away. He took a cab +back to the studio, but could not pay the cabman, for the louis was his +last piece of money. He waked Dearborn out of a profound sleep, in which +the playwright was dreaming of two hundred night performances. + +"Bob, can you let me have a few francs?" + +"In my vest pocket," said Dearborn. "Take what you like." + +Tony paid his cab out of the change and realized that it was some of the +money from Dearborn's advance royalties. It gave him pleasure to think +that he was spending money which had been made by art. It was "serious +money." He did not hesitate to use it. He sat by the table when he came +in from paying his cab and fell into a heavy sleep, his head upon his +arm. Thus the two friends slumbered until noon, Dearborn dreaming of +fame and Antony of despair. + +At two o'clock that afternoon, bathed and dressed, himself again save +for a certain bewilderment in his head, he stood in his window looking +out on the quays. Underneath, Nora Scarlet and Dearborn passed +arm-in-arm. They were going to Versailles to talk of love, of fame and +artistic struggle, under the trees. Antony heard the shuffling of his +old concierge on the stairs. He knew that the man was bringing him a +letter and that it would be from Mary. + +With the letter between his hands, he waited some few minutes before +opening it. He finally read it, sitting forward on the divan, his face +set. + + "DEAREST," it began, and then there was a long space as though the + woman could not bear to write the words, "You will never be able to + judge me fairly. I cannot ask it of you. You are too much of a + genius to understand a mere woman. I am writing you in my boudoir, + just where you came to me that day when you told me your love and + when I wept to hear it, dearest. I shall cry again, thinking of it, + many times. I have done you a great wrong in taking ever so little + of you, and taking even those few months from the work which shall + mean so much to the world. Now I am glad I have found it out before + it is too late. I have no right to you, Tony. In answer to what you + asked me yesterday, I say no. You will not believe it is for your + sake, dear, but it is. I see you could not share my life in any + way, and keep your ideals. How could I ask you to? I see I could + not share your struggle and leave you free enough to keep your + ideals. + + "I can never quite believe that love is a mistake. I shall think of + mine for you the rest of my life. When you read this letter I shall + have left Paris. Do not try to find me or follow me. I know your + pride, dear, the greatest pride I ever saw or dreamed of. I wonder + if it is a right one. At any rate, it will not let you follow me; I + am sure of that. I wish to put between us an immeasurable distance, + one which no folly on your part and no weakness on mine could + bridge. Cedersholm has returned from Russia, and I told him last + night that I would marry him.--MARY." + +Then, for the first time, Tony knew how he loved her. Crushing the +letter between his hands, he snatched up his hat and rushed out, took a +cab, and drove like mad to her house. + +The little horse galloped with him, the driver cracked his whip with +utterances like the sparks flying, and they tore up the Champs Elysees, +part of the great multitude, yet distinct, as is every individual with +their definite sufferings and their definite joys. + +Her house stood white and distinct at the back of the garden, the +windows were flung open. On the steps of the terrace a man-servant, to +whom Antony had given fat tips which he could not afford, stood in an +undress uniform, blue apron and duster over his arm; painters came out +with ladders and placed them against the wall. The old gardener, +Felicien, who had given him countless _boutonnieres_, mounted the steps +with a flower-pot in his hand and talked with the man-servant; he was +joined by two maids. The place was left, then, to servants. Everything +seemed changed. She might never--he was sure she would never--return as +Mrs. Faversham. Immeasurably far away indeed, as she said--immeasurably +far--she seemed to have gone into another sphere, and yet he had held +her in his arms! The thought of his tenderness was too real to permit of +any other consideration holding its place. He sprang out of his cab, +rang the door-bell, and when the door was opened he asked the surprised +servant for Mrs. Faversham's address. + +"But I have no idea of it, monsieur," said the man with a comprehensive +gesture. "None." + +"You are not sending any letters?" + +"None, monsieur." + +Fairfax's blue eyes, his pale, handsome face, appealed very much to +Ferdinand. He liked Monsieur Rainsford. Although the chap did not know +it himself, Tony had been far more generous than were the millionaires. +Ferdinand called one of the maids. + +"Where's madame's maid stopping in London?" asked the butler. + +"Why, at the Ritz," said Louise promptly. "She is always at the Ritz, +monsieur." + +Tony had no more gold to reward this treachery. + +When Dearborn came home that night from Versailles he found a note on +the table, leaning up against the box in which the two comrades kept +their mutual fund of money. Dearborn's advance royalty was all gone but +a hundred francs. + + "I have gone to London," Fairfax's note ran. "Sell anything of mine + you like before I get back, if you are hard up.--TONY." + +He spent two pounds on a pistol. If he had chanced to meet Cedersholm +with her, he would have shot him. From the hour he had received her +letter and learned that she was going to marry Cedersholm, he had been +hardly sane. + +At five o'clock on a bland, sweet afternoon, three days after he had +left Paris, he was shown up to her sitting-room at the Whiteheart Hotel, +in Windsor. He had traced her there from the Ritz. + +Mary Faversham, who was alone, rose to meet him, white as death. + +"Tony," she said, "don't come nearer--stand there, Tony. Dear Tony, it +is too late, too late!" + +He limped across the room and took her in his arms, looking at her +wildly. Her lips trembled, her eyes filled. + +"I married him by special license yesterday, Tony. Go, go, before he +comes." + +He saw she could not stand. He put her in a chair, fell on his knees and +buried his head in her lap. He clung to her, to the Woman, to his Vision +of the Woman, to the form, the substance, the reality which he thought +at last he had really caught for ever. She bent over him and kissed his +hair, weeping. + +"Go," she said. "Go, my darling." + +Fairfax had not spoken a word. Curses, invectives, prayers were in his +heart. He crushed them down. + +"I love you for your pride," she said. "I adore you for the brave demand +you made me. I could not fulfil it, Tony, for your sake." + +Then he spoke, and meant what he said, "You have