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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/8113-8.txt b/8113-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01379a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/8113-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5440 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories, by +Robert Herrick + +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: Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Posting Date: October 20, 2012 [EBook #8113] +Release Date: May, 2005 +First Posted: June 15, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS, OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Bidwell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + + + +LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS + +AND OTHER STORIES + +by + +ROBERT HERRICK + + + +TO + +G. H. P. + + + +LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS: + +A MODERN ACCOUNT + +NO. I. INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY. + +(_Eastlake has renewed an episode of his past life. The formalities +have been satisfied at a chance meeting, and he continues_.) + +... So your carnations lie over there, a bit beyond this page, in a +confusion of manuscripts. Sweet source of this idle letter and gentle +memento of the house on Grant Street and of you! I fancy I catch their +odor before it escapes generously into the vague darkness beyond my +window. They whisper: "Be tender, be frank; recall to her mind what is +precious in the past. For departed delights are rosy with deceitful +hopes, and a woman's heart becomes heavy with living. We are the woman +you once knew, but we are much more. We have learned new secrets, new +emotions, new ambitions, in love--we are fuller than before." So--for +to-morrow they will be shrivelled and lifeless--I take up their message +to-night. + +I see you now as this afternoon at the Goodriches', when you came in +triumphantly to essay that hot room of empty, passive folk. Someone was +singing somewhere, and we were staring at one another. There you stood +at the door, placing us; the roses, scattered in plutocratic profusion, +had drooped their heads to our hot faces. We turned from the music to +_you_. You knew it, and you were glad of it. You knew that they were +busy about you, that you and your amiable hostess made an effective +group at the head of the room. You scented their possible disapproval +with zest, for you had so often mocked their good-will with impunity +that you were serenely confident of getting what you wanted. Did you +want a lover? Not that I mean to offer myself in flesh and blood: God +forbid that I should join the imploring procession, even at a +respectful distance! My pen is at your service. I prefer to be your +historian, your literary maid--half slave, half confidant; for then you +will always welcome me. If I were a lover, I might some day be +inopportune. That would not be pleasant. + +Yes, they were chattering about you, especially around the table where +some solid ladies of Chicago served iced drinks. I was sipping it all +in with the punch, and looking at the pinks above the dark hair, and +wondering if you found having your own way as good fun as when you were +eighteen. You have gained, my dear lady, while I have been knocking +about the world. You are now more than "sweet": you are almost +handsome. I suppose it is a question of lights and the time of day +whether or not you are really brilliant. And you carry surety in your +face. There is nothing in Chicago to startle you, perhaps not in the +world. + +She at the punch remarked, casually, to her of the sherbet: "I wonder +when Miss Armstrong will settle matters with Lane? It is the best she +can do now, though he isn't as well worth while as the men she threw +over." And her neighbor replied: "She might do worse than Lane. She +could get more from him than the showy ones." So Lane is the name of +the day. They have gauged you and put you down at Lane. I took an ice +and waited--but you will have to supply the details. + +Meantime, you sailed on, with that same everlasting enthusiasm upon +your face that I knew six years ago, until you spied me. How extremely +natural you made your greeting! I confess I believed that I had lived +for that smile six years, and suffered a bad noise for the sound of +your voice. It seemed but a minute until we found ourselves almost +alone with the solid women at the ices. One swift phrase from you, and +we had slipped back through the meaningless years till we stood _there_ +in the parlor at Grant Street, mere boy and girl. The babbling room +vanished for a few golden moments. Then you rustled off, and I believe +I told Mrs. Goodrich that musicales were very nice, for they gave you a +chance to talk. And I went to the dressing-room, wondering what rare +chance had brought me again within the bondage of that voice. + +Then, then, dear pinks, you came sailing over the stairs, peeping out +from that bunch of lace. I loitered and spoke. Were the eyes green, or +blue, or gray; ambition, or love, or indifference to the world? I was +at my old puzzle again, while you unfastened the pinks, and, before the +butler, who acquiesced at your frivolity in impertinent silence, you +held them out to me. Only you know the preciousness of unsought-for +favors. "Write me," you said; and I write. + +What should man write about to you but of love and yourself? My pen, I +see, has not lost its personal gait in running over the mill books. +Perhaps it politely anticipates what is expected! So much the better, +say, for you expect what all men give--love and devotion. You would not +know a man who could not love you. Your little world is a circle of +possibilities. Let me explain. Each lover is a possible conception of +life placed at a slightly different angle from his predecessor or +successor. Within this circle you have turned and turned, until your +head is a bit weary. But I stand outside and observe the whirligig. +Shall I be drawn in? No, for I should become only a conventional +interest. "If the salt," etc. I remember you once taught in a mission +school. + +The flowers will tell me no more! Next time give me a rose--a huge, +hybrid, opulent rose, the product of a dozen forcing processes--and I +will love you a new way. As the flowers say good-by, I will say +goodnight. Shall I burn them? No, for they would smoulder. And if I +left them here alone, to-morrow they would be wan. There! I have thrown +them out wide into that gulf of a street twelve stories below. They +will flutter down in the smoky darkness, and fall, like a message from +the land of the lotus-eaters, upon a prosy wayfarer. And safe in my +heart there lives that gracious picture of my lady as she stands above +me and gives them to me. That is eternal: you and the pinks are but +phantoms. Farewell! + + + +NO. II. ACQUIESCENT AND ENCOURAGING. + +(_Miss Armstrong replies on a dull blue, canvas-textured page, over +which her stub-pen wanders in fashionable negligence. She arrives on +the third page at the matter in hand_.) + +Ah, it was very sweet, your literary love-letter. Considerable style, +as you would say, but too palpably artificial. If you want to deceive +this woman, my dear sir trifler, you must disguise your mockery more +artfully. + +Why didn't I find you at the Stanwoods'? I had Nettie send you a card. +I had promised you to a dozen delightful women, "our choicest lot," who +were all agog to see my supercilious and dainty sir.... Why will you +always play with things? Perhaps you will say because I am not worth +serious moments. You play with everything, I believe, and that is +banal. Ever sincerely, + +EDITH ARMSTRONG. + + + +NO. III. EXPLANATORY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake has the masculine fondness for seeing himself in the right_.) + +I turned the Stanwoods' card down, and for your sake, or rather for the +sake of your memory. I preferred to sit here and dream about you in the +midst of my chimney-pots and the dull March mists rather than to run +the risk of another, and perhaps fatal, impression. And so far as you +are concerned your reproach is just. Do I "play with everything"? +Perhaps I am afraid that it might play with me. Imagine frolicking with +tigers, who might take you seriously some day, as a tidbit for +afternoon tea--if you should confess that you were serious! That's the +way I think of the world, or, rather, your part of it. Surely, it is a +magnificent game, whose rules we learn completely just as our blood +runs too slowly for active exercise. I like to break off a piece of its +cake (or its rank cheese at times) and lug it away with me to my den up +here for further examination. I think about it, I dream over it; yes, +in a reflective fashion, I _feel_. It is a charming, experimental way +of living. + +Then, after the echo becomes faint and lifeless, or, if you prefer, the +cheese too musty, I sally out once more to refresh my larder. You play +also in your way, but not so intelligently (pardon me), for you deceive +yourself from day to day that your particular object, your temporary +mood, is the one eternal thing in life. After all, you have mastered +but one trick--the trick of being loved. With that trick you expect to +take the world; but, alas! you capture only an old man's purse or a +young man's passion. + +Artificial, my letters--yes, if you wish. I should say, not +crude--matured, considered. I discuss the love you long to experience. +I dangle it before your eyes as a bit of the drapery that goes to the +ball of life. But when dawn almost comes and the ball is over, you +mustn't expect the paper roses to smell. This mystifies you a little, +for you are a plain, downright siren. Your lovers' songs have been in +simple measures. Well, the moral is this: take my love-letters as real +(in their way) as the play, or rather, the opera; infinitely true for +the moment, unreal for the hour, eternal as the dead passions of the +ages. Further, it is better to feel the aromatic attributes of love +than the dangerous or unlovely reality. You can flirt with number nine +or marry number ten, but I shall be stored away in your drawer for a +life. + +You have carried me far afield, away from men and things. So, for a +moment, I have stopped to listen to the hum of this chaotic city as it +rises from Dearborn and State in the full blast of a commercial noon. +You wonder why an unprofitable person like myself lives here, and not +in an up-town club with my fellows. Ah, my dear lady, I wish to see the +game always going on in its liveliest fashion. So I have made a den for +myself, not under the eaves of a hotel, but on the roof, among the +ventilators. Here I can see the clouds of steam and the perpetual pall +of smoke below me. I can revel in gorgeous sunsets when the fiery light +threads the smoke and the mists and the sodden clouds eastward over the +lake. And at night I take my steamer chair to the battlements and peer +over into a sea of lights below. As I sit writing to you, outside go +the click and rattle of the elevator gates and other distant noises of +humanity. My echo comes directly enough, but it does not deafen me. +Below there exists my barber, and farther down that black pit of an +elevator lies lunch, or a cigar, or a possible cocktail, if the mental +combination should prove unpleasant. Across the hall is Aladdin's lamp, +otherwise my banker; and above all is Haroun al Raschid. Am I not wise? +In the morning, if it is fair, I take a walk among the bulkheads on the +roof, and watch the blue deception of the lake. Perhaps, if the wind +comes booming in, I hear the awakening roar in the streets and think of +work. Perhaps the clear emptiness of a Sunday hovers over the shore; +then I wonder what you will say to this letter. Will you feel with me +that you should live on a housetop and eat cheese? Do you long for a +cool stream without flies, and a carpet of golden sand? Do you want a +coal fire and a husband home at six-thirty, or a third-class ticket to +the realms of nonsense? Are you thinking of Lane's income, or Smith's +cleverness, or the ennui of too many dinners? + +I know: you are thinking of love while you read this, and are happy. If +I might send you a new sensation in every line, I should be happy, too, +for your prodigal nature demands novelty. I should then be master for a +moment. And love is mastery and submission, the two poles of a strong +magnet. Adieu. + + + +NO. IV. FURTHER AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake continues apropos of a chance meeting_.) + +So you rather like the curious flavor of this new dish, but it puzzles +you. You ask for facts? What a stamp Chicago has put on your soul! You +will continue to regard as facts the feeble fancies that God has +allowed to petrify. I warn you that facts kill, but you shall have +them. I had meditated a delightful sheet of love that has been +disdainfully shoved into the waste-basket. A grave moral there for you, +my lady! + +Do you remember when I was very young and _gauche_? Doubtless, for +women never forget first impressions of that sort. You dressed very +badly, and were quite ceremonious. I was the bantling son of one of +your father's provincial correspondents, to adopt the suave term of the +foreigners. I had been sent to Chicago to fit for a technical school, +where I was to learn to be very clever about mill machinery. Perhaps +you remember my father--a sweet-natured, wiry, active man, incapable of +conceiving an interest in life that was divorced from respectability. I +think he had some imagination, for now and then he was troubled about +my becoming a loafer. However, he certainly kept it in control: I was +to become a great mill owner. + +It was all luck at first: you were luck, and the Tech. was luck. Then I +found my voice and saw my problem: to cross my father's aspirations, to +be other than the Wabash mill owner, would have been cruel. You see his +desires were more passionate than mine. I worried through the +mechanical, deadening routine of the Tech. somehow, and finally got +courage enough to tell him that I could not accept Wabash quite yet. I +had the audacity to propose two years abroad. We compromised on one, +but I understood that I must not finally disappoint him. He cared so +much that it would have been wicked. A few people in this world have +positive and masterful convictions. An explosion or insanity comes if +their wills smoulder in ineffectual silence. Most of us have no more +than inclinations. It seems wise and best that those of mere +inclinations should waive their prejudices in favor of those who feel +intensely. So much for the great questions of individuality and +personality that set the modern world a-shrieking. This is a +commonplace solution of the great family problem Turgénieff propounded +in "Fathers and Sons." Perchance you have heard of Turgénieff? + +So I prepared to follow my father's will, for I loved him exceedingly. +His life had not been happy, and his nature, as I have said, was a more +exacting one than mine. The price of submission, however, was not plain +to me until I was launched that year in Paris in a strange, +cosmopolitan world. I was supposed to attend courses at the École +Polytechnique, but I became mad with the longings that are wafted about +Europe from capital to capital. I went to Italy--to Venice and Florence +and Rome--to Athens and Constantinople and Vienna. In a word, I +unfitted myself for Wabash as completely as I could, and troubled my +spirit with vain attempts after art and feeling. + +You women do not know the intoxication of five-and-twenty--a few +hundred francs in one's pockets, the centuries behind, creation ahead. +You do not know what it is to hunger after the power of understanding +and the power of expression; to see the world as divine one minute and +a mechanic hell the next; to feel the convictions of the vagabond; to +grudge each sunbeam that falls unseen by you on some mouldering gate in +some neglected city, each face of the living wherein possible life +looks out untried by you, each picture that means a new curiosity. No, +for, after all, you are material souls; you need a Bradshaw and a +Baedeker, even in the land of dreams. All men, I like to think, for one +short breath in their lives, believe this narrow world to be shoreless. +They feel that they should die in discontent if they could not +experience, test, this wonderful conglomerate of existence. It is an +old, old matter I am writing you about. We have classified it nicely, +these days; we call it the "romantic spirit," and we say that it is +made three parts of youth and two of discontent--a perpetual expression +of the world's pessimism. + +I look back, and I think that I have done you wrong. Women like you +have something nearly akin to this mood. Some time in your lives you +would all be romantic lovers. The commonest of you anticipate a +masculine soul that shall harmonize your discontent into happiness. +Most of you are not very nice about it; you make your hero out of the +most obvious man. Yet it is pathetic, that longing for something beyond +yourselves. That passionate desire for a complete illusion in love is +the one permanent note you women have attained in literature. In your +heart of hearts you would all (until you become stiff in the arms of an +unlovely life) follow a cabman, if he could make the world dance for +you in this joyous fashion. Some are hard to satisfy--for example, you, +my lady--and you go your restless, brilliant little way, flirting with +this man, coquetting with that, examining a third, until your heart +grows weary or until you are at peace. You may marry for money or for +love, and in twenty years you will teach your daughters that love +doesn't pay at less than ten thousand a year. But you don't expect them +to believe you, and they don't. + +I am not sneering at you. I would not have it otherwise, for the world +would be one half cheaper if women like you did not follow the +perpetual instinct. True, civilization tends to curb this romantic +desire, but when civilization runs against a passionate nature we have +a tragedy. The world is sweeter, deeper, for that. Live and love, if +you can, and give the lie to facts. Be restless, be insatiable, be +wicked, but believe that your body and soul were meant for more than +food and raiment; that somewhere, somehow, some day, you will meet the +dream made real, and that _he_ will unlock the secrets of this life. + +It is late. I am tired. The noises of the city begin, far down in the +darkness. This carries love. + + + +NO. V. AROUSED. + +(_Miss Armstrong protests and invites_.) + +It is real, real, _real_. If I can say so, after going on all these +years with but one idea (according to my good friends) of settling +myself comfortably in some large home, shouldn't you believe it? You +have lived more interestingly than I, and you are not dependent, as +most of us are. You really mock me through it all. You think I am +worthy of only a kind of candy that you carry about for agreeable +children, which you call love. To me, sir, it reads like an +insult--your message of love tucked in concisely at the close. + +No, keep to facts, for they are your _metier_. You make them +interesting. Tell me more about your idle, contemplative self. And let +me see you to-morrow at the Thorntons'. Leave your sombre eyes at home, +and don't expect infinities in tea-gabble. I saw you at the opera last +night. For some moments, while Melba was singing, I wanted you and your +confectioner's love. That Melba might always sing, and the tide always +flood the marshes! On the whole, I like candy. Send me a page of it. + +E. A. + + + +NO. VI. AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake, disregarding her comments, continues._) + +Dear lady, did you ever read some stately bit of prose, which caught in +its glamour of splendid words the vital, throbbing world of affairs and +passions, some crystallization of a rich experience, and then by chance +turn to the "newsy" column of an American newspaper? (Forsooth, these +must be literary letters!) Well, that tells the sensations of going +from Europe to Wabash. I had caught the sound of the greater harmony, +or struggle, and I must accept the squeak of the melodeon. I did not +think highly of myself; had started too far back in the race, and I +knew that laborious years of intense zeal would place me only third +class, or even lower, in any pursuit of the arts. Perhaps if I had felt +that I could have made a good third class, I should have fought it out +in Europe. There are some things man cannot accomplish, however, our +optimistic national creed to the contrary. And there would have been +something low in disappointing my father for such ignoble results, such +imperfect satisfaction. + +So to Wabash I went. I resolved to adapt myself to the billiards and +whiskey of the Commercial Club, and to the desk in the inner office +behind the glass partitions. And I like to think that I satisfied my +father those two years in the mills. After a time I achieved a lazy +content. At first I tried to deceive myself; to think that the newsy +column of Wabash was as significant as the grand page of London or +Paris. That simple yarn didn't satisfy me many months. + +Then my father died. I hung on at the mills for a time, until the +strikes and the general depression gave me valid reasons for +withdrawing. To skip details, I sold out my interests, and with my +little capital came to Chicago. My income, still dependent in some part +upon those Wabash mills, trembles back and forth in unstable +equilibrium. + +Chicago was too much like Wabash just then. I went to Florence to join +a man, half German Jew, half American, wholly cosmopolite, whom I had +known in Paris. His life was very thin: it consisted wholly of +interests--a tenuous sort of existence. I can thank him for two things: +that I did not remain forever in Italy, trying to say something new, +and that I began a definite task. I should send you my book (now that +it is out and people are talking about it), but it would bore you, and +you would feel that you must chatter about it. It is a good piece of +journeyman work. I gathered enough notes for another volume, and then I +grew restless. Business called me home for a few months, so I came back +to Chicago. Of all places! you say. Yes, to Chicago, to see this brutal +whirlpool as it spins and spins. It has fascinated me, I admit, and I +stay on--to live up among the chimneys, hanging out over the cornice of +a twelve-story building; to soak myself in the steam and smoke of the +prairie and in the noises of a city's commerce. + +Am I content? Yes, when I am writing to you; or when the pile of +manuscripts at my side grows painfully page by page; or when, peering +out of the fort-like embrasure, I can see the sun drenched in smoke and +mist and the "sky-scrapers" gleam like the walls of a Colorado canon. I +have enough to buy me existence, and at thirty I still find peepholes +into hopes. + +Are these enough facts for you? Shall I send you an inventory of my +room, of my days, of my mental furniture? Some long afternoon I will +spirit you up here in that little steel cage, and you shall peer out of +my window, tapping your restless feet, while you sniff at the squalor +below. You will move softly about, questioning the watercolors, the +bits of bric-à-brac, the dusty manuscripts, the dull red hangings, not +quite understanding the fox in his hole. You will gratefully catch the +sounds from the mound below our feet, and when you say good-by and drop +swiftly down those long stories you will gasp a little sigh of relief. +You will pull down your veil and drive off to an afternoon tea, feeling +that things as they are are very nice, and that a little Chicago mud is +worth all the clay of the studios. And I? I shall take the roses out of +the vase and throw them away. I shall say, "Enough!" But somehow you +will have left a suggestion of love about the place. I shall fancy that +I still hear your voice, which will be so far away dealing out +banalities. I shall treasure the words you let wander heedlessly out of +the window. I shall open my book and write, "To-day she +came--_beatissima hora_." + + + +NO. VII. OF THE NATURE OF A CONFESSION. + +(_Miss Armstrong is nearing the close of her fifth season. Prospect and +retrospect are equally uninviting. She wills to escape_.) + +I shall probably be thinking about the rents in your block, and +wondering if the family had best put up a sky-scraper, instead of doing +all the pretty little things you mention in your letter. At +five-and-twenty one becomes practical, if one is a woman whose father +has left barely enough to go around among two women who like luxury, +and two greedy boys at college with expensive "careers" ahead. This +letter finds me in the trough of the wave. I wonder if it's what you +call "the ennui of many dinners?" More likely it's because we can't +keep our cottage at Sorrento. Well-a-day! it's gray this morning, and I +will write off a fit of the blues. + +I think it's about time to marry number nine. It would relieve the +family immensely. I suspect they think I have had my share of fun. +Probably you will take this as an exquisite joke, but 'tis the truth, +alas! + +Last night I was at the Hoffmeyers' at dinner. It was slow. All such +dinners are slow. The good Fraus don't know how to mix the sheep and +the goats. For a passing moment they talked about you and about your +book in a puzzled way. They think you so clever and so odd. But I know +how hollow he is, and how thin his fame! I got some points on the new L +from the Hoffmeyers and young Mr. Knowlton. That was interesting and +exciting. We dealt in millions as if they were checkers. These +practical men have a better grip on life than the cynics and dreamers +like you. You call them plebeian and _bourgeois_ and Philistine and +limited--all the bad names in your select vocabulary. But they know how +to feel in the good, old, common-sense way. You've lost that. I like +plebeian earnestness and push. I like success at something, and hearty +enjoyment, and good dinners, and big men who talk about a million as if +it were a ten-spot in the game. + +You see I am looking for number nine and my four horses. Then I mean to +invite you to my country house, to have a lot of "fat" girls to meet +you who will talk slang at you, and one of them shall marry you--one +whose father is a great newspaper man. And your new papa will start you +in the business of making public opinion. You will play with that, too, +but, then, you will be coining money. + +No, not here in Chicago, but if you had talked to me at Sorrento as you +write me from your sanctum on the roof, I might have listened and +dreamed. The sea makes me believe and hope. I love it so! That's why I +made mamma take a house near the lake--to be near a little piece of +infinity. Yes, if you had paddled me out of the harbor at Sorrento, +some fine night when the swell was rippling in, like the groaning of a +sleepy beast, and the hills were a-hush on the shore, then we might +have gone on to that place you are so fond of, "the land east of the +sun, and west of the moon." + + + +NO. VIII. BIOGRAPHIC AND JUDICIAL. + +(_Eastlake replies analytically_.) + +But don't marry him until we are clear on all matters. I haven't +finished your case. And don't marry that foreign-looking cavalier you +were riding with to-day in the park. You are too American ever to be at +home over there. You would smash their fragile china, and you wouldn't +understand. England might fit you, though, for England is something +like that dark green, prairie park, with its regular, bushy trees +against a Gainsborough sky. You live deeply in the fierce open air. The +English like that. However, America must not lose you. + +You it was, I am sure, who moved your family in that conventional +pilgrimage of ambitious Chicagoans--west, south, north. Neither your +father nor your mother would have stirred from sober little Grant +Street had you not felt the pressing necessity for a career. Rumor got +hold of you first on the South Side, and had it that you were +experimenting with some small contractor. The explosion which followed +reached me even in Vienna. Did you feel that you could go farther, or +did you courageously run the risk of wrecking him then instead of +wrecking yourself and him later? Oh well, he's comfortably married now, +and all the pain you gave him was probably educative. You may look at +his flaunting granite house on that broad boulevard, and think well of +your courage. + +Your father died. You moved northward to that modest house tucked in +lovingly under the ample shelter of the millionnaires on the Lake Shore +Drive. I fancy there has always been the gambler in your nerves; that +you have sacrificed your principle to getting a rapid return on your +money. And you have dominated your family: you sent your two brothers +to Harvard, and filled them with ambitions akin to yours. Now you are +impatient because the thin ice cracks a bit. + +But I have great faith: you will mend matters by some shrewd deal with +the manipulators at Hoffmeyer's, or by marrying number nine. You will +do it honestly--I mean the marrying; for you will convince him that you +love, so far as love is in you, and you will convince yourself that +marriage, the end of it all, is unselfish, though prosaic. You will +accept resignation with an occasional sigh, feeling that you have gone +far, perhaps as far as you can go. I trust that solution will not come +quickly, however, because I cannot regard it as a brilliant ending to +your evolution. For you have kept yourself sweet and clean from fads, +and mean pushing, and the vulgar machinery of society. You never forced +your way or intrigued. You have talked and smiled and bewitched +yourself straight to the point where you now are. You were eager and +curious about pleasures, and the world has dealt liberally with you. + +Were you perilously near the crisis when you wrote me? Did the +reflective tone come because you were brought at last squarely to the +mark, because you must decide what one of the possible conceptions of +life you really want? Don't think, I pray you; go straight on to the +inevitable solution, for when you become conscious you are lost. + +Do you wonder that I love you, my hybrid rose; that I follow the heavy +petals as they push themselves out into their final bloom; that I +gather the aroma to comfort my heart in these lifeless pages? I follow +you about in your devious path from tea to dinner or dance, or I wait +at the opera or theatre to watch for a new light in your face, to see +your world written in a smile. You are dark, and winning, and strong. +You are pagan in your love of sensuous, full things. You are grateful +to the biting air as it touches your cheek and sends the blood leaping +in glad life. You love water and fire and wind, elemental things, and +you love them with fervor and passion. All this to the world! Much more +intimate to me, who can read the letters you scrawl for the impudent, +careless world. For deep down in the core of that rose there lies a +soul that permeates it all--a longing, restless soul, one moment +revealing a heaven that the next is shut out in dark despair. + +Yes, keep the cottage by the sea for one more dream. Perchance I shall +find something stable, eternal, something better than discontent and +striving; for the sea is great and makes peace. + + + +NO. IX. CRITICISM. + +(_Miss Armstrong vindicates herself by scorning._) + +You are a tissue of phrases. You feel only words. You love! What +mockery to hear you handle the worn, old words! You have secluded +yourself in careful isolation from the human world you seem to despise. +You have no right to its passions and solaces. Incarnate selfishness, +dear friend, I suspect you are. You would not permit the disturbance of +a ripple in the contemplative lake of your life such as love and +marriage might bring. + +Pray what right may you have to stew me in a saucepan up on your roof, +and to send me flavors of myself done up nicely into little packages +labelled deceitfully "love"? It is lucky that this time you have come +across a woman who has played the game before, and can meet you point +by point. But I am too weary to argue with a man who carries two-edged +words, flattery on one side and sneers on the reverse. Mark this one +thing, nevertheless: if I should decide to sell myself advantageously +next season I should be infinitely better than you,--for I am only a +woman. + +E. A. + + + +NO. X. THE LIMITATION OF LIFE. + +(_Eastlake summarizes, and intends to conclude._) + +My lady, my humor of to-day makes me take up the charges in your last +letters; I will define, not defend, myself. You fall out with me +because I am a dilettante (or many words to that one effect), and you +abuse me because I deal in the form rather than the matter of love. Is +that not just to you? + +In short, I am not as your other admirers, and the variation in the +species has lost the charm of novelty. + +Believe me that I am honest to-day, at least; indeed, I think you will +understand. Only the college boy who feeds on Oscar Wilde and +sentimental pessimism has that disease of indifference with which you +crudely charge me. It is a kind of chicken-pox, cousin-French to the +evils of literary Paris. But I must not thank God too loudly, or you +will think I am one with them at heart. + +No, I am in earnest, in terrible earnest, about all this--I mean life +and what to do with it. That is a great day when a man comes into his +own, no matter how paltry the pittance may be the gods have given +him--when he comes to know just how far he can go, and where lies his +path of least resistance. That I know. I am tremendously sure of myself +now, and, like your good business men, I go about my affairs and +dispose of my life with its few energies in a cautious, economical way. + +What is all this I make so much to-do about? Very little, I confess, +but to me more serious than L's and sky-scrapers; yes, than love. Mine +is an infinite labor: first to shape the true tool, and then to master +the material! I grant you I may die any day like a rat on a housetop, +with only a bundle of musty papers, the tags of broken conversations, +and one or two dead, distorted nerves. That is our common risk. But I +shall accomplish as much of the road as God permits the snail, and I +shall have moulded something; life will have justified itself to me, or +I to life. But that is not our problem to-day. + +Why do I isolate myself? Because a few pursuits in life are great +taskmasters and jealous ones. A wise man who had felt that truth wrote +about it once. I must husband my devotions: love, except the idea of +love, is not for me; pleasure, except the idea of pleasure, is too keen +for me; energy, except the ideas energy creates, is beyond me. I am +limited, definite, alone, without you. + +I confess that two passions are greater than any man, the passion for +God and the passion of a great love. They send a man hungry and naked +into the street, and make his subterfuges with existence ridiculous. +How rarely they come! How inadequate the man who is mistaken about +them! We peer into the corners of life after them, but they elude us. +There are days of splendid consciousness, and we think we have +them--then---- + +No, it is foolish, _bête_, dear lady, to be deceived by a sentiment; +better the comfortable activities of the world. They will suit you +best; leave the other for the dream hidden in a glass of champagne. + +But let me love you always. Let me fancy you, when I walk down these +gleaming boulevards in the silent evenings, as you sit flashingly +lovely by some soft lamplight, wrapped about in the cotton-wools of +society. That will reconcile me to the roar of these noonday streets. +The city exists for _you_. + + + +NO. XI. UNSATISFIED. + +(_Miss Armstrong wills to drift_.) + +... Come to Sorrento.... + + + +NO. XII. THE ILLUSION. + +(_Eastlake resumes some weeks later. He has put into Bar Harbor on a +yachting trip. He sits writing late at night by the light of the +binnacle lamp_.) + +Sweet lady, a few hours ago we slipped in here past the dark shore of +your village, in almost dead calm, just parting the heavy waters with +our prow. It was the golden set of the summer afternoon: a thrush or +two were already whistling clear vespers in he woods; all else was +fruitfully calm. + +And then, in the stillness of the ebb, we floated together, you and I, +round that little lighthouse into the sheltering gloom of the woods. +Then we drifted beyond it all, in serene solution of this world's fret! +To-morrows you may keep for another. + +This night was richly mine. You brought your simple self, undisturbed +by the people who expect of you, without your little airs of +experience. I brought incense, words, devotion, and love. And I +treasure now a few pure tones, some simple motions of your arm with the +dripping paddle, a few pure feelings written on your face. That is all, +but it is much. We got beyond necessity and the impertinent commonplace +of Chicago. We had ourselves, and that was enough. + +And to-night, as I lie here under the cool, complete heavens, with only +a twinkling cottage light here and there in the bay to remind me of +unrest, I see life afresh in the old, simple, eternal lines. These are +_our_ days of full consciousness. + +Do you remember that clearing in the woods where the long weeds and +grass were spotted with white stones--burial-place it was--their bright +faces turned ever to the sunshine and the stars? They spoke of other +lives than yours and mine. Forgotten little units in our disdainful +world, we pass them scornfully by. Other lives, and perhaps better, do +you think? For them the struggle never came which holds us in a fist of +brass, and thrashes us up and down the pavement of life. Perhaps--can +you not, at one great leap, fancy it?--two sincere souls could escape +from this brass master, and live, unmindful of strife, for a little +grave on a hillside in the end? They must be strong souls to renounce +that cherished hope of triumph, to be content with the simple, antique +things, just living and loving--the eternal and brave things; for, +after all, what you and I burn for so restlessly is a makeshift +ambition. We wish to go far, "to make the best of ourselves." Why not, +once for all, rely upon God to make? Why not live and rejoice? + +And the little graves are not bad: to lie long years within sound of +this great-hearted ocean, with the peaceful, upturned stones bearing +this full legend, "This one loved and lived...." Forgive me for making +you sad. Perhaps you merely laugh at the intoxication your clear air +has brought about. Well, dearest lady, the ships are striking their +eight bells for midnight, the gayest cottages are going out, light by +light, and somewhere in the still harbor I can hear a fisherman +laboriously sweeping his boat away to the ocean. Away!--that is the +word for us: I, in this boat southward, and ever away, searching in +grim fashion for an accounting with Fate; you, in your intrepid +loveliness, to other lives. And if I return some weeks hence, when I +have satisfied the importunate business claims, what then? Shall we +slip the cables and drift quietly out "to the land east of the sun and +west of the moon"? + + + +NO. XIII. SANITY. + +(_Eastlake refuses Miss Armstrong's last invitation, continues, and +concludes_.) + +Last night was given to me for insight. You were brilliantly your best, +and set in the meshes of gold and precious stones that the gods willed +for you. There was not a false note, not an attribute wanting. Over +your head were mellow, clear, electric lights that showed forth coldly +your faultless suitability. From the exquisitely fit pearls about your +neck to the scents of the wine and the flowers, all was as it should +be. I watched your face warm with multifold impressions, your nostrils +dilate with sensuousness, appreciation, your pagan head above the +perfect bosom; about you the languid eyes of your well-fed neighbors. + +The dusky recesses of the rooms, heavy with opulent comfort, stretched +away from our long feast. There you could rest, effectually sheltered +from the harsh noises of the world. And I rejoiced. Each minute I saw +more clearly things as they are. I saw you giving the nicest dinners in +Chicago, and scurrying through Europe, buying a dozen pictures here and +there, building a great house, or perhaps, tired of Chicago, trying +your luck in New York; but always pressing on, seizing this +exasperating life, and tenaciously sucking out the rich enjoyments +thereof! For the gold has entered your heart. + +What splendid folly we played at Sorrento! If you had deceived yourself +with a sentiment, how long would you have maintained the illusion? When +would the morning have come for your restless eyes to stare out at the +world in longing and the unuttered sorrow of regret? Ah, I touch you +but with words! The cadence of a phrase warms your heart, and you fancy +your emotion is supreme, inevitable. Nevertheless, you are a practical +goddess: you can rise beyond the waves toward the glorious ether, but +at night you sink back. 'Tis alluring, but--eternal? + +Few of us can risk being romantic. The penalty is too dreadful. To be +successful, we must maintain the key of our loveliest enthusiasm +without stimulants. You need the stimulants. You imagined that you were +tired, that rest could come in a lover's arms. Better the furs that are +soft about your neck, for they never grow cold. Perchance the lover +will come, also, as a prince with his princedom. It will be comfortable +to have your cake and the frosting, too. If not, take the frosting; go +glittering on with your pulses full of the joys, until you are old and +fagged and the stupid world refuses to revolve. Remember my sure word +that you were meant for dinners, for power and pleasure and excitement. +Trust no will-o'-the-wisp that would lead you into the stony paths of +romance. + +Some days in the years to come I shall enter at your feasts and watch +you in admiration and love. (For I shall always love you.) Then will +stir in your heart a mislaid feeling of some joy untasted. But you will +smile wisely, and marvel at my exact judgment. You will think of +another world where words and emotions alone are alive, where it is +always high tide, and you will be glad that you did not force the +gates. For life is not always lyric. Farewell. + + + +NO. XIV. THAT OTHER WORLD. + +(_Miss Armstrong writes with a calm heart_.) + +I have but a minute before I must go down to meet _him_. Then it will +be settled. I can hear his voice now and mother's. I must be quick. + +So you tested me and found me wanting in "inevitableness." I was too +much clay, it seems, and "pagan." What a strange word that is! You mean +I love to enjoy; and, perhaps you are right, that I need my little +world. Who knows? One cannot read the whole story--even you, dear +master--until we are dead. We can never tell whether I am only +frivolous and sensuous, or merely a woman who takes the best substitute +at hand for life. I do not protest, and I think I never shall. I, too, +am very sure--_now_. You have pointed out the path and I shall follow +it to the end. + +But one must have other moments, not of regret, but of wonder. Did you +have too little faith? Am I so cheap and weak? Before you read this it +will all be over.... Now and then it seems I want only a dress for my +back, a bit of food, rest, and your smile. But you have judged +otherwise, and perhaps you are right. At any rate, I will think so. +Only I know that the hours will come when I shall wish that I might lie +among those little white gravestones above the beach. + +CHICAGO, November, 1893. + + + +A QUESTION OF ART + +I + +John Clayton had pretty nearly run the gamut of the fine arts. As a boy +at college he had taken a dilettante interest in music, and having +shown some power of sketching the summer girl he had determined to +become an artist. His numerous friends had hoped such great things for +him that he had been encouraged to spend the rest of his little +patrimony in educating himself abroad. It took him nearly two years to +find out what being an artist meant, and the next three in thinking +what he wanted to do. In Paris and Munich and Rome, the wealth of the +possible had dazzled him and confused his aims; he was so skilful and +adaptable that in turn he had wooed almost all the arts, and had +accomplished enough trivial things to raise very pretty expectations of +his future powers. He had enjoyed an uncertain glory among the crowd of +American amateurs. When his purse had become empty he returned to +America to realize on his prospects. + +On his arrival he had elaborately equipped a studio in Boston, but as +he found the atmosphere "too provincial" he removed to New York. There +he was much courted at a certain class of afternoon teas. He was in +full bloom of the "might do," but he had his suspicions that a fatally +limited term of years would translate the tense into "might have done." +He argued, however, that he had not yet found the right _milieu_; he +was fond of that word--conveniently comprehensive of all things that +might stimulate his will. He doubted if America ever could furnish him +a suitable _milieu_ for the expression of his artistic instincts. But +in the meantime necessity for effort was becoming more urgent; he could +not live at afternoon teas. + +Clayton was related widely to interesting and even influential people. +One woman, a distant cousin, had taken upon herself his affairs. + +"I will give you another chance," she said, in a business-like tone, +after he had been languidly detailing his condition to her and +indicating politely that he was coming to extremities. "Visit me this +summer at Bar Harbor. You shall have the little lodge at the Point for +a studio, and you can take your meals at the hotel near by. In that way +you will be independent. Now, there are three ways, any one of which +will lead you out of your difficulties, and if you don't find one that +suits you before October, I shall leave you to your fate." + +The young man appeared interested. + +"You can model something--that's your line, isn't it?" + +Clayton nodded meekly. He had resolved to become a sculptor during his +last six months in Italy. + +"And so put you on your feet, professionally." Clayton sighed. "Or you +can find some rich patron or patroness who will send you over for a +couple of years more until your _chef d' oeuvre_ makes its appearance." +Her pupil turned red, and began to murmur, but she kept on unperturbed. +"Or, best of all, you can marry a girl with some money and then do what +you like." At this Clayton rose abruptly. + +"I haven't come to that," he growled. + +"Don't be silly," she pursued. "You are really charming; good +character; exquisite manners; pleasant habits; success with women. You +needn't feel flattered, for this is your stock in trade. You are +decidedly interesting, and lots of those girls who are brought there +every year to get them in would be glad to make such an exchange. You +know everybody, and you could give any girl a good standing in Boston +or New York. Besides, there is your genius, which may develop. That +will be thrown in to boot; it may bear interest." + +Clayton, who had begun by feeling how disagreeable his situation was +when it exposed him to this kind of hauling over, ended by bursting +into a cordial laugh at the frank materialism with which his cousin +presented his case. "Well," he exclaimed, "it's no go to talk to you +about the claims and ideals of art, Cousin Della, but I will accept +your offer, if only for the sake of modelling a bust of 'The Energetic +Matron (American).'" + +"Of course, I don't make much of ideals in art and all that," replied +his cousin, "but I will put this through for you, as Harry says. You +must promise me only one thing: no flirting with Harriet and Mary. +Henry has been foolish and lost money, as you know, and I cannot have +another beggar on my hands!" + + + +II + +By the end of July Clayton had found out two things definitely; he was +standing in his little workshop, pulling at his mustache and looking +sometimes at a half-completed sketch, and sometimes at the blue stretch +of water below the cliff. The conclusions were that he certainly should +not become interested in Harriet and Mary, and, secondly, that Mount +Desert made him paint rather than model. + +"It's no place," he muttered, "except for color and for a poet. A man +would have to shut himself up in a cellar to escape those glorious +hills and the bay, if he wanted to work at that putty." He cast a +contemptuous glance at a rough bust of his Cousin Della, the only thing +he had attempted. As a solution of his hopeless problem he picked up a +pipe and was hunting for some tobacco, preparatory to a stroll up +Newport, when someone sounded timidly at the show knocker of the front +door. + +"Is that you, Miss Marston?" Clayton remarked, in a disappointed tone, +as a middle-aged woman entered. + +"The servants were all away," she replied, "and Della thought you might +like some lunch to recuperate you from your labors." This was said a +little maliciously, as she looked about and found nothing noteworthy +going on. + +"I was just thinking of knocking off for this morning and taking a +walk. Won't you come? It's such glorious weather and no fog," he added, +parenthetically, as if in justification of his idleness. + +"Why do you happen to ask me?" Miss Marston exclaimed, impetuously. +"You have hitherto never paid any more attention to my existence than +if I had been Jane, the woman who usually brings your lunch." She +gasped at her own boldness. This was not coquettishness, and was +evidently unusual. + +"Why! I really wish you would come," said the young man, helplessly. +"Then I'll have a chance to know you better." + +"Well! I will." She seemed to have taken a desperate step. Miss Jane +Marston, Della's sister-in-law, had always been the superfluous member +of her family. Such unenviable tasks as amusing or teaching the younger +children, sewing, or making up whist sets, had, as is usual with the +odd members in a family, fallen to her share. All this Miss Marston +hated in a slow, rebellious manner. From always having just too little +money to live independently, she had been forced to accept invitations +for long visits in uninteresting places. As a girl and a young woman, +she had shown a delicate, retiring beauty that might have been made +much of, and in spite of gray hair, thirty-five years, and a somewhat +drawn look, arising from her discontent, one might discover sufficient +traces of this fading beauty to idealize her. All this summer she had +watched the wayward young artist with a keen interest in the fresh life +he brought among her flat surroundings. His buoyancy cheered her +habitual depression; his eagerness and love of life made her blood flow +more quickly, out of sympathy; and his intellectual alertness +bewildered and fascinated her. She was still shy at thirty-five, and +really very timid and apologetic for her commonplaceness; but at times +the rebellious bitterness at the bottom of her heart would leap forth +in a brusque or bold speech. She was still capable of affording +surprise. + +"Won't I spoil the inspiration?" she ventured, after a long silence. + +"Bother the inspiration!" groaned Clayton. "I wish I were a blacksmith, +or a sailor, or something honest. I feel like a hypocrite. I have +started out at a pace that I can't keep up!" + +Miss Marston felt complimented by this apparent confidence. If she had +had experience in that kind of nature, she would have understood how +indifferent Clayton was to her personally. He would have made the same +confession to the birds, if they had happened to produce the same +irritation in his mind. + +"They all say your work is so brilliant," she said, soothingly. + +"Thunder!" he commented. "I wish they would not say anything kind and +pleasant and cheap. At college they praised my verses, and the theatres +stole my music for the Pudding play, and the girls giggled over my +sketches. And now, at twenty-six, I don't know whether I want to +fiddle, or to write an epic, or to model, or to paint. I am a victim of +every artistic impulse." + +"I know what you should do," she said, wisely, when they had reached a +shady spot and were cooling themselves. + +"Smoke?" queried Clayton, quizzically. + +"You ought to marry!" + +"That's every woman's great solution, great panacea," he replied, +contemptuously. + +"It would steady you and make you work." + +"No," he replied, thoughtfully, "not unless she were poor, and in that +case it would be from the frying-pan into the fire!" + +"You should work," she went on, more courageously. "And a wife would +give you inspiration and sympathy." + +"I have had too much of the last already," he sighed. "And it's better +not to have it all of one sort. After awhile a woman doesn't produce +pleasant or profitable reactions in my soul. Yes, I know," he added, as +he noticed her look of wonderment, "I am selfish and supremely +egotistical. Every artist is; his only lookout, however, should be that +his surroundings don't become stale. Or, if you prefer to put it more +humanely, an artist isn't fit to marry; it's criminal for him to marry +and break a woman's heart." + +After this heroic confession he paused to smoke. "Besides, no woman +whom I ever knew really understands art and the ends which the artist +is after. She has the temperament, a superficial appreciation and +interest, but she hasn't the stimulus of insight. She's got the nerves, +but not the head." + +"But you just said that you had had too much sympathy and +molly-coddling." + +"Did I? Well, I was wrong. I need a lot, and I don't care how idiotic. +It makes me courageous to have even a child approve. I suppose that +shows how closely we human animals are linked together. We have got to +have the consent of the world, or at any rate a small part of it, to +believe ourselves sane. So I need the chorus of patrons, admiring +friends, kind women, etc., while I play the Protagonist, to tell me +that I am all right, to go ahead. Do you suppose any one woman would be +enough? What a great posture for an arm!" His sudden exclamation was +called out by the attitude that Miss Marston had unconsciously assumed +in the eagerness of her interest. She had thrown her hand over a ledge +above them, and was leaning lightly upon it. The loose muslin sleeve +had fallen back, revealing a pretty, delicately rounded arm, not to be +suspected from her slight figure. Clayton quickly squirmed a little +nearer, and touching the arm with an artist's instinct, brought out +still more the fresh white flesh and the delicate veining. + +"Don't move. That would be superb in marble!" Miss Marston blushed +painfully. + +"How strange you are," she murmured, as she rose. "You just said that +you had given up modelling, or I would let you model my arm in order to +give you something to do. You should try to stick to something." + +"Don't be trite," laughed Clayton, "and don't make me consistent. You +will keep yourself breathless if you try that!" + +"I know what you need," she said, persistently unmindful of his +admonition. "You need the spur. It doesn't make so much difference +_what_ you do--you're clever enough." + +"'Truth from the mouths of babes----'" + +"I am not a babe." She replied to his mocking, literally. "Even if I am +stupid and commonplace, I may have intuitions like other women." + +"Which lead you to think that it's all chance whether Raphael paints or +plays on the piano. Well, I don't know that you are so absurd. That's +my theory: an artist is a fund of concentrated, undistributed energy +that has any number of possible outlets, but selects one. Most of us +are artists, but we take so many outlets that the hogshead becomes +empty by leaking. Which shall it be? Shall we toss up a penny?" + +"Painting," said Miss Marston, decisively. "You must stick to that." + +"How did you arrive at that conclusion--have you observed my work?" + +"No! I'll let you know some time, but now you must go to work. Come!" +She rose, as if to go down to the lodge that instant. Clayton, without +feeling the absurdity of the comedy, rose docilely and followed her +down the path for some distance. He seemed completely dominated by the +sudden enthusiasm and will that chance had flung him. + +"There's no such blessed hurry," he remarked at last, when the first +excitement had evanesced. "The light will be too bad for work by the +time we reach Bar Harbor. Let's rest here in this dark nook, and talk +it all over." + +Clayton was always abnormally eager to talk over anything. Much of his +artistic energy had trickled away in elusive snatches of talk. "Come," +he exclaimed, enthusiastically, "I have it. I will begin a great +work--a modern Magdalen or something of that sort. We can use you in +just that posture, kneeling before a rock with outstretched hands, and +head turned away. We will make everything of the hands and arms!" + +Miss Marston blushed her slow, unaccustomed blush. At first sight it +pleased her to think that she had become so much a part of this +interesting young man's plans, but in a moment she laughed calmly at +the frank desire he expressed to leave out her face, and the +characteristic indifference he had shown in suggesting negligently such +a subject. + +"All right. I am willing to be of any service. But you will have to +make use of the early hours. I teach the children at nine." + +"Splendid!" he replied, as the vista of a new era of righteousness +dawned upon him. "We shall have the fresh morning light, and the cool +and the beauty of the day. And I shall have plenty of time to loaf, +too." + +"No, you mustn't loaf. You will find me a hard task-mistress!" + + + +III + +True to her word, Miss Marston rapped at the door of the studio +promptly at six the next morning. She smiled fearfully, and finding no +response, tried stones at the windows above. She kept saying to +herself, to keep up her courage: "He won't think about me, and I am too +old to care, anyway." Soon a head appeared, and Clayton called out, in +a sleepy voice: + +"I dreamt it was all a joke; but wait a bit, and we will talk it over." + +Miss Marston entered the untidy studio, where the _débris_ of a month's +fruitless efforts strewed the floor. Bits of clay and carving-tools, +canvases hurled face downward in disgust and covered with paint-rags, +lay scattered about. She tip-toed around, carefully raising her skirt, +and examined everything. Finally, discovering an alcohol-lamp and a +coffee-pot, she prepared some coffee, and when Clayton appeared--a +somewhat dishevelled god--he found her hunting for biscuit. + +"You can't make an artist of me at six in the morning," he growled. + +In sudden inspiration, Miss Marston threw open the upper half of the +door and admitted a straight pathway of warm sun that led across the +water just rippling at their feet. The hills behind the steep shore +were dark with a mysterious green and fresh with a heavy dew, and from +the nooks in the woods around them thrush was answering thrush. Miss +Marston gave a sigh of content. The warm, strong sunlight strengthened +her and filled her wan cheeks, as the sudden interest in the artist's +life seemed to have awakened once more the vigor of her feelings. She +clasped her thin hands and accepted both blessings. Clayton also +revived. At first he leant listlessly against the door-post, but as +minute by minute he drank in the air and the beauty and the hope, his +weary frame dilated with incoming sensations. "God, what beauty!" he +murmured, and he accepted unquestioningly the interference in his life +brought by this woman just as he accepted the gift of sunshine and +desire. + +"Come to work," said Miss Marston, at last. + +"That's no go," he replied, "that subject we selected." + +"I dare say you won't do much with it, but it will do as well as any +other for experiment and practice." + +"I see that you want those arms preserved." + +The little woman shrank into her shell for a moment: her lazy artist +could scatter insults as negligently as epigrams. Then she blazed out. + +"Mr. Clayton, I didn't come here to be insulted." + +Clayton, utterly surprised, opened his sleepy eyes in real alarm. + +"Bless you, my dear Miss Marston, I can't insult anybody. I never mean +anything." + +"Perhaps that's the trouble," replied Miss Marston, somewhat mollified. +But the sitting was hardly a success. Clayton wasted almost all his +time in improvising an easel and in preparing his brushes. Miss Marston +had to leave him just as he was ready to throw himself into his work. +He was discontented, and, instead of improving the good light and the +long day, he took a pipe and went away into the hills. The next morning +he felt curiously ashamed when Miss Marston, after examining the rough +sketch on the easel, said: + +"Is that all?" + +And this day he painted, but in a fit of gloomy disgust destroyed +everything. So it went on for a few weeks. Miss Marston was more +regular than an alarm-clock; sometimes she brought some work, but +oftener she sat vacantly watching the young man at work. Her only +standard of accomplishment was quantity. One day, when Clayton had +industriously employed a rainy afternoon in putting in the drapery for +the figure, she was so much pleased by the quantity of the work +accomplished that she praised him gleefully. Clayton, who was, as +usual, in an ugly mood, cast an utterly contemptuous look at her and +then turned to his easel. + +"You mustn't look at me like that," the woman said, almost frightened. + +"Then don't jabber about my pictures." + +Her lips quivered, but she was silent. She began to realize her +position of galley-slave, and welcomed with a dull joy the contempt and +insults to come. + +One morning Clayton was not to be found. He did not appear during that +week, and at last Miss Marston determined to find him. She made an +excuse for a journey to Boston, and divining where Clayton could be +found, she sent him word at a certain favorite club that she wanted to +see him. He called at her modest hotel, dejected, listless, and +somewhat shamefaced; he found Miss Marston calm and commonplace as +usual. But it was the calm of a desperate resolve, won after painful +hours, that he little recognized. Her instinct to attach herself to +this strange, unaccountable creature, to make him effective to himself, +had triumphed over her prejudices. She humbled herself joyfully, +recognizing a mission. + +"Della said that I might presume on your escort home," she remarked +dryly, trembling for fear that she had exposed herself to some +contemptuous retort. One great attraction, however, in Clayton was that +he never expected the conventional. It did not occur to him as +particularly absurd that this woman, ten years his senior, should hunt +him up in this fashion. He took such eccentricities as a matter of +course, and whatever the circumstances or the conversation, found it +all natural and reasonable. Women did not fear him, but talked +indiscreetly to him about all things. + +"What's the use of keeping up this ridiculous farce about my work?" he +said, sadly. Then he sought for a conventional phrase. "Your unexpected +interest and enthusiasm in my poor attempts have been most kind, my +dear Miss Marston. But you must allow me to go to the dogs in my own +fashion; that's the inalienable right of every emancipated soul in +these days." The politeness and mockery of this little epigram stung +the woman. + +"Don't be brutal, as well as good for nothing," she said, bitterly. +"You're as low as if you took to drink or any other vice, and you know +it. I can't appreciate your fine ideas, perhaps, but I know you ought +to do something more than talk. You're terribly ambitious, but you're +too weak to do anything but talk. I don't care what you think about my +interference. I can make you work, and I will make you do something. +You know you need the whip, and if none of your pleasant friends will +give it to you, I can. Come!" she added, pleadingly. + +"Jove!" exclaimed the young man, slowly, "I believe you're an awful +trump. I will go back." + +On their return they scarcely spoke. Miss Marston divined that her +companion felt ashamed and awkward, and that his momentary enthusiasm +had evaporated under the influence of a long railroad ride. While they +were waiting for the steamer at the Mount Desert ferry, she said, as +negligently as she could, "I have telegraphed for a carriage, but you +had better walk up by yourself." + +He nodded assent. "So you will supply the will for the machine, if I +will grind out the ideas. But it will never succeed," he added, +gloomily. "Of course I am greatly obliged and all that, and I will +stick to it until October for the sake of your interest." In answer she +smiled with an air of proprietorship. + +One effect of this spree upon Clayton was that he took to landscape +during the hours that he had formerly loafed. He found some quiet bits +of dell with water, and planted his easel regularly every day. +Sometimes he sat dreaming or reading, but he felt an unaccustomed +responsibility if, when his mentor appeared with the children late in +the afternoon, he hadn't something to show for his day. She never +attempted to criticise except as to the amount performed, and she soon +learned enough not to measure this by the area of canvas. Although +Clayton had abandoned the Magdalen in utter disgust, Miss Marston +persisted in the early morning sittings. She made herself useful in +preparing his coffee and in getting his canvas ready. They rarely +talked. Sometimes Clayton, in a spirit of deviltry, would tease his +mentor about their peculiar relationship, about herself, or, worse than +all, would run himself and say very true things about his own +imperfections. Then, on detecting the tears that would rise in the +tired, faded eyes of the woman he tortured, he would throw himself into +his work. + +So the summer wore away and the brilliant September came. The +unsanctified crowds flitted to the mountains or the town, and the +island and sea resumed the air of free-hearted peace which was theirs +by right. Clayton worked still more out of doors on marines, attempting +to grasp the perplexing brilliancy that flooded everything. + +"It's no use," he said, sadly, as he packed up his kit one evening in +the last of September. "I really don't know the first thing about +color. I couldn't exhibit a single thing I have done this entire +summer." + +"What's the real matter?" asked Miss Marston, with a desperate calm. + +"Why, I have fooled about so much that I have lost a lot I learnt over +there in Paris." + +"Why don't you get--get a teacher?" + +Clayton laughed ironically. "I am pretty old to start in, especially as +I have just fifty dollars to my name, and a whole winter before me." + +They returned silently. The next morning Miss Marston appeared at the +usual hour and made the coffee. After Clayton had finished his meagre +meal, she sat down shyly and looked at him. + +"You've never interested yourself much in my plans, but I am going to +tell you some of them. I'm sick of living about like a neglected cat, +and I am going to New York to--to keep boarders." Her face grew very +red. "They will make a fuss, but I am ready to break with them all." + +"So you, too, find dependence a burden?" commented Clayton, +indifferently. + +"You haven't taken much pains to know me," she replied. "And if I were +a man," she went on, with great scorn, "I would die before I would be +dependent!" + +"Talking about insults--but an artist isn't a man," remarked Clayton, +philosophically smoking his pipe. + +"I hate you when you're like that," Miss Marston remarked, with intense +bitterness. + +"Then you must hate me pretty often! But continue with your plans. +Don't let our little differences in temperament disturb us." + +"Well," she continued, "I have written to some friends who spend the +winters in New York, and out of them I think I shall find enough +boarders--enough to keep me from starving. And the house has a large +upper story with a north light." She stopped and peeped at him +furtively. + +"Oh," said Clayton, coolly, "and you're thinking that I would make a +good tenant." + +"Exactly," assented Miss Marston, uncomfortably. + +"And who will put up the tin: for you don't suppose that I am low +enough to live off you?" + +"No," replied the woman, quietly. "I shouldn't allow that, though I was +not quite sure you would be unwilling. But you can borrow two or three +hundred dollars from your brother, and by the time that's gone you +ought to be earning something. You could join a class; the house isn't +far from those studios." + +Clayton impulsively seized her arms and looked into her face. She was +startled and almost frightened. + +"I believe," he began, but the words faded away. + +"No, don't say it. You believe that I am in love with you, and do this +to keep you near me. Don't be quite such a brute, for you _are_ a +brute, a grasping, egotistical, intolerant brute." She smiled slightly. +"But don't think that I am such a fool as not to know how impossible +_that_ is." + +Clayton still held her in astonishment. "I think I was going to say +that I was in love with you." + +"Oh, no," she laughed, sadly. "I am coffee and milk and bread and +butter, the 'stuff that dreams are made on.' You want some noble young +woman--a goddess, to make you over, to make you human. I only save you +from the poor-house." + + + +IV + +There followed a bitter two years for this strange couple. Clayton +borrowed a thousand dollars--a more convenient number to remember, he +said, than three hundred dollars--and induced a prominent artist "who +happens to know something," to take him into his crowded classes for a +year. He began with true grit to learn again what he had forgotten and +some things that he had never known. At the end of the year he felt +that he could go alone, and the artist agreed, adding, nonchalantly: +"You may get there; God knows; but you need loads of work." + +Domestically, the life was monotonous. Clayton had abandoned his old +habits, finding it difficult to harmonize his present existence with +his clubs and his fashionable friends. Besides, he hoarded every cent +and, with Miss Marston's aid, wrung the utmost of existence out of the +few dollars he had left. Miss Marston's modest house was patronized by +elderly single ladies. It was situated on one of those uninteresting +East Side streets where you can walk a mile without remembering an +individual stone. The table, in food and conversation, was monotonous. +In fact, Clayton could not dream of a more inferior _milieu_ for the +birth of the great artist. + +Miss Marston had fitted herself to suit his needs, and in submitting to +this difficult position felt that she was repaying a loan of a new +life. He was so curious, so free, so unusual, so fond of ideas, so +entertaining, even in his grim moods, that he made her stupid life +over. She could enjoy vicariously by feeling his intense interest in +all living things. In return, she learnt the exact time to bring him an +attractive lunch, and just where to place it so that it would catch his +eye without calling out a scowl of impatience. She made herself at home +in his premises, so that all friction was removed from the young +artist's life. He made no acknowledgment of her devotion, but he worked +grimly, doggedly, with a steadiness that he had never before known. +Once, early in the first winter, having to return to Boston on some +slight business, he permitted himself to be entrapped by old friends +and lazed away a fortnight. On his return Miss Marston noticed with a +pang that this outing had done him good; that he seemed to have more +spirit, more vivaciousness, more ideas, and more zest for his work. So, +in a methodical fashion, she thought out harmless dissipations for him. +She induced him to take her to the opera, even allowing him to think +that it was done from pure charity to her. Sunday walks in the +picturesque nooks of New York--they both shunned the Fifth Avenue +promenade for different reasons--church music, interesting novels, all +the "fuel," as Clayton remarked, that she could find she piled into his +furnace. She made herself acquainted with the peculiar literature that +seemed to stimulate his imagination, and sometimes she read him asleep +in the evenings to save his overworked eyes. Her devotion he took +serenely, as a rule. During the second winter, however, after a slight +illness brought on by over-application, he seemed to have a thought +upon his mind that troubled him. One day he impatiently threw down his +palette and put his hands upon her shoulders. + +"Little woman, why do you persist in using up your life on me?" + +"I am gambling," she replied, evasively. + +"What do you expect to get if you win?" + +"A few contemptuous thanks; perhaps free tickets when you exhibit, or a +line in your biography. But seriously, Jack, don't you know women well +enough to understand how they enjoy drudging for someone who is +powerful?" + +"But even if I have any ability, which you can't tell, how do you enjoy +it? You can't appreciate a picture." + +She smiled. "Don't bother yourself about me. I get my fun, as you say, +because you make me feel things I shouldn't otherwise. I suppose that's +the only pay you artists ever give those who slave for you?" + +Such talks were rare. They experienced that physical and mental unity +in duality which comes to people who live and think and work together +for a common aim. They had not separated a day since that first visit +to Boston. The summer had been spent at a cheap boarding-house on Cape +Ann, in order that Clayton might sketch in company with the artist who +had been teaching him. Neither thought of conventionality; it was too +late for that. + +As the second year came to an end, the pressure of poverty began to be +felt. Clayton refused to make any efforts to sell his pictures. He eked +out his capital and went on. The end of his thousand came; he took to +feeding himself in his rooms. He sold his clothes, his watch, his +books, and at last the truck he had accumulated abroad. "More fuel for +the fire," he said bitterly. + +"I will lend you something," remarked Miss Marston. + +"No, thanks," he said, shortly, and then added, with characteristic +brutality, "my body is worth a hundred. Stevens will give that for it, +which would cover the room-rent. And my brother will have to whistle +for his cash or take it out in paint and canvas." + +She said nothing, for she had a scheme in reserve. She was content +meantime to see him pinched; it brought out the firmer qualities in the +man. Her own resources, moreover, were small, for the character of her +boarders had fallen. Unpleasant rumors had deprived her of the +unexceptionable set of middle-aged ladies with whom she had started, +but she had pursued her course unaltered. The reproach of her +relatives, who considered her disgraced, had been a sweet solace to her +pride. + +The rough struggle had told on them both. He had forgotten his delicate +habits, his nicety of dress. A cheap suit once in six months was all +that he could afford. His mind had become stolidly fixed, so that he +did not notice the gradual change. It was a grim fight! The elements +were relentless; day by day the pounding was harder, and the end of his +resistance seemed nearer. Although he was deeply discontented with his +work, he did not dare to think of ultimate failure, for it unnerved him +for several days. Miss Marston's quiet assumption, however, that it was +only a question of months, irritated him. + +"God must have put the idea into your head that I am a genius," he +would mutter fiercely at her. "I never did, nor work of mine. You don't +know good from bad, anyway, and we may both be crazy." He buried his +face in his hands, overcome by the awfulness of failure. She put her +arms about his head. + +"Well, we can stand it a little longer, and then----" + +"And then?" he asked, grimly. + +"Then," she looked at him significantly. They both understood. "Lieber +Gott," he murmured, "thou hast a soul." And he kissed her gently, as in +momentary love. She did not resist, but both were indifferent to +passion, so much their end absorbed them. + +At last she insisted upon trying to sell some marines at the art +stores. She brought him back twenty-five dollars, and he did not +suspect that she was the patron. He looked at the money wistfully. + +"I thought we should have a spree on the first money I earned. But it's +all fuel now." + +Her eyes filled with tears at this sign of humanity. "Next time, +perhaps." + +"So you think that's the beginning of a fortune. I have failed--failed +if you get ten thousand dollars for every canvas in this shop. You will +never know why. Perhaps I don't myself." And then he went to work. Some +weeks later he came to her again. This time she tried to enlist the +sympathy of the one successful artist Clayton knew, and through his +influence she succeeded in selling a number of pictures and placed +others upon sale. She was so happy, so sure that the prophetic instinct +in her soul was justified, that she told Clayton of her previous fraud. +He listened carefully; his face twitched, as if his mind were adjusting +itself to new ideas. First he took twenty-five dollars from the money +she had just brought him and handed it to her. Then putting his arms +about her, he looked inquisitively down into her face, only a bit more +tenderly than he squinted at his canvases. + +"Jane!" She allowed him to kiss her once or twice, and then she pushed +him away, making a pathetic bow. + +"Thanks for your sense of gratitude. You're becoming more civilized. +Only I wish it had been something more than money you had been thankful +for. Is money the only sacrifice you understand?" + +"You can take your dues in taunts if you like. I never pretended to be +anything but a huge, and possibly productive polypus. I am honest +enough, anyway, not to fool with lovers' wash. You ought to know how I +feel toward you--you're the best woman I ever knew." + +"Kindest to you, you mean? No, Jack," she continued, tenderly; "you can +have me, body and soul. I am yours fast enough now, what there is left +of me. I have given you my reputation, and that sort of thing long +ago--no, you needn't protest. I know you despise people who talk like +that, and I don't reproach you. But don't deceive yourself. You feel a +little moved just now. If I had any charms, like a pretty model, you +might acquire some kind of attachment for me, but love--you never +dreamed of it. And," she continued, after a moment, "I begin to think, +after watching you these two years, never will. So I am safe in saying +that I am yours to do with what you will. I am fuel. Only, oh, Jack, if +you break my heart, your last fuel will be gone. You can't do without +me!" + +It seemed very absurd to talk about breaking hearts--a tired, silent +man; a woman unlovely from sordid surroundings, from age, and from +care. Clayton pulled back the heavy curtain to admit the morning light, +for they had talked for hours before coming to the money question. The +terrible, passionate glare of a summer sun in the city burst in from +the neighboring housetops. + +"Why don't you curse _Him_?" muttered Clayton. + +"Why?" + +"Because He gave you a heart to love, and made you lonely, and then +wasted your love!" + +"Jack, the worst hasn't come. It's not all wasted." + + + +V + +Clayton gradually became conscious of a new feeling about his work. He +was master of his tools, for one thing, and he derived exquisite +pleasure from the exercise of execution. The surety of his touch, the +knowledge of the exact effect he was after, made his working hours an +absorbing pleasure rather than an exasperating penance. And through his +secluded life, with its singleness of purpose, its absence of the +social ambitions of his youth, and the complexity of life in the world, +the restlessness and agitation of his earlier devotion to his art +disappeared. He was content to forget the expression of himself--that +youthful longing--in contemplating and enjoying the created matter. In +other words, the art of creation was attended with less friction. He +worked unconsciously, and he did not, hen-like, call the attention of +the entire barnyard to each new-laid egg. He felt also that human, +comfortable weariness after labor when self sinks out of sight in the +universal wants of mankind--food and sleep. Perhaps the fact that he +could now earn enough to relieve him from actual want, that to some +extent he had wrestled with the world and wrung from it the conditions +of subsistence, relieved the strain under which he had been laboring. +He sold his pictures rarely, however, and only when absolutely +compelled to get money. Miss Marston could not comprehend his feeling +about the inadequacy of his work, and he gave up attempting to make her +understand where he failed. + +The bond between them had become closer. This one woman filled many +human relationships for him--mother, sister, friend, lover, and wife in +one. The boarding-house had come to be an affair of transients and +young clerks, so that all her time that could be spared from the +drudgery of housekeeping was spent in the studio. Slowly he became +amenable to her ever-present devotion, and even, in his way, thoughtful +for her. And she was almost happy. + +The end came in this way. One day Clayton was discovered on the street +by an intimate college friend. They had run upon each other abruptly, +and Clayton, finding that escape was decently impossible, submitted +without much urging to be taken to one of his old clubs for a quiet +luncheon. As a result he did not return that night, but sent a note to +Miss Marston saying that he had gone to Lenox with a college chum. That +note chilled her heart. She felt that this was the beginning of the +end, and the following week she spent in loneliness in the little +studio, sleeping upon the neglected lounge. And yet she divined that +the movement and stimulus of this vacation was what Clayton needed +most. She feared he was becoming stale, and she knew that in a week, or +a fortnight, or perhaps a month, he would return and plunge again into +his work. + +He came back. He hardly spoke to her; he seemed absorbed in the +conception of a new work. And when she brought him his usual luncheon +she found the door locked, the first time in many months. She sat down +on the stairs and waited--how long she did not know--waited, staring +down the dreary hall and at the faded carpet and at herself, faded to +suit the surroundings. At length she knocked, and Clayton came, only to +take her lunch and say absently that he was much absorbed by a new +picture and should not be disturbed. Would she bring his meals? He +seemed to refuse tacitly an entrance to the studio. So a week passed, +and then one day Clayton disappeared again, saying that he was going +into the country for another rest. He went out as he had come in, +absorbed in some dream or plan of great work. Pride kept her from +entering his rooms during that week. + +One day, however, he came back as before and plunged again into his +work. This time she found the door ajar and entered noiselessly, as she +had learned to move. He was hard at work; she admired his swift +movements that seemed premeditated, the ease with which the picture +before him was rowing. Surely he had a man's power, now, to execute +what his spirit conceived! And the mechanical effort gave him evidently +great pleasure. His complete absorption indicated the most intense +though unconscious pleasure. + +The picture stunned her. She knew that she was totally ignorant of art, +but she knew that the picture before her was the greatest thing Clayton +had accomplished. It seemed to breathe power. And she saw without +surprise that the subject was a young woman. Clayton's form hid the +face, but she could see the outline of a woman beside a dory, on a +beach, in the early morning. So it had come. + +When she was very close to Clayton, he felt her presence, and they both +stood still, looking at the picture. It was almost finished--all was +planned. Miss Marston saw only the woman. She was youthful, just +between girlhood and womanhood--unconscious, strong, and active as the +first; with the troubled mystery of the second. The artist had divined +an exquisite moment in life, and into the immature figure, the face of +perfect repose, the supple limbs, he had thrown the tender mystery that +met the morning light. It was the new birth--that ancient, solemn, +joyous beginning of things in woman and in day. + +Clayton approached his picture as if lovingly to hide it. "Isn't it +immense?" he murmured. "It's come at last. I don't daub any more, but I +can see, I can paint! God, it's worth the hell I have been through--" + +He paused, for he felt that his companion had left him. + +"Jane," he said, curiously examining her face. "Jane, what's the +matter?" + +"Don't you know?" she replied, looking steadily at him. He looked first +at her and then at the picture, and then back again. Suddenly the facts +in the case seemed to get hold of him. "Jane," he cried, impetuously, +"it's all yours--you gave me the power, and made me human, too--or a +little more so than I was. But I am killing you by living in this +fashion. Why don't you end it?" + +She smiled feebly at his earnestness. "There is only one end," she +whispered, and pointed to his picture. Clayton comprehended, and +seizing a paint-rag would have ruined it, but the woman caught his hand. + +"Don't let us be melodramatic. Would you ruin what we have been living +for all these years? Don't be silly--you would always regret it." + +"It's your life against a little fame." + +"No, against your life." They stood, nervelessly eying the picture. + +"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried, at last, "why did God make men like you? +You take it all, everything that life gives, sunshine and love and hope +and opportunity. Your roots seem to suck out what you want from the +whole earth, and you leave the soil exhausted. My time has gone; I know +it, I know it, and I knew it would go. Now some other life will be +sacrificed. For you'll break her heart whether she's alive now or +you're dreaming of someone to come. You'll treat her as you have +everything. It isn't any fault--you don't understand." The words ended +with a moan. Clayton sat doggedly looking at his picture. But his heart +refused to be sad. + +LITTLE CRANBERRY, ME., + +August, 1893. + + + +MARE MARTO + +I + +The narrow slant of water that could be seen between the posts of the +felza was rippling with little steely waves. The line of the heavy beak +cut the opening between the tapering point of the Lido and the misty +outline of Tre Porti. Inside the white lighthouse tower a burnished +man-of-war lay at anchor, a sluggish mass like a marble wharf placed +squarely in the water. From the lee came a slight swell of a +harbor-boat puffing its devious course to the Lido landing. The +sea-breeze had touched the locust groves of San Niccolò da Lido, and +caught up the fragrance of the June blossoms, filling the air with the +soft scent of a feminine city. + +When the scrap of the island Sant' Elena came enough into the angle to +detach itself from the green mass of the Giardino Pubblico, the prow +swung softly about, flapping the little waves, and pointed in shore +where a bridge crossed an inlet into the locust trees. + +"You can see the Italian Alps," Miss Barton remarked, pulling aside the +felza curtains and pointing lazily to the snow masses on the blue north +horizon. "That purplish other sea is the Trevisan plain, and back of it +is Castelfranco--Giorgione's Castelfranco--and higher up where the blue +begins to break into the first steps of the Alps is perched +Asolo--Browning's Asolo. Oh! It is so sweet! a little hill town! And +beyond are Bassano and Belluno, and somewhere in the mist before you +get to those snow-heads is Pieve da Cadore." Her voice dropped +caressingly over the last vowels. The mere, procession of names was a +lyric sent across sea to the main. + +"They came over them, then, the curious ones," the younger man of the +two who lounged on cushions underneath the felza remarked, as if to +prolong the theme. "To the gates of Paradise," he continued, while his +companion motioned to the gondolier. "And they broke them open, but +they could never take the swag after all." + +He laughed at her puzzled look. He seemed to mock her, and his face +became young in spite of the bald-looking temples and forehead, and the +copperish skin that indicated years of artificial heat. + +"They got some things," the older man put in, "and they have been +living off 'em ever since." + +"But they never got _it_," persisted his companion, argumentatively. +"Perhaps they were afraid." + +The gondola was gliding under the stone bridge, skilfully following the +line of the key-stones in the arch. It passed out into a black pool at +the feet of the Church of San Niccolò. The marble bishop propped up +over the pediment of the door lay silently above the pool. The grove of +blossoming locusts dropped white-laden branches over a decaying barca +chained to the shore. + +"What is _'it'_?" the girl asked, slowly turning her face from the +northern mountains. She seemed to carry a suggestion of abundance, of +opulence; of beauty made of emphasis. "You," the young man laughed +back, enigmatically. + +"They came again and again, and they longed for you, and would have +carried you away by force. But their greedy arms snatched only a few +jewels, a dress or two, and _you_ they left." + +The girl caught at a cluster of locust blossoms that floated near. + +"It is an allegory." + +"I'll leave Niel to untie his riddles." Their companion lit his pipe +and strode ashore. "I am off for an hour with the Adriatic. Don't +bother about me if you get tired of waiting." + +He disappeared in the direction of the Lido bathing stablimento. The +two gathered up cushions and rugs, and wandered into the grove. The +shade was dark and cool. Beyond were the empty acres of a great fort +grown up in a tangle of long grass like an abandoned pasture. Across +the pool they could see the mitred bishop sleeping aloft in the sun, +and near him the lesser folk in their graves beside the convent wall. + +"No, I am not all that," Miss Barton said, thoughtfully, her face +bending, as if some rich, half-open rose were pondering. + +"_He_ says that I am a fragment, a bit of detritus that has been washed +around the world--" + +"And finally lodged and crystallized in Italy." + +This mystified her again, as if she were compelled to use a medium of +expression that was unfamiliar. + +"Papa was consul-general, you know, first at Madrid, then in the East, +and lastly merely a consul at Milan." She fell back in relief upon a +statement of fact. + +"Yes, I know." + +"And mamma--she was from the South but he married her in Paris. They +called me the polyglot bébé at the convent." She confided this as +lazily interesting, like the clouds, or the locusts, or the faint +chatter of the Adriatic waves around the breakwater of the Lido. + +"Nevertheless you are Venice, you are Italy, you are Pagan"--the young +man iterated almost solemnly, as if a Puritan ancestry demanded this +reproach. Then he rolled his body half over and straightened himself to +look at her rigidly. "How did you come about? How could Council Bluffs +make it?" His voice showed amusement at its own intensity. She shook +her head. + +"I don't know," she said, softly. + +"It doesn't seem real. They tell me so, just as they say that the +marble over there comes from that blue mountain. But why bother about +it? I am here----" + +They drifted on in personal chat until the sunlight came in parallel +lines between the leaves. + +"Where is Caspar?" he said at last, reluctantly. "It's too late to get +back to the Britannia for dinner." He jumped up as if conscious of a +fault. + +"Oh, we'll dine here. Caspar has found some one at the stablimento and +has gone off. Ask Bastian--there must be some place where we can get +enough to eat." + +Lawrence hesitated as if not quite sure of the outcome of such +unpremeditation. But Miss Barton questioned the gondolier. "The Buon +Pesche--that will be lovely; Bastian will paddle over and order the +supper. We can walk around." + +So Lawrence, as if yielding against his judgment, knelt down and picked +up her wrap. "Bastian will take care of the rest," she said, gleefully, +walking on ahead through the long grass of the abandoned fort. "Be a +bit of detritus, too, and enjoy the few half-hours," she added, +coaxingly, over her shoulder. + +When they were seated at the table under the laurel-trees before the +Buon Pesche, Lawrence threw himself into the situation, with all the +robustness of a moral resolve to do the delightful and sinful thing. +Just why it should be sinful to dine there out-doors in an evening +light of luminous gold, with the scent of locusts eddying about, and +the mirage-like show of Venice sleeping softly over beyond--was not +quite clear. Perhaps because his companion seemed so careless and +unfamiliar with the monitions of strenuous living; perhaps because her +face was brilliant and naïve--some spontaneous thing of nature, +unmarked by any lines of consciousness. + +Under a neighboring tree a couple were already eating, or quarrelling +in staccato phrases. Lawrence thought that the man was an artist. + +Miss Barton smiled at his seriousness, crossing her hands placidly on +the table and leaning forward. To her companion she gleamed, as if a +wood-thing, a hamadryad, had slipped out from the laurel-tree and come +to dine with him in the dusk. + +The woman of the inn brought a flask of thin yellow wine and placed it +between them. Lawrence mutely decanted it into the glasses. + +"Well?" she said, questioningly. + +Her companion turned his head away to the solemn, imperial mountains, +that were preparing with purple and gold for a night's oblivion. + +"You are thinking of Nassau Street, New York, of the rooms divided by +glass partitions, and typewriters and the bundles of documents--bah! +Chained!" She sipped scornfully a drop or two from the glass. + +The man flushed. + +"No, not that exactly. I am thinking of the police courts, of the +squalor, of taking a deposition in a cell with the filthy breathing all +about. The daily jostle." He threw his head back. + +"Don't try it again," she whispered. + +"I am only over for six weeks, you know, health--" + +"Yes? and there is a girl in Lowell,"--she read his mind impudently. + +"Was," he emended, with an uneasy blush. + +"Poor, starved one! Here is our fish and spaghetti. To-night is a night +of feast." + +The dusk grew grayer, more powderish; the mountains faded away, and the +long Lido banks disappeared into lines pointed by the lights of +Torcello and Murano. Sant' Elena became sea, and the evening wind from +the Adriatic started in toward the city. A few sailors who had come for +a glass were sitting under the arbor of the Buon Pesche smoking, with +an occasional stinging word dropped nonchalantly into the dusk. Their +hostess was working in the garden patch behind the house. At last the +artist moved off with his companion through the grove of laurel between +the great well-heads. Bastian loitered suggestively near. + +So they gathered their thoughts and followed the gondolier to the bank. +Miss Barton lingered by one of the well-heads to peer at the pitchy +bottom. + +"Here they came for fresh water, the last gift of Venice before they +took sail. And sometimes a man never went farther--it was a safe kind +of a grave." She laughed unconcernedly. + +"Perhaps you came out of the locusts and took a hand in pitching the +bodies in." + +The woman shivered. + +"No! no! I only brought them here." + +Bastian turned the prow into the current, heading to weather Sant' +Elena. Lawrence took an oar silently. He liked the rush on the forward +stroke, the lingering recovery. The evening puffs were cool. They slid +on past a ghostly full-rigged ship from the north, abandoned at the +point of Sant' Elena, until the black mass of trees in the Giardino +Pubblico loomed up. A little off the other quarter the lights from the +island of San Lazzaro gleamed and faded. It was so very silent on the +waste of waters! + +"Come." + +Lawrence looked back at his companion; she was holding her hat idly, +huddled limply on the cushions. + +"Come," she said again, adding mockingly---- + +"If you are so ferocious, we shall get there too soon." + +Lawrence gave up his oar and lay down at her feet. Bastian's sweep +dipped daintily in and out; the good current was doing his work. They +drifted silently on near Venice. The halo of light above the squares +grew brighter. San Giorgio Maggiore appeared suddenly off the quarter. + +Miss Barton signed to the gondolier to wait. They were outside the city +wash; the notes of the band in San Marco came at intervals; the water +slipped noiselessly around the channels, and fire-fly lights from the +gondolas twinkled on the Grand Canal. San Giorgio was asleep. + +Miss Barton's head was leaning forward, her eyes brooding over the +black outlines, her ears sensuously absorbing the gurgle of the +currents. A big market boat from Palestrina winged past them, sliding +over the oily water. Several silent figures were standing in the stern. + +Lawrence looked up; her eyes seemed lit with little candles placed +behind. Her face gleamed, and one arm slipped from her wrap to the +cushion by his side. + +"Bella Venezia," he murmured. + +She smiled, enveloping him, mastering him, taking him as a child with +her ample powers. + +"You will never go back to 'that'!" + +Her arm by his side filled out the thought. + +"Never," he heard himself say as on a stage, and the dusky lights from +that radiant face seemed very near. + +"Because----" + +"Because I am----" + +"Sh," she laid her fingers lightly on his forehead. "There is no thine +and mine." + +Bastian dipped his sweep once more. San Giorgio's austere façade went +out into the black night. One cold ripple of Adriatic wind stirred the +felza curtains. + + + +II + +The garden on the Giudecca was a long narrow strip on the seaward side, +blossoming profusely with flowers. A low vine-covered villino slanted +along the canal; beyond, there was a cow-house where a boy was feeding +some glossy cows. The garden was full of the morning sun. + +Lawrence could see her from the open door, a white figure, loitering in +a bed of purple tulips. Her dark hair was loosely knotted up; stray +wisps fell about her ears. + +Lawrence closed the door that opened from the canal and walked softly +through the plats of lilies and tulips. Miss Barton glanced up. + +"Ecco! il cavaliere!" + +"Didn't you expect me!" he asked, clumsily, revealing one potent reason +for his appearance. + +She smiled for an answer. + +"Last night," he began again, explanatorily. Her eyes followed his lips +and interrupted him. + +"What do you think of our place?" She had turned away as if to direct +his speech into indifferent channels. + +He looked about bewildered. + +"I can't think anything; I _feel_ it; it's one mass of sense." + +"Exactly. We found it, papa and I, one day two years ago when we were +paddling around the Giudecca. One is so much at home here. At night you +can see the lights along the Lido, and all the campaniles over there in +Venice. Then the Redentore sweeps up so grandly--" + +Lawrence slapped a bending tulip. + +"Yes, the world lies far away." + +"And you are afraid to lose sight of it," she turned on him swiftly. +And she added, before he could find defence, "You have come to redeem +your words, to tell me that you love me desperately; that you want to +make an engagement; and some day marry me and go over there to live?" + +She laughed. + +"Well?" + +"Caspar would do that." + +"And Severance has something to offer," Lawrence remarked, bluntly. + +"Half a million." + +She began to walk slowly across the little grass-plot over to the Lido +side. Here the oily swell was gurgling in the stone embankment. + +She was like a plant flowering in the garden--a plant, part lily, part +hyacinth. + +"And you do not want me," she began, softly, less to him than to +herself. "I don't fit in. You cannot take me up and