ruined my life." + +"Oh no!" she cried. "Don't say such a thing!" + +"Some day I shall kill him." He had risen, with tears in his eyes. "You +loved me," he challenged, "you did love me!" + +She did not dare to say "I love you still." She saw what the tragedy +would be. + +"We could not have been poor," she said, "could we, dear?" + +He exclaimed bitterly, "If you thought of that, you could not have +cared." And she was strong enough to take advantage of his change. + +"I suppose I could not have cared as you mean, or I should never have +done this." + +Then Fairfax cursed under his breath, and once again, this time +brutally, caught her in his arms and kissed her, crying to her as he had +cried once before-- + +"Tell him how I kissed you--tell him!" + +White as death, Mary Faversham pushed him from her. "For the love of +God, Tony, go!" + +And he went, stumbling down the stairs. Out in Windsor the bugles for +some solemn festivity were blowing. + +"The flowers of the forest are all wied away." + + + + +BOOK IV + +BELLA + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +From the Western world he heard nothing for four years. Meanwhile he +brought his new skill, his maturer knowledge, the result of seven years' +study and creation in the workshops of masters and in his own studio, to +the sculpturing of the second tomb--the Open Door. + +There were crowds around his marble in the Salon, and he mingled with +them, watching them muse, discuss, criticize, grow sad and thoughtful +before his conception of Life and Death. Some of them looked as poor Tom +Rainsford had looked, yearningly toward the door of the tomb. Others +hurried past the inscrutable beauty of the Open Door. Purely white, +stainless, slender, luminous and yet cold, Molly stood immortalized by +Antony. His conception made him famous. + +He had exhibited each year with increasing success at private +exhibitions, but never at the Salon, and had been called "poseur" +because of his reluctance to expose his work in national academies. His +bas-reliefs had made him favourably known, but nothing equalled the +solemn marble that came now from his studio. Antony's work occupied some +twenty feet in the Champ de Mars. + +His lame foot touched a pile of newspapers on the floor, in which the +critics spoke of him in terms he thought fulsome and ridiculous, and +they pained him while they dazzled him. He thought of Bella. He had +thought of Bella constantly of late, and there were no answers to his +questions. She would be twenty-three, a woman, married, no doubt, always +enchanting. How she had stood before his bas-relief in Albany, musing, +and her eyes had been wet when she had turned to him and asked, "Who is +it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful, beautiful!" He would have +liked to have led Bella to his work in the Salon, and, hand-in-hand with +her, until the crowd around them should have melted away, have stood +there with her alone. From the night her inspiring little hand had +stolen into his, Bella's hand had seemed a mate for his. + +"Who is it, Cousin Antony?" + +Indeed, who was the woman going through the Open Door? What woman's face +and form constantly inspired him, haunting him, promising to haunt him +until the end? He was always seeking to unveil the face of his visions +and find the one woman, the supplement, the mate, the companion. + +Who would inspire him now? His memories, his dead, his past, had done +their work. What fresh inspiration would urge him now to create? + +The public had no fault to find with him. The tomb made him celebrated +in twenty-four hours. At a time when all Paris was laughing at Rodin's +Balzac, there was a place for a sculptor like Antony, for the idealist +and dreamer, gifted with a strong and faultless technique. + +He read hastily and with surprise the exaggerated praise which the "Open +Door" called forth from the reviews. "It is not as good as all that," he +thought, "and it is too soon to hear thunder about my ears." + +He seemed to see the door of his future open and himself standing there, +the burden of proof upon him. What work he must continue to produce in +order to sustain such sudden fame! The _Figaro_ called him a "giant," +and several critics said he was the sculptor of the time. His mail was +full of letters from friends and strangers. By ten o'clock the night of +the "Vernissage" all his acquaintances and intimates in Paris had +brought him their felicitations. He turned back to his table where his +letters lay. He had just read an affectionate, enthusiastic expression +of praise and belief from Potowski. There was another note which he had +read first with anger, then with keen satisfaction, and then with as +much malice as his heart could hold. + + "MY DEAR SIR, + + "I have the honour to represent in France the committee for the + construction in Boston of a triumphal arch to be raised in + commemoration of the men who first fell in the battle of the + Revolution. The idea is to crown this arch with a group of figures, + either realistic or symbolical, as the sculptor shall see fit. + After carefully considering the modern work of men in France, I am + inclined to offer this commission to you if you can accept it. Your + 'Open Door' is the most beautiful piece of sculpture, according to + my opinion, in modern times. An appointment would gratify me very + much. + + "I have the honour to be, sir, etc., + "GUNNER CEDERSHOLM." + +Antony had given the appointment with excitement, and he was waiting now +to see for the first time in ten years the man who had stolen from him +fame, honour, and love. + +He had heard nothing of the Cedersholms for six years. As far as he +knew, during this time they had never returned to France. Once he +vaguely understood that they were travelling for Mrs. Cedersholm's +health. + +His eyes ached to look upon the man whom he regarded as his bitterest +enemy. Of Mrs. Cedersholm he thought now only as he thought of woman, of +vain visions which he might never, never grasp or hold. He had bitterly +torn his love out of his heart. + +After leaving her at Windsor he had remained for some time in London +where Dearborn had followed him, and where Dearborn and Nora Scarlet +were married. Fairfax had sat with them in the gallery at Regent's +Theatre when the curtain rose on Dearborn's successful play. Fairfax +took a position as professor of drawing in a girls' school in the West +End and taught a group of schoolgirls for several months. Between times +he modelled on his statues for his new conception of the "Open Door." +Then in the following spring, with a yearning in his heart and +homesickness for France, he returned into the city with the May. He +could scarcely look up at the windows of the old studio on the quays. He +rented a barren place in the Vaugirard quarter