put me aside, at +your will. You would be _mine_." + +"Good!" + +"It should have been different. We should never have met. They should +have made you a saint, or a priest, or a pastor for the bleeding world. +You are a trifle late; half a century ago, you could have given your +soul to God, quite easily, and not bothered about one woman." + +"Yes, I agree, but that was settled by the way the world has ground," +the young man sighed. "Why should it bother you, my fooling with the +forlorn and wretched--the others? Any more than I mind your dealings +with men?" + +They turned about and crossed the dozen paces to the Redentore wall +where lay a blade of dark shade. + +"You could flirt with the multitude? Yes, I should object," she looked +at him slowly, "I couldn't understand it." + +He threw his head back as if to look beyond Venice. + +"The maimed in body and spirit," he muttered. + +"They call you; I call you; you----" + +"I was starved," he pleaded, "I love flesh and glory, too." + +She laughed unconcernedly. + +"Oh, no. I think not. You are trying to very hard. You think you are +enjoying your wine and your figs and the sun; but you say a prayer." + +Her words taunted him. The vines on the villino swayed in the sun. + +"Come, we will go out to the water, and I will master your doubt." + +They stood silent, looking at each other, half curiously. At length she +uttered what was common to their minds. + +"Marry the world; it woos you. Love me and leave me; love another and +leave her. The world, that is your mistress." + +"And the world incarnate, that is you. The world, breathing, living, +loving, the world a passion of delight." + +Their hands touched for a moment. Then she said, hastily: + +"Too late! There is Caspar. I forgot we were to go to Burano. Will you +join us?" + +A figure in white ducks was coming toward them. His cordial smile +seemed to include a comment--a mental note of some hint he must give. +"In stalks the world of time and place," the young man muttered. "No, I +will not go with you." + +He helped her into the waiting gondola. She settled back upon the +cushions, stretched one languid arm in farewell. He could feel the +smile with which she swept Caspar Severance, the women at work in the +rio over their kettles, the sun-bright stretch of waters--all +impartially. + +He lay down in the shade of the Redentore wall. Eight weeks ago there +had been a dizzy hour, a fainting scene in a crowded court-room, a +consultation with a doctor, the conventional prescription, a fortnight +of movement--then _this_. He had cursed that combination of nerve and +tissue; equally he cursed this. One word to his gondolier and in two +hours he could be on the train for Milan, Paris, London--then +indefinite years of turning about in the crowd, of jostling and being +jostled. But he lay still while the sun crept over him. + +She was so unreal, once apart from her presence, like an evanescent +mirage on the horizon of the mind. He told himself that he had seen +her, heard her voice; that her eyes had been close to his, that she had +touched him; that there had been moments when she stood with the +flowers of the garden. + +He shook the drowsy sun from his limbs and went away, closing the door +softly on the empty garden. Venice, too, was a shadow made between +water and sun. The boat slipped in across the Zattere, in and out of +cool water alleys, under church windows and palings of furtive gardens, +until he came to the plashings of the waves on the marble steps along +the Grand Canal. Empty! that, too, was empty from side to side between +cool palace façades, the length of its expressive curve. From silence +and emptiness into silence the gondola pushed. Someone to incarnate +this empty, vacuous world! Memory troubled itself with a face, and +eyes, and hair, and a voice that mocked the little goings up and down +of men. + + + +III + +In the afternoon Lawrence and Severance were dawdling over coffee in +the Piazza. A strident band sent up voluminous notes that boomed back +and forth between the palace and the stone arches of the procurate. + +"And Burano?" Lawrence suggested, idly. The older man nodded. + +"We lunched there--convent--Miss Barton bought lace." + +He broke the pause by adding, negligently: + +"I think I shall marry her." + +Lawrence smoked; he could see the blue water about San Giorgio. + +"Marry her," he repeated, vaguely. "You are engaged?" + +Severance nodded. + +The young man reached out a bony hand. One had but to wait to still the +problems of life. They strolled across the piazza. + +"When do you leave?" Severance inquired. + +"To-night," almost slipped from the young man's lips. He was murmuring +to himself. "I have played with Venice and lost. I must return to my +busy village." + +"I can't tell," he said. + +Severance daintily stepped into a gondola. "La Giudecca." + +Lawrence turned into the swarming alleys leading to the Rialto. + +Streams of Venetians were eddying about the cul-de-sacs and enclosed +squares, hurrying over the bridges of the canals, turning in and out of +the calles, or coming to rest at the church doors. Lawrence drifted +tranquilly on. He had slipped a cable; he was free and ready for the +open sea. Following at random any turning that offered, he came out +suddenly upon Verocchio's black horseman against the black sky. The San +Zanipolo square was deserted; the cavernous San Zanipolo tenanted by +tombs. Stone figures, seated, a-horse, lying carved in death, started +out from the silent walls. + +"Condottieri," the man muttered, "great robbers who saw and took! +Briseghella, Mocenigo, Leonardo Loredan, Vittore Capello." He rolled +the powerful names under his breath. "They are right--Take, enjoy; then +die." And he saw a hill sleeping sweetly in the mountains, where the +sun rested on its going down, and a villino with two old trees where +the court seemed ever silent. In the stealthy, passing hours she came +and sat in the sun, and _was_. And the two remembered, looking on the +valley road, that somewhere lay in the past a procession of storms and +mornings and nights which was called the world, and a procession of +people which was called life. But she looked at him and smiled. + +Outside in the square the transparent dusk of Venice settled down. In +the broad canal of the Misericordia a faint plash and drip from a +passing gondola; then, in a moment, as the boat rounded into the rio, a +resounding "Stai"; again silence and the robber in bronze. + + + +IV + +He waited for a sign from the Giudecca. He told himself that Theodosia +Barton was not done with him yet, nor he with her. + +The tourist-stream, turning northward from Rome and Florence, met in +Venice a new stream of Germans. The paved passage beside the hotel +garden was alive with a cosmopolitan picnic party. Lawrence lingered +and watched; perhaps when the current set strongly to the north again, +it would carry him along with it. + +He had not seen Caspar Severance. Each day of delay made it more +awkward to meet him, made the confession of disappointment more +obvious, he reflected. Each day it was easier to put out to the lagoons +for a still dream, and return when the Adriatic breeze was winding into +the heated calles. Over there, in the heavy-scented garden on the +Giudecca, lined against a purplish sea, she was resting; she had given +free warning for him to go, but she was there----. + +"She holds me here in the Mare Morto, where the sea-weeds wind about +and bind." + +And he believed that he should meet her somewhere in the dead lagoon, +out yonder around the city, in the enveloping gloom of the waters which +held the pearl of Venice. + +So each afternoon his gondola crept out from the Fondamenta del Zattere +into the ruffling waters of the Giudecca canal, and edged around the +deserted Campo di Marte. There the gondolier labored in the viscous +sea-grass. + +One day, from far behind, came the plash of an oar in the channel. As +the narrow hull swept past, he saw a hand gather in the felza curtains, +and a woman kneel to his side. + +"So Bastian takes you always to the dead sea," she tossed aboard. + +"Bastian might convoy other forestieri," Lawrence defended. + +"Really? here to the laguna morta?" and as his gondola slid into the +channel, she added: + +"I knew you were in Venice; you could not go without--another time." + +"What would that bring?" he questioned her with his eyes. + +"How should I know?" she answered, evasively. "Come with me out to the +San Giorgio in Alga. It is the loneliest place in Venice!" + +Lawrence sat at her feet. The gondola moved on between the sea-weed +banks. Away off by Chioggia, filmy gray clouds grew over the horizon. + +"Rain." + +She shook her head. "For the others, landward. Those opalescent clouds +streaking the sky are merely the undertone of Venice; they are always +_here_." + +"The note of sadness," he suggested. + +"You thought to have ended with _me_." + +She rested her head on her hands and looked at him. He preferred to +have her mention Caspar Severance. + +"Whenever I was beyond your eyes, you were not quite sure. You went +back to your hotel and wondered. The wine was over strong for your +temperate nerves, and there was so much to do elsewhere!" she mocked +him. + +"After all, I was a fragment. And you judged in your wise new-world +fashion that fragments were--useless." + +Just ahead was a tiny patch of earth, rimmed close to the edge by +ruined walls. The current running landward drew them about the corner, +under the madonna's hand, and the gondola came to rest beside the +lichens and lizards of a crumbling wharf. + +"No," she continued, "I shall not let you go so easily." One hand fell +beside his arm, figuratively indicating her thought. + +"And I shall carry you off," he responded, slowly. "It lies between +you--and all, everything." + +The gondolier had gone ashore. Silence had swallowed him up. + +"All, myself and the others; effort, variety--for the man who loves +_you_, there is but one act in life." + +"Splendid!" Her lips parted as if savoring his words. + +His voice went on, low, strained to plunge his words into her heart. + +"You are the woman, the curious thing that God made to stir life. You +would draw all activities to you, and through you nothing may pass. +Like the dead sea of grass you encompass the end of desire. You have +been with me from my manhood, the fata morgana that laughed at my love +of other creatures. I must meet you, I knew, face to face!" + +His lips closed. + +"Go on!" + +"I have met you," he added, sullenly, "and should I turn away, I should +not forget you. You will go with me, and I shall hunger for you and +hate you, and you will make it over, my life, to fill the hollow of +your hand." + +"To fill the hollow of my hand," she repeated softly, as if not +understanding. + +"You will mould it and pat it and caress it, until it fits. You will +never reason about it, nor doubt, nor talk; the tide flows underneath +into the laguna morta, and never wholly flows out. God has painted in +man's mind the possible; and he has painted the delusions, the +impossible--and that is woman?" + +"Impossible," she murmured. "Oh, no, not that!" + +Her eyes compelled him; her hand dropped to his hand. Venice sank into +a gray blot in the lagoon. The water was waveless like a deep night. + +"Possible for a moment," he added, dreamily, "possible as the unsung +lyric. Possible as the light of worlds behind the sun and moon. +Possible as the mysteries of God that the angels whisper----" + +"The only possible," again her eyes flamed; the dark hair gleamed black +above the white face. + +"And that is enough for us forever!" + + + +V + +The heavy door of the Casa Lesca swung in, admitting Lawrence to a damp +stone-flagged room. At the farther end it opened on a little cortile, +where gnarled rose-bushes were in bloom. A broken Venus, presiding over +a dusty fountain, made the centre of the cortile, and there a strapping +girl from the campagna was busy trimming the stalks of a bunch of +roses. The signorina had not arrived; Lawrence lounged against the +gunwale of a gondola, which lay on one side of the court. + +A pretentious iron gate led from the cortile to the farm, where the +running vines stretched from olive-stump to trellis, weaving a mat of +undulating green. It was so quiet, here in the rear of the palace, that +one could almost hear the hum of the air swimming over the broad vine +leaves. + +Lawrence, at first alert, then drowsy, reclined in the shade, and +watched the girl. From time to time she threw him a soft word of +Venetian. Then, gathering her roses, she shook them in his face and +tripped up the stairs to the palace above. + +He had made the appointment without intention, but he came to fulfil it +in a tumult of energy. + +_She_ must choose and _he_ arrange--for that future which troubled his +mind. But the heated emptiness of the June afternoon soothed his will. +He saw that whatever she bade, that he would do. Still here, while he +was alone, before her presence came to rule, he plotted little things. +When he was left with himself he wondered about it; no, he did not want +her, did not want it! His life was over there, beyond her, and she must +bend to that conception. People, women, anyone, this piece of beauty +and sense, were merely episodic. The sum was made from all, and greater +than all. + +The door groaned, and he turned to meet her, shivering in the damp +passage. She gathered a wrap about her shoulders. + +"Caspar would not go," she explained, appealingly. + +"Which one is to go?" the young man began. She sank down on a bench and +turned her head wearily to the vineyard. Over the swaying tendrils of +the vine, a dark line, a blue slab of salt water, made the horizon. + +"Should I know?" her face said, mutely. + +"He thinks you should," she spoke, calmly. "He has been talking two +hours about you, your future, your brilliant performances----" + +"That detained you!" + +"He is plotting to make you a great man. You belong to the world, he +said, and, the world would have you. They need you to plan and exhort, +I believe." + +"So you come to tell me--" + +"Let us go out to the garden." She laid her hand reprovingly on his +arm. "We can see the pictures later." + +She took his arm and directed him down the arched walk between the +vines, toward the purple sea. + +"I did not realize that--that you were a little Ulysses. He warned me!" + +"Indeed!" + +"That you would love and worship at any wayside shrine; that the spirit +of devotion was not in you." + +"And you believed?" + +She nodded. + +"It seemed so. I have thought so. Once a few feet away and you are +wondering!" + +The young man was guiltily silent. + +"And I am merely a wayside chapel, good for an idle prayer." + +"Make it perpetual." + +Her arm was heavy. + +"Caspar wants you--away. He will try to arrange it. Perhaps you will +yield, and I shall lose." + +"You mean he will make them recall me." + +She said nothing. + +"You can end it now." He stopped and raised her arm. They stood for a +moment, revolving the matter; a gardener came down the path. "You will +get the message tonight," she said, gloomily. "Go! The message will say +'come,' and you will obey." + +Lawrence turned. + +"Shall we see the pictures?" + +The peasant girl admitted them to the hall, and opened, here and there, +a long shutter. The vast hall, in the form of a Latin cross, revealed a +dusky line of frescoes. + +"Veronese," she murmured. Lawrence turned to the open window that +looked across the water to the piazza. Beneath, beside the quay, a +green-painted Greek ship was unloading grain. Some panting, half-naked +men were shovelling the oats. + +"We might go," he said; "Caspar is probably waiting for his report. You +can tell him that he has won." + +Suddenly he felt her very near him. + +"No, not that way!" + +"You are good to--love," she added deliberatively, placing her hands +lightly on his heart. + +"You do not care enough; ah! that is sad, sad. Caspar, or denial, or +God--nothing would stand if you cared, more than you care for the +little people and things. See, I can take you now. I can say you are +mine. I can make you love--as another may again. But love me, now, as +if no other minute could ever follow." + +She sighed the words. + +"Here I am, to be loved. Let us settle nothing. Let us have this minute +for a few kisses." + +The hall filled with dusk. The girl came back again. Suddenly a bell +began ringing. + +"Caspar," she said. "Stay here; I will go." + +"We will go together." + +"No," she waved him back. "You will get the message. Caspar is right. +You are not for any woman for always." + +"Go," he flung out, angrily. + +The great doors of the hall had rattled to, leaving him alone half +will-less. He started and then returned to the balcony over the +fondamenta. In the half-light he could see her stepping into a waiting +gondola, and certain words came floating up clearly as if said to +him---- + +"To-morrow evening, the Contessa Montelli, at nine." But she seemed to +be speaking to her companion. The gondola shot out into the broad canal. + + + +VI + +The long June day, Lawrence sat with the yellow cablegram before his +eyes. The message had come, indeed, and the way had been cleared. +Eleven--the train for Paris! passed; then, two, and now it was dusk +again. + +Had she meant those words for him? So carelessly flung back. That he +would prove. + + * * * * * + +"The signorina awaits you." The man pointed to the garden, and turned +back with his smoking lamp up the broad staircase that clung to one +side of the court. Across the strip of garden lay a bar of moonlight on +the grass. + +She was standing over the open well-head at the farther end where the +grass grew in rank tufts. The gloomy wall of the palace cast a shadow +that reached to the well. Just as he entered, a church-clock across the +rio struck the hour on a cracked bell. + +"My friend has gone in--she is afraid of the night air," Miss Barton +explained. "Perhaps she is afraid of ghosts," she added, as the young +man stood silent by her side. "An old doge killed his wife and her +children here, some centuries ago. They say the woman walks. Are you +afraid?" + +"Of only one ghost----" + +"Not yet a ghost!" Indeed, her warm, breathing self threw a spirit of +life into the moonlight and gainsaid his idle words. + +"I have come for you," he said, a little peremptorily. "To do it I have +lost my engagement with life." + +"So the message came. You refused, and now you look for a reward. A man +must be paid!" + +"I tried to keep the other engagement and could not!" + +"I shall make you forget it, as if it were some silly boyish dream." +She began to walk over the moonlit grass. "I was waiting for +that--sacrifice. For if you desire _me_, you must leave the other +engagements, always." + +"I know it." + +"I lie in the laguna morta, and the dead are under me, and the living +are caught in my sea-weed." She laughed. + +"Now, we have several long hours of moonlight. Shall we stay here?" + +The young man shivered. + +"No, the Lady Dogessa might disturb us. Let us go out toward Murano." + +"Are you really--alive and mine, not Severance's?" he threw out, +recklessly. + +She stopped and smiled. + +"First you tell me that I disturb your plans; then you want to know if +I am preoccupied. You would like to have me as an 'extra' in the +subscription." + +As they came out on the flags by the gondola, another boat was pushing +a black prow into the rio from the Misericordia canal. It came up to +the water-steps where the two stood. Caspar Severance stepped out. + +"Caspar!" Miss Barton laughed. + +"They told me you were here for dinner," he explained. He was in +evening clothes, a Roman cloak hanging from his shoulders. He looked, +standing on the steps below the other two, like an impertinent +intrusion. + +"Lawrence! I thought you were on your way home." + +Lawrence shook his head. All three were silent, wondering who would +dare to open the final theme. + +"The Signora Contessa had a headache," Miss Barton began, nonchalantly. + +Severance glanced skeptically at the young American by her side. + +"So you fetched il dottore americano? Well, Giovanni is waiting to +carry us home." + +Miss Barton stepped forward slowly, as if to enter the last gondola +whose prow was nuzzling by the steps. + +Lawrence took her hand and motioned to his gondola. + +"Miss Barton----" + +Severance smiled, placidly. + +"You will miss the midnight train." + +The young man halted a moment, and Miss Barton's arm slipped into his +fingers. + +"Perhaps," he muttered. + +"The night will be cool for you," Severance turned to the woman. She +wavered a moment. + +"You will miss more than the midnight train," Severance added to the +young fellow, in a low voice. + +Lawrence knelt beside his gondola. He glanced up into the face of the +woman above him. "Will you come?" he murmured. She gathered up her +dress and stepped firmly into the boat. Severance, left alone on the +fondamenta, watched the two. Then he turned back to his gondola. The +two boats floated out silently into the Misericordia Canal. + +"To the Cimeterio," Miss Barton said. "To the Canale Grande," Severance +motioned. + +The two men raised their hats. + + * * * * * + +For a few moments the man and the woman sat without words, until the +gondola cleared the Fondamenta Nuova, and they were well out in the sea +of moonlight. Ahead of them lay the stucco walls of the Cimeterio, +glowing softly in the white light. Some dark spots were moving out from +the city mass to their right, heading for the silent island. + +"There goes the conclusion," Lawrence nodded to the funeral boats. + +"But between us and them lies a space of years--life." + +"Who decided?" + +"You looked. It was decided." + +The city detached itself insensibly from them, lying black behind. A +light wind came down from Treviso, touching the white waves. + +"You are thinking that back there, up the Grand Canal, lie fame and +accomplishment. You are thinking that now you have your fata +morgana--nothing else. You are already preparing a grave for her in +your mind!" + +Lawrence took her head in his hands. "Never," he shot out the word. +"Never--you are mine; I have come all these ocean miles to find you. I +have come for an accounting with the vision that troubles man." Her +face drew nearer. + +"I am Venice, you said. I am set in the mare morto. I am built on the +sea-weed. But from me you shall not go. You came over the mountains for +this." + +The man sighed. Some ultimate conception of life seemed to outline +itself on the whitish walls of the Cimeterio--a question of sex. The +man would go questioning visions. The woman was held by one. + +"Caspar Severance will find his way, and will play your game for you," +she went on coaxingly. "But this," her eyes were near him, "_this_ is a +moment of life. You have chosen. There is no mine and thine." + +One by one the campaniles of Venice loomed, dark pillars in the white +sky. And all around toward Mestre and Treviso and Torcello; to San +Pietro di Castello and the grim walls of the arsenal, the mare morto +heaved gently and sighed. + +CHICAGO, January, 1897. + + + +THE PRICE OF ROMANCE + +They were paying the price of their romance, and the question was +whether they would pay it cheerfully. They had been married a couple of +years, and the first flush of excitement over their passion and the +stumbling-blocks it had met was fading away. When he, an untried young +lawyer and delicate dilettante, had married her she was a Miss Benton, +of St. Louis, "niece of Oliphant, that queer old fellow who made his +money in the Tobacco Trust," and hence with no end of prospects. +Edwards had been a pleasant enough fellow, and Oliphant had not +objected to his loafing away a vacation about the old house at Quogue. +Marriage with his niece, the one remaining member of his family who +walked the path that pleased him, was another thing. She had plenty of +warning. Had he not sent his only son adrift as a beggar because he had +married a little country cousin? He could make nothing out of Edwards +except that he was not keen after business--loafed much, smoked much, +and fooled with music, possibly wrote songs at times. + +Yet Miss Benton had not expected that cruel indifference when she +announced her engagement to the keen old man. For she was fond of him +and grateful. + +"When do you think of marrying?" had been his single comment. She +guessed the unexpressed complement to that thought, "You can stay here +until that time. Then good-by." + +She found in herself an admirable spirit, and her love added devotion +and faith in the future, her lover's future. So she tided over the +months of her engagement, when her uncle's displeasure settled down +like a fog over the pleasant house. Edwards would run down frequently, +but Oliphant managed to keep out of his way. It was none of his affair, +and he let them see plainly this aspect of it. Her spirit rose. She +could do as other women did, get on without candy and roses, and it +hurt her to feel that she had expected money from her uncle. She could +show him that they were above that. + +So they were married and went to live in a little flat in Harlem, very +modest, to fit their income. Oliphant had bade her good-by with the +courtesy due to a tiresome Sunday visitor. "Oh, you're off, are you?" +his indifferent tones had said. "Well, good-by; I hope you will have a +good time." And that was all. Even the colored cook had said more; the +servants in general looked deplorable. Wealth goes so well with a +pretty, bright young woman! + +Thus it all rested in the way they would accept the bed they had made. +Success would be ample justification. Their friends watched to see how +well they would solve the problem they had so jauntily set themselves. + +Edwards was by no means a _fainéant_--his record at the Columbia Law +School promised better than that, and he had found a place in a large +office that might answer for the stepping-stone. As yet he had not +individualized himself; he was simply charming, especially in correct +summer costume, luxuriating in indolent conversation. He had the +well-bred, fine-featured air of so many of the graduates from our +Eastern colleges. The suspicion of effeminacy which he suggested might +be unjust, but he certainly had not experienced what Oliphant would +call "life." He had enough interest in music to dissipate in it. +Marriage was an excellent settler, though, on a possible income of +twelve hundred! + +The two years had not the expected aspiring march, however; ten-dollar +cases, even, had not been plenty in Edwards's path, and he suspected +that he was not highly valued in his office. He had been compelled to +tutor a boy the second year, and the hot summers made him listless. In +short, he felt that he had missed his particular round in the ladder. +He should have studied music, or tried for the newspapers as a musical +critic. Sunday afternoons he would loll over the piano, picturing the +other life--that life which is always so alluring! His wife followed +him heroically into all his moods with that pitiful absorption such +women give to the men they love. She believed in him tremendously, if +not as a lawyer, as a man and an artist. Somehow she hadn't been an +inspiration, and for that she humbly blamed herself. How was it +accomplished, this inspiration? A loving wife inspired the ordinary +man. Why not an artist? + +They got into the habit of planning their life all differently--so that +it might not be limited and futile. _If_ they had a few thousand +dollars! That was a bad sign, and she knew it, and struggled against +it. _If_ she could only do something to keep the pot boiling while he +worked at his music for fame and success! But she could reduce +expenses; so the one servant went, and the house-bills grew tinier and +tinier. However, they didn't "make connections," and--something was +wrong--she wondered what. + +As the second summer came in they used to stroll out of their stuffy +street of an evening, up St. Nicholas Avenue, to the Park, or to the +Riverside Drive. There they would sit speechless, she in a faded blue +serge skirt with a crisp, washed-out shirtwaist, and an old sailor +hat--dark and pretty, in spite of her troubled face; he in a ready-made +black serge suit, yet very much the gentleman--pale and listless. Their +eyes would seek out any steamer in the river below, or anything else +that reminded them of other conditions. He would hum a bit from an +opera. They needed no words; their faces were evident, though mute, +indications of the tragedy. Then they would return at bed-time into the +sultry streets, where from the open windows of the flats came the +hammered music of the city. Such discordant efforts for harmony! Her +heart would fill over him, yearning like a mother to cherish him in all +the pleasant ways of life, but impotent, impotent! + +She never suggested greater effort. Conditions were hard, she said over +and over; if there were only a little money to give him a start in +another direction. She admired his pride in never referring to old +Oliphant. Her uncle was often in her mind, but she felt that even if +she could bring herself to petition him, her husband would indignantly +refuse to consider the matter. + +Still, she thought about it, and especially this summer, for she knew +he was then at Quogue. Moreover, she expected her first child. That +worried her daily; she saw how hopeless another complication would make +their fate. She cried over it at night when the room was too hot to +sleep. And then she reproached herself; God would punish her for not +wanting her baby. + +One day she had gone down town to get some materials for the +preparations she must make. She liked to shop, for sometimes she met +old friends; this time in a large shop she happened upon a woman she +had known at Quogue, the efficient wife of a successful minister in +Brooklyn. This Mrs. Leicester invited her to lunch at the cafe at the +top of the building, and she had yielded, after a little urging, with +real relief. They sat down at a table near the window--it was so high +up there was not much noise--and the streets suddenly seemed +interesting to Mrs. Edwards. The quiet table, the pleasant lunch, and +the energetic Mrs. Leicester were all refreshing. + +"And how is your husband?" Mrs. Leicester inquired, keenly. As a +minister's wife she was compelled to interest herself in sentimental +complications that inwardly bored her. It was a part of her +professional duties. She had taken in this situation at once--she had +seen that kind of thing before; it made her impatient. But she liked +the pretty little woman before her, and was sorry she hadn't managed +better. + +"Pretty well," Mrs. Edwards replied, consciously. "The heat drags one +down so!" + +Mrs. Leicester sent another quick glance across the table. "You haven't +been to Quogue much of late, have you? You know how poorly your uncle +is." + +"No! _You_ must know that Uncle James doesn't see us." + +"Well," Mrs. Leicester went on, hastily, "he's been quite ill and +feeble, and they say he's growing queer. He never goes away now, and +sees nobody. Most of the servants have gone. I don't believe he will +last long." + +Then her worldliness struggled with her conventional position, and she +relapsed into innuendo. "He ought to have someone look after him, to +see him die decently, for he can't live beyond the autumn, and the only +person who can get in is that fat, greasy Dr. Shapless, who is after +his money for the Methodist missions. He goes down every week. I wonder +where Mr. Oliphant's son can be?" + +Mrs. Edwards took in every word avidly while she ate. But she let the +conversation drift off to Quogue, their acquaintances, and the +difficulty of shopping in the summer. "Well, I must be going to get the +train," exclaimed Mrs. Leicester at last. With a sigh the young wife +rose, looked regretfully down at the remains of their liberal luncheon, +and then walked silently to the elevator. They didn't mention Oliphant +again, but there was something understood between them. Mrs. Leicester +hailed a cab; just as she gathered her parcels to make a dive, she +seemed illuminated with an idea. "Why don't you come down some +Sunday--visit us? Mr. Leicester would be delighted." + +Mrs. Edwards was taken unawares, but her instincts came to her rescue. + +"Why, we don't go anywhere; it's awfully kind, and I should be +delighted; I am afraid Mr. Edwards can't." + +"Well," sighed Mrs. Leicester, smiling back, unappeased, "come if you +can; come alone." The cab drove off, and the young wife felt her cheeks +burn. + + * * * * * + +The Edwardses had never talked over Oliphant or his money explicitly. +They shrank from it; it would be a confession of defeat. There was +something abhorrently vulgar in thus lowering the pitch of their life. +They had come pretty near it often this last summer. But each feared +what the other might think. Edwards especially was nervous about the +impression it might make on his wife, if he should discuss the matter. +Mrs. Leicester's talk, however, had opened possibilities for the +imagination. So little of Uncle James's money, she mused, would make +them ideally happy--would put her husband on the road to fame. She had +almost made up her mind on a course of action, and she debated the +propriety of undertaking the affair without her husband's knowledge. +She knew that his pride would revolt from her plan. She could pocket +her own pride, but she was tender of his conscience, of his comfort, of +his sensibilities. It would be best to act at once by herself--perhaps +she would fail, anyway--and to shield him from the disagreeable and +useless knowledge and complicity. She couldn't resist throwing out some +feelers, however, at supper that night. He had come in tired and soiled +after a day's tramp collecting bills that wouldn't collect this +droughty season. She had fussed over him and coaxed a smile out, and +now they were at their simple tea. + +She recounted the day's events as indifferently as possible, but her +face trembled as she described the luncheon, the talk, the news of her +uncle, and at last Mrs. Leicester's invitation. Edwards had started at +the first mention of Quogue. + +"It's been in his mind," she thought, half-relieved, and his nervous +movements of assumed indifference made it easier for her to go on. + +"It was kind of her, wasn't it?" she ended. + +"Yes," Edwards replied, impressively. "Of course you declined." + +"Oh, yes; but she seemed to expect us all the same." Edwards frowned, +but he kept an expectant silence. So she remarked, tentatively: + +"It would be so pleasant to see dear old Quogue again." Her hypocrisy +made her flush. Edwards rose abruptly from the table and wandered about +the room. At length he said, in measured tones, his face averted from +her: + +"_Of course_, under the circumstances, we cannot visit Quogue while +your uncle lives--unless he should send for us." Thus he had put +himself plainly on record. His wife suddenly saw the folly and meanness +of her little plans. + +It was hardly a disappointment; her mind felt suddenly relieved from an +unpleasant responsibility. She went to her husband, who was nervously +playing at the piano, and kissed him, almost reverently. It had been a +temptation from which he had saved her. They talked that evening a good +deal, planning what they would do if they could get over to Europe for +a year, calculating how cheaply they could go. It was an old subject. +Sometimes it kept off the blues; sometimes it indicated how blue they +were. Mrs. Edwards forgot the disturbance of the day until she was +lying wide awake in her hot bed. Then the old longings came in once +more; she saw the commonplace present growing each month more dreary; +her husband drudging away, with his hopes sinking. Suddenly he spoke: + +"What made Mrs. Leicester ask us, do you suppose?" So he was thinking +of it again. + +"I don't know!" she replied, vaguely. Soon his voice came again: + +"You understand, Nell, that I distinctly disapprove of our making any +effort _that way_." She didn't think that her husband was a hypocrite. +She did not generalize when she felt deeply. But she knew that her +husband didn't want the responsibility of making any effort. Somehow +she felt that he would be glad if she should make the effort and take +the responsibility on her own shoulders. + +Why had he lugged it into plain light again if he hadn't expected her +to do something? How could she accomplish it without making it +unpleasant for him? Before daylight she had it planned, and she turned +once and kissed her husband, protectingly. + + * * * * * + +That August morning, as she walked up the dusty road, fringed with +blossoming golden-rod, toward the little cottage of the Leicesters, she +was content, in spite of her tumultuous mind. It was all so heavenly +quiet! the thin, drooping elms, with their pendent vines, like the +waterfalls of a maiden lady; the dusty snarls of blackberry bushes; the +midsummer contented repose of the air, and that distantly murmuring +sea--it was all as she remembered it in her childhood. A gap of +disturbed years closed up, and peace once more! The old man slowly +dying up beyond in that deserted, gambrel-roofed house would Forget and +forgive. + +Mrs. Leicester received her effusively, anxious now not to meddle +dangerously in what promised to be a ticklish business. Mrs. Edwards +must stay as long as she would. The Sundays were especially lonely, for +Mr. Leicester did not think she should bear the heat of the city so +soon, and left her alone when he returned to Brooklyn for his Sunday +sermon. Of course, stay as long as Mr. Edwards could spare her--a +month; if possible. + +At the mention of Mr. Edwards the young wife had a twinge of remorse +for the manner in which she had evaded him--her first deceit for his +sake. She had talked vaguely about visiting a friend at Moriches, and +her husband had fallen in with the idea. New York was like a finely +divided furnace, radiating heat from every tube-like street. So she was +to go for a week or ten days. Perhaps the matter would arrange itself +before that time was up; if not, she would write him what she had done. +But ten days seemed so long that she put uncomfortable thoughts out of +her head. + +Mrs. Leicester showed her to her room, a pretty little box, into which +the woodbine peeped and nodded, and where from one window she could get +a glimpse of the green marshes, with the sea beyond. After chatting +awhile, her hostess went out, protesting that her guest must be too +tired to come down. Mrs. Edwards gladly accepted the excuse, ate the +luncheon the maid brought, in two bites, and then prepared to sally +forth. + +She knew the path between the lush meadow-grass so well! Soon she was +at the entrance to the "Oliphant place." It was more run down than two +years ago; the lower rooms were shut up tight in massive green blinds +that reached to the warped boards of the veranda. It looked old, +neglected, sad, and weary; and she felt almost justified in her +mission. She could bring comfort and light to the dying man. + +In a few minutes she was smothering the hysterical enthusiasm of her +old friend, Dinah. It was as she had expected: Oliphant had grown more +suspicious and difficult for the last two years, and had refused to see +a doctor, or, in fact, anyone but the Rev. Dr. Shapless and a country +lawyer whom he used when absolutely necessary. He hadn't left his room +for a month; Dinah had carried him the little he had seen fit to eat. +She was evidently relieved to see her old mistress once more at hand. +She asked no questions, and Mrs. Edwards knew that she would obey her +absolutely. + +They were sitting in Oliphant's office, a small closet off the more +pretentious library, and Mrs. Edwards could see the disorder into which +the old man's papers had fallen. The confusion preceding death had +already set in. + +After laying aside her hat, she went up, unannounced, to her uncle's +room, determined not to give him an opportunity to dismiss her out of +hand. He was lying with his eyes closed, so she busied herself in +putting the room to rights, in order to quiet her nerves. The air was +heavily languorous, and soon in the quiet country afternoon her +self-consciousness fell asleep, and she went dreaming over the +irresponsible past, the quiet summers, and the strange, stern old man. +Suddenly she knew that he was awake and watching her closely. She +started, but, as he said nothing, she went on with her dusting, her +hand shaking. + +He made no comment while she brought him his supper and arranged the +bed. Evidently he would accept her services. Her spirit leapt up with +the joy of success. That was the first step. She deemed it best to send +for her meagre satchel, and to take possession of her old room. In that +way she could be more completely mistress of the situation and of him. +She had had no very definite ideas of action before that afternoon; her +one desire had been to be on the field of battle, to see what could be +done, perhaps to use a few tears to soften the implacable heart. But +now her field opened out. She must keep the old man to herself, within +her own care--not that she knew specifically what good that would do, +but it was the tangible nine points of the law. + +The next morning Oliphant showed more life, and while she was helping +him into his dressing-gown, he vouchsafed a few grunts, followed by a +piercing inquiry: + +"Is _he_ dead yet?" + +The young wife flushed with indignant protest. + +"Broke, perhaps?" + +"Well, we haven't starved yet." But she was cowed by his cynical +examination. He relapsed into silence; his old, bristly face assumed a +sardonic peace whenever his eyes fell upon her. She speculated about +that wicked beatitude; it made her uncomfortable. He was still, +however--never a word from morning till night. + +The routine of little duties about the sickroom she performed +punctiliously. In that way she thought to put her conscience to rights, +to regard herself in the kind rôle of ministering angel. That illusion +was hard to attain in the presence of the sardonic comment the old man +seemed to add. After all, it was a vulgar grab after the candied fruits +of this life. + +She had felt it necessary to explain her continued absence to her +husband. Mrs. Leicester, who did not appear to regard her actions as +unexpected, had undertaken that delicate business. Evidently, she had +handled it tactfully, for Mrs. Edwards soon received a hurried note. He +felt that she was performing her most obvious duty; he could not but be +pleased that the breach caused by him had been thus tardily healed. As +long as her uncle continued in his present extremity, she must remain. +He would run down to the Leicesters over Sundays, etc. Mrs. Edwards was +relieved; it was nice of him--more than that, delicate--not to be +stuffy over her action. + +The uppermost question these days of monotonous speculation was how +long would this ebb-tide of a tenacious life flow. She took a guilty +interest in her uncle's condition, and yet she more than half wished +him to live. Sometimes he would rally. Something unfulfilled troubled +his mind, and once he even crawled downstairs. She found him shakily +puttering over the papers in his huge davenport. He asked her to make a +fire in the grate, and then, gathering up an armful of papers, he knelt +down on the brick hearth, but suddenly drew back. His deep eyes gleamed +hatefully at her. Holding out several stiff papers, he motioned to her +to burn them. Usually she would have obeyed docilely enough, but this +deviltry of merriment she resented. While she delayed, standing erect +before the smouldering sticks, she noticed that a look of terror crept +across the sick face. A spasm shook him, and he fainted. After that his +weakness kept him in bed. She wondered what he had been so anxious to +burn. + +From this time her thoughts grew more specific. Just how should she +attain her ends? Had he made a will? Could he not now do something for +them, or would it be safer to bide their time? Indeed, for a few +moments she resolved to decide all by one straightforward prayer. She +began, and the old man seemed so contentedly prepared for the scene +that she remained dumb. + +In this extremity of doubt she longed to get aid from her husband. Yet +under the circumstances she dared to admit so little. One Saturday +afternoon he called at the house; she was compelled to share some of +her perplexities. + +"He seems so very feeble," she remarked. They were sitting on the +veranda some distance from Oliphant's room, yet their conversation was +furtive. "Perhaps he should see a doctor or a minister." + +"No, I don't think so," Edwards replied, assuringly. "You see, he +doesn't believe in either, and such things should be left to the person +himself, as long as he's in his right mind." + +"And a lawyer?" Mrs. Edwards continued, probingly. + +"Has he asked for one?" + +"No, but he seems to find it hard to talk." + +"I guess it's best not to meddle. Who's that?" + +A little, fat man in baggy black trousers and a seersucker coat was +panting up the gentle hill to the gate. He had a puggy nose and a +heavy, thinly bearded face incased about the eyes in broad steel +spectacles. + +"That must be Dr. Shapless," she said, in a flutter. + +"What of it?" Edwards replied. + +"He mustn't come in," she cried, with sudden energy. "You must see him, +and send him away! He wants to see Uncle Oliphant. Tell him he's too +sick--to come another day." Edwards went down the path to meet him. +Through the window she could hear a low conversation, and then crunched +gravel. Meantime Oliphant seemed restlessly alert, expectant of +something, and with suspicious eyes intent on her. + +Her heart thumped with relief when the gate clicked. Edwards had been +effective that time. Oliphant was trying to say something, but the hot +August day had been too much for him--it all ended in a mumble. Then +she pulled in the blinds, settled the pillows nervously, and left the +room in sheer fright. + +The fight had begun--and grimly. + + * * * * * + +"I wonder what the old cove wanted?" Edwards said the next day; "he was +dead set on seeing your uncle; said he had an engagement with him, and +looked me up and down. I stood him off, but he'll be down again." + +"Don't you know about that new fund the Methodists are raising? Uncle +Oliphant has always helped the Methodists, and I suppose Dr. Shapless +wanted to see him about some contributions." Edwards asked no more +questions, and, in fact, got back to town on a pretext of business that +afternoon. He was clearly of no use in Quogue. His wife sent for a +physician that week. It was tardy justice to propriety, but it was safe +then, for Oliphant had given up all attempts to talk. + +The doctor came, looked at the old man, and uttered a few remarks. He +would come again. Mrs. Edwards did not need to be told that the end was +near. The question was, how soon? + +That week had another scare. Somehow old Slocum, the local lawyer +Oliphant used, had been summoned, and one morning she ran across him in +the hall. She knew the man well of old. He was surprised and pleased to +see her, and it was not difficult to get him out of the house without +arousing his suspicions. But he would talk so boisterously; she felt +her uncle's eyes aflame in anger. + +"Be sure and send for me when he rallies, quick," Slocum whispered +loudly in the hall. "Perhaps we can do a little something for some +folks." And with a wink he went out. + +Had she done the clever thing, after all, in shooing old Slocum out? +Her mind went over the possibilities in tense anxiety. If there were no +will, James, Jr., would get the whole, she thought. If there was a will +already in the house, in that old davenport, what then? Would Shapless +get the money? She grew keen in speculation. To leave her in the lurch, +to give it all to that greasy Shapless, would be the most natural trick +in the world for an incisive old fellow like Oliphant. + +It was too much! She cried a little, and she began to hate the helpless +man upstairs. It occurred to her to poke about in the papers in the +adjoining room. She must do it at once, for she expected Edwards every +moment. + +First she ran upstairs to see if her uncle was all right. As soon as +she entered, he glared at her bitterly and would have spoken. She noted +the effort and failure, elated. He could not betray her now, unless he +rallied wonderfully. So leaving the door ajar, she walked firmly +downstairs. Now she could satisfy her desire. + +If the money were _all_ left to Shapless? She might secure the will, +and bargain with the old parasite for a few thousands of dollars. Her +mind was full of wild schemes. If she only knew a little more about +affairs! She had heard of wills, and read many novels that turned upon +wills lost or stolen. They had always seemed to her improbable, mere +novels. Necessity was stranger than fiction. + +It did not take long to find the very articles she was after; evidently +Oliphant had been overhauling them on that last excursion from his +room. The package lay where he had dropped it when he fainted. There +were two documents. She unfolded them on the top of the mussy desk. +They were hard reading in all their legal dress, and her head was +filled with fears lest her husband should walk in. She could make out, +however, that Oliphant was much richer than she had ever vaguely +supposed, and that since her departure he had relented toward his son. +For by the first will in date she was the principal heir, a lot of +queer charities coming in besides. In the second, James, Jr., received +something. Her name did not appear. Several clauses had been added from +time to time, each one giving more money and lands to the Methodists. +Probably Shapless was after another codicil when he called. + +It had taken her into the twilight to gain even a meagre idea of all +this. She was preparing to fold the documents up in their common +wrapper, when she felt the door open behind her. All she could see in +the terror of the moment was the gaunt white arm of her uncle, and the +two angry eyes in the shaking head. She shrieked, from pure +nervousness, and at her cry the old man fell in a heap. + +The accident steeled her nerves. Dinah came in in a panic, and as they +were lifting the bony frame from the floor Edwards arrived. With his +assistance they got the sick man to bed. + +That was clearly the last gasp. Yet Mrs. Edwards shook in dread every +time she entered the room. The look seemed conscious still, intensified +malignity and despair creeping in. She was afraid and guilty and +unstrung. Perhaps, with some sudden revival of his forces, he would +kill her. He was lying there, too still for defeat. His life had been +an expression of hates; the last one might be dreadful. + +Yet she stood to her post in the sick-room, afraid, as she knew, to +trust herself with her husband. Her mind was soiled with seething +thoughts, and, in contrast, his seemed so fresh and pure! If she could +keep him unsuspicious of her, all would be well in the end. But the +task she had set herself for him was hard, so hard! + +That night when all was still she crept downstairs and groped about in +the davenport for the papers. They had been lying there unopened where +they had fallen earlier in the evening. She struck a match, caught up +the fresher document, and hugged it to her as she toiled upstairs. When +she had tucked it away in her satchel the end seemed near. They must +wait now. + +She put her husband out of her mind. Outside, the warm summer days died +away over the sea, one by one, and the grass beyond the gates grew +heavier with dust. Life was tense in its monotony. + + * * * * * + +That had happened on a Saturday; Monday Dr. Shapless came again, his +shoes dusty from his long walk from the station. He looked oiled as +ever, but more determined. Mrs. Edwards daringly permitted him to see +the dying man--he had been lying in a stupor--for she was afraid that +the reverend doctor's loud tones in the hall might exasperate Oliphant +to some wild act. Dr. Shapless shut her from the room when he went in, +but he did not stay long. A restless despair had settled down on her +uncle's face, there to remain for the last few hours. + +Her heart sank; she longed to cry out to the poor old man on the bed +that _she_ did not want his money. She remained with him all night, yet +she did not dare to approach his bed. She would disturb him. + +He died the next afternoon, and at the last he looked out on the world +and at her with his final note of intelligence. It was pathetic, a +suggestion of past tenderness defeated, and of defeat in hate, too. She +shuddered as she closed his sad eyes; it was awful to meddle with a +man's last purposes. + +The funeral was almost surreptitious; old Dinah, the Leicesters, and +the Edwardses occupied the one carriage that followed him to the +graveyard across the village. They met a hay-cart or two on their way, +but no curious neighbors. Old Oliphant's death aroused no interest in +this village, ridden with summer strangers. + +The day was impersonally suave and tender, with its gentle haze and +autumn premonitions. Mr. Leicester said a few equivocal words, while +Mrs. Edwards gazed helplessly into the grave. The others fell back +behind the minister. Between her and her uncle down there something +remained unexplained, and her heart ached. + + * * * * * + +They spent that night at the Leicesters', for Mrs. Edwards wearily +refused to return to the Oliphant place. Edwards carried the keys over +to Slocum, and told him to take the necessary steps toward settling the +old man's affairs. The next day they returned to the little flat in +Harlem. The Leicesters found their presence awkward, now that there was +nothing to do, and Mrs. Edwards was craving to be alone with her +husband, to shut out the past month from their lives as soon as +possible. + +These September days, while they both waited in secret anxiety, she +clung to him as she had never before. He was pure, the ideal she had +voluntarily given up, given up for his sake in order that he might have +complete perfection. His delicate sensitiveness kept him from referring +to that painful month, or to possible expectations. She worshipped him +the more, and was thankful for his complete ignorance. Their common +life could go on untainted and noble. + +Yet Edwards betrayed his nervous anxiety. His eagerness for the mail +every morning, his early return from business, indicated his troubled +mind. + +The news came at breakfast-time. Mrs. Edwards handed Slocum's letter +across the table and waited, her face wanly eager. The letter was long; +it took some half-dozen large letter-sheets for the country lawyer to +tell his news, but in the end it came. He had found the will and was +happy to say that Mrs. Edwards was a large, a very large, beneficiary. +Edwards read these closing sentences aloud. He threw down the letter +and tried to take her in his arms. But she tearfully pushed him away, +and then, repenting, clasped his knees. + +"Oh, Will! it's so much, so very much," she almost sobbed. + +Edwards looked as if that were not an irremediable fault in their good +luck. He said nothing. Already he was planning their future movements. +Under the circumstances neither cared to discuss their happiness, and +so they got little fun from the first bloom. + +In spite of Mrs. Edwards's delicate health and her expected confinement +they decided to go abroad. She was feverishly anxious for him to begin +his real work at once, to prove himself; and it might be easier to +forget her one vicious month when the Atlantic had been crossed. They +put their affairs to rights hurriedly, and early in November sailed for +France. + +The Leicesters were at the dock to bid them God-speed and to chirrup +over their good fortune. + +"It's all like a good, old-fashioned story," beamed Mrs. Leicester, +content with romance for once, now that it had arranged itself so +decorously. + +"Very satisfactory; quite right," the clergyman added. "We'll see you +soon in Paris. We're thinking of a gay vacation, and will let you know." + +Edwards looked fatuous; his wife had an orderly smile. She was glad +when Sandy Hook sank into the mist. She had only herself to avoid now. + +They took some pleasant apartments just off the Rue de Rivoli, and then +their life subsided into the complacent commonplace of possession. She +was outwardly content to enjoy with her husband, to go to the +galleries, the opera, to try the restaurants, and to drive. + +Yet her life went into one idea, a very fixed idea, such as often takes +hold of women in her condition. She was eager to see him at work. If he +accomplished something--even content!