and began his work in +terrible earnestness. + +Now, as he waited for his visitor, he wondered if Mary Cedersholm had +visited the Salon, if with others she had stood before his sculpture. +His servant announced "Monsieur Cedersholm," then let in the visitor and +shut the door behind him. Cedersholm entered the vast studio in the soft +light of late afternoon with which the spring twilight, rapidly +withdrawing, filled the room. Antony did not stir from his chair, where +he sat enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke. + +The small man--Fairfax had forgotten how small he was--entered +cautiously as though he were entering the room of a foe, which, indeed, +he was doing, without being aware of it. Fairfax remembered that he had +seen Cedersholm wearing a single eyeglass, and now spectacles of +extraordinary thickness covered his eyes. He evidently saw with +difficulty. As Fairfax did not rise to greet him, Cedersholm approached, +saying tentatively-- + +"Mr. Rainsford? I believe I have an appointment with Mr. Rainsford." + +"Yes," said Fairfax curtly, "I am here. Sit down, will you?" + +His lame foot, which would have disclosed his identity, was withdrawn +under his chair. + +"I have just come from the Soudan," said Cedersholm, "where I had a +sunstroke of the eyes. I see badly." + +"Blindness," said Fairfax shortly, "is a common failing, but many of us +don't know we have anything the matter with our eyes." + +"It is, however, a tragedy for a sculptor," said Cedersholm, taking the +chair to which Fairfax had pointed. + +From the box on the table Fairfax offered his guest a cigar, which was +refused. Antony lit a fresh one; it was evident he had not been +recognized. + +"I have not touched a tool for five years," Cedersholm said. "A man like +you who must adore his work can easily imagine what this means." + +"For two or three years I did not touch a tool. I know what it means." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Cedersholm with interest. "What was your infirmity?" + +"Poverty," returned Fairfax. Then added, "You have not come to talk with +me about the short and simple annals of the poor." + +"All that which goes to make the education and career of a great man," +said Cedersholm, "is deeply interesting, especially to a confrere. You +have executed a very great piece of work, Mr. Rainsford." + +Fairfax made no response. + +"You seem," said Cedersholm, "to doubt my sincerity. You received my +letter?" + +"Yes." + +"Would you be reluctant to undertake such a work?" + +The man who stood before Fairfax was so altered from his former self +that Tony was obliged to whip up his memories, to call up all his past +in order to connect this visitor with the man who had ruined him. Pale, +meagre, so thin that his clothes hung upon him, disfigured by his thick +glasses, he seemed to have shrunk into a little insignificant creature. +No man could connect him with the idea of greatness or success. Fairfax +answered it would depend upon circumstances. + +"I expect you are very much overrun with orders, Mr. Rainsford. I can +understand that. I do not take up a newspaper without reading some +appreciative criticism of your work." The Swedish sculptor removed his +glasses and wiped his eyes with a fragrant silk handkerchief. Then +carefully replacing his spectacles, begged Fairfax's pardon. "I have +suffered dreadfully with these infirm eyes," he said. + +Fairfax leaned forward a little, continuing to whip up his memories, +and, once goaded, like all revengeful and evil things, they came now +quickly to bring back to him his anger of the past. Hatred and malice +had disappeared--his nature was too sweet, too generous and forgiving to +brood upon that which was irrevocably gone. He had been living fast; he +had been working intensely; he had been loved, and he had shut his eyes +and sighed and tried to think he loved in return. But the walls of his +studio in the Rue Vaugirard melted away, and, instead, Cedersholm's +rich, extravagant New York workshop rose up before his eyes. He saw +himself again the young, ardent student, his blood beating with hope and +trust, and his hands busy over what he had supposed was to be immortal +labour; it had been given for this man then, the greatest living +sculptor, to adopt it for his own. Now his heart began to beat fast. He +clasped his hands strongly together, his voice trembling in his throat. + +"I should ask a tremendous price," he said slowly, "a tremendous price." + +"Quite right," returned the Swedish sculptor. "Talent such as yours +should be paid for generously. I used to think so. I have commanded my +price, Mr. Rainsford." + +"I know your reputation and your fame," said Fairfax. + +The other accepted what his host said as a compliment, and continued-- + +"The committee is very rich; there are men of enormous fortunes +interested in the monument. They can pay--in reason," he added; "of +course, in reason--and as you are an American there would be in your +mind the ideal of patriotism." + +"My demand would not be in reason," said Fairfax. + +Cedersholm, struck at length by his tone, finding him lacking in +courtesy and manners, began to peer at him keenly in the rapidly +deepening twilight. + +"In a way," he said sententiously, eager to be understood and approved +of by the man who, in his judgment, was important in the sculpture of +the time, he continued courteously, "there is no price too much to pay +for art. I have followed your work for years." + +"Have you?" said Antony. + +"Six years ago I bought a little statue in an exhibition of the works of +the pupils of Barye's studio." Cedersholm again took out his fine silk +handkerchief and pressed it to his eyes. "Since then I have looked for +comments on your work everywhere, and, whenever I saw you mentioned, I +reminded the fact to my wife, who was an admirer of your talent." + +Antony grew cold. At the mention of her name his blood chilled. Mary! +Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. He drew his breath hard, clasped one hand +across his forehead, and still back in the far remote past he did not +bid this vision of Mary Cedersholm to linger. + +"When I came back to Paris, I found you had justified my faith in your +work. The question of payment now, in case you undertake this group, for +instance, I dare say the matter would be satisfactorily adjusted." + +"I doubt it, Mr. Cedersholm." + +Cedersholm, already interested in the man as a worker, became now +interested in his personality, and found him curious, settled himself +comfortably in his chair and swung his monocle, which he still wore, by +its string. He saw the face of his host indistinctly, and his eyes +wandered around the vast, shadowy studio where the swathed casts stood +in the corners. The place gave him a twinge of jealousy and awakened all +his longings as an artist. + +"It makes me acutely suffer," he said, "to come into the workshop of the +sculptor. Four years of enforced idleness----" Then he broke in abruptly +and said, "You have apparently settled already in your mind--decided not +to accept this work for us. I think you are determined not to meet us, +Mr. Rainsford." + +"The price," said Antony, leaning fully forward, his blue eyes, whose +sight was unimpeded, fixed on Cedersholm, "must be great enough to buy +me back my lost youth." + +His companion laughed gently and said indulgently, "My dear Mr. +Rainsford." + +"To buy me back my loss of faith in men's honour, in human kindness, in +justice, in woman's love." + +"He is a true genius," Cedersholm thought to himself, "just a bit over +the line of mental balance." And he almost envied Antony this frenzy, +for he had always judged himself too sane to be a great artist. + +"It must buy me back three years of bitter struggle, of degrading manual +toil." + +"My dear man," said the sculptor indulgently. "I think I understand you, +but no material price could ever do what you ask. Money, unfortunately, +has nothing to do with the past; it can take care of the future more or +less, but the past is beyond repurchase, you know." + +It was growing constantly darker. The corners of the studio were deep +in shadows, and the forms of Antony's casts shone like spectres in their +white clothes; the scaffoldings looked ghostly and spirit-like. +Cedersholm sighed. + +"Why have you come to me?" he heard Fairfax ask in his cutting tone, and +he understood that for some reason or other this stranger was purposely +impolite and unfriendly to him. He had not even found Fairfax's face +familiar. There he sat before Antony, small, insignificant. How often he +had crossed Tony's mind in some ugly dream when he had longed to crush +him like a reptile. Now that he stood before him in flesh and blood it +was astonishing to Fairfax to see how little real he was. + +"I have been absent from France for six years," continued the Swede, and +paused.... And Antony knew he was going back in his mind over the past +six years of his married life with Mary. "I returned to Paris this week, +and wandered into the Salon and stood with a crowd before your +bas-relief. I stood for quite half an hour there, I should think, and at +least one hundred men and women passed and paused as I had paused. I +listened to their comments. I saw your popularity and your power, and +saw how you touched the mass by the real beauty of real emotion, by your +expression of feeling in plastic art. This is not often achieved +nowadays, Mr. Rainsford. Sculpture is the least emotional of all the +arts; literature, painting, and music stir the emotions and bring our +tears, but that calm, sublime marble, that cold stone awes us by its +harmonious perfection. Before sculpture we are content to marvel and +worship, and in the 'Open Door' you have made us do all this and made us +weep. I do not doubt that amongst those people many had lost their own +by death." He paused. It was so dark now that the two men saw each +other's face indistinctly. In the shadows Cedersholm's form had +softened; the shadows blurred him before Fairfax's eyes; his voice was +intensely melancholy. "To every man and woman who has lost your +bas-relief is profoundly appealing. Every one of us must go through that +door. Your conception, Mr. Rainsford, and your execution are sublime." + +Fairfax murmured something which Cedersholm did not make out. He paused +a moment, apparently groping in thought as he groped with his weak eyes, +and as Fairfax did not respond, he continued-- + +"You spoke just now of the price we must pay you, the price which you +say must buy you back--what I judge you to mean by your progress, by +these years of labour and education, by your apprenticeship to art, and, +let me say, to life. My dear man, they have already purchased for you +your present achievement, your present power. Everything we have, you +know, must be paid for. Some things are paid for in coin, and others in +flesh and blood and tears. To judge by what we know of the progress of +the world in spiritual things and in art, it is the things that are +purchased by this travail of the spirit that render eternal possessions, +the eternal impressions. No man who has not suffered as you have +apparently suffered, no man who has not walked upon thorns, could have +produced the 'Open Door.' Do not degrade the value of your past life and +the value of every hour of your agony. Why, it is above price." He +paused ... his voice shook. "It is the gift of God!" + +Antony's hands were clasped lightly together; they had been holding each +other with a grip of steel; now they relaxed a bit. He bowed his head a +little from its proud hauteur, and said-- + +"You are right; you are right." + +"Four years ago," continued the voice--Cedersholm had become to him now +only a voice to which he listened in the darkness--"four years ago, if I +had seen the 'Open Door,' I would have appreciated its art as I +recognized the value of your figure which I bought at the Exposition, +but I could not have understood it; its spiritual lesson would have been +lost upon me. You do not know me," he continued, "and I can in no way +especially interest you. But these six years of my life, especially the +last two, have been my Garden of Gethsemane." + +He stopped. Antony knew that he had taken out the silk handkerchief +again and wiped his eyes. After a second, Cedersholm said-- + +"You must have lost some one very near you." + +"My wife," said Antony Fairfax. + +The other man put out his hand, and he touched Antony's closed hands. + +"I have lost my wife as well; she died two years ago." + +Cedersholm heard Antony's exclamation and felt him start violently. + +"Your wife," he cried, "Mary ... dead ... dead?" + +"Yes. Why do you exclaim like that?" + +"Not Mary Faversham?" + +"Mary Faversham-Cedersholm. Did you know her?" + +With a supreme effort Antony controlled himself. His voice suffocated +him. + +Dead! He felt again the touch of her lips; he heard again her voice; he +felt her arms around him as she held him in Windsor--"Tony, darling, go! +It is too late." + +Oh! the Open Door! + +Cedersholm, in the agitation that his own words had produced in himself, +and in his grief, did not notice that Fairfax murmured he had known Mrs. +Cedersholm in Paris. + +"My wife was very delicate," he said. "We travelled everywhere. She +faded and my life stopped when she died. To-day, when I saw the 'Open +Door,' it had a message for me that brought me the first solace." Again +his hands sought Fairfax's. "Thank you, brother artist," he murmured; +"you have suffered as I have. You understand." + +From where he sat, Fairfax struck a match and lit the