--she would feel justified and +perhaps happy. As to the child, the idea grew strange to her. Why +should she have a third in the problem? For she saw that the child must +take its part in her act, must grow up and share their life and inherit +the Oliphant money. In brief, she feared the yet unborn stranger, to +whom she would be responsible in this queer way. And the child could +not repair the wrong as could her husband. Certainly the child was an +alien. + +She tried to be tender of her husband in his boyish glee and loafing. +She could understand that he needed to accustom himself to his new +freedom, to have his vacation first. She held herself in, tensely, +refraining from criticism lest she might mar his joy. But she counted +the days, and when her child had come, she said to herself, _then_ he +must work. + +This morbid life was very different from what she had fancied the rich +future would be, as she looked into the grave, the end of her struggle, +that September afternoon. But she had grown to demand so much more from +_him_; she had grown so grave! His bright, boyish face, the gentle +curls, had been dear enough, and now she looked for the lines a man's +face should have. Why was he so terribly at ease? The world was bitter +and hard in its conditions, and a man should not play. + +Late in December the Leicesters called; they were like gleeful +sparrows, twittering about. Mrs. Edwards shuddered to see them again, +and when they were gone she gave up and became ill. + +Her tense mind relieved itself in hysterics, which frightened her to +further repression. Then one night she heard herself moaning: "Why did +I have to take all? It was so little, so very little, I wanted, and I +had to take all. Oh, Will, Will, you should have done for yourself! Why +did you need this? Why couldn't you do as other men do? It's no harder +for you than for them." Then she recollected herself. Edwards was +holding her hand and soothing her. + +Some weeks later, when she was very ill, she remembered those words, +and wondered if he had suspected anything. Her child came and died, and +she forgot this matter, with others. She lay nerveless for a long time, +without thought; Edwards and the doctor feared melancholia. So she was +taken to Italy for the cold months. Edwards cared for her tenderly, but +his caressing presence was irritating, instead of soothing, to her. She +was hungry for a justification that she could not bring about. + +At last it wore on into late spring. She began to force herself back +into the old activities, in order to leave no excuse for further +dawdling. Her attitude became terribly judicial and suspicious. + +An absorbing idleness had settled down over Edwards, partly excused to +himself by his wife's long illness. When he noticed that his desultory +days made her restless, he took to loafing about galleries or making +little excursions, generally in company with some forlorn artist he had +picked up. He had nothing, after all, so very definite that demanded +his time; he had not yet made up his mind for any attempts. And +something in the domestic atmosphere unsettled him. His wife held +herself aloof, with alien sympathies, he felt. + +So they drifted on to discontent and unhappiness until she could bear +it no longer without expression. + +"Aren't we to return to Paris soon?" she remarked one morning as they +idled over a late breakfast. "I am strong now, and I should like to +settle down." + +Edwards took the cue, idly welcoming any change. + +"Why, yes, in the fall. It's too near the summer now, and there's no +hurry." + +"Yes, there _is_ hurry," his wife replied, hastily. "We have lost +almost eight months." + +"Out of a lifetime," Edwards put in, indulgently. + +She paused, bewildered by the insinuation of his remark. But her mood +was too incendiary to avoid taking offence. "Do you mean that that +would be a _life_, loafing around all day, enjoying this, that, and the +other fine pleasure? That wasn't what we planned." + +"No, but I don't see why people who are not driven should drive +themselves. I want to get the taste of Harlem out of my mouth." He was +a bit sullen. A year ago her strict inquiry into his life would have +been absurd. Perhaps the money, her money, gave her the right. + +"If people don't drive themselves," she went on, passionately, "they +ought to be driven. It's cowardly to take advantage of having money to +do nothing. You wanted the--the opportunity to do something. Now you +have it." + +Edwards twisted his wicker chair into uncomfortable places. "Well, are +you sorry you happen to have given me the chance?" He looked at her +coldly, so that a suspicious thought shot into her mind. + +"Yes," she faltered, "if it means throwing it away, I _am_ sorry." + +She dared no more. Her mind was so close on the great sore in her +gentle soul. He lit a cigarette, and sauntered down the hotel garden. +But the look he had given her--a queer glance of disagreeable +intelligence--illumined her dormant thoughts. + +What if he had known all along? She remembered his meaning words that +hot night when they talked over Oliphant's illness for the first time. +And why had he been so yielding, so utterly passive, during the sordid +drama over the dying man? What kept him from alluding to the matter in +any way? Yes, he must have encouraged her to go on. _She_ had been his +tool, and he the passive spectator. The blind certainty of a woman made +the thing assured, settled. She picked up the faint yellow rose he had +laid by her plate, and tore it slowly into fine bits. On the whole, he +was worse than she. + +But before he returned she stubbornly refused to believe herself. + + * * * * * + +In the autumn they were again in Paris, in soberer quarters, which were +conducive to effort. Edwards was working fitfully with several +teachers, goaded on, as he must confess to himself, by a pitiless wife. +Not much was discussed between them, but he knew that the price of the +_statu quo_ was continued labor. + +She was watching him; he felt it and resented it, but he would not +understand. All the idealism, the worship of the first sweet months in +marriage, had gone. Of course that incense had been foolish, but it was +sweet. Instead, he felt these suspicious, intolerant eyes following his +soul in and out on its feeble errands. He comforted himself with the +trite consolation that he was suffering from the natural readjustment +in a woman's mind. It was too drastic for that, however. + +He was in the habit of leaving her in the evenings of the opera. The +light was too much for her eyes, and she was often tired. One wet April +night, when he returned late, he found her up, sitting by the window +that overlooked the steaming boulevard. Somehow his soul was +rebellious, and when she asked him about the opera he did not take the +pains to lie. + +"Oh, I haven't been there," he muttered, "I am beastly tired of it all. +Let's get out of it; to St. Petersburg or Norway--for the summer," he +added, guiltily. + +Now that the understanding impended she trembled, for hitherto she had +never actually known. In suspicion there was hope. So she almost +entreated. + +"We go to Vienna next winter anyway, and I thought we had decided on +Switzerland for the summer." + +"You decided! But what's the use of keeping up the mill night and day? +There's plenty of opportunity over there for an educated gentleman with +money, if what you are after is a 'sphere' for me." + +"You want to--to go back now?" + +"No, I want to be let alone." + +"Don't you care to pay for all you have had? Haven't you any sense of +justice to Uncle Oliphant, to your opportunities?" + +"Oliphant!" Edwards laughed, disagreeably. "Wouldn't he be pleased to +have an operetta, a Gilbert and Sullivan affair, dedicated to him! No. +I have tried to humor your idea of making myself famous. But what's the +use of being wretched?" The topic seemed fruitless. Mrs. Edwards looked +over to the slight, careless figure. He was sitting dejectedly on a +large fauteuil, smoking. He seemed fagged and spiritless. She almost +pitied him and gave in, but suddenly she rose and crossed the room. + +"We've made ourselves pretty unhappy," she said, apologetically, +resting her hand on the lapel of his coat. "I guess it's mostly my +fault, Will. I have wanted so much that you should do something fine +with Uncle Oliphant's money, with _yourself_. But we can make it up in +other ways." + +"What are you so full of that idea for?" Edwards asked, curiously. "Why +can't you be happy, even as happy as you were in Harlem?" His voice was +hypocritical. + +"Don't you know?" she flashed back. "You _do_ know, I believe. Tell me, +did you look over those papers on the davenport that night Uncle James +fainted?" + +The unexpected rush of her mind bewildered him. A calm lie would have +set matters to rights, but he was not master of it. + +"So you were willing--you knew?" + +"It wasn't my affair," he muttered, weakly, but she had left him. + +He wandered about alone for a few days until the suspense became +intolerable. When he turned up one afternoon in their apartments he +found preparations on foot for their departure. + +"We're going away?" he asked. + +"Yes, to New York." + +"Not so fast," he interrupted, bitterly. "We might as well face the +matter openly. What's the use of going back there?" + +"We can't live here, and besides I shall be wanted there." + +"You can't do anything now. Talk sensibly about it. I will not go back." + +She looked at him coldly, critically. "I cabled Slocum yesterday, and +we must live somehow." + +"You--" but she laid her hand on his arm. "It makes no difference now, +you know, and it can't be changed. I've done everything." + +CHICAGO, August, 1895. + + + +A REJECTED TITIAN + + +"John," my wife remarked in horrified tones, "he's coming to Rome!" + +"Who is coming to Rome--the Emperor?" + +"Uncle Ezra--see," she handed me the telegram. "Shall arrive in Rome +Wednesday morning; have Watkins at the Grand Hotel." + +I handed the despatch to Watkins. + +"Poor uncle!" my wife remarked. + +"He will get it in the neck," I added, profanely. + +"They ought to put nice old gentlemen like your uncle in bond when they +reach Italy," Watkins mused, as if bored in advance. "The _antichitàs_ +get after them, like--like confidence-men in an American city, and the +same old story is the result; they find, in some mysterious fashion, a +wonderful Titian, a forgotten Giorgione, cheap at _cinque mille lire_. +Then it's all up with them. His pictures are probably decalcomanias, +you know, just colored prints pasted over board. Why, we _know_ every +picture in Venice; it's simply _impossible_--" + +Watkins was a connoisseur; he had bought his knowledge in the dearest +school of experience. + +"What are you going to do, Mr. Watkins?" my wife put in. "Tell him the +truth?" + +"There's nothing else to do. I used up all my ambiguous terms over that +daub he bought in the Piazza di Spagna--'reminiscential' of half a +dozen worthless things, 'suggestive,' etc. I can't work them over +again." Watkins was lugubrious. + +"Tell him the truth as straight as you can; it's the best medicine." I +was Uncle Ezra's heir; naturally, I felt for the inheritance. + +"Well," my wife was invariably cheerful, "perhaps he has found +something valuable; at least, one of them may be; isn't it possible?" + +Watkins looked at my wife indulgently. + +"He's been writing me about them for a month, suggesting that, as I was +about to go on to Venice, he would like to have me see them; such +treasures as I should find them. I have been waiting until he should +get out. It isn't a nice job, and your uncle--" + +"There are three of them, Aunt Mary writes: Cousin Maud has bought one, +with the advice of Uncle Ezra and Professor Augustus Painter, and +Painter himself is the last one to succumb." + +"They have all gone mad," Watkins murmured. + +"Where did Maudie get the cash?" I asked. + +"She had a special gift on coming of age, and she has been looking +about for an opportunity for throwing it away"--my wife had never +sympathized with my cousin, Maud Vantweekle. "She had better save it +for her trousseau, if she goes on much more with that young professor. +Aunt Mary should look after her." + +Watkins rose to go. + +"Hold on a minute," I said. "Just listen to this delicious epistle from +Uncle Ezra." + +"'... We have hoped that you would arrive in Venice before we break up +our charming home here. Mary has written you that Professor Painter has +joined us at the Palazzo Palladio, complementing our needs and +completing our circle. He has an excellent influence for seriousness +upon Maud; his fine, manly qualities have come out. Venice, after two +years of Berlin, has opened his soul in a really remarkable manner. All +the beauty lying loose around here has been a revelation to him--'" + +"Maud's beauty," my wife interpreted. + +"'And our treasures you will enjoy so much--such dashes of color, such +great slaps of light! I was the first to buy--they call it a Savoldo, +but I think no third-rate man could be capable of so much--such +reaching out after infinity. However, that makes little difference. I +would not part with it, now that I have lived these weeks with so fine +a thing. Maud won a prize in her Bonifazio, which she bought under my +advice. Then Augustus secured the third one, a Bissola, and it has had +the greatest influence upon him already; it has given him his education +in art. He sits with it by the hour while he is at work, and its charm +has gradually produced a revolution in his character. We had always +found him too Germanic, and he had immured himself in that barbarous +country for so long over his Semitic books that his nature was stunted +on one side. His picture has opened a new world for him. Your Aunt Mary +and I already see the difference in his character; he is gentler, less +narrowly interested in the world. This precious bit of fine art has +been worth its price many times, but I don't think Augustus would part +with it for any consideration now that he has lived with it and learned +to know its power.'" + +"I can't see why he is coming to Rome," Watkins commented at the end. +"If they are confident that they know all about their pictures, and +don't care anyway who did them, and are having all this spiritual +love-feast, what in the world do they want any expert criticism of +their text for? Now for such people to buy pictures, when they haven't +a mint of money! Why don't they buy something within their means really +fine--a coin, a Van Dyck print? I could get your uncle a Whistler +etching for twenty-five pounds; a really fine thing, you know--" + +This was Watkins's hobby. + +"Oh, well, it won't be bad in the end of the hall at New York; it's as +dark as pitch there; and then Uncle Ezra can leave it to the +Metropolitan as a Giorgione. It will give the critics something to do. +And I suppose that in coming on here he has in mind to get an +indorsement for his picture that will give it a commercial value. He's +canny, is my Uncle Ezra, and he likes to gamble too, like the rest of +us. If he should draw a prize, it wouldn't be a bad thing to brag of." + +Watkins called again the next morning. + +"Have you seen Uncle Ezra?" my wife asked, anxiously. + +"No. Three telegrams. Train was delayed--I suppose by the importance of +the works of art it's bringing on." + +"When do you expect him?" + +"About noon." + +"Mr. Watkins," my wife flamed out, "I believe you are just shirking it, +to meet that poor old man with his pictures. You ought to have been at +the station, or at least at the hotel. Why, it's twelve now!" + +Watkins hung his head. + +"I believe you are a coward," my wife went on. "Just think of his +arriving there, all excitement over his pictures, and finding you gone!" + +"Well, well," I said, soothingly, "it's no use to trot off now, +Watkins; stay to breakfast. He will be in shortly. When he finds you +are out at the hotel he will come straight on here, I am willing to +bet." + +Watkins looked relieved at my suggestion. + +"I believe you meant to run away all along," my wife continued, +severely, "and to come here for refuge." + +Watkins sulked. + +We waited in suspense, straining our ears to hear the sound of a cab +stopping in the street. At last one did pull up. My wife made no +pretence of indifference, but hurried to the window. + +"It's Uncle Ezra, with a big, black bundle. John, run down--No! there's +a facchino." + +We looked at each other and laughed. + +"The three!" + +Our patron of art came in, with a warm, gentle smile, his tall, thin +figure a little bent with the fatigue of the journey, his beard a +little grayer and dustier than usual, and his hands all a-tremble with +nervous impatience and excitement. He had never been as tremulous +before an opinion from the Supreme Court. My wife began to purr over +him soothingly; Watkins looked sheepish; I hurried them all off to +breakfast. + +The omelette was not half eaten before Uncle Ezra jumped up, and began +unstrapping the oil-cloth covering to the pictures. There was +consternation at the table. My wife endeavored soothingly to bring +Uncle Ezra's interest back to breakfast, but he was not to be fooled. +My Uncle Ezra was a courageous man. + +"Of course you fellows," he said, smiling at Watkins, in his suave +fashion, "are just whetting your knives for me, I know. That's right. I +want to know the worst, the hardest things you can say. You can't +destroy the intrinsic _worth_ of the pictures for us; I have lived with +mine too long, and know how precious it is!" + +At last the three pictures were tipped up against the wall, and the +Madonnas and saints in gold, red, and blue were beaming out insipidly +at us. Uncle Ezra affected indifference. Watkins continued with the +omelette. "We'll look them over after breakfast," he said, severely, +thus getting us out of the hole temporarily. + +After breakfast my wife cooked up some engagement, and hurried me off. +We left Uncle Ezra in the hands of the physician. Two hours later, when +we entered, the operation had been performed--we could see at a +glance--and in a bloody fashion. The pictures were lying about the vast +room as if they had been spat at. Uncle Ezra smiled wanly at us, with +the courage of the patient who is a sceptic about physicians. + +"Just what I expected," he said, briskly, to relieve Watkins, who was +smoking, with the air of a man who has finished his job and is now +cooling off. "Mr. Watkins thinks Painter's picture and Maud's are +copies, Painter's done a few years ago and Maud's a little older, the +last century. My Savoldo he finds older, but repainted. You said cinque +cento, Mr. Watkins?" + +"Perhaps, Mr. Williams," Watkins answered, and added, much as a dog +would give a final shake to the bird, "_Much_ repainted, hardly +anything left of the original. There may be a Savoldo underneath, but +you don't see it." Watkins smiled at us knowingly. My wife snubbed him. + +"Of course, Uncle Ezra, _that's_ one man's opinion. I certainly should +not put much faith in one critic, no matter how eminent he may be. Just +look at the guide-books and see how the 'authorities' swear at one +another. Ruskin says every man is a fool who can't appreciate his +particular love, and Burckhardt calls it a daub, and Eastlake insipid. +Now, there are a set of young fellows who think they know all about +paint and who painted what. They're renaming all the great +masterpieces. Pretty soon they will discover that some tenth-rate +fellow painted the Sistine Chapel." + +Watkins put on an aggrieved and expostulatory manner. Uncle Ezra cut in. + +"Oh! my dear! Mr. Watkins may be right, quite right. It's his business +to know, I am sure, and I anticipated all that he would say; indeed, I +have come off rather better than I expected. There is old paint in it +somewhere." + +"Pretty far down," Watkins muttered. My wife bristled up, but Uncle +Ezra assumed his most superb calm. + +"It makes no difference to me, of course, as far as the _worth_ of the +work of art is concerned. I made up my mind before I came here that my +picture was worth a great deal to me, much more than I paid for it." +There was a heroic gasp. Watkins interposed mercilessly, "And may I +ask, Mr. Williams, what you did give for it?" + +Uncle Ezra was an honest man. "Twenty-five hundred lire," he replied, +sullenly. + +"Excuse me" (Watkins was behaving like a pitiless cad), "but you paid a +great deal too much for it, I assure you. I could have got it for----" + +"Mr. Watkins," my wife was hardly civil to him, "it doesn't matter much +what you could have got it for." + +"No," Uncle Ezra went on bravely, "I am a little troubled as to what +this may mean to Maud and Professor Painter, for you see their pictures +are copies." + +"Undoubted modern copies," the unquenchable Watkins emended. + +"Maud has learned a great deal from her picture. And as for Painter, it +has been an education in art, an education in life. He said to me the +night before I came away, 'Mr. Williams, I wouldn't take two thousand +for that picture; it's been the greatest influence in my life.'" + +I thought Watkins would have convulsions. + +"And it has brought those two young souls together in a marvellous way, +this common interest in fine art. You will find Maud a much more +serious person, Jane. No, if I were Painter I certainly should not care +a fig whether it proves to be a copy or not. I shouldn't let that +influence me in my love for such an educational wonder." + +The bluff was really sublime, but painful. My wife gave a decided hint +to Watkins that his presence in such a family scene was awkward. He +took his hat and cane. Uncle Ezra rose and grasped him cordially by the +hand. + +"You have been very generous, Mr. Watkins," he said, in his own sweet +way, "to do such an unpleasant job. It's a large draft to make on the +kindness of a friend." + +"Oh, don't mention it, Mr. Williams; and if you want to buy something +really fine, a Van Dyck print--a----" + +Uncle Ezra was shooing him toward the door. From the stairs we could +still hear his voice. "Or a Whistler etching for twenty-five pounds, I +could get you, now, a very fine----" + +"No, thank you, Mr. Watkins," Uncle Ezra said, firmly. "I don't believe +I have any money just now for such an investment." + +My wife tiptoed about the room, making faces at the exposed +masterpieces. "What shall we do?" Uncle Ezra came back into the room, +his face a trifle grayer and more worn. "Capital fellow, that Watkins," +he said; "so firm and frank." + +"Uncle," I ventured at random, "I met Flügel the other day in the +street. You know Flügel's new book on the Renaissance. He's the coming +young critic in art, has made a wonderful reputation the last three +years, is on the _Beaux Arts_ staff, and really _knows_. He is living +out at Frascati. I could telegraph and have him here this afternoon, +perhaps." + +"Well, I don't know;" his tone, however, said "Yes." "I don't care much +for expert advice--for specialists. But it wouldn't do any harm to hear +what he has to say. And Maud and Painter have made up their minds that +Maud's is a Titian." + +So I ran out and sent off the despatch. My wife took Uncle Ezra down to +the Forum and attempted to console him with the ugliness of genuine +antiquity, while I waited for Flügel. He came in a tremendous hurry, +his little, muddy eyes winking hard behind gold spectacles. + +"Ah, yes," he began to paw the pictures over as if they were live +stock, "that was bought for a Bonifazio," he had picked up Maud's +ruby-colored prize. "Of course, of course, it's a copy, an old copy, of +Titian's picture, No. 3,405, in the National Gallery at London. There +is a replica in the Villa Ludovisi here at Rome. It's a stupid copy, +some alterations, all for the bad--worthless--well, not to the +_antichità_, for it must be 1590, I should say. But worthless for us +and in bad condition. I wouldn't give cinque lire for it." + +"And the Bissola?" I said. "Oh, that was done in the seventeenth +century--it would make good kindling. But this," he turned away from +Painter's picture with a gesture of contempt, "this is Domenico +Tintoretto fast enough, at least what hasn't been stippled over and +painted out. St. Agnes's leg here is entire, and that tree in the +background is original. A damn bad man, but there are traces of his +slop work. Perhaps the hair is by him, too. Well, good-by, old fellow; +I must be off to dinner." + +That was slight consolation; a leg, a tree, and some wisps of hair in a +picture three feet six by four feet eight. Our dinner that evening was +labored. The next morning Uncle Ezra packed his three treasures +tenderly, putting in cotton-wool at the edges, my wife helping him to +make them comfortable. We urged him to stay over with us for a few +days; we would all go on later to Venice. But Uncle Ezra seemed moved +by some hidden cause. Back he would trot at once. "Painter will want +his picture," he said, "he has been waiting on in Venice just for this, +and I must not keep him." Watkins turned up as we were getting into the +cab to see Uncle Ezra off, and insisted upon accompanying us to the +station. My wife took the opportunity to rub into him Flügel's remarks, +which, at least, made Watkins out shady in chronology. At the station +we encountered a new difficulty. The ticket collector would not let the +pictures through the gate. My uncle expostulated in pure Tuscan. +Watkins swore in Roman. + +"Give him five lire, Mr. Williams." + +Poor Uncle Ezra fumbled in his pocket-book for the piece of money. He +had never bribed in his life. It was a terrible moral fall, to see him +tremblingly offer the piece of scrip. The man refused, "positive +orders, _permesso_ necessary," etc., etc. The bell rang; there was a +rush. Uncle Ezra looked unhappy. + +"Here," Watkins shouted, grabbing the precious pictures in a manner far +from reverent, "I'll send these on, Mr. Williams; run for your train." +Uncle Ezra gave one undecided glance, and then yielded. "You will look +after them," he pleaded, "carefully." + +"You shall have them safe enough," my wife promised. + +"Blast the pasteboards," Watkins put in under his breath, "the best +thing to do with them is to chop 'em up." He was swinging them back and +forth under his arm. My wife took them firmly from him. "He shall have +his pictures, and not from your ribald hands." + +A week later Rome became suddenly oppressively warm. We started off for +Venice, Watkins tagging on incorrigibly. "I want to see 'Maud,'" he +explained. The pictures had been packed and sent ahead by express. "The +storm must have burst, tears shed, tempers cooled, mortification set +in," I remarked, as we were being shoved up the Grand Canal toward the +Palazzo Palladio. "There they are in the balcony," my wife exclaimed, +"waving to us. Something is up; Maudie is hanging back, with Aunt Mary, +and Professor Painter is at the other end, with Uncle Ezra." + +The first thing that caught the eye after the flurry of greetings was +the impudent blue and red of Uncle Ezra's "Sancta Conversazione," +Domenico Tintoretto, Savoldo, or what not; St. Agnes's leg and all, +beaming at us from the wall. The other two were not there. My wife +looked at me. Maudie was making herself very gracious with little +Watkins. Painter's solemn face began to lower more and more. Aunt Mary +and Uncle Ezra industriously poured oil by the bucket upon the social +sea. + +At last Maud rose: "You _must_ take me over there at once, Mr. Watkins. +It will be such an enjoyment to have someone who really knows about +pictures and has taste." This shot at poor Painter; then to my wife, +"Come, Jane, you will like to see your room." + +Painter crossed to me and suggested, lugubriously, a cigar on the +balcony. He smoked a few minutes in gloomy silence. + +"Does that fellow know anything?" he emitted at last, jerking his head +at Watkins, who was pouring out information at Uncle Ezra. I began +gently to give Charles Henderson Watkins a fair reputation for +intelligence. "I mean anything about art? Of course it doesn't matter +what he says about my picture, whether it is a copy or not, but Miss +Vantweekle takes it very hard about hers. She blames me for having been +with her when she bought it, and having advised her and encouraged her +to put six hundred dollars into it." + +"Six hundred," I gasped. + +"Cheap for a Bonifazio, or a _Titian_, as we thought it." + +"Too cheap," I murmured. + +"Well, I got bitten for about the same on my own account. I sha'n't get +that Rachel's library at Berlin, that's all. The next time you catch me +fooling in a subject where I don't know my bearings--like fine art--You +see Mr. Williams found my picture one day when he was nosing about at +an _antichita's_, and thought it very fine. I admire Mr. Williams +tremendously, and I valued his opinion about art subjects much more +then than I do now. He and Mrs. Williams were wild over it. They had +just bought their picture, and they wanted us each to have one. They +have lots of sentiment, you know." + +"Lots," I assented. + +"Mrs. Williams got at me, and well, she made me feel that it would +bring me nearer to Miss Vantweekle. You know she goes in for art, and +she used to be impatient with me because I couldn't appreciate. I was +dumb when she walked me up to some old Madonna, and the others would go +on at a great rate. Well, in a word, I bought it for my education, and +I guess I have got it! + +"Then the man, he's an old Jew on the Grand Canal--Raffman, you know +him? He got out another picture, the Bonifazio. The Williamses began to +get up steam over that, too. They hung over that thing Mr. Williams +bought, that Savoldo or Domenico Tintoretto, and prowled about the +churches and the galleries finding traces of it here in the style of +this picture and that; in short, we all got into a fever about +pictures, and Miss Vantweekle invested all the money an aunt had given +her before coming abroad, in that Bonifazio. + +"I must say that Miss Vantweekle held off some time, was doubtful about +the picture; didn't feel that she wanted to put all her money into it. +But she caught fire in the general excitement, and I may say"--here a +sad sort of conscious smile crept over the young professor's face--"at +that time I had a good deal of influence with her. She bought the +picture, we brought it home, and put it up at the other end of the +hall. We spent hours over that picture, studying out every line, +placing every color. We made up our minds soon enough that it wasn't a +Bonifazio, but we began to think--now don't laugh, or I'll pitch you +over the balcony--it was an early work by Titian. There was an attempt +in it for great things, as Mr. Williams said: no small man could have +planned it. One night we had been talking for hours about them, and we +were all pretty well excited. Mr. Williams suggested getting Watkins's +opinion. Maud--Miss Vantweekle said, loftily, 'Oh! it does not make any +difference what the critics say about it, the picture means everything +to me'; and I, like a fool, felt happier than ever before in my life. +The next morning Mr. Williams telegraphed you and set off." + +He waited. + +"And when he returned?" + +"It's been hell ever since." + +He was in no condition to see the comic side of the affair. Nor was +Miss Vantweekle. She was on my wife's bed in tears. + +"All poor Aunt Higgins's present gone into that horrid thing," she +moaned, "and all the dresses I was planning to get in Paris. I shall +have to go home looking like a perfect dowd!" + +"But think of the influence it has been in your life--the education you +have received from that picture. How can you call all that color, those +noble faces, 'that horrid thing?'" I said, reprovingly. She sat upright. + +"See here, Jerome Parker, if you ever say anything like that again, I +will never speak to you any more, or to Jane, though you are my +cousins." + +"They have tried to return the picture," my wife explained. "Professor +Painter and Uncle Ezra took it over yesterday; but, of course, the Jew +laughed at them." + +"'A copy!' he said." Maud explained, "Why, it's no more a copy than +Titian's 'Assumption.' He could show us the very place in a palace on +the Grand Canal where it had hung for four hundred years. Of course, +all the old masters used the same models, and grouped their pictures +alike. Very probably Titian had a picture something like it. What of +that? He defied us to find the exact original." + +"Well," I remarked, soothingly, "that ought to comfort you, I am sure. +Call your picture a new Titian, and sell it when you get home." + +"Mr. Watkins says that's an old trick," moaned Maud, "that story about +the palace. He says old Raffman has a pal among the Italian nobility, +and works off copies through him all the time. I won't say anything +about Uncle Ezra; he has been as kind and good as he can be, only a +little too enthusiastic. But Professor Painter!" + +She tossed her head. + +The atmosphere in the Palazzo Palladio for the next few days was highly +charged. + +At dinner Uncle Ezra placidly made remarks about the Domenico +Tintoretto, almost vaingloriously, I thought. "Such a piece of Venice +to carry away. We missed it so much, those days you had it in Rome. It +is so precious that I cannot bear to pack it up and lose sight of it +for five months. Mary, just see that glorious piece of color over +there." + +Meantime some kind of conspiracy was on foot. Maud went off whole +mornings with Watkins and Uncle Ezra. We were left out as +unsympathetic. Painter wandered about like a sick ghost. He would sit +glowering at Maud and Watkins while they held whispered conversations +at the other end of the hall. Watkins was the hero. He had accepted +Flügel's judgment with impudent grace. + +"A copy of Titian, of course," he said to me; "really, it is quite hard +on poor Miss Vantweekle. People, even learned people, who don't know +about such things, had better not advise. I have had the photographs of +all Titian's pictures sent on, and we have found the original of your +cousin's picture. Isn't it very like?" + +It was very like; a figure was left out in the copy, the light was +changed, but still it was a happy guess of Flügel. + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" I said to Maud, who had just +joined us. + +"Oh, Mr. Watkins has kindly consented to manage the matter for me; I +believe he has a friend here, an artist, Mr. Hare, who will give expert +judgment on it. Then the American vice-consul is a personal friend of +Mr. Watkins, and also Count Corner, the adviser at the Academy. We +shall frighten the old Jew, sha'n't we, Mr. Watkins?" + +I walked over to the despised Madonna that was tipped up on its side, +ready to be walked off on another expedition of defamation. + +"Poor Bonifazio," I sighed, "Maud, how can you part with a work of fine +art that has meant so much to you?" + +"Do you think, Jerome, I would go home and have Uncle Higgins, with his +authentic Rembrandt and all his other pictures, laugh at me and my +Titian? I'd burn it first." + +I turned to Uncle Ezra. "Uncle, what strange metamorphosis has happened +to this picture? The spiritual light from that color must shine as +brightly as ever; the intrinsic value remains forever fixed in Maud's +soul; it is desecration to reject such a precious message. Why, it's +like sending back the girl you married because her pedigree proved +defective, or because she had lost her fortune. It's positively brutal!" + +Maud darted a venomous glance at me; however, I had put the judge in a +hole. + +"I cannot agree with you, Jerome." Uncle Ezra could never be put in a +hole. "Maud's case is a very different one from Mr. Painter's or mine. +We can carry back what we like personally, but for Maud to carry home a +doubtful picture into the atmosphere she has to live in--why, it would +be intolerable--with her uncle a connoisseur, all her friends owners of +masterpieces." Uncle Ezra had a flowing style. "It would expose her to +annoyance, to mortification--constant, daily. Above all, to have taken +a special gift, a fund of her aunt's, and to apply it in this mistaken +fashion is cruel." + +Painter remarked bitterly to me afterward, "He wants to crawl on his +share of the responsibility. I'd buy the picture if I could raise the +cash, and end the whole miserable business." + +Indeed, Watkins seemed the only one blissfully in his element. As my +wife remarked, Watkins had exchanged his interest in pictures for an +interest in woman. Certainly he had planned his battle well. It came +off the next day. They all left in a gondola at an early hour. Painter +and I watched them from the balcony. After they were seated, Watkins +tossed in carelessly the suspected picture. What went on at the +_antichità's_ no one of the boat-load ever gave away. Watkins had a +hold on the man somehow, and the evidence of the fraud was +overwhelming. About noon they came back, Maud holding an enormous +envelope in her hand. + +"I can never, never thank you enough, Mr. Watkins," she beamed at him. +"You have saved me from such mortification and unhappiness, and you +were so _clever_." + +That night at dinner Uncle Ezra was more than usually genial, and +beamed upon Maud and Watkins perpetually. Watkins was quite the hero +and did his best to look humble. + +"How much rent did the spiritual influence cost, Maud?" I asked. She +was too happy to be offended. "Oh, we bought an old ring to make him +feel pleased, five pounds, and Mr. Hare's services were worth five +pounds, and Mr. Watkins thinks we should give the vice-consul a box of +cigars. + +"Let's see; ten pounds and a box of cigars, that's three hundred lire +at the price of exchange. You had the picture just three weeks, a +hundred lire a week for the use of all that education in art, all that +spiritual influence. Quite cheap, I should say." + +"And Mr. Watkins's services, Maud!" my wife asked, viciously. There was +a slight commotion at the table. + +"May I, Maud?" Watkins murmured. + +"As you please, Charles," Maud replied, with her eyes lowered to the +table. + +"Maud has given herself," Uncle Ezra said, gleefully. + +Painter rose from the table and disappeared into his room. Pretty soon +he came out bearing a tray with a dozen champagne glasses, of +modern-antique Venetian glass. + +"Let me present this to you, Miss Vantweekle," he pronounced, solemnly, +"as an engagement token. I, I exchanged my picture for them this +morning." + +"Some Asti Spumante, Ricci." + +"To the rejected Titian--" I suggested for the first toast. + +VENICE, May, 1896. + + + +PAYMENT IN FULL + +The two black horses attached to the light buggy were chafing in the +crisp October air. Their groom was holding them stiffly, as if bolted +to the ground, in the approved fashion insisted upon by the mistress of +the house. Old Stuart eyed them impatiently from the tower window of +the breakfast-room where he was smoking his first cigar; Mrs. Stuart +held him in a vise of astounding words. + +"They will need not only the lease of a house in London for two years, +but a great deal of money besides," she continued in even tones, +ignoring his impatience. + +"I've done enough for 'em already," the old fellow protested, drawing +on his driving gloves over knotted hands stained by age. + +Mrs. Stuart rustled the letter that lay, with its envelope, beside her +untouched plate. It bore the flourishes of a foreign hotel and a +foreign-looking stamp. + +"My mother writes that their summer in Wiesbaden has made it surer that +Lord Raincroft is interested in Helen. It is evidently a matter of +time. I say two years--it may be less." + +"Well," her husband broke in. "Haven't they enough to live on?" + +"At my marriage," elucidated Mrs. Stuart, imperturbably, "you settled +on them securities which yield about five thousand a year. That does +not give them the means to take the position which I expect for my +family in such a crisis. They must have a large house, must entertain +lavishly," she swept an impassive hand toward him in royal emphasis, +"and do all that that set expects--to meet them as equals. You could +not imagine that Lord Raincroft would marry Helen out of a pension?" + +"I don't care a damn how he marries her, or if he marries her at all." +He rose, testily. "I guess my family would have thought five thousand a +year enough to marry the gals on, and to spare, and it was more'n you +ever had in your best days." + +"Naturally," her voice showed scorn at his perverse lack of +intelligence. "Out contract was made with that understanding." + +"Let Helen marry a feller who is willing to go half way for her without +a palace. Why didn't you encourage her marrying Blake, as smart a young +man as I ever had? She was taken enough with him." + +"Because I did not think it fit for my sister to marry your junior +partner, who, five years ago, was your best floor-walker." + +"Well, Blake is a college-educated man and a hustler. He's bound to get +on if I back him. If Blake weren't likely enough, there's plenty more +in Chicago like me--smart business men who want a handsome young wife." + +"Perhaps we have had enough of Stuart, Hodgson, and Blake. There are +other careers in the world outside Chicago." + +"Tut, tut! I ain't going to fight here all day. What's the figure? +What's the figure?" He slapped his breeches with the morning paper. + +"You will have to take the house in London (the Duke of Waminster's is +to let, mamma writes), and give them two hundred thousand dollars in +addition to their present income for the two years." She let her eyes +fall on his toast and coffee. The old man turned about galvanically and +peered at her. + +"You're crazy! two hundred thousand these times, so's your sister can +get married?" + +"She's the last," interposed Mrs. Stuart, deftly. + +"I tell you I've done more than most men. I've paid your old bills, +your whole family's, your brothers' in college, to the tune of five +thousand a year (worthless scamps!) and put 'em in business. You've had +all of 'em at Newport and Paris, let alone their living here off and on +nearly twenty years. Now you think I can shell out two hundred thousand +and a London house as easily as I'd buy pop-corn." + +"It was our understanding." Mrs. Stuart began on her breakfast. + +"Not much. I've done better by you than I agreed to, because you've +been a good wife to me. I settled a nice little fortune on you +independent of your widder's rights or your folks." + +"Your daughter will benefit by that," Mrs. Stuart corrected. + +"Well, what's that to do with it?" He seemed to lose the scent. + +"What was our understanding when I agreed to marry you?" + +"I've done more'n I promised, I tell you." + +"As you very well know, I married you because my family were in +desperate circumstances. Our understanding was that I should be a good +wife, and you were to make my family comfortable according to my views. +Isn't that right?" + +The old man blanched at this businesslike presentation; his voice grew +feebler. + +"And I have, Beatty. I have! I've done everything by you I promised. +And I built this great house and another at Newport, and you ain't +never satisfied." + +"That was our agreement, then," she continued, without mercy. "I was +just nineteen, and wise, for a girl, and you had forty-seven pretty +wicked years. There wasn't any nonsense between us. I was a stunning +girl, the most talked about in New York at that time. I was to be a +good wife, and we weren't to have any words. Have I kept my promise?" + +"Yes, you've been a good woman, Beatty, better'n I deserved. But won't +you take less, say fifty thousand?" He advanced conciliatorily. "That's +an awful figure!" + +His wife rose, composed as ever and stately in her well-sustained forty +years. + +"Do you think _any_ price is