candle. Its pale +light flickered up in the big dark room like a lily shining in a tomb. +He said, with a great effort-- + +"I made a little bas-relief of Mrs. Cedersholm. Did she never speak of +me?" + +"Never," said Cedersholm thoughtfully. "She met so many people in +France; she was so surrounded. She admired greatly the little figure I +bought at the Exposition; it was always in our salon. We spoke of you as +a coming power, but I do not recall that she ever mentioned having known +you." + +To Antony this was the greatest proof she could have given him of her +love for him. That careful silence, the long silence, not once speaking +his name. He had triumphed over Cedersholm. She had loved him. +Cedersholm murmured-- + +"And you did that bas-relief--a head silhouetted against a lattice? It +never left her room, but she never mentioned it to me although I greatly +admired it. It Was a perfect likeness." Fairfax saw Cedersholm peer at +him through the candle light. "Curious," he continued, "curious." + +And Antony knew that Cedersholm would never forget his cry of +"Mary--Mary dead!" And her silence regarding his existence and his name, +and that silence and that cry would go together in the husband's memory. + +The door of the studio was opened by Dearborn, who came in calling-- + +"Tony, Tony, old man." + +Cedersholm rose, and Antony rose as well, putting out his hand, saying-- + +"I will undertake the work you speak of, if your committee will write me +confirming your suggestion. And I leave the price to you, you know; you +understand what such work is worth. I place myself in your hands." + +Dearborn had come up to them. "Tony," said Dearborn, "what are you +plotting in the dark with a single candle?" + +Fairfax presented him. "Mr. Cedersholm, Robert Dearborn, the playwright, +the author of 'All Roads Meet.'" + +Dearborn shook the sculptor's hand lightly. He wondered how this must +have been for his friend. He looked curiously from one to the other. + +"'All Roads Meet,'" he quoted keenly. "Good name, don't you think? They +all do meet somewhere"--he put his hand affectionately on Tony's +shoulder--"even if it is only at the Open Door." Then he asked, partly +smiling, "And the beautiful Mrs. Cedersholm, is she in Paris too?" + +"My wife," said Cedersholm shortly, "died two years ago." + +"Dead!" exclaimed Robert Dearborn in a low tone of regret, the tone of +every man who regrets the passing of a lovely creature that they have +admired. "Dead! I beg your pardon, I did not know. I am too heartily +sorry." + +He put out his kindly hand. Cedersholm scarcely touched it. He was +excited, overwhelmed, and began to take his leave, to walk rapidly +across the big room. + +As the three men went together toward the door of the studio, Fairfax +turned up an electric light. It shone brightly on them all, on +Dearborn's grave, charming face, touched with the news of the death of +the woman his friend had loved, on Cedersholm's almost livid face, on +his thick glasses, and on Antony limping at his side. Cedersholm saw the +limp, the unmistakable limp, the heavy boot, his stature, his beautiful +head, and in spite of his infirmity he saw enough of his host to make +him know him, to make him remember him, and his heart, which had begun +to ache at Fairfax's cry of Mary, seemed to die within him. He +remembered the man whom he had cheated out of his work and out of public +acknowledgment. He knew now what Fairfax meant by the repurchase of his +miserable youth. He had believed Antony Fairfax dead years ago. He had +been told that he was dead. Now he limped beside him, powerful, clever, +acknowledged, and moreover, there he stood beside him with memories that +Cedersholm would never know, with memories that linked him with Mary +Faversham-Cedersholm. In an unguarded moment that cry had escaped from +the heart of a man who must have loved her. He thought of the bas-relief +that hung always above her bed, and he thought of her silence, more +eloquent now to him even than Antony's cry, and that silence and that +cry would haunt him till the end, and the silence could never be broken +now that she had gone through the Open Door. + + * * * * * + +Dearborn had not been with him all day until now. He had come up radiant +to Tony, and putting his hand on his shoulder, said-- + +"My dear Tony, I had to come in to-day just to bring you a piece of +news--to tell you a rumour, rather. The 'Open Door' has been bought by +the Government. Your fame is made. I wanted to be the first to tell you. +I went into the Embassy for a little while to hear them talk about you, +and I can assure you that I did hear them. The ambassador himself told +me this news is official. Every one will know to-morrow." + +They talked together until the morning light came grey across the panes +of the atelier, and the light was full of new creations, of new ideals +of fame and life, of new ambitions and dreams for them both. Enthralled +and inspired each by the other, the two artists talked and dreamed. +Dearborn's new play was running into its two-hundredth performance. He +was a rich man. Now Antony paused on the threshold of his studio, +looking back into the deserted workroom filling with the April evening. +In every corner, one by one, the visions rose and floated. They became +new statues, new creations, indistinct and ethereal. Only the space, +where the work that had been carried away to the Salon had once stood, +was bare. As he shut the door he felt that he shut the door for ever +upon his past, upon his young manhood and upon his youth. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +In the early days of July he found himself once more alone in the empty +studio, where he had worked for twelve months at the "Open Door." + +The place where the huge marble had stood was empty; in its stead fame +remained. + +Looking back, it seemed now that his hardships had not been severe +enough. Had success really come? Would it stay? Was he only the child of +an hour? Could he sustain? He recalled the little statuettes which he +had made out of the clay of the levee when he was a boy. He remembered +his beautiful mother's praise-- + +"Why, Tony, they are extraordinary, my darling." + +And the constant fever had run through his veins all his life. He had +made his apprenticeship over theft and death. He said to himself-- + +"I shall sustain." + +As he mused there, the praise he had received ringing in his ears, he +entertained fame and saw the shadow of laurel on the floor, under the +lamplight, where his marble had stood, long and white. + +He had made warm friends and bound them to him. He loved the city and +its beauties. His refinement and sense of taste had matured. Antony knew +that in his soul he was unaltered, that he was marked by his past, and +that the scars upon him