too great in payment for these twenty-one +years?" Contempt crept in. "Not one dollar less, two hundred thousand, +and I cable mamma to-day." + +Stuart shrivelled up. + +"Do you refuse?" she remarked, lightly, for he stood irresolutely near +the door. + +"I won't stand that!" and he went out. + +When he had left Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast; a young woman +Came in hastily from the hall, where she had bade her father good-by. +She stood in the window watching the coachman surrender the horses to +the old man. The groom moved aside quickly, and in a moment the two +horses shot nervously through the ponderous iron gateway. The delicate +wheels just grazed the stanchions, lifting the light buggy in the air +to a ticklish angle. It righted itself and plunged down the boulevard. +Fast horses and cigars were two of the few pleasures still left the old +store-keeper. There was another--a costly one--which was not always +forthcoming. + +Miss Stuart watched the groom close the ornate iron gates, and then +turned inquiringly to her mother. + +"What's up with papa?" + +Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast in silence. She was superbly +preserved, and queenly for an American woman. It seemed as if something +had stayed the natural decay of her powers, of her person, and had put +her always at this impassive best. Something had stopped her heart to +render her passionless, and thus to embalm her for long years of +mechanical activity. She would not decay, but when her time should come +she would merely stop--the spring would snap. + +The daughter had her mother's height and her dark coloring. But her +large, almost animal eyes, and her roughly moulded hands spoke of some +homely, prairie inheritance. Her voice was timid and hesitating. + +At last Mrs. Stuart, her mail and breakfast exhausted at the same +moment, Rose to leave the room. + +"Oh, Edith," she remarked, authoritatively, "if you happen to drive +down town this morning, will you tell your father that we are going to +Winetka for a few weeks? Or telephone him, if you find it more +convenient. And send the boys to me. Miss Bates will make all +arrangements. I think there is a train about three." + +"Why, mamma, you don't mean to stay there! I thought we were to be here +all winter. And my lessons at the Art Institute?" + +Mrs. Stuart smiled contemptuously. "Lessons at the Art Institute are +not the most pressing matter for my daughter, who is about to come out. +You can amuse yourself with golf and tennis as long as they last. Then, +perhaps, you will have a chance to continue your lessons in Paris." + +"And papa!" protested the daughter, "I thought he couldn't leave this +winter?" + +Mrs. Stuart smiled again provokingly. "Yes?" + +"Oh, I can't understand!" Her pleading was almost passionate, but still +low and sweet. "I want so much to go on with my lessons with the other +girls. And I want to go out here with all the girls I know." + +"We will have them at Winetka. And Stuyvesant Wheelright--you liked him +last summer." + +The girl colored deeply. "I don't want him in the house. I had rather +go away. I'll go to Vassar with Mary Archer. You needn't hunt up any +man for me." + +"Pray, do you think I would tolerate a college woman in my house? It's +well enough for school-teachers. And what does your painting amount to? +You will paint sufficiently well, I dare say, to sell a few daubs, and +so take the bread and butter from some poor girl. But I am afraid, my +dear, we couldn't admit your pictures to the gallery." + +The girl's eyes grew tearful at this tart disdain. "I love it, and papa +has money enough to let me paint 'daubs' as long as I like. Please, +please let me go on with it!" + + * * * * * + +That afternoon the little caravan started for the deserted summer home +at Winetka, on a high bluff above the sandy lake-shore. It had been +bought years before, when not even the richest citizens dreamed of +going East for the summer. Of late it had been used only rarely, in the +autumn or late spring, or as a retreat in which to rusticate the boys +with their tutor. When filled with a large house-party, it made a jolly +place, though not magnificent enough for the developed hospitalities of +Mrs. Stuart. + +Old Stuart came home to an empty palace. He had not believed that his +reserved wife would take such high measures, and he felt miserably +lonely after the usual round of elaborate dinners to which he had grown +grumblingly accustomed. His one senile passion was his pride in her, +and he was avaricious of the lost days while she was absent from her +usual victorious post as the mistress of that great house. The next day +his heart sank still lower, for he saw in the Sunday papers a little +paragraph to the effect that Mrs. Stuart had invited a brilliant +house-party to her autumn home in Winetka, and that it was rumored she +and her lovely young daughter would spend the winter in London with +their relatives. It made the old man angry, for he could see with what +deliberation she had planned for a long campaign. Even the comforts of +his club were denied him; everyone knew him and everyone smiled at the +little domestic disturbance. So he asked his secretary, young Spencer, +to make his home for the present in the sprawling, brand-new "palace" +that frowned out on the South Boulevard. Young Spencer accepted, out of +pity for the old man; for he wasn't a toady and he knew his own worth. + +People did talk in the clubs and elsewhere about the divided +establishments. It would have been worse had the division come earlier, +as had been predicted often enough, or had Mrs. Stuart ever given in +her younger days a handle for any gossip. But her conduct had been so +frigidly correct that it stood in good service at this crisis. She +would not have permitted a scandal. That also was in the contract. + +Of course there was communication between the two camps, the gay +polo-playing, dinner-giving household on the bluff, and the forlorn, +tottering old man with his one aide-de-camp, the blithe young +secretary. Now and then the sons would turn up at the offices +down-town, amiably expectant of large checks. Stuart grimly referred +them to their mother. He had some vague idea of starving the opposition +out, but his wife's funds were large and her credit, as long as there +should be no recognized rupture, perfect. + +The daughter, Edith, frequently established connections. In some way +she had got permission to take her lessons at the Art Institute. Her +mother's open contempt for her aesthetic impulses had ruined her +illusion about her ability, for Mrs. Stuart knew her ground in +painting. But she still loved the atmosphere of the great studio-room +at the Art Institute. She liked the poor girls and the Western +bohemianism and the queer dresses, and above all she liked to linger +over her own little easel, undisturbed by the creative flurry around, +dreaming of woods and soft English gardens and happy hours along a +river where the water went gently, tenderly, on to the sea. And her +sweet eyes, large and black like her mother's, but softer and gentler, +to go with her low voice, would moisten a bit from the dream. "So +nice," he would murmur to her picture, "to sit here and think of the +quiet and rest, such as good pictures always paint. I'd like not to go +back with Thomas to the train--to Winetka where they play polo and +dress up and dance and flirt, but to sail away over the sea----" + +Then her eyes would see in the purplish light of her picture a certain +face that meant another life. She would blush to herself, and her voice +would stop. For she couldn't think aloud about him. + +Some days, when the murky twilight came on early, she would steal away +altogether from the gay party in Winetka and spend the night with her +lonely father. They would have a queer, stately dinner for three served +in the grand dining-room by the English butler and footman. Stuart +never had much to say to her; she wasn't his "smart," queenly wife who +brought all people to her feet. When he came to his cigar and his +whiskey, she would take young Spencer to the gallery, where they +discussed the new French pictures, very knowingly, Spencer thought. She +would describe for him the intricacies of a color-scheme of some tender +Diaz, and that would lead them into the leafy woods about Barbizon and +other realms of sentiment. + +When they returned to the library she would feel that there were +compensations for this dreary separation at Winetka and that her +enormous home had never been so nice and comfortable before. As she +bade the two men good-night, her father would come to the door, rubbing +his eyes and forlorn over his great loss, and to her murmured +"Good-night" he would sigh, "so like her mother." "Quite the softest +voice in the world," thought Spencer. + +Once in her old little tower room that she still preferred to keep, +covered with her various attempts at sea, and sky, and forest, she was +blissfully conscious of independence, so far from Stuyvesant Wheelright +and his mother--quite an ugly old dame with no better manners than the +plain Chicago people (who despised them all as "pork-packers" and +"shop-keepers," nevertheless). + +On one of these visits late in October, Edith had found her father +ailing from a cold. He asked her, shamefacedly, to tell her mother that +"he was very bad." Mrs. Stuart, leaving the house-party in full go, +started at once for the town-house. Old Stuart had purposely stayed at +home on the chances that his wife would relent. When she came in, she +found him lying in the same morning-room, where hostilities had begun +three months before. He grew confused, like an erring school-boy, as +his wife kissed him and asked after his health in a neutral sort of +way. He made out that he was threatened with a complication of diseases +that might finally end him. + +"Well, what can I do for you now," Mrs. Stuart said, with business-like +directness. + +"Spencer's looking after things pretty much. He's honest and faithful, +but he ain't got any head like yours, Beatty, and times are awful hard. +People won't pay rents, and I don't dare to throw 'em out. Stores and +houses would lie empty these days. Then there's the North Shore +Electric--I was a fool to go in so heavy the Fair year and tie up all +my money. I s'pose you know the bonds ain't reached fifty this fall. +I'm not so tremendously wealthy as folks think." + +Mrs. Stuart exactly comprehended this sly speech; she knew also that +there was some truth in it. + +"Say, Beatty, it's so nice to have you here!" The old man raised +himself and capered about like a gouty old house-dog. + +He made the most of his illness, for he suspected that it was a +condition of truce, not a bond of peace. While he was in bed Mrs. +Stuart drove to the city each day and, with Spencer's help, conducted +business for long hours. She had had experience in managing large +charities; she knew people, and when a tenant could pay, with a little +effort, he found Madam more pitiless than the old shop-keeper. Every +afternoon she would take her stenographer to Stuart's room and consult +with him. + +"Ain't she a wonder?" the old man would exclaim to Spencer, in new +admiration for his wife. And Spencer, watching the stately, +authoritative woman day after day as she worked quickly, exactly, with +the repose and dignity of a perfect machine, shivered back an unwilling +assent. + +"She's marvellous!" + +All accidents played into the hands of this masterful woman. Her own +presence in town kept her daughter at Winetka _en evidence_ for +Stuyvesant Wheelright and Mrs. Wheelright. For Mrs. Stuart had +determined upon him as, on the whole, the most likely arrangement that +she could make. He was American, but of the best, and Mrs. Stuart was +wise enough to prefer the domestic aristocracy. So to her mind affairs +were not going badly. The truce would conclude ultimately in a senile +capitulation; meantime, she could advance money for the household in +London. + +When Stuart had been nursed back into comparative activity, the grand +dinners began once more--a convenient rebuttal for all gossip. The +usual lists of distinguished strangers, wandering English story-tellers +in search of material for a new "shilling shocker," artists suing to +paint her or "Mademoiselle l'Inconnue," crept from time to time into +the genial social column of the newspaper. + +Stuart spent the evenings in state on a couch at the head of the +drawing-room, where he usually remained until the guests departed. In +this way he got a few words with his wife before she sent him to bed. +One night his enthusiasm over her bubbled out. + +"You're a great woman, Beatty!" She looked a little pale, but otherwise +unworn by her laborious month. It was not blood that fed those even +pulses. + +"You will not need my help now. You can see to your business yourself," +she remarked. + +"Say, Beatty, you won't leave me again, will you!" he quavered, +beseechingly. "I need you these last years; 'twon't be for long." + +"Oh, you are strong and quite well again," she asserted, not unkindly. + +"Will a hundred thousand do?" he pleaded. "Times are bad and ready +money is scarce, as you know." + +"Sell the electric bonds," she replied, sitting down, as if to settle +the matter. + +"Sell them bonds at fifty?" The old shop-keeper grew red in the face. + +"What's that!" she remarked, disdainfully. "What have I given?" Her +husband said nothing. "As I told you when we first talked the matter +over, I have done my part to the exact letter of the law. You admit I +have been a good and faithful wife, don't you? You know," a note of +passion crept into her colorless voice, "You know that there hasn't +been a suggestion of scandal with our home. I married you, young, +beautiful, admired; I am handsome now." She drew herself up +disdainfully. "I have not wanted for opportunity, I think you might +know; but not one man in all the world can boast I have dropped an +eyelash for his words. Not one syllable of favor have I given any man +but you. Am I not right?" + +Stuart nodded. + +"Then what do you haggle for over a few dollars? Have I ever given you +reason to repent our arrangement? Have I not helped you in business, in +social matters put you where you never could go by yourself? And do you +think my price is high?" + +"Money is so scarce," Stuart protested, feebly. + +"Suppose it left you only half a million, all told! What's that, in +comparison to what I have given? Think of that. I don't complain, but +you know we women estimate things differently. And when we sell +ourselves, we name the price; and it matters little how big it is," + +Her scorn pierced the old man's somewhat leathery sensibilities. + +"Well, if it's a question of price, when is it going to end--when shall +I have paid up? Next year you'll want half a million hard cash." + +"There is no end." + +The next morning, Mrs. Stuart returned to Winetka; the rupture +threatened to prolong itself indefinitely. Stuart found it hard to give +in completely, and it made him sore to think that their marriage had +remained a business matter for over twenty years. And yet it was hard +to face death without all the satisfaction money could buy him. The +crisis came, however, in an unexpected manner. + +One morning Stuart found his daughter waiting for him at his office. +She had slipped away from Winetka, and taken an early train. + +"What's up, Ede?" + +"Oh, papa!" the young girl gasped "They make me so unhappy, every day, +and I can't stand it. Mamma wants me to marry Stuyvesant Wheelright, +and he's there all the time." + +"Who's he?" Stuart asked, sharply. His daughter explained briefly. + +"He is what mamma calls 'eligible'; he is a great swell in New York, +and I don't like him. Oh, papa, I can't be a _grande dame_, like mamma, +can I? Won't you tell her so, papa? Make up with her; pay her the money +she wants for Aunt Helen, and then perhaps she'll let me paint." + +"No, you're not the figure your mother is, and never will be," Stuart +said, almost slightingly. "I don't think, Ede, you'll ever make a great +lady like her." + +"I don't think she is very happy," the girl bridled, in her own defence. + +"Well, perhaps not, perhaps not. But who do you want to marry, anyway? +You had better marry someone, Ede, 'fore I die." + +"I don't know--that is, it doesn't matter much just now. I should like +to go to California, perhaps, with the Stearns girls. I want to paint, +just daubs, you know--I can't do any better. But you tell mamma I can't +be a great swell. I shouldn't be happy, either."' + +The old man resolved to yield. That very afternoon he drove out to +Winetka along the lake shore. He had himself gotten up in his stiffest +best. He held the reins high and tight, his body erect in the approved +form; while now and then he glanced back to see if the footmen were as +rigid as my lady demanded. For Mrs. Stuart loved good form, and he felt +nervously apprehensive, as if he were again suing for her maiden +favors. He was conscious, too, that he had little enough to offer +her--the last months had brought humility. Beside him young Spencer +lolled, enjoying, with a free heart, his day off in the gentle, +spring-like air. Perhaps he divined that his lady would not need so +much propitiation. + +They surprised a party just setting forth from the Winetka house as +they drove up with a final flourish. Their unexpected arrival scattered +the guests into little, curious groups; everyone anticipated immediate +dissolution. They speculated on the terms, and the opinion prevailed +that Stuart's expedition from town indicated complete surrender. +Meanwhile Stuart asked for an immediate audience, and husband and wife +went up at once to Mrs. Stuart's little library facing out over the +bluff that descended to the lake. + +"Well, Beatty," old Stuart cried, without preliminary effort, "I just +can't live without you--that's the whole of it." She smiled. "I ain't +much longer to live, and then you're to have it all. So why shouldn't +you take what you want now?" He drew out several checks from his +pocket-book. + +"You can cable your folks at once and go ahead. You've been the best +sort of wife, as you said, and--I guess I owe you more'n I've paid for +your puttin' up with an old fellow like me all these years." + +Mrs. Stuart had a new sensation of pity for his pathetic surrender. + +"There's one thing, Beatty," he continued, "so long as I live you'll +own I oughter rule in my own house, manage the boys, and that." Mrs. +Stuart nodded. "Now I want you to come back with me and break up this +party." + +Mrs. Stuart took the checks. + +"You've made it a bargain, Beatty. You said I was to pay your family +what you wanted, and you were to obey me at that price?" + +"Well," replied Mrs. Stuart, good-humoredly. "We'll all go up +to-morrow. Isn't that early enough?" + +"That ain't all, Beatty. You can't make everybody over; you couldn't +brush me up much; you can't make a grand lady out of Edith." + +Mrs. Stuart looked up inquiringly. + +"Now you've had your way about your family, and I want you to let Ede +alone." + +"Why?" + +"She doesn't want that Wheelright fellow, and if you think it over +you'll see that she couldn't do as you have. She ain't the sort." + +Mrs. Stuart twitched at the checks nervously. + +"I sort of think Spencer wants her; in fact, he said so coming out +here." + +"Impertinent puppy!" + +"And I told him he could have her, if she wanted him. I don't think I +should like to see another woman of mine live the sort of life you have +with me. It's hard on 'em." His voice quivered. + +Beatrice, Lady Stuart of Winetka, as they called her, stood silently +looking out to the lake, reviewing "the sort of life she had lived" +from the time she had made up her mind to take the shop-keeper's +millions to this moment of concession. It was a grim panorama, and she +realized now that it had not meant complete satisfaction to either +party. Her twenty or more frozen years made her uncomfortable. While +they waited, young Spencer and Miss Stuart came slowly up the terraced +bluff. + +"Well, John," Mrs. Stuart smiled kindly. "I think this is the last +payment,--in full. Let's go down to congratulate them." + +CHICAGO, March, 1895. + + + +A PROTHALAMION + +_The best man has gone for a game of billiards with the host. The maid +of honor is inditing an epistle to one who must fall. The bridesmaids +have withdrawn themselves, each with some endurable usher, to an +appropriate retreat upon the other coasts of the veranda. The night is +full of starlight in May. The lovers discover themselves at last alone._ + +_He._ What was that flame-colored book Maud was reading to young Bishop? + +_She. The Dolly Dialogues_; you remember we read them in London when +they came out. + +_He._ What irreverent literature we tolerate nowadays! I suppose it's +the aftermath of agnosticism. + +_She._ It didn't occur to me that it was irreligious. + +_He._ Irreverent, I said--the tone of our world. + +_She._ But how I love that world of ours--even the _Dolly Dialogues_! + +_He_. Because you love it, this world you feel, you are reverent toward +it. I have hated it so many years; it carried so much pain with it that +I thought every expression of life was pain, and now, now, if it were +not for Maud and the _Dolly Dialogues_, these last days would seem to +launch us afresh upon quite another world. + +_She_. Yes, another world, where there is a new terror, a strange, +inhuman terror that I never thought of before, the terror of death. + +_He_. Why, what a perversity! You think of immortality as so real, so +sure! Relief from that terror of death is the proper fruit of your firm +belief. + +_She_. But I never cared before about the shape, the form, the kind of +that other life. I was content to believe it quite different from this, +for I knew this so well, enjoyed it so much. When the jam-pot should be +empty, I did not want another one just like it. But now.... + +_He_. I know. And I lived so much a stranger to the experiences I could +have about me that I was indifferent to what came after. Now, what I +am, what I have, is so precious that I cannot believe in any change +which should let me know of this life as past and impossible. That +would be "the supreme grief of remembering in misery the happy days +that have been." + +_She._ It makes me shiver; it is so blasphemous to hate the state of +being of a spirit. That would seem to degrade love, if through love we +dread to lose our bodies. + +_He._ Strange! You have come to this confession out of a trusting +religion and I from doubt--at the best indifference. You are ashamed to +confess what seems to you wholly blasphemous against that noble faith +and prayer of a Christian; and I find an invigorating pleasure in your +blasphemy. There is no conceivable life of a spirit to compare with the +pain, even, of the human body; it is better to suffer than to know no +difference. + +_She._ But "the resurrection of the body": perhaps the creed, word for +word without interpretation, would not mean that empty life which we +moderns have grown to consider the supreme and liberal conception of +existence. + +_He._ Resurrection in a purified form fit for the bliss, whatever one +of all the many shapes men have dreamed it may vision itself in! + +_She._ But this love of life, this excessive joy, must fade away. The +record of the world is not that we keep that. Think of the old people +who dream peacefully of death, after knowing all the fulness of this +life. Think of the wretches who pray for it. That vision of the life of +spirits which is so dreadful to us has been the comfort of the ages. +There must be some inner necessity for it. Perhaps with our bodies our +wills become worn out. + +_He_. That, I think, is the mystery--the wearing out, which is death. +For death occurs oftener in life than we think; I know so many dead +people who are walking about. As for sick people, physicians say that +in a long illness they never have to warn a patient of the coming end. +He knows it, subtly, from some dim, underground intimation. Without +acknowledging it, he arranges himself, so to speak, for the grave, and +comforts himself with those visions that religion holds out. Or does he +comfort himself? + +But apart from the dying, there are so many out of whose bodies and +spirits life is ebbing. It may have been a little flood-tide, but they +know it is going. You see it on their faces. They become dull. That +leprosy of death attacks their life, joint by joint. They lay aside one +pleasure, one function, one employment of their minds after another. +The machine may run on, but the soul is dying. That is what I call +_death in life_. + + + +THE EPISODE OF LIFE. + +Jack Lynton is becoming stone like that. His is a case in point, and a +good one, because the atrophy is coming about not from physical +disease, or from any dissipation. You would call him sane and full of +fire. He was. He married three years ago. Their life was full, too, +like ours, and precious. They did not throw it away; they were wise +guardians of all its possibilities. The second summer--I was with them, +and Jack has told me much besides--Mary began talking, almost in joke, +of these matters, of what one must prepare for; of second marriages, +and all that. We chatted in as idle fashion as do most people over the +utterly useless topics of life. One exquisite September day, all +steeped in the essence of sunshine--misty everywhere over the +fields--how well I remember it!--she spoke again in jest about +something that might happen after her death. I saw a trace of pain on +Jack's face. She saw it, and was sad for a moment. Now I know that all +through that late summer and autumn those two were fighting death in +innuendoes. They were not morbid people, but death went to bed with +them each night. + +Of course, this apprehension, this miasma, came in slowly, like those +autumn sea-mists; appearing once a month, twice this week--a little +oftener each time. + +Jack is a sensible man; he does not shy at a shadow. His nerves are +tranquil, and respond as they ought. They went about the business of +life as joyfully as you or I, and in October we were all back in town. +Now, Mary is dying; the doctor sees it now. I do not mean that he +should have known it before. _She_ knew it, and _she_ noted how the +life was fading away until the time came when what was so full of +action, of feeling, of desire, was merely a shell--impervious to +sensation. + +And Jack is dying, too--his health is good enough, but pain which he +cannot master is killing him into numbness. He watches each joy, each +experience with which they were both tremulous, depart. And do you +suppose it is any comfort for those two honest souls to believe that +their spirits will recognize each other in some curious state that has +dispensed with sense? Do you suppose that a million of years of a +divine communion would make up for one spoken word, for even a shade of +agony that passes across Mary's face? + +_She_. If God should change their souls in that other world, then +perhaps their longings would be quite different; so that what we think +of with chill they would accept as a privilege. + +_He_. In other words, those two, who have learned to know each other in +human terms, who have loved and suffered in the body, will have ended +their page? Some strange transformation into another two? Why not +simply an end to the book? Would that not be easier? + +_She_. If one had the courage to accept these few years of life and ask +for no more. + +_He_. I think that it is cowardice which makes one accept the ghostly +satisfaction of a surviving spirit. + + + +WHEN THE BODY IN LIFE FEELS THE SPIRIT. + +_She_. But have you never forgotten the body, dreamed what it would be +to feel God? You have known those moments when your soul, losing the +sense of contact with men or women, groped alone, in an enveloping +calm, and knew content. I have had it in times of intoxication from +music--not the personal, passionate music of to-day, but some one or +two notes that sink the mazy present into darkness. I knew that my +senses were gone for the time, and in their place I held a comfortable +consciousness of power. There have been other times--in Lent, at the +close of the drama of Christ--beside the sea--after a long +dance--illusory moments when one forgot the body and wondered. + +_He._ I know. One night in the Sierras we camped high up above the +summits of the range. The altitude, perhaps, or the long ride through +the forest, kept me awake. Our fires died down; a chalky mist rose from +the valleys, and, filtering through the ravines, at last capped the +granite heads. The smouldering tree-trunks we had lit for fires and the +little patch of rock where we lay, made an island in that white sea. +Between us and the black spaces among the stars there was nothing. How +eternally quiet it was! I can feel that isolation now coming over my +soul like the stealthy fog, until I lay there, unconscious of my body, +in a wondering placidity, watching the stars burn and fade. I could +seem to feel them whirl in their way through the heavens. And then a +thought detached itself from me, the conception of an eternity passed +in placidity like that without the pains of sense, the obligations of +action; I loved it then--that cold residence of thought! + +_She._ You have known it, too. Those moments when the body in life +feels the state of spirit come rarely and awe one. Dear heart, perhaps +if our spirits were purified and experienced we should welcome that +perpetual contemplation. We cannot be Janus-faced, but the truth may +lie with the monks, who killed this life in order to obtain a grander +one. + + + +TWO SOULS IN HEAVEN REMEMBER THE LIFE LIVED ON EARTH. + +_He._ Can you conceive of any heaven for which you would change this +shameful world? Any heaven, I mean, of spirits, not merely an Italian +palace of delights? + +_She._ There is the heaven of the Pagans, the heaven of glorified +earth, but---- + +_He._ Would you like to dine without tasting the fruit and the wine? +What attainment would it be to walk in fields of asphodel, when all the +colors of all the empyrean were equally dazzling, and perceived by the +mind alone? For my part, I should prefer to hold one human violet. + +_She_. The heaven of the Christian to-day? + +_He_. That may be interpreted in two ways: the heaven where we know +nothing but God, and the heaven where we remember our former life. Let +us pass the first, for the second is the heaven passionately desired by +those who have suffered here, who have lost their friends. + +Suppose that we two had finished with the episode of death, and had +come out beyond into that tranquillity of spirit where sorrows change +to harmony. You and I would go together, or, perhaps, less fortunate, +one should wait the other, but finally both would experience this +transformation from body into spirit. Should you like it? Would it fill +your heart with content--if you remembered the past? I think not. +Suppose we should walk out some fresh morning, as we love to do now, +and look at that earth we had been compelled to abandon. Where would be +that fierce joy of inrushing life? for, I fancy, we should ever have a +level of contentment and repose. Indeed, there would be no evening with +its comforting calm, no especially still nights, no mornings: nothing +is precious when nothing changes, and where all can be had for eternity. + +We should talk, as of old, but the conversation of old men and women +would be dramatic and passionate to ours. For everything must needs be +known, and there could be no distinctions in feeling. Should you see +your sister dying in agony at sea, you would smile tranquilly at her +temporary and childish sorrow. All the affairs of this life would not +strike you, pierce your heart, or move your pulse. They would repeat +themselves in your eyes with a monotonous precision, and they would be +done almost before the actors had begun. Indeed, if you should not be +incapable of blasphemy, you would rebel at this blind game, played out +with such fever. + +We must not forget that our creative force would be spent: planning, +building, executing, toiling patiently for some end that is mirrored +only in our minds--how much of our joy comes from these!--would be laid +aside. We should have shaken the world as much as we could: now, +_peace_.... Again, I say, peace is felt only after a storm. Like +Ulysses, we should look wistfully out from the isolation of heaven to +the resounding waves of this unconquered world. + +Of course, one may say that the mind might fashion cures for all this; +that a greater architect would build a saner heaven. But, remember, +that we must not change the personal sense; in heaven, however you plan +it, no mortal must lose that "I" so painfully built from the human +ages. If you destroy his sense of the past life, his treasures acquired +in this earth, you break the rules of the game: you begin again and we +have nothing to do with it. + +_She._ You have not yet touched upon the cruellest condition of the +life of the spirit. + +_He._ Ah, dearest, I know that. You mean the love of the person. +Indeed, so quick it hurts me that I doubt if you would be walking that +morning in heaven with me alone. Perhaps, however, the memories of our +common life on earth would make you single me out. Let us think so. We +should walk on to some secluded spot, apart from the other spirits, and +with our eyes cast down so that we might not see that earth we were +remembering. You would look up at last with a touch of that defiance I +love so now, as if a young goddess were tossing away divine cares to +shine out again in smiles. Ah, how sad! + +I should have some stir about the heart, some desire to kiss you, to +embrace you, to possess you, as the inalienable joy of my life. My hand +could not even touch you! Would our eyes look love? Could we have any +individual longing for one-another, any affection kept apart to +ourselves, not swallowed up in that general loving-kindness and +universal beatification proper to spirits? + +I know upon earth to-day some women, great souls, too, who are +incapable of an individual love. They may be married, they may have +children; they are good wives and good mothers; but their souls are too +large for a single passion. Their world blesses them, worships them, +makes saints of them, but no man has ever touched the bottom of their +hearts. I suppose their husbands are happy in the general happiness, +yet they must be sad some days, over this barren love. Hours come when +they must long, even for the little heart of a coquette that has +dedicated itself to one other and with that other would trustingly +venture into hell. + +Well, that universal love is the only kind such spirits as you and I +should be, could know. Would that content you? + +We should sit mournfully silent, two impotent hearts, and remember, +remember. I should worship your exquisite body as I had known it on +earth. I should see that head as it bends to-night; I should hear again +your voice in those words you were singing when I passed your way that +first time; and your eyes would burn with the fire of our relinquished +love. It would all come faintly out of the past, deadened by a thin +film of recollection; now it strikes with a fierce joy, almost like a +physical blow, and wakes me to life, to desire. + +_She._ Yes. We women say we love the spirit of the man we have chosen, +but it is a spirit that acts and expresses itself in the body. To that +body, with all its habits, so unconscious! its sure force and power, we +are bound--more than the man is bound to the loveliness of the woman he +adores. We--I, it is safer so, perhaps--understand what I see, what I +feel, what I touch, what I have kissed and loved. That is mine and +becomes mine more each day I live with it and possess it. That love of +the concrete is our limitation, so we are told, but it is our joy. + +_He_. So we should sit, without words, for we would shrink from speech +as too sad, and we should know swiftly the thought of the other. And +when the sense of our loss became quite intolerable, we should walk on +silently, in a growing horror of the eternity ahead. At last one of us, +moved by some acute remembrance of our deadened selves, would go to the +Master of the Spirits and, standing before him in rebellion, would say: +"Cast us out as unfit for this heaven, and if Thou canst not restore us +into that past state at least give us Hell, where we may suffer a +common pain, instead of this passive calm and contemplation." + + + +THE MEASURE OF JOY IN LIFE. + +_She._ Yet, how short it will be! How awful to have the days and weeks +and months slip by, and know that at the best there is only a reprieve +of a few years. I think from this night I shall have my shadow of +death. I shall always be doing things for the last time; a sad life +that! And perhaps we change; as you say, we may become dead in life, +prepared for a different state; and in that change we may find a new +joy--a longing for perfection and peace. + +_He_. That would be an acknowledgment of defeat, indeed, and that is +the sad result of so much living. The world has been too hard, we +cry--there is so much heartbreaking, so much misery, so few arrive! We +look to another world where all that will be made right, and where we +shall suffer no more. + +Let the others have their opiate. You, at least, I think, are too brave +for that kind of comfort. Does it not seem a little grasping to ask for +eternity, because we have fifty years of action? And an eternity of +passivity, because we have not done well with action? No, the world has +had too much of that coddling, that kind of shuffle through, as if it +were a way station where we must spend the night and make the best of +sorry accommodations. Our benevolence, our warmheartedness, goes +overmuch to making the beds a bit better, especially for the feeble and +the sick and old, and those who come badly fitted out. We help the +unfortunate to slide through: I think it would be more sensible to make +it worth their while to stay. The great philanthropists are those who +ennoble life, and make it a valuable possession. It would be well to +poison the forlorn, hurry them post haste to some other world where +they may find the conditions better suited. Then give their lot of +misery and opportunity to another who can find joy in his burden. + +_She._ A world without mercy would be hard--it would be full of a +strident clamor like a city street. + +_He._ Mercy for all; no favoritism for a few. Whoever could find a new +joy, a lasting activity; whoever could keep his body and mind in full +health and could show what a tremendous reality it is to live--would be +the merciful man. There would be less of that leprosy, death in life, +and the last problem of death itself would not be insurmountable. + +So I think the common men who know things, concrete things,--the price +of grain, if you will; the men of affairs who have their minds on the +struggle; the artists who in paint or words explore new +possibilities--all these are the merciful men, the true comforters whom +we should honor. They make life precious--aside from its physical value. + +You know the keen movement that runs through your whole being when you +come face to face with some great Rembrandt portrait. How much the man +knew who made it, who saw it unmade! Or that Bellini's Pope we used to +watch, whose penetrating smile taught us about life. And the greater +Titian, the man with a glove, that looks at you like a live soul, one +whom a man created to live for the joy of other men. In another form, I +feel the same gift of life in a new enterprise: a railroad carried +through; a corrupt government cleaned for the day. And, again, that +Giorgione at Paris, where the men and women are doing nothing in +particular, but living in the sunlight, a joyful, pagan band. + +And then think of the simpler, deeper notes of the symphony, the +elements of light and warmth and color in our world, the very seeds of +existence. I count that day the richest when we floated into the Cape +harbor in the little rowboat, bathed in the afternoon sun. The +fishermen were lazily winging in, knowing, like birds, the storm that +would soon be on them. We drank the sun in all our pores. It rained +down on you, and glorified your face and the flesh of your arms and +your hands. We landed, and walked across the evening fields to that +little hut. Then nature lived and glowed with the fervor of actual +experience. You and the air and the sun-washed ocean, all were some +great throbs of actualities. + +_She._ You remember how I liked to ride with you and sail, the stormy +days. How I loved to feel your body battling even feebly with the wind +and rain. I loved to see your face grow crimson under the lash of the +waves, and then to _feel_ you, alive and mine! + +_He._ It would not be bad, a heaven like that, of perpetual physical +presentiment, of storms and sun, and rich fields, and long waves +rolling up the beaches. For nerves ever alive and strung healthily all +along the gamut of sensation! Days with terrific gloom, like the German +forests of the Middle Ages; days with small nights spent on the sea; +September days with a concealed meaning in the air. One would ride and +battle and sail and eat. Then long kisses of love in bodies that spoke. + +_She._ And yet, how strange to life as it is is that picture--like some +mediæval song with the real people left out; strange to the dirty +streets, the breakfasts in sordid rooms, the ignoble faces, the houses +with failure written across the door-posts; strange to the life of papa +and mamma; to the comfortable home; the chatter of the day; the horses; +the summer trips--everything we have lived, you and I. + +_He._ Incomplete, and hence merely a literary paradise. It is well, +too, as it is, for until we can go to bed with the commonplace, and +dine with sorrow, we are but children,--brilliant children, but with +the unpleasant mark of the child. Not sorrow accepted, my love, and +bemoaned; but sorrow fought and dislodged. He is great who feels the +pain and sorrow and absorbs it and survives--he who can remain calm in +it and believe in it. It is a fight; only the strong hold their own. +That fight we call duty. + +And duty makes the only conceivable world given the human spirit and +the human frame: even should we believe that the world is a revolving +palæstrinum without betterment. And the next world--the next? It must +be like ours, too, in its action; it must call upon the same +activities, the same range of desires and loves and hates. Grander, +perhaps, more adorned, with greater freedom, with more swing, with a +less troubled song as it rushes on its course. But a world like unto +ours, with effort, with the keen jangle of persons in effort, with +sorrow, aye, and despair: for there must be forfeits! + +Is that not better than to slink away to death with the forlorn comfort +of a + +"_Requiescat in pace?_" + +PARIS, December, 1895. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories, by +Robert Herrick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS, OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 8113-8.txt or 8113-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/1/1/8113/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Bidwell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +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: Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Posting Date: October 20, 2012 [EBook #8113] +Release Date: May, 2005 +First Posted: June 15, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS, OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Bidwell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + + + +LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS + +AND OTHER STORIES + +by + +ROBERT HERRICK + + + +TO + +G. H. P. + + + +LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS: + +A MODERN ACCOUNT + +NO. I. INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY. + +(_Eastlake has renewed an episode of his past life. The formalities +have been satisfied at a chance meeting, and he continues_.) + +... So your carnations lie over there, a bit beyond this page, in a +confusion of manuscripts. Sweet source of this idle letter and gentle +memento of the house on Grant Street and of you! I fancy I catch their +odor before it escapes generously into the vague darkness beyond my +window. They whisper: "Be tender, be frank; recall to her mind what is +precious in the past. For departed delights are rosy with deceitful +hopes, and a woman's heart becomes heavy with living. We are the woman +you once knew, but we are much more. We have learned new secrets, new +emotions, new ambitions, in love--we are fuller than before." So--for +to-morrow they will be shrivelled and lifeless--I take up their message +to-night. + +I see you now as this afternoon at the Goodriches', when you came in +triumphantly to essay that hot room of empty, passive folk. Someone was +singing somewhere, and we were staring at one another. There you stood +at the door, placing us; the roses, scattered in plutocratic profusion, +had drooped their heads to our hot faces. We turned from the music to +_you_. You knew it, and you were glad of it. You knew that they were +busy about you, that you and your amiable hostess made an effective +group at the head of the room. You scented their possible disapproval +with zest, for you had so often mocked their good-will with impunity +that you were serenely confident of getting what you wanted. Did you +want a lover? Not that I mean to offer myself in flesh and blood: God +forbid that I should join the imploring procession, even at a +respectful distance! My pen is at your service. I prefer to be your +historian, your literary maid--half slave, half confidant; for then you +will always welcome me. If I were a lover, I might some day be +inopportune. That would not be pleasant. + +Yes, they were chattering about you, especially around the table where +some solid ladies of Chicago served iced drinks. I was sipping it all +in with the punch, and looking at the pinks above the dark hair, and +wondering if you found having your own way as good fun as when you were +eighteen. You have gained, my dear lady, while I have been knocking +about the world. You are now more than "sweet": you are almost +handsome. I suppose it is a question of lights and the time of day +whether or not you are really brilliant. And you carry surety in your +face. There is nothing in Chicago to startle you, perhaps not in the +world. + +She at the punch remarked, casually, to her of the sherbet: "I wonder +when Miss Armstrong will settle matters with Lane? It is the best she +can do now, though he isn't as well worth while as the men she threw +over." And her neighbor replied: "She might do worse than Lane. She +could get more from him than the showy ones." So Lane is the name of +the day. They have gauged you and put you down at Lane. I took an ice +and waited--but you will have to supply the details. + +Meantime, you sailed on, with that same everlasting enthusiasm upon +your face that I knew six years ago, until you spied me. How extremely +natural you made your greeting! I confess I believed that I had lived +for that smile six years, and suffered a bad noise for the sound of +your voice. It seemed but a minute until we found ourselves almost +alone with the solid women at the ices. One swift phrase from you, and +we had slipped back through the meaningless years till we stood _there_ +in the parlor at Grant Street, mere boy and girl. The babbling room +vanished for a few golden moments. Then you rustled off, and I believe +I told Mrs. Goodrich that musicales were very nice, for they gave you a +chance to talk. And I went to the dressing-room, wondering what rare +chance had brought me again within the bondage of that voice. + +Then, then, dear pinks, you came sailing over the stairs, peeping out +from that bunch of lace. I loitered and spoke. Were the eyes green, or +blue, or gray; ambition, or love, or indifference to the world? I was +at my old puzzle again, while you unfastened the pinks, and, before the +butler, who acquiesced at your frivolity in impertinent silence, you +held them out to me. Only you know the preciousness of unsought-for +favors. "Write me," you said; and I write. + +What should man write about to you but of love and yourself? My pen, I +see, has not lost its personal gait in running over the mill books. +Perhaps it politely anticipates what is expected! So much the better, +say, for you expect what all men give--love and devotion. You would not +know a man who could not love you. Your little world is a circle of +possibilities. Let me explain. Each lover is a possible conception of +life placed at a slightly different angle from his predecessor or +successor. Within this circle you have turned and turned, until your +head is a bit weary. But I stand outside and observe the whirligig. +Shall I be drawn in? No, for I should become only a conventional +interest. "If the salt," etc. I remember you once taught in a mission +school. + +The flowers will tell me no more! Next time give me a rose--a huge, +hybrid, opulent rose, the product of a dozen forcing processes--and I +will love you a new way. As the flowers say good-by, I will say +goodnight. Shall I burn them? No, for they would smoulder. And if I +left them here alone, to-morrow they would be wan. There! I have thrown +them out wide into that gulf of a street twelve stories below. They +will flutter down in the smoky darkness, and fall, like a message from +the land of the lotus-eaters, upon a prosy wayfarer. And safe in my +heart there lives that gracious picture of my lady as she stands above +me and gives them to me. That is eternal: you and the pinks are but +phantoms. Farewell! + + + +NO. II. ACQUIESCENT AND ENCOURAGING. + +(_Miss Armstrong replies on a dull blue, canvas-textured page, over +which her stub-pen wanders in fashionable negligence. She arrives on +the third page at the matter in hand_.) + +Ah, it was very sweet, your literary love-letter. Considerable style, +as you would say, but too palpably artificial. If you want to deceive +this woman, my dear sir trifler, you must disguise your mockery more +artfully. + +Why didn't I find you at the Stanwoods'? I had Nettie send you a card. +I had promised you to a dozen delightful women, "our choicest lot," who +were all agog to see my supercilious and dainty sir.... Why will you +always play with things? Perhaps you will say because I am not worth +serious moments. You play with everything, I believe, and that is +banal. Ever sincerely, + +EDITH ARMSTRONG. + + + +NO. III. EXPLANATORY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake has the masculine fondness for seeing himself in the right_.) + +I turned the Stanwoods' card down, and for your sake, or rather for the +sake of your memory. I preferred to sit here and dream about you in the +midst of my chimney-pots and the dull March mists rather than to run +the risk of another, and perhaps fatal, impression. And so far as you +are concerned your reproach is just. Do I "play with everything"? +Perhaps I am afraid that it might play with me. Imagine frolicking with +tigers, who might take you seriously some day, as a tidbit for +afternoon tea--if you should confess that you were serious! That's the +way I think of the world, or, rather, your part of it. Surely, it is a +magnificent game, whose rules we learn completely just as our blood +runs too slowly for active exercise. I like to break off a piece of its +cake (or its rank cheese at times) and lug it away with me to my den up +here for further examination. I think about it, I dream over it; yes, +in a reflective fashion, I _feel_. It is a charming, experimental way +of living. + +Then, after the echo becomes faint and lifeless, or, if you prefer, the +cheese too musty, I sally out once more to refresh my larder. You play +also in your way, but not so intelligently (pardon me), for you deceive +yourself from day to day that your particular object, your temporary +mood, is the one eternal thing in life. After all, you have mastered +but one trick--the trick of being loved. With that trick you expect to +take the world; but, alas! you capture only an old man's purse or a +young man's passion. + +Artificial, my letters--yes, if you wish. I should say, not +crude--matured, considered. I discuss the love you long to experience. +I dangle it before your eyes as a bit of the drapery that goes to the +ball of life. But when dawn almost comes and the ball is over, you +mustn't expect the paper roses to smell. This mystifies you a little, +for you are a plain, downright siren. Your lovers' songs have been in +simple measures. Well, the moral is this: take my love-letters as real +(in their way) as the play, or rather, the opera; infinitely true for +the moment, unreal for the hour, eternal as the dead passions of the +ages. Further, it is better to feel the aromatic attributes of love +than the dangerous or unlovely reality. You can flirt with number nine +or marry number ten, but I shall be stored away in your drawer for a +life. + +You have carried me far afield, away from men and things. So, for a +moment, I have stopped to listen to the hum of this chaotic city as it +rises from Dearborn and State in the full blast of a commercial noon. +You wonder why an unprofitable person like myself lives here, and not +in an up-town club with my fellows. Ah, my dear lady, I wish to see the +game always going on in its liveliest fashion. So I have made a den for +myself, not under the eaves of a hotel, but on the roof, among the +ventilators. Here I can see the clouds of steam and the perpetual pall +of smoke below me. I can revel in gorgeous sunsets when the fiery light +threads the smoke and the mists and the sodden clouds eastward over the +lake. And at night I take my steamer chair to the battlements and peer +over into a sea of lights below. As I sit writing to you, outside go +the click and rattle of the elevator gates and other distant noises of +humanity. My echo comes directly enough, but it does not deafen me. +Below there exists my barber, and farther down that black pit of an +elevator lies lunch, or a cigar, or a possible cocktail, if the mental +combination should prove unpleasant. Across the hall is Aladdin's lamp, +otherwise my banker; and above all is Haroun al Raschid. Am I not wise? +In the morning, if it is fair, I take a walk among the bulkheads on the +roof, and watch the blue deception of the lake. Perhaps, if the wind +comes booming in, I hear the awakening roar in the streets and think of +work. Perhaps the clear emptiness of a Sunday hovers over the shore; +then I wonder what you will say to this letter. Will you feel with me +that you should live on a housetop and eat cheese? Do you long for a +cool stream without flies, and a carpet of golden sand? Do you want a +coal fire and a husband home at six-thirty, or a third-class ticket to +the realms of nonsense? Are you thinking of Lane's income, or Smith's +cleverness, or the ennui of too many dinners? + +I know: you are thinking of love while you read this, and are happy. If +I might send you a new sensation in every line, I should be happy, too, +for your prodigal nature demands novelty. I should then be master for a +moment. And love is mastery and submission, the two poles of a strong +magnet. Adieu. + + + +NO. IV. FURTHER AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake continues apropos of a chance meeting_.) + +So you rather like the curious flavor of this new dish, but it puzzles +you. You ask for facts? What a stamp Chicago has put on your soul! You +will continue to regard as facts the feeble fancies that God has +allowed to petrify. I warn you that facts kill, but you shall have +them. I had meditated a delightful sheet of love that has been +disdainfully shoved into the waste-basket. A grave moral there for you, +my lady! + +Do you remember when I was very young and _gauche_? Doubtless, for +women never forget first impressions of that sort. You dressed very +badly, and were quite ceremonious. I was the bantling son of one of +your father's provincial correspondents, to adopt the suave term of the +foreigners. I had been sent to Chicago to fit for a technical school, +where I was to learn to be very clever about mill machinery. Perhaps +you remember my father--a sweet-natured, wiry, active man, incapable of +conceiving an interest in life that was divorced from respectability. I +think he had some imagination, for now and then he was troubled about +my becoming a loafer. However, he certainly kept it in control: I was +to become a great mill owner. + +It was all luck at first: you were luck, and the Tech. was luck. Then I +found my voice and saw my problem: to cross my father's aspirations, to +be other than the Wabash mill owner, would have been cruel. You see his +desires were more passionate than mine. I worried through the +mechanical, deadening routine of the Tech. somehow, and finally got +courage enough to tell him that I could not accept Wabash quite yet. I +had the audacity to propose two years abroad. We compromised on one, +but I understood that I must not finally disappoint him. He cared so +much that it would have been wicked. A few people in this world have +positive and masterful convictions. An explosion or insanity comes if +their wills smoulder in ineffectual silence. Most of us have no more +than inclinations. It seems wise and best that those of mere +inclinations should waive their prejudices in favor of those who feel +intensely. So much for the great questions of individuality and +personality that set the modern world a-shrieking. This is a +commonplace solution of the great family problem Turgenieff propounded +in "Fathers and Sons." Perchance you have heard of Turgenieff? + +So I prepared to follow my father's will, for I loved him exceedingly. +His life had not been happy, and his nature, as I have said, was a more +exacting one than mine. The price of submission, however, was not plain +to me until I was launched that year in Paris in a strange, +cosmopolitan world. I was supposed to attend courses at the Ecole +Polytechnique, but I became mad with the longings that are wafted about +Europe from capital to capital. I went to Italy--to Venice and Florence +and Rome--to Athens and Constantinople and Vienna. In a word, I +unfitted myself for Wabash as completely as I could, and troubled my +spirit with vain attempts after art and feeling. + +You women do not know the intoxication of five-and-twenty--a few +hundred francs in one's pockets, the centuries behind, creation ahead. +You do not know what it is to hunger after the power of understanding +and the power of expression; to see the world as divine one minute and +a mechanic hell the next; to feel the convictions of the vagabond; to +grudge each sunbeam that falls unseen by you on some mouldering gate in +some neglected city, each face of the living wherein possible life +looks out untried by you, each picture that means a new curiosity. No, +for, after all, you are material souls; you need a Bradshaw and a +Baedeker, even in the land of dreams. All men, I like to think, for one +short breath in their lives, believe this narrow world to be shoreless. +They feel that they should die in discontent if they could not +experience, test, this wonderful conglomerate of existence. It is an +old, old matter I am writing you about. We have classified it nicely, +these days; we call it the "romantic spirit," and we say that it is +made three parts of youth and two of discontent--a perpetual expression +of the world's pessimism. + +I look back, and I think that I have done you wrong. Women like you +have something nearly akin to this mood. Some time in your lives you +would all be romantic lovers. The commonest of you anticipate a +masculine soul that shall harmonize your discontent into happiness. +Most of you are not very nice about it; you make your hero out of the +most obvious man. Yet it is pathetic, that longing for something beyond +yourselves. That passionate desire for a complete illusion in love is +the one permanent note you women have attained in literature. In your +heart of hearts you would all (until you become stiff in the arms of an +unlovely life) follow a cabman, if he could make the world dance for +you in this joyous fashion. Some are hard to satisfy--for example, you, +my lady--and you go your restless, brilliant little way, flirting with +this man, coquetting with that, examining a third, until your heart +grows weary or until you are at peace. You may marry for money or for +love, and in twenty years you will teach your daughters that love +doesn't pay at less than ten thousand a year. But you don't expect them +to believe you, and they don't. + +I am not sneering at you. I would not have it otherwise, for the world +would be one half cheaper if women like you did not follow the +perpetual instinct. True, civilization tends to curb this romantic +desire, but when civilization runs against a passionate nature we have +a tragedy. The world is sweeter, deeper, for that. Live and love, if +you can, and give the lie to facts. Be restless, be insatiable, be +wicked, but believe that your body and soul were meant for more than +food and raiment; that somewhere, somehow, some day, you will meet the +dream made real, and that _he_ will unlock the secrets of this life. + +It is late. I am tired. The noises of the city begin, far down in the +darkness. This carries love. + + + +NO. V. AROUSED. + +(_Miss Armstrong protests and invites_.) + +It is real, real, _real_. If I can say so, after going on all these +years with but one idea (according to my good friends) of settling +myself comfortably in some large home, shouldn't you believe it? You +have lived more interestingly than I, and you are not dependent, as +most of us are. You really mock me through it all. You think I am +worthy of only a kind of candy that you carry about for agreeable +children, which you call love. To me, sir, it reads like an +insult--your message of love tucked in concisely at the close. + +No, keep to facts, for they are your _metier_. You make them +interesting. Tell me more about your idle, contemplative self. And let +me see you to-morrow at the Thorntons'. Leave your sombre eyes at home, +and don't expect infinities in tea-gabble. I saw you at the opera last +night. For some moments, while Melba was singing, I wanted you and your +confectioner's love. That Melba might always sing, and the tide always +flood the marshes! On the whole, I like candy. Send me a page of it. + +E. A. + + + +NO. VI. AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake, disregarding her comments, continues._) + +Dear lady, did you ever read some stately bit of prose, which caught in +its glamour of splendid words the vital, throbbing world of affairs and +passions, some crystallization of a rich experience, and then by chance +turn to the "newsy" column of an American newspaper? (Forsooth, these +must be literary letters!) Well, that tells the sensations of going +from Europe to Wabash. I had caught the sound of the greater harmony, +or struggle, and I must accept the squeak of the melodeon. I did not +think highly of myself; had started too far back in the race, and I +knew that laborious years of intense zeal would place me only third +class, or even lower, in any pursuit of the arts. Perhaps if I had felt +that I could have made a good third class, I should have fought it out +in Europe. There are some things man cannot accomplish, however, our +optimistic national creed to the contrary. And there would have been +something low in disappointing my father for such ignoble results, such +imperfect satisfaction. + +So to Wabash I went. I resolved to adapt myself to the billiards and +whiskey of the Commercial Club, and to the desk in the inner office +behind the glass partitions. And I like to think that I satisfied my +father those two years in the mills. After a time I achieved a lazy +content. At first I tried to deceive myself; to think that the newsy +column of Wabash was as significant as the grand page of London or +Paris. That simple yarn didn't satisfy me many months. + +Then my father died. I hung on at the mills for a time, until the +strikes and the general depression gave me valid reasons for +withdrawing. To skip details, I sold out my interests, and with my +little capital came to Chicago. My income, still dependent in some part +upon those Wabash mills, trembles back and forth in unstable +equilibrium. + +Chicago was too much like Wabash just then. I went to Florence to join +a man, half German Jew, half American, wholly cosmopolite, whom I had +known in Paris. His life was very thin: it consisted wholly of +interests--a tenuous sort of existence. I can thank him for two things: +that I did not remain forever in Italy, trying to say something new, +and that I began a definite task. I should send you my book (now that +it is out and people are talking about it), but it would bore you, and +you would feel that you must chatter about it. It is a good piece of +journeyman work. I gathered enough notes for another volume, and then I +grew restless. Business called me home for a few months, so I came back +to Chicago. Of all places! you say. Yes, to Chicago, to see this brutal +whirlpool as it spins and spins. It has fascinated me, I admit, and I +stay on--to live up among the chimneys, hanging out over the cornice of +a twelve-story building; to soak myself in the steam and smoke of the +prairie and in the noises of a city's commerce. + +Am I content? Yes, when I am writing to you; or when the pile of +manuscripts at my side grows painfully page by page; or when, peering +out of the fort-like embrasure, I can see the sun drenched in smoke and +mist and the "sky-scrapers" gleam like the walls of a Colorado canon. I +have enough to buy me existence, and at thirty I still find peepholes +into hopes. + +Are these enough facts for you? Shall I send you an inventory of my +room, of my days, of my mental furniture? Some long afternoon I will +spirit you up here in that little steel cage, and you shall peer out of +my window, tapping your restless feet, while you sniff at the squalor +below. You will move softly about, questioning the watercolors, the +bits of bric-a-brac, the dusty manuscripts, the dull red hangings, not +quite understanding the fox in his hole. You will gratefully catch the +sounds from the mound below our feet, and when you say good-by and drop +swiftly down those long stories you will gasp a little sigh of relief. +You will pull down your veil and drive off to an afternoon tea, feeling +that things as they are are very nice, and that a little Chicago mud is +worth all the clay of the studios. And I? I shall take the roses out of +the vase and throw them away. I shall say, "Enough!" But somehow you +will have left a suggestion of love about the place. I shall fancy that +I still hear your voice, which will be so far away dealing out +banalities. I shall treasure the words you let wander heedlessly out of +the window. I shall open my book and write, "To-day she +came--_beatissima hora_." + + + +NO. VII. OF THE NATURE OF A CONFESSION. + +(_Miss Armstrong is nearing the close of her fifth season. Prospect and +retrospect are equally uninviting. She wills to escape_.) + +I shall probably be thinking about the rents in your block, and +wondering if the family had best put up a sky-scraper, instead of doing +all the pretty little things you mention in your letter. At +five-and-twenty one becomes practical, if one is a woman whose father +has left barely enough to go around among two women who like luxury, +and two greedy boys at college with expensive "careers" ahead. This +letter finds me in the trough of the wave. I wonder if it's what you +call "the ennui of many dinners?" More likely it's because we can't +keep our cottage at Sorrento. Well-a-day! it's gray this morning, and I +will write off a fit of the blues. + +I think it's about time to marry number nine. It would relieve the +family immensely. I suspect they think I have had my share of fun. +Probably you will take this as an exquisite joke, but 'tis the truth, +alas! + +Last night I was at the Hoffmeyers' at dinner. It was slow. All such +dinners are slow. The good Fraus don't know how to mix the sheep and +the goats. For a passing moment they talked about you and about your +book in a puzzled way. They think you so clever and so odd. But I know +how hollow he is, and how thin his fame! I got some points on the new L +from the Hoffmeyers and young Mr. Knowlton. That was interesting and +exciting. We dealt in millions as if they were checkers. These +practical men have a better grip on life than the cynics and dreamers +like you. You call them plebeian and _bourgeois_ and Philistine and +limited--all the bad names in your select vocabulary. But they know how +to feel in the good, old, common-sense way. You've lost that. I like +plebeian earnestness and push. I like success at something, and hearty +enjoyment, and good dinners, and big men who talk about a million as if +it were a ten-spot in the game. + +You see I am looking for number nine and my four horses. Then I mean to +invite you to my country house, to have a lot of "fat" girls to meet +you who will talk slang at you, and one of them shall marry you--one +whose father is a great newspaper man. And your new papa will start you +in the business of making public opinion. You will play with that, too, +but, then, you will be coining money. + +No, not here in Chicago, but if you had talked to me at Sorrento as you +write me from your sanctum on the roof, I might have listened and +dreamed. The sea makes me believe and hope. I love it so! That's why I +made mamma take a house near the lake--to be near a little piece of +infinity. Yes, if you had paddled me out of the harbor at Sorrento, +some fine night when the swell was rippling in, like the groaning of a +sleepy beast, and the hills were a-hush on the shore, then we might +have gone on to that place you are so fond of, "the land east of the +sun, and west of the moon." + + + +NO. VIII. BIOGRAPHIC AND JUDICIAL. + +(_Eastlake replies analytically_.) + +But don't marry him until we are clear on all matters. I haven't +finished your case. And don't marry that foreign-looking cavalier you +were riding with to-day in the park. You are too American ever to be at +home over there. You would smash their fragile china, and you wouldn't +understand. England might fit you, though, for England is something +like that dark green, prairie park, with its regular, bushy trees +against a Gainsborough sky. You live deeply in the fierce open air. The +English like that. However, America must not lose you. + +You it was, I am sure, who moved your family in that conventional +pilgrimage of ambitious Chicagoans--west, south, north. Neither your +father nor your mother would have stirred from sober little Grant +Street had you not felt the pressing necessity for a career. Rumor got +hold of you first on the South Side, and had it that you were +experimenting with some small contractor. The explosion which followed +reached me even in Vienna. Did you feel that you could go farther, or +did you courageously run the risk of wrecking him then instead of +wrecking yourself and him later? Oh well, he's comfortably married now, +and all the pain you gave him was probably educative. You may look at +his flaunting granite house on that broad boulevard, and think well of +your courage. + +Your father died. You moved northward to that modest house tucked in +lovingly under the ample shelter of the millionnaires on the Lake Shore +Drive. I fancy there has always been the gambler in your nerves; that +you have sacrificed your principle to getting a rapid return on your +money. And you have dominated your family: you sent your two brothers +to Harvard, and filled them with ambitions akin to yours. Now you are +impatient because the thin ice cracks a bit. + +But I have great faith: you will mend matters by some shrewd deal with +the manipulators at Hoffmeyer's, or by marrying number nine. You will +do it honestly--I mean the marrying; for you will convince him that you +love, so far as love is in you, and you will convince yourself that +marriage, the end of it all, is unselfish, though prosaic. You will +accept resignation with an occasional sigh, feeling that you have gone +far, perhaps as far as you can go. I trust that solution will not come +quickly, however, because I cannot regard it as a brilliant ending to +your evolution. For you have kept yourself sweet and clean from fads, +and mean pushing, and the vulgar machinery of society. You never forced +your way or intrigued. You have talked and smiled and bewitched +yourself straight to the point where you now are. You were eager and +curious about pleasures, and the world has dealt liberally with you. + +Were you perilously near the crisis when you wrote me? Did the +reflective tone come because you were brought at last squarely to the +mark, because you must decide what one of the possible conceptions of +life you really want? Don't think, I pray you; go straight on to the +inevitable solution, for when you become conscious you are lost. + +Do you wonder that I love you, my hybrid rose; that I follow the heavy +petals as they push themselves out into their final bloom; that I +gather the aroma to comfort my heart in these lifeless pages? I follow +you about in your devious path from tea to dinner or dance, or I wait +at the opera or theatre to watch for a new light in your face, to see +your world written in a smile. You are dark, and winning, and strong. +You are pagan in your love of sensuous, full things. You are grateful +to the biting air as it touches your cheek and sends the blood leaping +in glad life. You love water and fire and wind, elemental things, and +you love them with fervor and passion. All this to the world! Much more +intimate to me, who can read the letters you scrawl for the impudent, +careless world. For deep down in the core of that rose there lies a +soul that permeates it all--a longing, restless soul, one moment +revealing a heaven that the next is shut out in dark despair. + +Yes, keep the cottage by the sea for one more dream. Perchance I shall +find something stable, eternal, something better than discontent and +striving; for the sea is great and makes peace. + + + +NO. IX. CRITICISM. + +(_Miss Armstrong vindicates herself by scorning._) + +You are a tissue of phrases. You feel only words. You love! What +mockery to hear you handle the worn, old words! You have secluded +yourself in careful isolation from the human world you seem to despise. +You have no right to its passions and solaces. Incarnate selfishness, +dear friend, I suspect you are. You would not permit the disturbance of +a ripple in the contemplative lake of your life such as love and +marriage might bring. + +Pray what right may you have to stew me in a saucepan up on your roof, +and to send me flavors of myself done up nicely into little packages +labelled deceitfully "love"? It is lucky that this time you have come +across a woman who has played the game before, and can meet you point +by point. But I am too weary to argue with a man who carries two-edged +words, flattery on one side and sneers on the reverse. Mark this one +thing, nevertheless: if I should decide to sell myself advantageously +next season I should be infinitely better than you,--for I am only a +woman. + +E. A. + + + +NO. X. THE LIMITATION OF LIFE. + +(_Eastlake summarizes, and intends to conclude._) + +My lady, my humor of to-day makes me take up the charges in your last +letters; I will define, not defend, myself. You fall out with me +because I am a dilettante (or many words to that one effect), and you +abuse me because I deal in the form rather than the matter of love. Is +that not just to you? + +In short, I am not as your other admirers, and the variation in the +species has lost the charm of novelty. + +Believe me that I am honest to-day, at least; indeed, I think you will +understand. Only the college boy who feeds on Oscar Wilde and +sentimental pessimism has that disease of indifference with which you +crudely charge me. It is a kind of chicken-pox, cousin-French to the +evils of literary Paris. But I must not thank God too loudly, or you +will think I am one with them at heart. + +No, I am in earnest, in terrible earnest, about all this--I mean life +and what to do with it. That is a great day when a man comes into his +own, no matter how paltry the pittance may be the gods have given +him--when he comes to know just how far he can go, and where lies his +path of least resistance. That I know. I am tremendously sure of myself +now, and, like your good business men, I go about my affairs and +dispose of my life with its few energies in a cautious, economical way. + +What is all this I make so much to-do about? Very little, I confess, +but to me more serious than L's and sky-scrapers; yes, than love. Mine +is an infinite labor: first to shape the true tool, and then to master +the material! I grant you I may die any day like a rat on a housetop, +with only a bundle of musty papers, the tags of broken conversations, +and one or two dead, distorted nerves. That is our common risk. But I +shall accomplish as much of the road as God permits the snail, and I +shall have moulded something; life will have justified itself to me, or +I to life. But that is not our problem to-day. + +Why do I isolate myself? Because a few pursuits in life are great +taskmasters and jealous ones. A wise man who had felt that truth wrote +about it once. I must husband my devotions: love, except the idea of +love, is not for me; pleasure, except the idea of pleasure, is too keen +for me; energy, except the ideas energy creates, is beyond me. I am +limited, definite, alone, without you. + +I confess that two passions are greater than any man, the passion for +God and the passion of a great love. They send a man hungry and naked +into the street, and make his subterfuges with existence ridiculous. +How rarely they come! How inadequate the man who is mistaken about +them! We peer into the corners of life after them, but they elude us. +There are days of splendid consciousness, and we think we have +them--then---- + +No, it is foolish, _bete_, dear lady, to be deceived by a sentiment; +better the comfortable activities of the world. They will suit you +best; leave the other for the dream hidden in a glass of champagne. + +But let me love you always. Let me fancy you, when I walk down these +gleaming boulevards in the silent evenings, as you sit flashingly +lovely by some soft lamplight, wrapped about in the cotton-wools of +society. That will reconcile me to the roar of these noonday streets. +The city exists for _you_. + + + +NO. XI. UNSATISFIED. + +(_Miss Armstrong wills to drift_.) + +... Come to Sorrento.... + + + +NO. XII. THE ILLUSION. + +(_Eastlake resumes some weeks later. He has put into Bar Harbor on a +yachting trip. He sits writing late at night by the light of the +binnacle lamp_.) + +Sweet lady, a few hours ago we slipped in here past the dark shore of +your village, in almost dead calm, just parting the heavy waters with +our prow. It was the golden set of the summer afternoon: a thrush or +two were already whistling clear vespers in he woods; all else was +fruitfully calm. + +And then, in the stillness of the ebb, we floated together, you and I, +round that little lighthouse into the sheltering gloom of the woods. +Then we drifted beyond it all, in serene solution of this world's fret! +To-morrows you may keep for another. + +This night was richly mine. You brought your simple self, undisturbed +by the people who expect of you, without your little airs of +experience. I brought incense, words, devotion, and love. And I +treasure now a few pure tones, some simple motions of your arm with the +dripping paddle, a few pure feelings written on your face. That is all, +but it is much. We got beyond necessity and the impertinent commonplace +of Chicago. We had ourselves, and that was enough. + +And to-night, as I lie here under the cool, complete heavens, with only +a twinkling cottage light here and there in the bay to remind me of +unrest, I see life afresh in the old, simple, eternal lines. These are +_our_ days of full consciousness. + +Do you remember that clearing in the woods where the long weeds and +grass were spotted with white stones--burial-place it was--their bright +faces turned ever to the sunshine and the stars? They spoke of other +lives than yours and mine. Forgotten little units in our disdainful +world, we pass them scornfully by. Other lives, and perhaps better, do +you think? For them the struggle never came which holds us in a fist of +brass, and thrashes us up and down the pavement of life. Perhaps--can +you not, at one great leap, fancy it?--two sincere souls could escape +from this brass master, and live, unmindful of strife, for a little +grave on a hillside in the end? They must be strong souls to renounce +that cherished hope of triumph, to be content with the simple, antique +things, just living and loving--the eternal and brave things; for, +after all, what you and I burn for so restlessly is a makeshift +ambition. We wish to go far, "to make the best of ourselves." Why not, +once for all, rely upon God to make? Why not live and rejoice? + +And the little graves are not bad: to lie long years within sound of +this great-hearted ocean, with the peaceful, upturned stones bearing +this full legend, "This one loved and lived...." Forgive me for making +you sad. Perhaps you merely laugh at the intoxication your clear air +has brought about. Well, dearest lady, the ships are striking their +eight bells for midnight, the gayest cottages are going out, light by +light, and somewhere in the still harbor I can hear a fisherman +laboriously sweeping his boat away to the ocean. Away!--that is the +word for us: I, in this boat southward, and ever away, searching in +grim fashion for an accounting with Fate; you, in your intrepid +loveliness, to other lives. And if I return some weeks hence, when I +have satisfied the importunate business claims, what then? Shall we +slip the cables and drift quietly out "to the land east of the sun and +west of the moon"? + + + +NO. XIII. SANITY. + +(_Eastlake refuses Miss Armstrong's last invitation, continues, and +concludes_.) + +Last night was given to me for insight. You were brilliantly your best, +and set in the meshes of gold and precious stones that the gods willed +for you. There was not a false note, not an attribute wanting. Over +your head were mellow, clear, electric lights that showed forth coldly +your faultless suitability. From the exquisitely fit pearls about your +neck to the scents of the wine and the flowers, all was as it should +be. I watched your face warm with multifold impressions, your nostrils +dilate with sensuousness, appreciation, your pagan head above the +perfect bosom; about you the languid eyes of your well-fed neighbors. + +The dusky recesses of the rooms, heavy with opulent comfort, stretched +away from our long feast. There you could rest, effectually sheltered +from the harsh noises of the world. And I rejoiced. Each minute I saw +more clearly things as they are. I saw you giving the nicest dinners in +Chicago, and scurrying through Europe, buying a dozen pictures here and +there, building a great house, or perhaps, tired of Chicago, trying +your luck in New York; but always pressing on, seizing this +exasperating life, and tenaciously sucking out the rich enjoyments +thereof! For the gold has entered your heart. + +What splendid folly we played at Sorrento! If you had deceived yourself +with a sentiment, how long would you have maintained the illusion? When +would the morning have come for your restless eyes to stare out at the +world in longing and the unuttered sorrow of regret? Ah, I touch you +but with words! The cadence of a phrase warms your heart, and you fancy +your emotion is supreme, inevitable. Nevertheless, you are a practical +goddess: you can rise beyond the waves toward the glorious ether, but +at night you sink back. 'Tis alluring, but--eternal? + +Few of us can risk being romantic. The penalty is too dreadful. To be +successful, we must maintain the key of our loveliest enthusiasm +without stimulants. You need the stimulants. You imagined that you were +tired, that rest could come in a lover's arms. Better the furs that are +soft about your neck, for they never grow cold. Perchance the lover +will come, also, as a prince with his princedom. It will be comfortable +to have your cake and the frosting, too. If not, take the frosting; go +glittering on with your pulses full of the joys, until you are old and +fagged and the stupid world refuses to revolve. Remember my sure word +that you were meant for dinners, for power and pleasure and excitement. +Trust no will-o'-the-wisp that would lead you into the stony paths of +romance. + +Some days in the years to come I shall enter at your feasts and watch +you in admiration and love. (For I shall always love you.) Then will +stir in your heart a mislaid feeling of some joy untasted. But you will +smile wisely, and marvel at my exact judgment. You will think of +another world where words and emotions alone are alive, where it is +always high tide, and you will be glad that you did not force the +gates. For life is not always lyric. Farewell. + + + +NO. XIV. THAT OTHER WORLD. + +(_Miss Armstrong writes with a calm heart_.) + +I have but a minute before I must go down to meet _him_. Then it will +be settled. I can hear his voice now and mother's. I must be quick. + +So you tested me and found me wanting in "inevitableness." I was too +much clay, it seems, and "pagan." What a strange word that is! You mean +I love to enjoy; and, perhaps you are right, that I need my little +world. Who knows? One cannot read the whole story--even you, dear +master--until we are dead. We can never tell whether I am only +frivolous and sensuous, or merely a woman who takes the best substitute +at hand for life. I do not protest, and I think I never shall. I, too, +am very sure--_now_. You have pointed out the path and I shall follow +it to the end. + +But one must have other moments, not of regret, but of wonder. Did you +have too little faith? Am I so cheap and weak? Before you read this it +will all be over.... Now and then it seems I want only a dress for my +back, a bit of food, rest, and your smile. But you have judged +otherwise, and perhaps you are right. At any rate, I will think so. +Only I know that the hours will come when I shall wish that I might lie +among those little white gravestones above the beach. + +CHICAGO, November, 1893. + + + +A QUESTION OF ART + +I + +John Clayton had pretty nearly run the gamut of the fine arts. As a boy +at college he had taken a dilettante interest in music, and having +shown some power of sketching the summer girl he had determined to +become an artist. His numerous friends had hoped such great things for +him that he had been encouraged to spend the rest of his little +patrimony in educating himself abroad. It took him nearly two years to +find out what being an artist meant, and the next three in thinking +what he wanted to do. In Paris and Munich and Rome, the wealth of the +possible had dazzled him and confused his aims; he was so skilful and +adaptable that in turn he had wooed almost all the arts, and had +accomplished enough trivial things to raise very pretty expectations of +his future powers. He had enjoyed an uncertain glory among the crowd of +American amateurs. When his purse had become empty he returned to +America to realize on his prospects. + +On his arrival he had elaborately equipped a studio in Boston, but as +he found the atmosphere "too provincial" he removed to New York. There +he was much courted at a certain class of afternoon teas. He was in +full bloom of the "might do," but he had his suspicions that a fatally +limited term of years would translate the tense into "might have done." +He argued, however, that he had not yet found the right _milieu_; he +was fond of that word--conveniently comprehensive of all things that +might stimulate his will. He doubted if America ever could furnish him +a suitable _milieu_ for the expression of his artistic instincts. But +in the meantime necessity for effort was becoming more urgent; he could +not live at afternoon teas. + +Clayton was related widely to interesting and even influential people. +One woman, a distant cousin, had taken upon herself his affairs. + +"I will give you another chance," she said, in a business-like tone, +after he had been languidly detailing his condition to her and +indicating politely that he was coming to extremities. "Visit me this +summer at Bar Harbor. You shall have the little lodge at the Point for +a studio, and you can take your meals at the hotel near by. In that way +you will be independent. Now, there are three ways, any one of which +will lead you out of your difficulties, and if you don't find one that +suits you before October, I shall leave you to your fate." + +The young man appeared interested. + +"You can model something--that's your line, isn't it?" + +Clayton nodded meekly. He had resolved to become a sculptor during his +last six months in Italy. + +"And so put you on your feet, professionally." Clayton sighed. "Or you +can find some rich patron or patroness who will send you over for a +couple of years more until your _chef d' oeuvre_ makes its appearance." +Her pupil turned red, and began to murmur, but she kept on unperturbed. +"Or, best of all, you can marry a girl with some money and then do what +you like." At this Clayton rose abruptly. + +"I haven't come to that," he growled. + +"Don't be silly," she pursued. "You are really charming; good +character; exquisite manners; pleasant habits; success with women. You +needn't feel flattered, for this is your stock in trade. You are +decidedly interesting, and lots of those girls who are brought there +every year to get them in would be glad to make such an exchange. You +know everybody, and you could give any girl a good standing in Boston +or New York. Besides, there is your genius, which may develop. That +will be thrown in to boot; it may bear interest." + +Clayton, who had begun by feeling how disagreeable his situation was +when it exposed him to this kind of hauling over, ended by bursting +into a cordial laugh at the frank materialism with which his cousin +presented his case. "Well," he exclaimed, "it's no go to talk to you +about the claims and ideals of art, Cousin Della, but I will accept +your offer, if only for the sake of modelling a bust of 'The Energetic +Matron (American).'" + +"Of course, I don't make much of ideals in art and all that," replied +his cousin, "but I will put this through for you, as Harry says. You +must promise me only one thing: no flirting with Harriet and Mary. +Henry has been foolish and lost money, as you know, and I cannot have +another beggar on my hands!" + + + +II + +By the end of July Clayton had found out two things definitely; he was +standing in his little workshop, pulling at his mustache and looking +sometimes at a half-completed sketch, and sometimes at the blue stretch +of water below the cliff. The conclusions were that he certainly should +not become interested in Harriet and Mary, and, secondly, that Mount +Desert made him paint rather than model. + +"It's no place," he muttered, "except for color and for a poet. A man +would have to shut himself up in a cellar to escape those glorious +hills and the bay, if he wanted to work at that putty." He cast a +contemptuous glance at a rough bust of his Cousin Della, the only thing +he had attempted. As a solution of his hopeless problem he picked up a +pipe and was hunting for some tobacco, preparatory to a stroll up +Newport, when someone sounded timidly at the show knocker of the front +door. + +"Is that you, Miss Marston?" Clayton remarked, in a disappointed tone, +as a middle-aged woman entered. + +"The servants were all away," she replied, "and Della thought you might +like some lunch to recuperate you from your labors." This was said a +little maliciously, as she looked about and found nothing noteworthy +going on. + +"I was just thinking of knocking off for this morning and taking a +walk. Won't you come? It's such glorious weather and no fog," he added, +parenthetically, as if in justification of his idleness. + +"Why do you happen to ask me?" Miss Marston exclaimed, impetuously. +"You have hitherto never paid any more attention to my existence than +if I had been Jane, the woman who usually brings your lunch." She +gasped at her own boldness. This was not coquettishness, and was +evidently unusual. + +"Why! I really wish you would come," said the young man, helplessly. +"Then I'll have a chance to know you better." + +"Well! I will." She seemed to have taken a desperate step. Miss Jane +Marston, Della's sister-in-law, had always been the superfluous member +of her family. Such unenviable tasks as amusing or teaching the younger +children, sewing, or making up whist sets, had, as is usual with the +odd members in a family, fallen to her share. All this Miss Marston +hated in a slow, rebellious manner. From always having just too little +money to live independently, she had been forced to accept invitations +for long visits in uninteresting places. As a girl and a young woman, +she had shown a delicate, retiring beauty that might have been made +much of, and in spite of gray hair, thirty-five years, and a somewhat +drawn look, arising from her discontent, one might discover sufficient +traces of this fading beauty to idealize her. All this summer she had +watched the wayward young artist with a keen interest in the fresh life +he brought among her flat surroundings. His buoyancy cheered her +habitual depression; his eagerness and love of life made her blood flow +more quickly, out of sympathy; and his intellectual alertness +bewildered and fascinated her. She was still shy at thirty-five, and +really very timid and apologetic for her commonplaceness; but at times +the rebellious bitterness at the bottom of her heart would leap forth +in a brusque or bold speech. She was still capable of affording +surprise. + +"Won't I spoil the inspiration?" she ventured, after a long silence. + +"Bother the inspiration!" groaned Clayton. "I wish I were a blacksmith, +or a sailor, or something honest. I feel like a hypocrite. I have +started out at a pace that I can't keep up!" + +Miss Marston felt complimented by this apparent confidence. If she had +had experience in that kind of nature, she would have understood how +indifferent Clayton was to her personally. He would have made the same +confession to the birds, if they had happened to produce the same +irritation in his mind. + +"They all say your work is so brilliant," she said, soothingly. + +"Thunder!" he commented. "I wish they would not say anything kind and +pleasant and cheap. At college they praised my verses, and the theatres +stole my music for the Pudding play, and the girls giggled over my +sketches. And now, at twenty-six, I don't know whether I want to +fiddle, or to write an epic, or to model, or to paint. I am a victim of +every artistic impulse." + +"I know what you should do," she said, wisely, when they had reached a +shady spot and were cooling themselves. + +"Smoke?" queried Clayton, quizzically. + +"You ought to marry!" + +"That's every woman's great solution, great panacea," he replied, +contemptuously. + +"It would steady you and make you work." + +"No," he replied, thoughtfully, "not unless she were poor, and in that +case it would be from the frying-pan into the fire!" + +"You should work," she went on, more courageously. "And a wife would +give you inspiration and sympathy." + +"I have had too much of the last already," he sighed. "And it's better +not to have it all of one sort. After awhile a woman doesn't produce +pleasant or profitable reactions in my soul. Yes, I know," he added, as +he noticed her look of wonderment, "I am selfish and supremely +egotistical. Every artist is; his only lookout, however, should be that +his surroundings don't become stale. Or, if you prefer to put it more +humanely, an artist isn't fit to marry; it's criminal for him to marry +and break a woman's heart." + +After this heroic confession he paused to smoke. "Besides, no woman +whom I ever knew really understands art and the ends which the artist +is after. She has the temperament, a superficial appreciation and +interest, but she hasn't the stimulus of insight. She's got the nerves, +but not the head." + +"But you just said that you had had too much sympathy and +molly-coddling." + +"Did I? Well, I was wrong. I need a lot, and I don't care how idiotic. +It makes me courageous to have even a child approve. I suppose that +shows how closely we human animals are linked together. We have got to +have the consent of the world, or at any rate a small part of it, to +believe ourselves sane. So I need the chorus of patrons, admiring +friends, kind women, etc., while I play the Protagonist, to tell me +that I am all right, to go ahead. Do you suppose any one woman would be +enough? What a great posture for an arm!" His sudden exclamation was +called out by the attitude that Miss Marston had unconsciously assumed +in the eagerness of her interest. She had thrown her hand over a ledge +above them, and was leaning lightly upon it. The loose muslin sleeve +had fallen back, revealing a pretty, delicately rounded arm, not to be +suspected from her slight figure. Clayton quickly squirmed a little +nearer, and touching the arm with an artist's instinct, brought out +still more the fresh white flesh and the delicate veining. + +"Don't move. That would be superb in marble!" Miss Marston blushed +painfully. + +"How strange you are," she murmured, as she rose. "You just said that +you had given up modelling, or I would let you model my arm in order to +give you something to do. You should try to stick to something." + +"Don't be trite," laughed Clayton, "and don't make me consistent. You +will keep yourself breathless if you try that!" + +"I know what you need," she said, persistently unmindful of his +admonition. "You need the spur. It doesn't make so much difference +_what_ you do--you're clever enough." + +"'Truth from the mouths of babes----'" + +"I am not a babe." She replied to his mocking, literally. "Even if I am +stupid and commonplace, I may have intuitions like other women." + +"Which lead you to think that it's all chance whether Raphael paints or +plays on the piano. Well, I don't know that you are so absurd. That's +my theory: an artist is a fund of concentrated, undistributed energy +that has any number of possible outlets, but selects one. Most of us +are artists, but we take so many outlets that the hogshead becomes +empty by leaking. Which shall it be? Shall we toss up a penny?" + +"Painting," said Miss Marston, decisively. "You must stick to that." + +"How did you arrive at that conclusion--have you observed my work?" + +"No! I'll let you know some time, but now you must go to work. Come!" +She rose, as if to go down to the lodge that instant. Clayton, without +feeling the absurdity of the comedy, rose docilely and followed her +down the path for some distance. He seemed completely dominated by the +sudden enthusiasm and will that chance had flung him. + +"There's no such blessed hurry," he remarked at last, when the first +excitement had evanesced. "The light will be too bad for work by the +time we reach Bar Harbor. Let's rest here in this dark nook, and talk +it all over." + +Clayton was always abnormally eager to talk over anything. Much of his +artistic energy had trickled away in elusive snatches of talk. "Come," +he exclaimed, enthusiastically, "I have it. I will begin a great +work--a modern Magdalen or something of that sort. We can use you in +just that posture, kneeling before a rock with outstretched hands, and +head turned away. We will make everything of the hands and arms!" + +Miss Marston blushed her slow, unaccustomed blush. At first sight it +pleased her to think that she had become so much a part of this +interesting young man's plans, but in a moment she laughed calmly at +the frank desire he expressed to leave out her face, and the +characteristic indifference