were deep. + +He was very much alone; there was no one with whom he could share his +glory. Should he become the greatest living sculptor, to whom could he +bring his honours, his joys? + +For a long time Bella went with him in everything he did. His visions +were banished by the vivid thought of her. When he came into his studio +at twilight he would fancy he saw her sitting by the table. + +She would lean there, not like a spirit-like woman under the shaded +lamp, sewing at little children's garments ... not like that! +Nevertheless, Bella sat there as a woman who waits for a return, the +charming figure, the charming head with its crown of dark hair, and the +lovely, brilliantly coloured face. Now there was nothing spirit-like in +Antony's picture. + +Then again he would imagine that he saw her in the crowd before his +bas-relief at the Salon; he would select some woman dressed in an +unusually smart spring gown and call her Bella to himself, until he saw +her turn. + +Once indeed, there, on the edge of the crowd, leaning with her hands +upon the handle of her parasol, he was sure he saw her. The pose of the +body was charming, the turn of the head almost as haughty as his own +mother's, but the slenderness and the magnetism were Bella's own. + +Antony chose this woman upon whom to fix his attention, and he thought +that when she would move the resemblance would be gone. + +The young girl suddenly altered her pose, and Antony saw her fully; he +saw the proud beautiful face, piquant, alluring, a trifle sad; the +brilliant lips, the colour in the cheeks, like a snow-set peach, the +wonderful eyes, could belong to but one woman. + +Separated from her by a little concourse of people, Antony could only +cry, "Bella!" to himself. He started eagerly toward the place where he +had seen her, but she vanished as the mirage on the desert's face. + +What had he seen? A real woman, or only a trick of resemblance? + +It was real enough to make him search the newspapers and the hotel lists +and the bankers. Now he could not think of her name without a mighty +emotion. If that were Bella, she was too lovely to be true! She _must_ +be his, no matter at what price, no matter what her life might be. + +A fortnight after he received in his mail a letter from America. The +address, "Mr. Thomas Rainsford," was in a round full hand, a handsome +hand; first he thought it a man's. He opened it with slight interest. +The paper exhaled an intangible odour; it was not perfume, but a +delicate scent which recalled to him, for some reason, or other, the +smell of the vines around the veranda-trellis in New Orleans. He read-- + + "Mr. Thomas Rainsford. + + "DEAR SIR,-- + + "This will seem to be a very extraordinary letter, I know. I hardly + know how to write such a letter. When I was in Paris a few weeks + ago, I stood before the most beautiful piece of sculpture I have + ever seen. I do not know that any one could do a more wonderful, a + more deeply spiritual thing in clay or marble. But it is not what I + think about it in that way, which is of interest. It cannot be of + any interest to you, as you do not know me, nor is it for this that + I am writing to you. Again, I do not know how to tell you. + + "Where did you get your ideas for your statue? That is what I want + to know. Years ago, a bas-relief, very much like yours--I should + almost say identically yours--was made by my cousin, Antony + Fairfax, in Albany. That bas-relief took the ten-thousand-dollar + prize in Chicago. It was, unfortunately, destroyed in a fire, and + no record of it was kept. My cousin is dead. For this reason I + write to ask you where you got your inspiration for the 'Open + Door.' It can be nothing to him that his beautiful work has been + more beautifully done by a stranger, can do him no harm, but I want + to know. Will you write me to the care of the Women's Art League, + 5th Avenue, New York? Perhaps you will not deign to answer this + letter. Do not think that I am making any reproach to you. It can + be nothing to my cousin; he is dead but it would be a comfort to + me. Once again, I hope you will let me hear from you. + + "Yours faithfully, + "BELLA CAREW." + +The man reading in his studio looked at the signature, looked at the +handwriting, held it before his eyes, to which the tears rushed. He +pressed the faintly scented pages to his lips. Gallant little Bella ... +He stretched out his arms in the darkness, called to her across three +thousand miles-- + +"Little cousin, please Heaven he can show you some day, Bella Carew." + +It was at this time that he modelled his wonderful bust of Bella Carew. + +When he finished the "Open Door," he said that he would not work for a +year, that he was exhausted bodily and mentally; certainly he had lacked +inspiration. But the afternoon of the day on which he had read this +letter--this letter that opened for him a future--he set feverishly to +work and modelled. He made a head of Bella which the critics have +likened to the busts of Houdon, Carpeaux, and other masters. He modelled +from memory, guided by his recollections of that picturesque face he had +seen under the big hat on the outskirts of the crowd before his +bas-relief. He modelled from memory, from imagination, with hope and new +love, from old love too; told himself he had fallen in love with Bella +the first night he had seen her, when she had comforted him about his +heavy step. + +Into the beautiful head and face he worked upon he put all his ideal of +what a woman's face should be. He fell in love with his creation, in +love with the clay that he moulded. Once more he had a companion in the +studio from which had been removed his study for the tomb, and this +represented a living woman. It seemed almost to become flesh and blood +under his ardent hand. "Bella!" he called to her as he smoothed the +lovely cheek and saw the peach bloom under it. + +"Little cousin," he breathed, as he touched the hair along her neck, and +remembered the wild, tangled forest that had fallen across his face when +he carried her in his arms during their childish romps. "Honey child," +he murmured as he modelled and moulded the youthful lines of the mouth +and lips and stood yearning before them, all his heart and soul in his +hands that made before his eyes a lovely woman. She became to him the +very conception and expression of what he wanted his wife to be. + +They say that men have fallen in love with that beautiful face of Bella +Carew as modelled by Fairfax. + +Arch and subtle, tender and provoking, distinguished, youthful, +alluring, it is the most charming expression of young womanhood that an +artist's hand could give to the world. + +"Beloved," he murmured like a man half in sleep and half awakening, and +he folded the lines of her bodice across her breast and fastened them +there by a single rose. + +With a sweep of her lovely hair, with an uplift of the corners of her +beautiful lips, with the rose at her breast, Bella Carew will charm the +artistic world so long as the clay endures. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +On the promenade deck of one of the big steamers, as it pushed around +into its pier, a man stood in his long overcoat, his hands in his +pockets, hoping to avoid the reporters whom he had reason to suppose +were ready to make him their prey. + +He was entering New York Harbour at an early hour in the morning. It was +November, and over the river and over the city hung the golden haze. If +the lines of the objects, if the shore and buildings were crude, their +impression was not so to him. To and fro the ferries plied from shore to +shore, and their whistles and the whistles of the tugs spoke shrilly and +loudly to the morning, but there was nothing nasal or blatant to him in +the noises. He found the scene, the light of the morning, the greeting +of the city as it stirred to life, enchanting. He had gone away from it +six years ago, a broken-hearted man, and it seemed now as though he had +made his history in an incredibly short time. Down in the hold of the +boat, in their cases, reposed his sculptures, some thirty statues and +models that he had brought for his exposition in New York. He had come +back celebrated. His visions and his dreams so far had been fulfilled. + +Once again all his past, all his emotions, his tears and aspirations, +culminated in this hour. This was his return, but not as Antony Fairfax. +He did not know that he should ever take his old name again. He had made +the name of Thomas Rainsford famous, and the fact gave him a singular +tender satisfaction, linking him with a dear man who had loved him. He +felt almost as though his friend were resurrected or given a new draught +of immortal life every time the name was said. + +A young man came up to him, pencil in hand, his look eager and +appealing, and Fairfax recognized a reporter in search of a good +newspaper story. He understood the poor clothes, the dogged +determination. + +"You want a story?" he said. "Well, sit down." + +The newspaper man, highly delighted with the sculptor's sympathy and +understanding, wrote his interview with enthusiasm. + +Fairfax talked for five minutes, and said at the close, "I had not +intended to be interviewed. But you are a rising man; you have secured +me against my will." + +The reporter put up his pad. "Thank you, Mr. Rainsford; but this is so +impersonal. I would like some of your views on art. They tell me you +have had a tough fight for success and existence." + +"Many of us have that," said Fairfax. + +"Your ideals, sir?" + +The young chap was only twenty-one. It was his first interview. Fairfax +smiled. + +"Downstairs in the hold are thirty cases of my work, the labour of the +last six years. Go to my exposition, and you will see my ideals." + +As the other took his leave Antony saw himself again, poor, unknown, as +he had set foot in New York. There was a deputation on the wharf to meet +him from the Academy of Design, and he walked down the gang-plank alone, +leaving no one behind him in France who stood to him for family, and he +would find no one in America who should mean to him hearth and home. + +They had taken rooms for him in the old Hotel Plaza overlooking 59th +Street; there, toward the afternoon of the first day, he found himself +at three o'clock, alone in his parlour overlooking Central Park. + +The trees were still in leaf. November was mild and golden. The air of +America, of the city which had once been unfriendly to him, and which +now opened its doors, blew in upon him through the open window like a +caress. He looked musingly at the little park where he had wandered with +Gardiner and Bella, on the Sunday holiday, when Bella had told him "all +things she wanted to do were wicked." + +Amongst his statues he had brought over was one lately bought by France +and presented to the Metropolitan Museum. It was the marble of a little +girl mourning over a dead blackbird. Everything in the city was +connected now with Bella Carew. + +There was a sheaf of invitations on the table from well-known New +Yorkers, invitations to dinners, invitations to lecture, and he knew +that he would be taken into the kindliest heart of New York. Well, if +work can give a man what he wants, he had worked enough for it; there +was no doubt about that. It had been nearly a year since his interview +with Cedersholm. He brought with him casts and statues for the triumphal +arch in Boston, and he intended taking a studio here and continuing his +work in America, but he had no plans. In spite of his success and the +prices he could command, his thoughts and his mind were all at sea. His +personality had not yet developed to the point where he was at peace. He +knew that such peace could only come to him through the companionship of +a woman. + +No commonplace woman would satisfy Fairfax now. + +Money and position meant absolutely nothing to him. If Bella Carew were +a rich and brilliant heiress it would probably alienate him from her. +His need called for a woman who could work at his side with a kindred +interest, a woman who knew beauty, who loved art, whose appreciation and +criticism could not leave him cold. + +What would Bella Carew, when he found her--as he should--prove herself +to be? Spoiled she was, no doubt, mistress for several years of a large +fortune, coquette, flirt; of these things he was partly sure, because +she had not married. Children with her great promise develop sometimes +into nonentities, but Bella, at sixteen, had surpassed his wildest +prophecies for her. Bella, as he had seen her on the outskirts of the +crowd, had driven him mad. He knew that it had been she; there was no +doubt about it in his mind. Now to find her, to see what she had become. + +He knew that Bella, when she opened the morning papers the next day--if +she were in New York--would discover who he was. There would be +descriptions of him as a lame sculptor; there would be reproductions of +his "Open Door"; there would be the fact that he was born in New +Orleans; that he assumed the name of Rainsford. Now that he had no +longer any secret to keep, his own name, Antony Fairfax, would appear. +Bella would not fail to know him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +He took his gloves and his hat and started out. He drove to the address +which Bella had given him, where her letters were to be sent. It was a +studio building, and the woman stenographer at the general desk knew +that Miss Carew was absent in Europe and had not returned. + +This was a blow; the woman saw the disappointment on his face. + +"Miss Carew's letters?" he asked. + +She pointed