he had shown in suggesting negligently such +a subject. + +"All right. I am willing to be of any service. But you will have to +make use of the early hours. I teach the children at nine." + +"Splendid!" he replied, as the vista of a new era of righteousness +dawned upon him. "We shall have the fresh morning light, and the cool +and the beauty of the day. And I shall have plenty of time to loaf, +too." + +"No, you mustn't loaf. You will find me a hard task-mistress!" + + + +III + +True to her word, Miss Marston rapped at the door of the studio +promptly at six the next morning. She smiled fearfully, and finding no +response, tried stones at the windows above. She kept saying to +herself, to keep up her courage: "He won't think about me, and I am too +old to care, anyway." Soon a head appeared, and Clayton called out, in +a sleepy voice: + +"I dreamt it was all a joke; but wait a bit, and we will talk it over." + +Miss Marston entered the untidy studio, where the _debris_ of a month's +fruitless efforts strewed the floor. Bits of clay and carving-tools, +canvases hurled face downward in disgust and covered with paint-rags, +lay scattered about. She tip-toed around, carefully raising her skirt, +and examined everything. Finally, discovering an alcohol-lamp and a +coffee-pot, she prepared some coffee, and when Clayton appeared--a +somewhat dishevelled god--he found her hunting for biscuit. + +"You can't make an artist of me at six in the morning," he growled. + +In sudden inspiration, Miss Marston threw open the upper half of the +door and admitted a straight pathway of warm sun that led across the +water just rippling at their feet. The hills behind the steep shore +were dark with a mysterious green and fresh with a heavy dew, and from +the nooks in the woods around them thrush was answering thrush. Miss +Marston gave a sigh of content. The warm, strong sunlight strengthened +her and filled her wan cheeks, as the sudden interest in the artist's +life seemed to have awakened once more the vigor of her feelings. She +clasped her thin hands and accepted both blessings. Clayton also +revived. At first he leant listlessly against the door-post, but as +minute by minute he drank in the air and the beauty and the hope, his +weary frame dilated with incoming sensations. "God, what beauty!" he +murmured, and he accepted unquestioningly the interference in his life +brought by this woman just as he accepted the gift of sunshine and +desire. + +"Come to work," said Miss Marston, at last. + +"That's no go," he replied, "that subject we selected." + +"I dare say you won't do much with it, but it will do as well as any +other for experiment and practice." + +"I see that you want those arms preserved." + +The little woman shrank into her shell for a moment: her lazy artist +could scatter insults as negligently as epigrams. Then she blazed out. + +"Mr. Clayton, I didn't come here to be insulted." + +Clayton, utterly surprised, opened his sleepy eyes in real alarm. + +"Bless you, my dear Miss Marston, I can't insult anybody. I never mean +anything." + +"Perhaps that's the trouble," replied Miss Marston, somewhat mollified. +But the sitting was hardly a success. Clayton wasted almost all his +time in improvising an easel and in preparing his brushes. Miss Marston +had to leave him just as he was ready to throw himself into his work. +He was discontented, and, instead of improving the good light and the +long day, he took a pipe and went away into the hills. The next morning +he felt curiously ashamed when Miss Marston, after examining the rough +sketch on the easel, said: + +"Is that all?" + +And this day he painted, but in a fit of gloomy disgust destroyed +everything. So it went on for a few weeks. Miss Marston was more +regular than an alarm-clock; sometimes she brought some work, but +oftener she sat vacantly watching the young man at work. Her only +standard of accomplishment was quantity. One day, when Clayton had +industriously employed a rainy afternoon in putting in the drapery for +the figure, she was so much pleased by the quantity of the work +accomplished that she praised him gleefully. Clayton, who was, as +usual, in an ugly mood, cast an utterly contemptuous look at her and +then turned to his easel. + +"You mustn't look at me like that," the woman said, almost frightened. + +"Then don't jabber about my pictures." + +Her lips quivered, but she was silent. She began to realize her +position of galley-slave, and welcomed with a dull joy the contempt and +insults to come. + +One morning Clayton was not to be found. He did not appear during that +week, and at last Miss Marston determined to find him. She made an +excuse for a journey to Boston, and divining where Clayton could be +found, she sent him word at a certain favorite club that she wanted to +see him. He called at her modest hotel, dejected, listless, and +somewhat shamefaced; he found Miss Marston calm and commonplace as +usual. But it was the calm of a desperate resolve, won after painful +hours, that he little recognized. Her instinct to attach herself to +this strange, unaccountable creature, to make him effective to himself, +had triumphed over her prejudices. She humbled herself joyfully, +recognizing a mission. + +"Della said that I might presume on your escort home," she remarked +dryly, trembling for fear that she had exposed herself to some +contemptuous retort. One great attraction, however, in Clayton was that +he never expected the conventional. It did not occur to him as +particularly absurd that this woman, ten years his senior, should hunt +him up in this fashion. He took such eccentricities as a matter of +course, and whatever the circumstances or the conversation, found it +all natural and reasonable. Women did not fear him, but talked +indiscreetly to him about all things. + +"What's the use of keeping up this ridiculous farce about my work?" he +said, sadly. Then he sought for a conventional phrase. "Your unexpected +interest and enthusiasm in my poor attempts have been most kind, my +dear Miss Marston. But you must allow me to go to the dogs in my own +fashion; that's the inalienable right of every emancipated soul in +these days." The politeness and mockery of this little epigram stung +the woman. + +"Don't be brutal, as well as good for nothing," she said, bitterly. +"You're as low as if you took to drink or any other vice, and you know +it. I can't appreciate your fine ideas, perhaps, but I know you ought +to do something more than talk. You're terribly ambitious, but you're +too weak to do anything but talk. I don't care what you think about my +interference. I can make you work, and I will make you do something. +You know you need the whip, and if none of your pleasant friends will +give it to you, I can. Come!" she added, pleadingly. + +"Jove!" exclaimed the young man, slowly, "I believe you're an awful +trump. I will go back." + +On their return they scarcely spoke. Miss Marston divined that her +companion felt ashamed and awkward, and that his momentary enthusiasm +had evaporated under the influence of a long railroad ride. While they +were waiting for the steamer at the Mount Desert ferry, she said, as +negligently as she could, "I have telegraphed for a carriage, but you +had better walk up by yourself." + +He nodded assent. "So you will supply the will for the machine, if I +will grind out the ideas. But it will never succeed," he added, +gloomily. "Of course I am greatly obliged and all that, and I will +stick to it until October for the sake of your interest." In answer she +smiled with an air of proprietorship. + +One effect of this spree upon Clayton was that he took to landscape +during the hours that he had formerly loafed. He found some quiet bits +of dell with water, and planted his easel regularly every day. +Sometimes he sat dreaming or reading, but he felt an unaccustomed +responsibility if, when his mentor appeared with the children late in +the afternoon, he hadn't something to show for his day. She never +attempted to criticise except as to the amount performed, and she soon +learned enough not to measure this by the area of canvas. Although +Clayton had abandoned the Magdalen in utter disgust, Miss Marston +persisted in the early morning sittings. She made herself useful in +preparing his coffee and in getting his canvas ready. They rarely +talked. Sometimes Clayton, in a spirit of deviltry, would tease his +mentor about their peculiar relationship, about herself, or, worse than +all, would run himself and say very true things about his own +imperfections. Then, on detecting the tears that would rise in the +tired, faded eyes of the woman he tortured, he would throw himself into +his work. + +So the summer wore away and the brilliant September came. The +unsanctified crowds flitted to the mountains or the town, and the +island and sea resumed the air of free-hearted peace which was theirs +by right. Clayton worked still more out of doors on marines, attempting +to grasp the perplexing brilliancy that flooded everything. + +"It's no use," he said, sadly, as he packed up his kit one evening in +the last of September. "I really don't know the first thing about +color. I couldn't exhibit a single thing I have done this entire +summer." + +"What's the real matter?" asked Miss Marston, with a desperate calm. + +"Why, I have fooled about so much that I have lost a lot I learnt over +there in Paris." + +"Why don't you get--get a teacher?" + +Clayton laughed ironically. "I am pretty old to start in, especially as +I have just fifty dollars to my name, and a whole winter before me." + +They returned silently. The next morning Miss Marston appeared at the +usual hour and made the coffee. After Clayton had finished his meagre +meal, she sat down shyly and looked at him. + +"You've never interested yourself much in my plans, but I am going to +tell you some of them. I'm sick of living about like a neglected cat, +and I am going to New York to--to keep boarders." Her face grew very +red. "They will make a fuss, but I am ready to break with them all." + +"So you, too, find dependence a burden?" commented Clayton, +indifferently. + +"You haven't taken much pains to know me," she replied. "And if I were +a man," she went on, with great scorn, "I would die before I would be +dependent!" + +"Talking about insults--but an artist isn't a man," remarked Clayton, +philosophically smoking his pipe. + +"I hate you when you're like that," Miss Marston remarked, with intense +bitterness. + +"Then you must hate me pretty often! But continue with your plans. +Don't let our little differences in temperament disturb us." + +"Well," she continued, "I have written to some friends who spend the +winters in New York, and out of them I think I shall find enough +boarders--enough to keep me from starving. And the house has a large +upper story with a north light." She stopped and peeped at him +furtively. + +"Oh," said Clayton, coolly, "and you're thinking that I would make a +good tenant." + +"Exactly," assented Miss Marston, uncomfortably. + +"And who will put up the tin: for you don't suppose that I am low +enough to live off you?" + +"No," replied the woman, quietly. "I shouldn't allow that, though I was +not quite sure you would be unwilling. But you can borrow two or three +hundred dollars from your brother, and by the time that's gone you +ought to be earning something. You could join a class; the house isn't +far from those studios." + +Clayton impulsively seized her arms and looked into her face. She was +startled and almost frightened. + +"I believe," he began, but the words faded away. + +"No, don't say it. You believe that I am in love with you, and do this +to keep you near me. Don't be quite such a brute, for you _are_ a +brute, a grasping, egotistical, intolerant brute." She smiled slightly. +"But don't think that I am such a fool as not to know how impossible +_that_ is." + +Clayton still held her in astonishment. "I think I was going to say +that I was in love with you." + +"Oh, no," she laughed, sadly. "I am coffee and milk and bread and +butter, the 'stuff that dreams are made on.' You want some noble young +woman--a goddess, to make you over, to make you human. I only save you +from the poor-house." + + + +IV + +There followed a bitter two years for this strange couple. Clayton +borrowed a thousand dollars--a more convenient number to remember, he +said, than three hundred dollars--and induced a prominent artist "who +happens to know something," to take him into his crowded classes for a +year. He began with true grit to learn again what he had forgotten and +some things that he had never known. At the end of the year he felt +that he could go alone, and the artist agreed, adding, nonchalantly: +"You may get there; God knows; but you need loads of work." + +Domestically, the life was monotonous. Clayton had abandoned his old +habits, finding it difficult to harmonize his present existence with +his clubs and his fashionable friends. Besides, he hoarded every cent +and, with Miss Marston's aid, wrung the utmost of existence out of the +few dollars he had left. Miss Marston's modest house was patronized by +elderly single ladies. It was situated on one of those uninteresting +East Side streets where you can walk a mile without remembering an +individual stone. The table, in food and conversation, was monotonous. +In fact, Clayton could not dream of a more inferior _milieu_ for the +birth of the great artist. + +Miss Marston had fitted herself to suit his needs, and in submitting to +this difficult position felt that she was repaying a loan of a new +life. He was so curious, so free, so unusual, so fond of ideas, so +entertaining, even in his grim moods, that he made her stupid life +over. She could enjoy vicariously by feeling his intense interest in +all living things. In return, she learnt the exact time to bring him an +attractive lunch, and just where to place it so that it would catch his +eye without calling out a scowl of impatience. She made herself at home +in his premises, so that all friction was removed from the young +artist's life. He made no acknowledgment of her devotion, but he worked +grimly, doggedly, with a steadiness that he had never before known. +Once, early in the first winter, having to return to Boston on some +slight business, he permitted himself to be entrapped by old friends +and lazed away a fortnight. On his return Miss Marston noticed with a +pang that this outing had done him good; that he seemed to have more +spirit, more vivaciousness, more ideas, and more zest for his work. So, +in a methodical fashion, she thought out harmless dissipations for him. +She induced him to take her to the opera, even allowing him to think +that it was done from pure charity to her. Sunday walks in the +picturesque nooks of New York--they both shunned the Fifth Avenue +promenade for different reasons--church music, interesting novels, all +the "fuel," as Clayton remarked, that she could find she piled into his +furnace. She made herself acquainted with the peculiar literature that +seemed to stimulate his imagination, and sometimes she read him asleep +in the evenings to save his overworked eyes. Her devotion he took +serenely, as a rule. During the second winter, however, after a slight +illness brought on by over-application, he seemed to have a thought +upon his mind that troubled him. One day he impatiently threw down his +palette and put his hands upon her shoulders. + +"Little woman, why do you persist in using up your life on me?" + +"I am gambling," she replied, evasively. + +"What do you expect to get if you win?" + +"A few contemptuous thanks; perhaps free tickets when you exhibit, or a +line in your biography. But seriously, Jack, don't you know women well +enough to understand how they enjoy drudging for someone who is +powerful?" + +"But even if I have any ability, which you can't tell, how do you enjoy +it? You can't appreciate a picture." + +She smiled. "Don't bother yourself about me. I get my fun, as you say, +because you make me feel things I shouldn't otherwise. I suppose that's +the only pay you artists ever give those who slave for you?" + +Such talks were rare. They experienced that physical and mental unity +in duality which comes to people who live and think and work together +for a common aim. They had not separated a day since that first visit +to Boston. The summer had been spent at a cheap boarding-house on Cape +Ann, in order that Clayton might sketch in company with the artist who +had been teaching him. Neither thought of conventionality; it was too +late for that. + +As the second year came to an end, the pressure of poverty began to be +felt. Clayton refused to make any efforts to sell his pictures. He eked +out his capital and went on. The end of his thousand came; he took to +feeding himself in his rooms. He sold his clothes, his watch, his +books, and at last the truck he had accumulated abroad. "More fuel for +the fire," he said bitterly. + +"I will lend you something," remarked Miss Marston. + +"No, thanks," he said, shortly, and then added, with characteristic +brutality, "my body is worth a hundred. Stevens will give that for it, +which would cover the room-rent. And my brother will have to whistle +for his cash or take it out in paint and canvas." + +She said nothing, for she had a scheme in reserve. She was content +meantime to see him pinched; it brought out the firmer qualities in the +man. Her own resources, moreover, were small, for the character of her +boarders had fallen. Unpleasant rumors had deprived her of the +unexceptionable set of middle-aged ladies with whom she had started, +but she had pursued her course unaltered. The reproach of her +relatives, who considered her disgraced, had been a sweet solace to her +pride. + +The rough struggle had told on them both. He had forgotten his delicate +habits, his nicety of dress. A cheap suit once in six months was all +that he could afford. His mind had become stolidly fixed, so that he +did not notice the gradual change. It was a grim fight! The elements +were relentless; day by day the pounding was harder, and the end of his +resistance seemed nearer. Although he was deeply discontented with his +work, he did not dare to think of ultimate failure, for it unnerved him +for several days. Miss Marston's quiet assumption, however, that it was +only a question of months, irritated him. + +"God must have put the idea into your head that I am a genius," he +would mutter fiercely at her. "I never did, nor work of mine. You don't +know good from bad, anyway, and we may both be crazy." He buried his +face in his hands, overcome by the awfulness of failure. She put her +arms about his head. + +"Well, we can stand it a little longer, and then----" + +"And then?" he asked, grimly. + +"Then," she looked at him significantly. They both understood. "Lieber +Gott," he murmured, "thou hast a soul." And he kissed her gently, as in +momentary love. She did not resist, but both were indifferent to +passion, so much their end absorbed them. + +At last she insisted upon trying to sell some marines at the art +stores. She brought him back twenty-five dollars, and he did not +suspect that she was the patron. He looked at the money wistfully. + +"I thought we should have a spree on the first money I earned. But it's +all fuel now." + +Her eyes filled with tears at this sign of humanity. "Next time, +perhaps." + +"So you think that's the beginning of a fortune. I have failed--failed +if you get ten thousand dollars for every canvas in this shop. You will +never know why. Perhaps I don't myself." And then he went to work. Some +weeks later he came to her again. This time she tried to enlist the +sympathy of the one successful artist Clayton knew, and through his +influence she succeeded in selling a number of pictures and placed +others upon sale. She was so happy, so sure that the prophetic instinct +in her soul was justified, that she told Clayton of her previous fraud. +He listened carefully; his face twitched, as if his mind were adjusting +itself to new ideas. First he took twenty-five dollars from the money +she had just brought him and handed it to her. Then putting his arms +about her, he looked inquisitively down into her face, only a bit more +tenderly than he squinted at his canvases. + +"Jane!" She allowed him to kiss her once or twice, and then she pushed +him away, making a pathetic bow. + +"Thanks for your sense of gratitude. You're becoming more civilized. +Only I wish it had been something more than money you had been thankful +for. Is money the only sacrifice you understand?" + +"You can take your dues in taunts if you like. I never pretended to be +anything but a huge, and possibly productive polypus. I am honest +enough, anyway, not to fool with lovers' wash. You ought to know how I +feel toward you--you're the best woman I ever knew." + +"Kindest to you, you mean? No, Jack," she continued, tenderly; "you can +have me, body and soul. I am yours fast enough now, what there is left +of me. I have given you my reputation, and that sort of thing long +ago--no, you needn't protest. I know you despise people who talk like +that, and I don't reproach you. But don't deceive yourself. You feel a +little moved just now. If I had any charms, like a pretty model, you +might acquire some kind of attachment for me, but love--you never +dreamed of it. And," she continued, after a moment, "I begin to think, +after watching you these two years, never will. So I am safe in saying +that I am yours to do with what you will. I am fuel. Only, oh, Jack, if +you break my heart, your last fuel will be gone. You can't do without +me!" + +It seemed very absurd to talk about breaking hearts--a tired, silent +man; a woman unlovely from sordid surroundings, from age, and from +care. Clayton pulled back the heavy curtain to admit the morning light, +for they had talked for hours before coming to the money question. The +terrible, passionate glare of a summer sun in the city burst in from +the neighboring housetops. + +"Why don't you curse _Him_?" muttered Clayton. + +"Why?" + +"Because He gave you a heart to love, and made you lonely, and then +wasted your love!" + +"Jack, the worst hasn't come. It's not all wasted." + + + +V + +Clayton gradually became conscious of a new feeling about his work. He +was master of his tools, for one thing, and he derived exquisite +pleasure from the exercise of execution. The surety of his touch, the +knowledge of the exact effect he was after, made his working hours an +absorbing pleasure rather than an exasperating penance. And through his +secluded life, with its singleness of purpose, its absence of the +social ambitions of his youth, and the complexity of life in the world, +the restlessness and agitation of his earlier devotion to his art +disappeared. He was content to forget the expression of himself--that +youthful longing--in contemplating and enjoying the created matter. In +other words, the art of creation was attended with less friction. He +worked unconsciously, and he did not, hen-like, call the attention of +the entire barnyard to each new-laid egg. He felt also that human, +comfortable weariness after labor when self sinks out of sight in the +universal wants of mankind--food and sleep. Perhaps the fact that he +could now earn enough to relieve him from actual want, that to some +extent he had wrestled with the world and wrung from it the conditions +of subsistence, relieved the strain under which he had been laboring. +He sold his pictures rarely, however, and only when absolutely +compelled to get money. Miss Marston could not comprehend his feeling +about the inadequacy of his work, and he gave up attempting to make her +understand where he failed. + +The bond between them had become closer. This one woman filled many +human relationships for him--mother, sister, friend, lover, and wife in +one. The boarding-house had come to be an affair of transients and +young clerks, so that all her time that could be spared from the +drudgery of housekeeping was spent in the studio. Slowly he became +amenable to her ever-present devotion, and even, in his way, thoughtful +for her. And she was almost happy. + +The end came in this way. One day Clayton was discovered on the street +by an intimate college friend. They had run upon each other abruptly, +and Clayton, finding that escape was decently impossible, submitted +without much urging to be taken to one of his old clubs for a quiet +luncheon. As a result he did not return that night, but sent a note to +Miss Marston saying that he had gone to Lenox with a college chum. That +note chilled her heart. She felt that this was the beginning of the +end, and the following week she spent in loneliness in the little +studio, sleeping upon the neglected lounge. And yet she divined that +the movement and stimulus of this vacation was what Clayton needed +most. She feared he was becoming stale, and she knew that in a week, or +a fortnight, or perhaps a month, he would return and plunge again into +his work. + +He came back. He hardly spoke to her; he seemed absorbed in the +conception of a new work. And when she brought him his usual luncheon +she found the door locked, the first time in many months. She sat down +on the stairs and waited--how long she did not know--waited, staring +down the dreary hall and at the faded carpet and at herself, faded to +suit the surroundings. At length she knocked, and Clayton came, only to +take her lunch and say absently that he was much absorbed by a new +picture and should not be disturbed. Would she bring his meals? He +seemed to refuse tacitly an entrance to the studio. So a week passed, +and then one day Clayton disappeared again, saying that he was going +into the country for another rest. He went out as he had come in, +absorbed in some dream or plan of great work. Pride kept her from +entering his rooms during that week. + +One day, however, he came back as before and plunged again into his +work. This time she found the door ajar and entered noiselessly, as she +had learned to move. He was hard at work; she admired his swift +movements that seemed premeditated, the ease with which the picture +before him was rowing. Surely he had a man's power, now, to execute +what his spirit conceived! And the mechanical effort gave him evidently +great pleasure. His complete absorption indicated the most intense +though unconscious pleasure. + +The picture stunned her. She knew that she was totally ignorant of art, +but she knew that the picture before her was the greatest thing Clayton +had accomplished. It seemed to breathe power. And she saw without +surprise that the subject was a young woman. Clayton's form hid the +face, but she could see the outline of a woman beside a dory, on a +beach, in the early morning. So it had come. + +When she was very close to Clayton, he felt her presence, and they both +stood still, looking at the picture. It was almost finished--all was +planned. Miss Marston saw only the woman. She was youthful, just +between girlhood and womanhood--unconscious, strong, and active as the +first; with the troubled mystery of the second. The artist had divined +an exquisite moment in life, and into the immature figure, the face of +perfect repose, the supple limbs, he had thrown the tender mystery that +met the morning light. It was the new birth--that ancient, solemn, +joyous beginning of things in woman and in day. + +Clayton approached his picture as if lovingly to hide it. "Isn't it +immense?" he murmured. "It's come at last. I don't daub any more, but I +can see, I can paint! God, it's worth the hell I have been through--" + +He paused, for he felt that his companion had left him. + +"Jane," he said, curiously examining her face. "Jane, what's the +matter?" + +"Don't you know?" she replied, looking steadily at him. He looked first +at her and then at the picture, and then back again. Suddenly the facts +in the case seemed to get hold of him. "Jane," he cried, impetuously, +"it's all yours--you gave me the power, and made me human, too--or a +little more so than I was. But I am killing you by living in this +fashion. Why don't you end it?" + +She smiled feebly at his earnestness. "There is only one end," she +whispered, and pointed to his picture. Clayton comprehended, and +seizing a paint-rag would have ruined it, but the woman caught his hand. + +"Don't let us be melodramatic. Would you ruin what we have been living +for all these years? Don't be silly--you would always regret it." + +"It's your life against a little fame." + +"No, against your life." They stood, nervelessly eying the picture. + +"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried, at last, "why did God make men like you? +You take it all, everything that life gives, sunshine and love and hope +and opportunity. Your roots seem to suck out what you want from the +whole earth, and you leave the soil exhausted. My time has gone; I know +it, I know it, and I knew it would go. Now some other life will be +sacrificed. For you'll break her heart whether she's alive now or +you're dreaming of someone to come. You'll treat her as you have +everything. It isn't any fault--you don't understand." The words ended +with a moan. Clayton sat doggedly looking at his picture. But his heart +refused to be sad. + +LITTLE CRANBERRY, ME., + +August, 1893. + + + +MARE MARTO + +I + +The narrow slant of water that could be seen between the posts of the +felza was rippling with little steely waves. The line of the heavy beak +cut the opening between the tapering point of the Lido and the misty +outline of Tre Porti. Inside the white lighthouse tower a burnished +man-of-war lay at anchor, a sluggish mass like a marble wharf placed +squarely in the water. From the lee came a slight swell of a +harbor-boat puffing its devious course to the Lido landing. The +sea-breeze had touched the locust groves of San Niccolo da Lido, and +caught up the fragrance of the June blossoms, filling the air with the +soft scent of a feminine city. + +When the scrap of the island Sant' Elena came enough into the angle to +detach itself from the green mass of the Giardino Pubblico, the prow +swung softly about, flapping the little waves, and pointed in shore +where a bridge crossed an inlet into the locust trees. + +"You can see the Italian Alps," Miss Barton remarked, pulling aside the +felza curtains and pointing lazily to the snow masses on the blue north +horizon. "That purplish other sea is the Trevisan plain, and back of it +is Castelfranco--Giorgione's Castelfranco--and higher up where the blue +begins to break into the first steps of the Alps is perched +Asolo--Browning's Asolo. Oh! It is so sweet! a little hill town! And +beyond are Bassano and Belluno, and somewhere in the mist before you +get to those snow-heads is Pieve da Cadore." Her voice dropped +caressingly over the last vowels. The mere, procession of names was a +lyric sent across sea to the main. + +"They came over them, then, the curious ones," the younger man of the +two who lounged on cushions underneath the felza remarked, as if to +prolong the theme. "To the gates of Paradise," he continued, while his +companion motioned to the gondolier. "And they broke them open, but +they could never take the swag after all." + +He laughed at her puzzled look. He seemed to mock her, and his face +became young in spite of the bald-looking temples and forehead, and the +copperish skin that indicated years of artificial heat. + +"They got some things," the older man put in, "and they have been +living off 'em ever since." + +"But they never got _it_," persisted his companion, argumentatively. +"Perhaps they were afraid." + +The gondola was gliding under the stone bridge, skilfully following the +line of the key-stones in the arch. It passed out into a black pool at +the feet of the Church of San Niccolo. The marble bishop propped up +over the pediment of the door lay silently above the pool. The grove of +blossoming locusts dropped white-laden branches over a decaying barca +chained to the shore. + +"What is _'it'_?" the girl asked, slowly turning her face from the +northern mountains. She seemed to carry a suggestion of abundance, of +opulence; of beauty made of emphasis. "You," the young man laughed +back, enigmatically. + +"They came again and again, and they longed for you, and would have +carried you away by force. But their greedy arms snatched only a few +jewels, a dress or two, and _you_ they left." + +The girl caught at a cluster of locust blossoms that floated near. + +"It is an allegory." + +"I'll leave Niel to untie his riddles." Their companion lit his pipe +and strode ashore. "I am off for an hour with the Adriatic. Don't +bother about me if you get tired of waiting." + +He disappeared in the direction of the Lido bathing stablimento. The +two gathered up cushions and rugs, and wandered into the grove. The +shade was dark and cool. Beyond were the empty acres of a great fort +grown up in a tangle of long grass like an abandoned pasture. Across +the pool they could see the mitred bishop sleeping aloft in the sun, +and near him the lesser folk in their graves beside the convent wall. + +"No, I am not all that," Miss Barton said, thoughtfully, her face +bending, as if some rich, half-open rose were pondering. + +"_He_ says that I am a fragment, a bit of detritus that has been washed +around the world--" + +"And finally lodged and crystallized in Italy." + +This mystified her again, as if she were compelled to use a medium of +expression that was unfamiliar. + +"Papa was consul-general, you know, first at Madrid, then in the East, +and lastly merely a consul at Milan." She fell back in relief upon a +statement of fact. + +"Yes, I know." + +"And mamma--she was from the South but he married her in Paris. They +called me the polyglot bebe at the convent." She confided this as +lazily interesting, like the clouds, or the locusts, or the faint +chatter of the Adriatic waves around the breakwater of the Lido. + +"Nevertheless you are Venice, you are Italy, you are Pagan"--the young +man iterated almost solemnly, as if a Puritan ancestry demanded this +reproach. Then he rolled his body half over and straightened himself to +look at her rigidly. "How did you come about? How could Council Bluffs +make it?" His voice showed amusement at its own intensity. She shook +her head. + +"I don't know," she said, softly. + +"It doesn't seem real. They tell me so, just as they say that the +marble over there comes from that blue mountain. But why bother about +it? I am here----" + +They drifted on in personal chat until the sunlight came in parallel +lines between the leaves. + +"Where is Caspar?" he said at last, reluctantly. "It's too late to get +back to the Britannia for dinner." He jumped up as if conscious of a +fault. + +"Oh, we'll dine here. Caspar has found some one at the stablimento and +has gone off. Ask Bastian--there must be some place where we can get +enough to eat." + +Lawrence hesitated as if not quite sure of the outcome of such +unpremeditation. But Miss Barton questioned the gondolier. "The Buon +Pesche--that will be lovely; Bastian will paddle over and order the +supper. We can walk around." + +So Lawrence, as if yielding against his judgment, knelt down and picked +up her wrap. "Bastian will take care of the rest," she said, gleefully, +walking on ahead through the long grass of the abandoned fort. "Be a +bit of detritus, too, and enjoy the few half-hours," she added, +coaxingly, over her shoulder. + +When they were seated at the table under the laurel-trees before the +Buon Pesche, Lawrence threw himself into the situation, with all the +robustness of a moral resolve to do the delightful and sinful thing. +Just why it should be sinful to dine there out-doors in an evening +light of luminous gold, with the scent of locusts eddying about, and +the mirage-like show of Venice sleeping softly over beyond--was not +quite clear. Perhaps because his companion seemed so careless and +unfamiliar with the monitions of strenuous living; perhaps because her +face was brilliant and naive--some spontaneous thing of nature, +unmarked by any lines of consciousness. + +Under a neighboring tree a couple were already eating, or quarrelling +in staccato phrases. Lawrence thought that the man was an artist. + +Miss Barton smiled at his seriousness, crossing her hands placidly on +the table and leaning forward. To her companion she gleamed, as if a +wood-thing, a hamadryad, had slipped out from the laurel-tree and come +to dine with him in the dusk. + +The woman of the inn brought a flask of thin yellow wine and placed it +between them. Lawrence mutely decanted it into the glasses. + +"Well?" she said, questioningly. + +Her companion turned his head away to the solemn, imperial mountains, +that were preparing with purple and gold for a night's oblivion. + +"You are thinking of Nassau Street, New York, of the rooms divided by +glass partitions, and typewriters and the bundles of documents--bah! +Chained!" She sipped scornfully a drop or two from the glass. + +The man flushed. + +"No, not that exactly. I am thinking of the police courts, of the +squalor, of taking a deposition in a cell with the filthy breathing all +about. The daily jostle." He threw his head back. + +"Don't try it again," she whispered. + +"I am only over for six weeks, you know, health--" + +"Yes? and there is a girl in Lowell,"--she read his mind impudently. + +"Was," he emended, with an uneasy blush. + +"Poor, starved one! Here is our fish and spaghetti. To-night is a night +of feast." + +The dusk grew grayer, more powderish; the mountains faded away, and the +long Lido banks disappeared into lines pointed by the lights of +Torcello and Murano. Sant' Elena became sea, and the evening wind from +the Adriatic started in toward the city. A few sailors who had come for +a glass were sitting under the arbor of the Buon Pesche smoking, with +an occasional stinging word dropped nonchalantly into the dusk. Their +hostess was working in the garden patch behind the house. At last the +artist moved off with his companion through the grove of laurel between +the great well-heads. Bastian loitered suggestively near. + +So they gathered their thoughts and followed the gondolier to the bank. +Miss Barton lingered by one of the well-heads to peer at the pitchy +bottom. + +"Here they came for fresh water, the last gift of Venice before they +took sail. And sometimes a man never went farther--it was a safe kind +of a grave." She laughed unconcernedly. + +"Perhaps you came out of the locusts and took a hand in pitching the +bodies in." + +The woman shivered. + +"No! no! I only brought them here." + +Bastian turned the prow into the current, heading to weather Sant' +Elena. Lawrence took an oar silently. He liked the rush on the forward +stroke, the lingering recovery. The evening puffs were cool. They slid +on past a ghostly full-rigged ship from the north, abandoned at the +point of Sant' Elena, until the black mass of trees in the Giardino +Pubblico loomed up. A little off the other quarter the lights from the +island of San Lazzaro gleamed and faded. It was so very silent on the +waste of waters! + +"Come." + +Lawrence looked back at his companion; she was holding her hat idly, +huddled limply on the cushions. + +"Come," she said again, adding mockingly---- + +"If you are so ferocious, we shall get there too soon." + +Lawrence gave up his oar and lay down at her feet. Bastian's sweep +dipped daintily in and out; the good current was doing his work. They +drifted silently on near Venice. The halo of light above the squares +grew brighter. San Giorgio Maggiore appeared suddenly off the quarter. + +Miss Barton signed to the gondolier to wait. They were outside the city +wash; the notes of the band in San Marco came at intervals; the water +slipped noiselessly around the channels, and fire-fly lights from the +gondolas twinkled on the Grand Canal. San Giorgio was asleep. + +Miss Barton's head was leaning forward, her eyes brooding over the +black outlines, her ears sensuously absorbing the gurgle of the +currents. A big market boat from Palestrina winged past them, sliding +over the oily water. Several silent figures were standing in the stern. + +Lawrence looked up; her eyes seemed lit with little candles placed +behind. Her face gleamed, and one arm slipped from her wrap to the +cushion by his side. + +"Bella Venezia," he murmured. + +She smiled, enveloping him, mastering him, taking him as a child with +her ample powers. + +"You will never go back to 'that'!" + +Her arm by his side filled out the thought. + +"Never," he heard himself say as on a stage, and the dusky lights from +that radiant face seemed very near. + +"Because----" + +"Because I am----" + +"Sh," she laid her fingers lightly on his forehead. "There is no thine +and mine." + +Bastian dipped his sweep once more. San Giorgio's austere facade went +out into the black night. One cold ripple of Adriatic wind stirred the +felza curtains. + + + +II + +The garden on the Giudecca was a long narrow strip on the seaward side, +blossoming profusely with flowers. A low vine-covered villino slanted +along the canal; beyond, there was a cow-house where a boy was feeding +some glossy cows. The garden was full of the morning sun. + +Lawrence could see her from the open door, a white figure, loitering in +a bed of purple tulips. Her dark hair was loosely knotted up; stray +wisps fell about her ears. + +Lawrence closed the door that opened from the canal and walked softly +through the plats of lilies and tulips. Miss Barton glanced up. + +"Ecco! il cavaliere!" + +"Didn't you expect me!" he asked, clumsily, revealing one potent reason +for his appearance. + +She smiled for an answer. + +"Last night," he began again, explanatorily. Her eyes followed his lips +and interrupted him. + +"What do you think of our place?" She had turned away as if to direct +his speech into indifferent channels. + +He looked about bewildered. + +"I can't think anything; I _feel_ it; it's one mass of sense." + +"Exactly. We found it, papa and I, one day two years ago when we were +paddling around the Giudecca. One is so much at home here. At night you +can see the lights along the Lido, and all the campaniles over there in +Venice. Then the Redentore sweeps up so grandly--" + +Lawrence slapped a bending tulip. + +"Yes, the world lies far away." + +"And you are afraid to lose sight of it," she turned on him swiftly. +And she added, before he could find defence, "You have come to redeem +your words, to tell me that you love me desperately; that you want to +make an engagement; and some day marry me and go over there to live?" + +She laughed. + +"Well?" + +"Caspar would do that." + +"And Severance has something to offer," Lawrence remarked, bluntly. + +"Half a million." + +She began to walk slowly across the little grass-plot over to the Lido +side. Here the oily swell was gurgling in the stone embankment. + +She was like a plant flowering in the garden--a plant, part lily, part +hyacinth. + +"And you do not want me," she began, softly, less to him than to +herself. "I don't fit in. You cannot take me up and put me aside, at +your will. You would be _mine_." + +"Good!" + +"It should have been different. We should never have met. They should +have made you a saint, or a priest, or a pastor for the bleeding world. +You are a trifle late; half a century ago, you could have given your +soul to God, quite easily, and not bothered about one woman." + +"Yes, I agree, but that was settled by the way the world has ground," +the young man sighed. "Why should it bother you, my fooling with the +forlorn and wretched--the others? Any more than I mind your dealings +with men?" + +They turned about and crossed the dozen paces to the Redentore wall +where lay a blade of dark shade. + +"You could flirt with the multitude? Yes, I should object," she looked +at him slowly, "I couldn't understand it." + +He threw his head back as if to look beyond Venice. + +"The maimed in body and spirit," he muttered. + +"They call you; I call you; you----" + +"I was starved," he pleaded, "I love flesh and glory, too." + +She laughed unconcernedly. + +"Oh, no. I think not. You are trying to very hard. You think you are +enjoying your wine and your figs and the sun; but you say a prayer." + +Her words taunted him. The vines on the villino swayed in the sun. + +"Come, we will go out to the water, and I will master your doubt." + +They stood silent, looking at each other, half curiously. At length she +uttered what was common to their minds. + +"Marry the world; it woos you. Love me and leave me; love another and +leave her. The world, that is your mistress." + +"And the world incarnate, that is you. The world, breathing, living, +loving, the world a passion of delight." + +Their hands touched for a moment. Then she said, hastily: + +"Too late! There is Caspar. I forgot we were to go to Burano. Will you +join us?" + +A figure in white ducks was coming toward them. His cordial smile +seemed to include a comment--a mental note of some hint he must give. +"In stalks the world of time and place," the young man muttered. "No, I +will not go with you." + +He helped her into the waiting gondola. She settled back upon the +cushions, stretched one languid arm in farewell. He could feel the +smile with which she swept Caspar Severance, the women at work in the +rio over their kettles, the sun-bright stretch of waters--all +impartially. + +He lay down in the shade of the Redentore wall. Eight weeks ago there +had been a dizzy hour, a fainting scene in a crowded court-room, a +consultation with a doctor, the conventional prescription, a fortnight +of movement--then _this_. He had cursed that combination of nerve and +tissue; equally he cursed this. One word to his gondolier and in two +hours he could be on the train for Milan, Paris, London--then +indefinite years of turning about in the crowd, of jostling and being +jostled. But he lay still while the sun crept over him. + +She was so unreal, once apart from her presence, like an evanescent +mirage on the horizon of the mind. He told himself that he had seen +her, heard her voice; that her eyes had been close to his, that she had +touched him; that there had been moments when she stood with the +flowers of the garden. + +He shook the drowsy sun from his limbs and went away, closing the door +softly on the empty garden. Venice, too, was a shadow made between +water and sun. The boat slipped in across the Zattere, in and out of +cool water alleys, under church windows and palings of furtive gardens, +until he came to the plashings of the waves on the marble steps along +the Grand Canal. Empty! that, too, was empty from side to side between +cool palace facades, the length of its expressive curve. From silence +and emptiness into silence the gondola pushed. Someone to incarnate +this empty, vacuous world! Memory troubled itself with a face, and +eyes, and hair, and a voice that mocked the little goings up and down +of men. + + + +III + +In the afternoon Lawrence and Severance were dawdling over coffee in +the Piazza. A strident band sent up voluminous notes that boomed back +and forth between the palace and the stone arches of the procurate. + +"And Burano?" Lawrence suggested, idly. The older man nodded. + +"We lunched there--convent--Miss Barton bought lace." + +He broke the pause by adding, negligently: + +"I think I shall marry her." + +Lawrence smoked; he could see the blue water about San Giorgio. + +"Marry her," he repeated, vaguely. "You are engaged?" + +Severance nodded. + +The young man reached out a bony hand. One had but to wait to still the +problems of life. They strolled across the piazza. + +"When do you leave?" Severance inquired. + +"To-night," almost slipped from the young man's lips. He was murmuring +to himself. "I have played with Venice and lost. I must return to my +busy village." + +"I can't tell," he said. + +Severance daintily stepped into a gondola. "La Giudecca." + +Lawrence turned into the swarming alleys leading to the Rialto. + +Streams of Venetians were eddying about the cul-de-sacs and enclosed +squares, hurrying over the bridges of the canals, turning in and out of +the calles, or coming to rest at the church doors. Lawrence drifted +tranquilly on. He had slipped a cable; he was free and ready for the +open sea. Following at random any turning that offered, he came out +suddenly upon Verocchio's black horseman against the black sky. The San +Zanipolo square was deserted; the cavernous San Zanipolo tenanted by +tombs. Stone figures, seated, a-horse, lying carved in death, started +out from the silent walls. + +"Condottieri," the man muttered, "great robbers who saw and took! +Briseghella, Mocenigo, Leonardo Loredan, Vittore Capello." He rolled +the powerful names under his breath. "They are right--Take, enjoy; then +die." And he saw a hill sleeping sweetly in the mountains, where the +sun rested on its going down, and a villino with two old trees where +the court seemed ever silent. In the stealthy, passing hours she came +and sat in the sun, and _was_. And the two remembered, looking on the +valley road, that somewhere lay in the past a procession of storms and +mornings and nights which was called the world, and a procession of +people which was called life. But she looked at him and smiled. + +Outside in the square the transparent dusk of Venice settled down. In +the broad canal of the Misericordia a faint plash and drip from a +passing gondola; then, in a moment, as the boat rounded into the rio, a +resounding "Stai"; again silence and the robber in bronze. + + + +IV + +He waited for a sign from the Giudecca. He told himself that Theodosia +Barton was not done with him yet, nor he with her. + +The tourist-stream, turning northward from Rome and Florence, met in +Venice a new stream of Germans. The paved passage beside the hotel +garden was alive with a cosmopolitan picnic party. Lawrence lingered +and watched; perhaps when the current set strongly to the north again, +it would carry him along with it. + +He had not seen Caspar Severance. Each day of delay made it more +awkward to meet him, made the confession of disappointment more +obvious, he reflected. Each day it was easier to put out to the lagoons +for a still dream, and return when the Adriatic breeze was winding into +the heated calles. Over