to the empty box. They were all sent to her to Europe. + +He wandered in the little office whilst the woman did her work. He +glanced around him. On the walls there were framed sketches; there were +busts in plaster on pedestals. + +It struck him as strange that Bella should have her letters sent to her +to a studio. He wanted to question the secretary, hesitated, then +asked-- + +"You know Miss Carew?" + +"Very well." + +"I reckon she patronizes this academy." + +It would not have been surprising if she had given it some large +donation. + +The stenographer repeated the word, "Patronizes? Miss Carew works here +when she is in America; she has a small studio here." + +"Works here? Do you mean she paints?" + +The woman smiled. "Yes; she has been studying in Florence. I expect her +home every day." + +Fairfax still lingered, drawing his soft gloves through his hands. + +"There's nothing to do, then, but to wait,"--he smiled on her his light +smile. He turned to go, hesitated. The temptation was too strong. + +"Miss Carew paints portraits?" + +"Yes," said the stenographer, "beautiful portraits." + +He smiled, biting his lips. He remembered the parallel lines, the +reluctant little hand drawing them across the board. + +"No more parallel lines, Cousin Antony." + +He did not believe that she painted beautiful portraits. He would have +loved to see her work, oh, how much! There must be some of it here. + +"There is nothing of hers here, I suppose?" + +He went across the little room to the door. He could hardly bear to go +from here, from the only place that had any knowledge of Bella as far as +he knew. + +He took out his card, scribbled his address upon it, handed it to the +stenographer, without asking anything of her but to let him know when +she would come back. + +The woman nodded sympathetically. + +"It is unusual for a great heiress, like Miss Carew, to paint +portraits." + +"She is not a great heiress; Mr. Carew lost all his money two years ago. +I think Miss Carew is almost quite poor." + +A radiant look came over Antony's face. "Thank you very much indeed," he +said. "I count on you to take care of this little commission for me," +and he went out of the room in ecstasy, closing the door behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +He left his hansom at the entrance of the park, at 72nd Street. + +There, on the corner, stood his uncle's house, a monument, to him, of +the past. His heart beat hard as he looked at the unfriendly dwelling +from whose doors he had rushed on the night of the winter blizzard, +when, as it had seemed to him then, little Gardiner's spirit rushed with +him out into the storm. From those windows Bella had waved her hand. + +How his spirits had risen high with hope, the night on which he had +first gone up those steps. It was on that night Bella had said to him, +"Why, you have got a light step and a heavy step, Cousin Antony. I never +heard any one walk like that before." + +He tramped into Central Park, taking his way to the Metropolitan Museum. +At the door he was informed that the museum was closed. He gave his +card, and, after a few words with the man in charge, Thomas Rainsford +the sculptor was let in and found himself, to all intents and purposes, +alone. He wandered about the sculptures, wondering where the statue of +little "Bella" would be placed. + +The rooms were delightfully restful. He chose a bench and sat down, +resting and musing. + +In front of one of the early Italian pictures stood an easel with a copy +exposed upon it to his view. A reproduction of a sixteenth-century +Madonna with a child upon her breast. The copy showed the hand of an +adept in colour and drawing. Antony looked at it with keen pleasure, +musing upon the beauty of the child. + +Afterwards he rose and went into the Egyptian room, lingering there. But +when he came back the painter was there before her easel, and Antony +stood in the doorway to watch her at work. + +She wore a long brown linen painting apron that covered her form, +evidently a slender form, evidently a young form. She painted ardently, +with confidence and absorption. As Antony watched her, her pose, her +ardour, the poise of her body, the lovely dark head, the gestures, the +fire of her, brought all of a sudden his past rushing back to him. The +sight of her came to him with a thrilling, wonderful remembrance. He +came forward, his light step and his heavy step falling on the hard wood +floors of the museum. + +She turned before he was close to her, her palette and her brushes in +her hand. She stood for a moment immovable, then gave a little cry, +dropped her palette and brushes on the floor, grew white, then blushed +deeply and held out both her hands to him. + +"Cousin Antony!" + +He took her hands in his, could not find his voice even to say her name. +He heard her say-- + +"They told me you were dead! I thought you had died long ago--I thought +another man had taken your genius and your fame." + +She spoke fast, with catching breath, in a low vibrant tone that he +remembered--how he did remember it! His very life seemed to breathe on +her lips in the sound of her voice. "Flow gently, sweet Afton"--the +music was here--here--all the music in the world! + +"I know who you are now; I saw it in the paper. I read it this morning. +I saw your picture, and I knew." She stopped to catch her breath deeply. +"Oh, I'm so glad!" + +She was more beautiful than he had dreamed she would be; brilliant, +bewitching, and the flowers of his past clustered round her. + +"I heard them falling through the rooms, the light step and the heavy +step." + +Slowly by both her hands which he held he drew her toward him, and as he +held her cheek against his lips he heard her murmur-- + +"Back from the dead! Cousin Antony.... No, just Antony!" + +"Little cousin!" he said. "Bella!" + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. + +The following misprints have been corrected: + "Miss Whitcombs'" corrected to "Miss Whitcomb's" (page 19) + "the eager Miss Whitcombs" corrected to "the eager Miss Whitcomb" + (page 23) + "succeceded" corrected to "succeeded" (page 24) + "bas relief" changed to "bas-relief" (pages 47, 54) + "bas reliefs" changed to "bas-reliefs" (pages 62,67) + "choirmaster" is standardized to "choir-master" (pages 118, 121) + "reponse" corrected "response" (page 197) + +Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in +spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Fairfax and His Pride, by Marie Van Vorst + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRFAX AND HIS PRIDE *** + +***** This file should be named 32826.txt or 32826.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/2/32826/ + +Produced by KD Weeks, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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