there, in the heavy-scented garden on the +Giudecca, lined against a purplish sea, she was resting; she had given +free warning for him to go, but she was there----. + +"She holds me here in the Mare Morto, where the sea-weeds wind about +and bind." + +And he believed that he should meet her somewhere in the dead lagoon, +out yonder around the city, in the enveloping gloom of the waters which +held the pearl of Venice. + +So each afternoon his gondola crept out from the Fondamenta del Zattere +into the ruffling waters of the Giudecca canal, and edged around the +deserted Campo di Marte. There the gondolier labored in the viscous +sea-grass. + +One day, from far behind, came the plash of an oar in the channel. As +the narrow hull swept past, he saw a hand gather in the felza curtains, +and a woman kneel to his side. + +"So Bastian takes you always to the dead sea," she tossed aboard. + +"Bastian might convoy other forestieri," Lawrence defended. + +"Really? here to the laguna morta?" and as his gondola slid into the +channel, she added: + +"I knew you were in Venice; you could not go without--another time." + +"What would that bring?" he questioned her with his eyes. + +"How should I know?" she answered, evasively. "Come with me out to the +San Giorgio in Alga. It is the loneliest place in Venice!" + +Lawrence sat at her feet. The gondola moved on between the sea-weed +banks. Away off by Chioggia, filmy gray clouds grew over the horizon. + +"Rain." + +She shook her head. "For the others, landward. Those opalescent clouds +streaking the sky are merely the undertone of Venice; they are always +_here_." + +"The note of sadness," he suggested. + +"You thought to have ended with _me_." + +She rested her head on her hands and looked at him. He preferred to +have her mention Caspar Severance. + +"Whenever I was beyond your eyes, you were not quite sure. You went +back to your hotel and wondered. The wine was over strong for your +temperate nerves, and there was so much to do elsewhere!" she mocked +him. + +"After all, I was a fragment. And you judged in your wise new-world +fashion that fragments were--useless." + +Just ahead was a tiny patch of earth, rimmed close to the edge by +ruined walls. The current running landward drew them about the corner, +under the madonna's hand, and the gondola came to rest beside the +lichens and lizards of a crumbling wharf. + +"No," she continued, "I shall not let you go so easily." One hand fell +beside his arm, figuratively indicating her thought. + +"And I shall carry you off," he responded, slowly. "It lies between +you--and all, everything." + +The gondolier had gone ashore. Silence had swallowed him up. + +"All, myself and the others; effort, variety--for the man who loves +_you_, there is but one act in life." + +"Splendid!" Her lips parted as if savoring his words. + +His voice went on, low, strained to plunge his words into her heart. + +"You are the woman, the curious thing that God made to stir life. You +would draw all activities to you, and through you nothing may pass. +Like the dead sea of grass you encompass the end of desire. You have +been with me from my manhood, the fata morgana that laughed at my love +of other creatures. I must meet you, I knew, face to face!" + +His lips closed. + +"Go on!" + +"I have met you," he added, sullenly, "and should I turn away, I should +not forget you. You will go with me, and I shall hunger for you and +hate you, and you will make it over, my life, to fill the hollow of +your hand." + +"To fill the hollow of my hand," she repeated softly, as if not +understanding. + +"You will mould it and pat it and caress it, until it fits. You will +never reason about it, nor doubt, nor talk; the tide flows underneath +into the laguna morta, and never wholly flows out. God has painted in +man's mind the possible; and he has painted the delusions, the +impossible--and that is woman?" + +"Impossible," she murmured. "Oh, no, not that!" + +Her eyes compelled him; her hand dropped to his hand. Venice sank into +a gray blot in the lagoon. The water was waveless like a deep night. + +"Possible for a moment," he added, dreamily, "possible as the unsung +lyric. Possible as the light of worlds behind the sun and moon. +Possible as the mysteries of God that the angels whisper----" + +"The only possible," again her eyes flamed; the dark hair gleamed black +above the white face. + +"And that is enough for us forever!" + + + +V + +The heavy door of the Casa Lesca swung in, admitting Lawrence to a damp +stone-flagged room. At the farther end it opened on a little cortile, +where gnarled rose-bushes were in bloom. A broken Venus, presiding over +a dusty fountain, made the centre of the cortile, and there a strapping +girl from the campagna was busy trimming the stalks of a bunch of +roses. The signorina had not arrived; Lawrence lounged against the +gunwale of a gondola, which lay on one side of the court. + +A pretentious iron gate led from the cortile to the farm, where the +running vines stretched from olive-stump to trellis, weaving a mat of +undulating green. It was so quiet, here in the rear of the palace, that +one could almost hear the hum of the air swimming over the broad vine +leaves. + +Lawrence, at first alert, then drowsy, reclined in the shade, and +watched the girl. From time to time she threw him a soft word of +Venetian. Then, gathering her roses, she shook them in his face and +tripped up the stairs to the palace above. + +He had made the appointment without intention, but he came to fulfil it +in a tumult of energy. + +_She_ must choose and _he_ arrange--for that future which troubled his +mind. But the heated emptiness of the June afternoon soothed his will. +He saw that whatever she bade, that he would do. Still here, while he +was alone, before her presence came to rule, he plotted little things. +When he was left with himself he wondered about it; no, he did not want +her, did not want it! His life was over there, beyond her, and she must +bend to that conception. People, women, anyone, this piece of beauty +and sense, were merely episodic. The sum was made from all, and greater +than all. + +The door groaned, and he turned to meet her, shivering in the damp +passage. She gathered a wrap about her shoulders. + +"Caspar would not go," she explained, appealingly. + +"Which one is to go?" the young man began. She sank down on a bench and +turned her head wearily to the vineyard. Over the swaying tendrils of +the vine, a dark line, a blue slab of salt water, made the horizon. + +"Should I know?" her face said, mutely. + +"He thinks you should," she spoke, calmly. "He has been talking two +hours about you, your future, your brilliant performances----" + +"That detained you!" + +"He is plotting to make you a great man. You belong to the world, he +said, and, the world would have you. They need you to plan and exhort, +I believe." + +"So you come to tell me--" + +"Let us go out to the garden." She laid her hand reprovingly on his +arm. "We can see the pictures later." + +She took his arm and directed him down the arched walk between the +vines, toward the purple sea. + +"I did not realize that--that you were a little Ulysses. He warned me!" + +"Indeed!" + +"That you would love and worship at any wayside shrine; that the spirit +of devotion was not in you." + +"And you believed?" + +She nodded. + +"It seemed so. I have thought so. Once a few feet away and you are +wondering!" + +The young man was guiltily silent. + +"And I am merely a wayside chapel, good for an idle prayer." + +"Make it perpetual." + +Her arm was heavy. + +"Caspar wants you--away. He will try to arrange it. Perhaps you will +yield, and I shall lose." + +"You mean he will make them recall me." + +She said nothing. + +"You can end it now." He stopped and raised her arm. They stood for a +moment, revolving the matter; a gardener came down the path. "You will +get the message tonight," she said, gloomily. "Go! The message will say +'come,' and you will obey." + +Lawrence turned. + +"Shall we see the pictures?" + +The peasant girl admitted them to the hall, and opened, here and there, +a long shutter. The vast hall, in the form of a Latin cross, revealed a +dusky line of frescoes. + +"Veronese," she murmured. Lawrence turned to the open window that +looked across the water to the piazza. Beneath, beside the quay, a +green-painted Greek ship was unloading grain. Some panting, half-naked +men were shovelling the oats. + +"We might go," he said; "Caspar is probably waiting for his report. You +can tell him that he has won." + +Suddenly he felt her very near him. + +"No, not that way!" + +"You are good to--love," she added deliberatively, placing her hands +lightly on his heart. + +"You do not care enough; ah! that is sad, sad. Caspar, or denial, or +God--nothing would stand if you cared, more than you care for the +little people and things. See, I can take you now. I can say you are +mine. I can make you love--as another may again. But love me, now, as +if no other minute could ever follow." + +She sighed the words. + +"Here I am, to be loved. Let us settle nothing. Let us have this minute +for a few kisses." + +The hall filled with dusk. The girl came back again. Suddenly a bell +began ringing. + +"Caspar," she said. "Stay here; I will go." + +"We will go together." + +"No," she waved him back. "You will get the message. Caspar is right. +You are not for any woman for always." + +"Go," he flung out, angrily. + +The great doors of the hall had rattled to, leaving him alone half +will-less. He started and then returned to the balcony over the +fondamenta. In the half-light he could see her stepping into a waiting +gondola, and certain words came floating up clearly as if said to +him---- + +"To-morrow evening, the Contessa Montelli, at nine." But she seemed to +be speaking to her companion. The gondola shot out into the broad canal. + + + +VI + +The long June day, Lawrence sat with the yellow cablegram before his +eyes. The message had come, indeed, and the way had been cleared. +Eleven--the train for Paris! passed; then, two, and now it was dusk +again. + +Had she meant those words for him? So carelessly flung back. That he +would prove. + + * * * * * + +"The signorina awaits you." The man pointed to the garden, and turned +back with his smoking lamp up the broad staircase that clung to one +side of the court. Across the strip of garden lay a bar of moonlight on +the grass. + +She was standing over the open well-head at the farther end where the +grass grew in rank tufts. The gloomy wall of the palace cast a shadow +that reached to the well. Just as he entered, a church-clock across the +rio struck the hour on a cracked bell. + +"My friend has gone in--she is afraid of the night air," Miss Barton +explained. "Perhaps she is afraid of ghosts," she added, as the young +man stood silent by her side. "An old doge killed his wife and her +children here, some centuries ago. They say the woman walks. Are you +afraid?" + +"Of only one ghost----" + +"Not yet a ghost!" Indeed, her warm, breathing self threw a spirit of +life into the moonlight and gainsaid his idle words. + +"I have come for you," he said, a little peremptorily. "To do it I have +lost my engagement with life." + +"So the message came. You refused, and now you look for a reward. A man +must be paid!" + +"I tried to keep the other engagement and could not!" + +"I shall make you forget it, as if it were some silly boyish dream." +She began to walk over the moonlit grass. "I was waiting for +that--sacrifice. For if you desire _me_, you must leave the other +engagements, always." + +"I know it." + +"I lie in the laguna morta, and the dead are under me, and the living +are caught in my sea-weed." She laughed. + +"Now, we have several long hours of moonlight. Shall we stay here?" + +The young man shivered. + +"No, the Lady Dogessa might disturb us. Let us go out toward Murano." + +"Are you really--alive and mine, not Severance's?" he threw out, +recklessly. + +She stopped and smiled. + +"First you tell me that I disturb your plans; then you want to know if +I am preoccupied. You would like to have me as an 'extra' in the +subscription." + +As they came out on the flags by the gondola, another boat was pushing +a black prow into the rio from the Misericordia canal. It came up to +the water-steps where the two stood. Caspar Severance stepped out. + +"Caspar!" Miss Barton laughed. + +"They told me you were here for dinner," he explained. He was in +evening clothes, a Roman cloak hanging from his shoulders. He looked, +standing on the steps below the other two, like an impertinent +intrusion. + +"Lawrence! I thought you were on your way home." + +Lawrence shook his head. All three were silent, wondering who would +dare to open the final theme. + +"The Signora Contessa had a headache," Miss Barton began, nonchalantly. + +Severance glanced skeptically at the young American by her side. + +"So you fetched il dottore americano? Well, Giovanni is waiting to +carry us home." + +Miss Barton stepped forward slowly, as if to enter the last gondola +whose prow was nuzzling by the steps. + +Lawrence took her hand and motioned to his gondola. + +"Miss Barton----" + +Severance smiled, placidly. + +"You will miss the midnight train." + +The young man halted a moment, and Miss Barton's arm slipped into his +fingers. + +"Perhaps," he muttered. + +"The night will be cool for you," Severance turned to the woman. She +wavered a moment. + +"You will miss more than the midnight train," Severance added to the +young fellow, in a low voice. + +Lawrence knelt beside his gondola. He glanced up into the face of the +woman above him. "Will you come?" he murmured. She gathered up her +dress and stepped firmly into the boat. Severance, left alone on the +fondamenta, watched the two. Then he turned back to his gondola. The +two boats floated out silently into the Misericordia Canal. + +"To the Cimeterio," Miss Barton said. "To the Canale Grande," Severance +motioned. + +The two men raised their hats. + + * * * * * + +For a few moments the man and the woman sat without words, until the +gondola cleared the Fondamenta Nuova, and they were well out in the sea +of moonlight. Ahead of them lay the stucco walls of the Cimeterio, +glowing softly in the white light. Some dark spots were moving out from +the city mass to their right, heading for the silent island. + +"There goes the conclusion," Lawrence nodded to the funeral boats. + +"But between us and them lies a space of years--life." + +"Who decided?" + +"You looked. It was decided." + +The city detached itself insensibly from them, lying black behind. A +light wind came down from Treviso, touching the white waves. + +"You are thinking that back there, up the Grand Canal, lie fame and +accomplishment. You are thinking that now you have your fata +morgana--nothing else. You are already preparing a grave for her in +your mind!" + +Lawrence took her head in his hands. "Never," he shot out the word. +"Never--you are mine; I have come all these ocean miles to find you. I +have come for an accounting with the vision that troubles man." Her +face drew nearer. + +"I am Venice, you said. I am set in the mare morto. I am built on the +sea-weed. But from me you shall not go. You came over the mountains for +this." + +The man sighed. Some ultimate conception of life seemed to outline +itself on the whitish walls of the Cimeterio--a question of sex. The +man would go questioning visions. The woman was held by one. + +"Caspar Severance will find his way, and will play your game for you," +she went on coaxingly. "But this," her eyes were near him, "_this_ is a +moment of life. You have chosen. There is no mine and thine." + +One by one the campaniles of Venice loomed, dark pillars in the white +sky. And all around toward Mestre and Treviso and Torcello; to San +Pietro di Castello and the grim walls of the arsenal, the mare morto +heaved gently and sighed. + +CHICAGO, January, 1897. + + + +THE PRICE OF ROMANCE + +They were paying the price of their romance, and the question was +whether they would pay it cheerfully. They had been married a couple of +years, and the first flush of excitement over their passion and the +stumbling-blocks it had met was fading away. When he, an untried young +lawyer and delicate dilettante, had married her she was a Miss Benton, +of St. Louis, "niece of Oliphant, that queer old fellow who made his +money in the Tobacco Trust," and hence with no end of prospects. +Edwards had been a pleasant enough fellow, and Oliphant had not +objected to his loafing away a vacation about the old house at Quogue. +Marriage with his niece, the one remaining member of his family who +walked the path that pleased him, was another thing. She had plenty of +warning. Had he not sent his only son adrift as a beggar because he had +married a little country cousin? He could make nothing out of Edwards +except that he was not keen after business--loafed much, smoked much, +and fooled with music, possibly wrote songs at times. + +Yet Miss Benton had not expected that cruel indifference when she +announced her engagement to the keen old man. For she was fond of him +and grateful. + +"When do you think of marrying?" had been his single comment. She +guessed the unexpressed complement to that thought, "You can stay here +until that time. Then good-by." + +She found in herself an admirable spirit, and her love added devotion +and faith in the future, her lover's future. So she tided over the +months of her engagement, when her uncle's displeasure settled down +like a fog over the pleasant house. Edwards would run down frequently, +but Oliphant managed to keep out of his way. It was none of his affair, +and he let them see plainly this aspect of it. Her spirit rose. She +could do as other women did, get on without candy and roses, and it +hurt her to feel that she had expected money from her uncle. She could +show him that they were above that. + +So they were married and went to live in a little flat in Harlem, very +modest, to fit their income. Oliphant had bade her good-by with the +courtesy due to a tiresome Sunday visitor. "Oh, you're off, are you?" +his indifferent tones had said. "Well, good-by; I hope you will have a +good time." And that was all. Even the colored cook had said more; the +servants in general looked deplorable. Wealth goes so well with a +pretty, bright young woman! + +Thus it all rested in the way they would accept the bed they had made. +Success would be ample justification. Their friends watched to see how +well they would solve the problem they had so jauntily set themselves. + +Edwards was by no means a _faineant_--his record at the Columbia Law +School promised better than that, and he had found a place in a large +office that might answer for the stepping-stone. As yet he had not +individualized himself; he was simply charming, especially in correct +summer costume, luxuriating in indolent conversation. He had the +well-bred, fine-featured air of so many of the graduates from our +Eastern colleges. The suspicion of effeminacy which he suggested might +be unjust, but he certainly had not experienced what Oliphant would +call "life." He had enough interest in music to dissipate in it. +Marriage was an excellent settler, though, on a possible income of +twelve hundred! + +The two years had not the expected aspiring march, however; ten-dollar +cases, even, had not been plenty in Edwards's path, and he suspected +that he was not highly valued in his office. He had been compelled to +tutor a boy the second year, and the hot summers made him listless. In +short, he felt that he had missed his particular round in the ladder. +He should have studied music, or tried for the newspapers as a musical +critic. Sunday afternoons he would loll over the piano, picturing the +other life--that life which is always so alluring! His wife followed +him heroically into all his moods with that pitiful absorption such +women give to the men they love. She believed in him tremendously, if +not as a lawyer, as a man and an artist. Somehow she hadn't been an +inspiration, and for that she humbly blamed herself. How was it +accomplished, this inspiration? A loving wife inspired the ordinary +man. Why not an artist? + +They got into the habit of planning their life all differently--so that +it might not be limited and futile. _If_ they had a few thousand +dollars! That was a bad sign, and she knew it, and struggled against +it. _If_ she could only do something to keep the pot boiling while he +worked at his music for fame and success! But she could reduce +expenses; so the one servant went, and the house-bills grew tinier and +tinier. However, they didn't "make connections," and--something was +wrong--she wondered what. + +As the second summer came in they used to stroll out of their stuffy +street of an evening, up St. Nicholas Avenue, to the Park, or to the +Riverside Drive. There they would sit speechless, she in a faded blue +serge skirt with a crisp, washed-out shirtwaist, and an old sailor +hat--dark and pretty, in spite of her troubled face; he in a ready-made +black serge suit, yet very much the gentleman--pale and listless. Their +eyes would seek out any steamer in the river below, or anything else +that reminded them of other conditions. He would hum a bit from an +opera. They needed no words; their faces were evident, though mute, +indications of the tragedy. Then they would return at bed-time into the +sultry streets, where from the open windows of the flats came the +hammered music of the city. Such discordant efforts for harmony! Her +heart would fill over him, yearning like a mother to cherish him in all +the pleasant ways of life, but impotent, impotent! + +She never suggested greater effort. Conditions were hard, she said over +and over; if there were only a little money to give him a start in +another direction. She admired his pride in never referring to old +Oliphant. Her uncle was often in her mind, but she felt that even if +she could bring herself to petition him, her husband would indignantly +refuse to consider the matter. + +Still, she thought about it, and especially this summer, for she knew +he was then at Quogue. Moreover, she expected her first child. That +worried her daily; she saw how hopeless another complication would make +their fate. She cried over it at night when the room was too hot to +sleep. And then she reproached herself; God would punish her for not +wanting her baby. + +One day she had gone down town to get some materials for the +preparations she must make. She liked to shop, for sometimes she met +old friends; this time in a large shop she happened upon a woman she +had known at Quogue, the efficient wife of a successful minister in +Brooklyn. This Mrs. Leicester invited her to lunch at the cafe at the +top of the building, and she had yielded, after a little urging, with +real relief. They sat down at a table near the window--it was so high +up there was not much noise--and the streets suddenly seemed +interesting to Mrs. Edwards. The quiet table, the pleasant lunch, and +the energetic Mrs. Leicester were all refreshing. + +"And how is your husband?" Mrs. Leicester inquired, keenly. As a +minister's wife she was compelled to interest herself in sentimental +complications that inwardly bored her. It was a part of her +professional duties. She had taken in this situation at once--she had +seen that kind of thing before; it made her impatient. But she liked +the pretty little woman before her, and was sorry she hadn't managed +better. + +"Pretty well," Mrs. Edwards replied, consciously. "The heat drags one +down so!" + +Mrs. Leicester sent another quick glance across the table. "You haven't +been to Quogue much of late, have you? You know how poorly your uncle +is." + +"No! _You_ must know that Uncle James doesn't see us." + +"Well," Mrs. Leicester went on, hastily, "he's been quite ill and +feeble, and they say he's growing queer. He never goes away now, and +sees nobody. Most of the servants have gone. I don't believe he will +last long." + +Then her worldliness struggled with her conventional position, and she +relapsed into innuendo. "He ought to have someone look after him, to +see him die decently, for he can't live beyond the autumn, and the only +person who can get in is that fat, greasy Dr. Shapless, who is after +his money for the Methodist missions. He goes down every week. I wonder +where Mr. Oliphant's son can be?" + +Mrs. Edwards took in every word avidly while she ate. But she let the +conversation drift off to Quogue, their acquaintances, and the +difficulty of shopping in the summer. "Well, I must be going to get the +train," exclaimed Mrs. Leicester at last. With a sigh the young wife +rose, looked regretfully down at the remains of their liberal luncheon, +and then walked silently to the elevator. They didn't mention Oliphant +again, but there was something understood between them. Mrs. Leicester +hailed a cab; just as she gathered her parcels to make a dive, she +seemed illuminated with an idea. "Why don't you come down some +Sunday--visit us? Mr. Leicester would be delighted." + +Mrs. Edwards was taken unawares, but her instincts came to her rescue. + +"Why, we don't go anywhere; it's awfully kind, and I should be +delighted; I am afraid Mr. Edwards can't." + +"Well," sighed Mrs. Leicester, smiling back, unappeased, "come if you +can; come alone." The cab drove off, and the young wife felt her cheeks +burn. + + * * * * * + +The Edwardses had never talked over Oliphant or his money explicitly. +They shrank from it; it would be a confession of defeat. There was +something abhorrently vulgar in thus lowering the pitch of their life. +They had come pretty near it often this last summer. But each feared +what the other might think. Edwards especially was nervous about the +impression it might make on his wife, if he should discuss the matter. +Mrs. Leicester's talk, however, had opened possibilities for the +imagination. So little of Uncle James's money, she mused, would make +them ideally happy--would put her husband on the road to fame. She had +almost made up her mind on a course of action, and she debated the +propriety of undertaking the affair without her husband's knowledge. +She knew that his pride would revolt from her plan. She could pocket +her own pride, but she was tender of his conscience, of his comfort, of +his sensibilities. It would be best to act at once by herself--perhaps +she would fail, anyway--and to shield him from the disagreeable and +useless knowledge and complicity. She couldn't resist throwing out some +feelers, however, at supper that night. He had come in tired and soiled +after a day's tramp collecting bills that wouldn't collect this +droughty season. She had fussed over him and coaxed a smile out, and +now they were at their simple tea. + +She recounted the day's events as indifferently as possible, but her +face trembled as she described the luncheon, the talk, the news of her +uncle, and at last Mrs. Leicester's invitation. Edwards had started at +the first mention of Quogue. + +"It's been in his mind," she thought, half-relieved, and his nervous +movements of assumed indifference made it easier for her to go on. + +"It was kind of her, wasn't it?" she ended. + +"Yes," Edwards replied, impressively. "Of course you declined." + +"Oh, yes; but she seemed to expect us all the same." Edwards frowned, +but he kept an expectant silence. So she remarked, tentatively: + +"It would be so pleasant to see dear old Quogue again." Her hypocrisy +made her flush. Edwards rose abruptly from the table and wandered about +the room. At length he said, in measured tones, his face averted from +her: + +"_Of course_, under the circumstances, we cannot visit Quogue while +your uncle lives--unless he should send for us." Thus he had put +himself plainly on record. His wife suddenly saw the folly and meanness +of her little plans. + +It was hardly a disappointment; her mind felt suddenly relieved from an +unpleasant responsibility. She went to her husband, who was nervously +playing at the piano, and kissed him, almost reverently. It had been a +temptation from which he had saved her. They talked that evening a good +deal, planning what they would do if they could get over to Europe for +a year, calculating how cheaply they could go. It was an old subject. +Sometimes it kept off the blues; sometimes it indicated how blue they +were. Mrs. Edwards forgot the disturbance of the day until she was +lying wide awake in her hot bed. Then the old longings came in once +more; she saw the commonplace present growing each month more dreary; +her husband drudging away, with his hopes sinking. Suddenly he spoke: + +"What made Mrs. Leicester ask us, do you suppose?" So he was thinking +of it again. + +"I don't know!" she replied, vaguely. Soon his voice came again: + +"You understand, Nell, that I distinctly disapprove of our making any +effort _that way_." She didn't think that her husband was a hypocrite. +She did not generalize when she felt deeply. But she knew that her +husband didn't want the responsibility of making any effort. Somehow +she felt that he would be glad if she should make the effort and take +the responsibility on her own shoulders. + +Why had he lugged it into plain light again if he hadn't expected her +to do something? How could she accomplish it without making it +unpleasant for him? Before daylight she had it planned, and she turned +once and kissed her husband, protectingly. + + * * * * * + +That August morning, as she walked up the dusty road, fringed with +blossoming golden-rod, toward the little cottage of the Leicesters, she +was content, in spite of her tumultuous mind. It was all so heavenly +quiet! the thin, drooping elms, with their pendent vines, like the +waterfalls of a maiden lady; the dusty snarls of blackberry bushes; the +midsummer contented repose of the air, and that distantly murmuring +sea--it was all as she remembered it in her childhood. A gap of +disturbed years closed up, and peace once more! The old man slowly +dying up beyond in that deserted, gambrel-roofed house would Forget and +forgive. + +Mrs. Leicester received her effusively, anxious now not to meddle +dangerously in what promised to be a ticklish business. Mrs. Edwards +must stay as long as she would. The Sundays were especially lonely, for +Mr. Leicester did not think she should bear the heat of the city so +soon, and left her alone when he returned to Brooklyn for his Sunday +sermon. Of course, stay as long as Mr. Edwards could spare her--a +month; if possible. + +At the mention of Mr. Edwards the young wife had a twinge of remorse +for the manner in which she had evaded him--her first deceit for his +sake. She had talked vaguely about visiting a friend at Moriches, and +her husband had fallen in with the idea. New York was like a finely +divided furnace, radiating heat from every tube-like street. So she was +to go for a week or ten days. Perhaps the matter would arrange itself +before that time was up; if not, she would write him what she had done. +But ten days seemed so long that she put uncomfortable thoughts out of +her head. + +Mrs. Leicester showed her to her room, a pretty little box, into which +the woodbine peeped and nodded, and where from one window she could get +a glimpse of the green marshes, with the sea beyond. After chatting +awhile, her hostess went out, protesting that her guest must be too +tired to come down. Mrs. Edwards gladly accepted the excuse, ate the +luncheon the maid brought, in two bites, and then prepared to sally +forth. + +She knew the path between the lush meadow-grass so well! Soon she was +at the entrance to the "Oliphant place." It was more run down than two +years ago; the lower rooms were shut up tight in massive green blinds +that reached to the warped boards of the veranda. It looked old, +neglected, sad, and weary; and she felt almost justified in her +mission. She could bring comfort and light to the dying man. + +In a few minutes she was smothering the hysterical enthusiasm of her +old friend, Dinah. It was as she had expected: Oliphant had grown more +suspicious and difficult for the last two years, and had refused to see +a doctor, or, in fact, anyone but the Rev. Dr. Shapless and a country +lawyer whom he used when absolutely necessary. He hadn't left his room +for a month; Dinah had carried him the little he had seen fit to eat. +She was evidently relieved to see her old mistress once more at hand. +She asked no questions, and Mrs. Edwards knew that she would obey her +absolutely. + +They were sitting in Oliphant's office, a small closet off the more +pretentious library, and Mrs. Edwards could see the disorder into which +the old man's papers had fallen. The confusion preceding death had +already set in. + +After laying aside her hat, she went up, unannounced, to her uncle's +room, determined not to give him an opportunity to dismiss her out of +hand. He was lying with his eyes closed, so she busied herself in +putting the room to rights, in order to quiet her nerves. The air was +heavily languorous, and soon in the quiet country afternoon her +self-consciousness fell asleep, and she went dreaming over the +irresponsible past, the quiet summers, and the strange, stern old man. +Suddenly she knew that he was awake and watching her closely. She +started, but, as he said nothing, she went on with her dusting, her +hand shaking. + +He made no comment while she brought him his supper and arranged the +bed. Evidently he would accept her services. Her spirit leapt up with +the joy of success. That was the first step. She deemed it best to send +for her meagre satchel, and to take possession of her old room. In that +way she could be more completely mistress of the situation and of him. +She had had no very definite ideas of action before that afternoon; her +one desire had been to be on the field of battle, to see what could be +done, perhaps to use a few tears to soften the implacable heart. But +now her field opened out. She must keep the old man to herself, within +her own care--not that she knew specifically what good that would do, +but it was the tangible nine points of the law. + +The next morning Oliphant showed more life, and while she was helping +him into his dressing-gown, he vouchsafed a few grunts, followed by a +piercing inquiry: + +"Is _he_ dead yet?" + +The young wife flushed with indignant protest. + +"Broke, perhaps?" + +"Well, we haven't starved yet." But she was cowed by his cynical +examination. He relapsed into silence; his old, bristly face assumed a +sardonic peace whenever his eyes fell upon her. She speculated about +that wicked beatitude; it made her uncomfortable. He was still, +however--never a word from morning till night. + +The routine of little duties about the sickroom she performed +punctiliously. In that way she thought to put her conscience to rights, +to regard herself in the kind role of ministering angel. That illusion +was hard to attain in the presence of the sardonic comment the old man +seemed to add. After all, it was a vulgar grab after the candied fruits +of this life. + +She had felt it necessary to explain her continued absence to her +husband. Mrs. Leicester, who did not appear to regard her actions as +unexpected, had undertaken that delicate business. Evidently, she had +handled it tactfully, for Mrs. Edwards soon received a hurried note. He +felt that she was performing her most obvious duty; he could not but be +pleased that the breach caused by him had been thus tardily healed. As +long as her uncle continued in his present extremity, she must remain. +He would run down to the Leicesters over Sundays, etc. Mrs. Edwards was +relieved; it was nice of him--more than that, delicate--not to be +stuffy over her action. + +The uppermost question these days of monotonous speculation was how +long would this ebb-tide of a tenacious life flow. She took a guilty +interest in her uncle's condition, and yet she more than half wished +him to live. Sometimes he would rally. Something unfulfilled troubled +his mind, and once he even crawled downstairs. She found him shakily +puttering over the papers in his huge davenport. He asked her to make a +fire in the grate, and then, gathering up an armful of papers, he knelt +down on the brick hearth, but suddenly drew back. His deep eyes gleamed +hatefully at her. Holding out several stiff papers, he motioned to her +to burn them. Usually she would have obeyed docilely enough, but this +deviltry of merriment she resented. While she delayed, standing erect +before the smouldering sticks, she noticed that a look of terror crept +across the sick face. A spasm shook him, and he fainted. After that his +weakness kept him in bed. She wondered what he had been so anxious to +burn. + +From this time her thoughts grew more specific. Just how should she +attain her ends? Had he made a will? Could he not now do something for +them, or would it be safer to bide their time? Indeed, for a few +moments she resolved to decide all by one straightforward prayer. She +began, and the old man seemed so contentedly prepared for the scene +that she remained dumb. + +In this extremity of doubt she longed to get aid from her husband. Yet +under the circumstances she dared to admit so little. One Saturday +afternoon he called at the house; she was compelled to share some of +her perplexities. + +"He seems so very feeble," she remarked. They were sitting on the +veranda some distance from Oliphant's room, yet their conversation was +furtive. "Perhaps he should see a doctor or a minister." + +"No, I don't think so," Edwards replied, assuringly. "You see, he +doesn't believe in either, and such things should be left to the person +himself, as long as he's in his right mind." + +"And a lawyer?" Mrs. Edwards continued, probingly. + +"Has he asked for one?" + +"No, but he seems to find it hard to talk." + +"I guess it's best not to meddle. Who's that?" + +A little, fat man in baggy black trousers and a seersucker coat was +panting up the gentle hill to the gate. He had a puggy nose and a +heavy, thinly bearded face incased about the eyes in broad steel +spectacles. + +"That must be Dr. Shapless," she said, in a flutter. + +"What of it?" Edwards replied. + +"He mustn't come in," she cried, with sudden energy. "You must see him, +and send him away! He wants to see Uncle Oliphant. Tell him he's too +sick--to come another day." Edwards went down the path to meet him. +Through the window she could hear a low conversation, and then crunched +gravel. Meantime Oliphant seemed restlessly alert, expectant of +something, and with suspicious eyes intent on her. + +Her heart thumped with relief when the gate clicked. Edwards had been +effective that time. Oliphant was trying to say something, but the hot +August day had been too much for him--it all ended in a mumble. Then +she pulled in the blinds, settled the pillows nervously, and left the +room in sheer fright. + +The fight had begun--and grimly. + + * * * * * + +"I wonder what the old cove wanted?" Edwards said the next day; "he was +dead set on seeing your uncle; said he had an engagement with him, and +looked me up and down. I stood him off, but he'll be down again." + +"Don't you know about that new fund the Methodists are raising? Uncle +Oliphant has always helped the Methodists, and I suppose Dr. Shapless +wanted to see him about some contributions." Edwards asked no more +questions, and, in fact, got back to town on a pretext of business that +afternoon. He was clearly of no use in Quogue. His wife sent for a +physician that week. It was tardy justice to propriety, but it was safe +then, for Oliphant had given up all attempts to talk. + +The doctor came, looked at the old man, and uttered a few remarks. He +would come again. Mrs. Edwards did not need to be told that the end was +near. The question was, how soon? + +That week had another scare. Somehow old Slocum, the local lawyer +Oliphant used, had been summoned, and one morning she ran across him in +the hall. She knew the man well of old. He was surprised and pleased to +see her, and it was not difficult to get him out of the house without +arousing his suspicions. But he would talk so boisterously; she felt +her uncle's eyes aflame in anger. + +"Be sure and send for me when he rallies, quick," Slocum whispered +loudly in the hall. "Perhaps we can do a little something for some +folks." And with a wink he went out. + +Had she done the clever thing, after all, in shooing old Slocum out? +Her mind went over the possibilities in tense anxiety. If there were no +will, James, Jr., would get the whole, she thought. If there was a will +already in the house, in that old davenport, what then? Would Shapless +get the money? She grew keen in speculation. To leave her in the lurch, +to give it all to that greasy Shapless, would be the most natural trick +in the world for an incisive old fellow like Oliphant. + +It was too much! She cried a little, and she began to hate the helpless +man upstairs. It occurred to her to poke about in the papers in the +adjoining room. She must do it at once, for she expected Edwards every +moment. + +First she ran upstairs to see if her uncle was all right. As soon as +she entered, he glared at her bitterly and would have spoken. She noted +the effort and failure, elated. He could not betray her now, unless he +rallied wonderfully. So leaving the door ajar, she walked firmly +downstairs. Now she could satisfy her desire. + +If the money were _all_ left to Shapless? She might secure the will, +and bargain with the old parasite for a few thousands of dollars. Her +mind was full of wild schemes. If she only knew a little more about +affairs! She had heard of wills, and read many novels that turned upon +wills lost or stolen. They had always seemed to her improbable, mere +novels. Necessity was stranger than fiction. + +It did not take long to find the very articles she was after; evidently +Oliphant had been overhauling them on that last excursion from his +room. The package lay where he had dropped it when he fainted. There +were two documents. She unfolded them on the top of the mussy desk. +They were hard reading in all their legal dress, and her head was +filled with fears lest her husband should walk in. She could make out, +however, that Oliphant was much richer than she had ever vaguely +supposed, and that since her departure he had relented toward his son. +For by the first will in date she was the principal heir, a lot of +queer charities coming in besides. In the second, James, Jr., received +something. Her name did not appear. Several clauses had been added from +time to time, each one giving more money and lands to the Methodists. +Probably Shapless was after another codicil when he called. + +It had taken her into the twilight to gain even a meagre idea of all +this. She was preparing to fold the documents up in their common +wrapper, when she felt the door open behind her. All she could see in +the terror of the moment was the gaunt white arm of her uncle, and the +two angry eyes in the shaking head. She shrieked, from pure +nervousness, and at her cry the old man fell in a heap. + +The accident steeled her nerves. Dinah came in in a panic, and as they +were lifting the bony frame from the floor Edwards arrived. With his +assistance they got the sick man to bed. + +That was clearly the last gasp. Yet Mrs. Edwards shook in dread every +time she entered the room. The look seemed conscious still, intensified +malignity and despair creeping in. She was afraid and guilty and +unstrung. Perhaps, with some sudden revival of his forces, he would +kill her. He was lying there, too still for defeat. His life had been +an expression of hates; the last one might be dreadful. + +Yet she stood to her post in the sick-room, afraid, as she knew, to +trust herself with her husband. Her mind was soiled with seething +thoughts, and, in contrast, his seemed so fresh and pure! If she could +keep him unsuspicious of her, all would be well in the end. But the +task she had set herself for him was hard, so hard! + +That night when all was still she crept downstairs and groped about in +the davenport for the papers. They had been lying there unopened where +they had fallen earlier in the evening. She struck a match, caught up +the fresher document, and hugged it to her as she toiled upstairs. When +she had tucked it away in her satchel the end seemed near. They must +wait now. + +She put her husband out of her mind. Outside, the warm summer days died +away over the sea, one by one, and the grass beyond the gates grew +heavier with dust. Life was tense in its monotony. + + * * * * * + +That had happened on a Saturday; Monday Dr. Shapless came again, his +shoes dusty from his long walk from the station. He looked oiled as +ever, but more determined. Mrs. Edwards daringly permitted him to see +the dying man--he had been lying in a stupor--for she was afraid that +the reverend doctor's loud tones in the hall might exasperate Oliphant +to some wild act. Dr. Shapless shut her from the room when he went in, +but he did not stay long. A restless despair had settled down on her +uncle's face, there to remain for the last few hours. + +Her heart sank; she longed to cry out to the poor old man on the bed +that _she_ did not want his money. She remained with him all night, yet +she did not dare to approach his bed. She would disturb him. + +He died the next afternoon, and at the last he looked out on the world +and at her with his final note of intelligence. It was pathetic, a +suggestion of past tenderness defeated, and of defeat in hate, too. She +shuddered as she closed his sad eyes; it was awful to meddle with a +man's last purposes. + +The funeral was almost surreptitious; old Dinah, the Leicesters, and +the Edwardses occupied the one carriage that followed him to the +graveyard across the village. They met a hay-cart or two on their way, +but no curious neighbors. Old Oliphant's death aroused no interest in +this village, ridden with summer strangers. + +The day was impersonally suave and tender, with its gentle haze and +autumn premonitions. Mr. Leicester said a few equivocal words, while +Mrs. Edwards gazed helplessly into the grave. The others fell back +behind the minister. Between her and her uncle down there something +remained unexplained, and her heart ached. + + * * * * * + +They spent that night at the Leicesters', for Mrs. Edwards wearily +refused to return to the Oliphant place. Edwards carried the keys over +to Slocum, and told him to take the necessary steps toward settling the +old man's affairs. The next day they returned to the little flat in +Harlem. The Leicesters found their presence awkward, now that there was +nothing to do, and Mrs. Edwards was craving to be alone with her +husband, to shut out the past month from their lives as soon as +possible. + +These September days, while they both waited in secret anxiety, she +clung to him as she had never before. He was pure, the ideal she had +voluntarily given up, given up for his sake in order that he might have +complete perfection. His delicate sensitiveness kept him from referring +to that painful month, or to possible expectations. She worshipped him +the more, and was thankful for his complete ignorance. Their common +life could go on untainted and noble. + +Yet Edwards betrayed his nervous anxiety. His eagerness for the mail +every morning, his early return from business, indicated his troubled +mind. + +The news came at breakfast-time. Mrs. Edwards handed Slocum's letter +across the table and waited, her face wanly eager. The letter was long; +it took some half-dozen large letter-sheets for the country lawyer to +tell his news, but in the end it came. He had found the will and was +happy to say that Mrs. Edwards was a large, a very large, beneficiary. +Edwards read these closing sentences aloud. He threw down the letter +and tried to take her in his arms. But she tearfully pushed him away, +and then, repenting, clasped his knees. + +"Oh, Will! it's so much, so very much," she almost sobbed. + +Edwards looked as if that were not an irremediable fault in their good +luck. He said nothing. Already he was planning their future movements. +Under the circumstances neither cared to discuss their happiness, and +so they got little fun from the first bloom. + +In spite of Mrs. Edwards's delicate health and her expected confinement +they decided to go abroad. She was feverishly anxious for him to begin +his real work at once, to prove himself; and it might be easier to +forget her one vicious month when the Atlantic had been crossed. They +put their affairs to rights hurriedly, and early in November sailed for +France. + +The Leicesters were at the dock to bid them God-speed and to chirrup +over their good fortune. + +"It's all like a good, old-fashioned story," beamed Mrs. Leicester, +content with romance for once, now that it had arranged itself so +decorously. + +"Very satisfactory; quite right," the clergyman added. "We'll see you +soon in Paris. We're thinking of a gay vacation, and will let you know." + +Edwards looked fatuous; his wife had an orderly smile. She was glad +when Sandy Hook sank into the mist. She had only herself to avoid now. + +They took some pleasant apartments just off the Rue de Rivoli, and then +their life subsided into the complacent commonplace of possession. She +was outwardly content to enjoy with her husband, to go to the +galleries, the opera, to try the restaurants, and to drive. + +Yet her life went into one idea, a very fixed idea, such as often takes +hold of women in her condition. She was eager to see him at work. If he +accomplished something--even content!--she would feel justified and +perhaps happy. As to the child, the idea grew strange to her. Why +should she have a third in the problem? For she saw that the child must +take its part in her act, must grow up and share their life and inherit +the Oliphant money. In brief, she feared the yet unborn stranger, to +whom she would be responsible in this queer way. And the child could +not repair the wrong as could her husband. Certainly the child was an +alien. + +She tried to be tender of her husband in his boyish glee and loafing. +She could understand that he needed to accustom himself to his new +freedom, to have his vacation first. She held herself in, tensely, +refraining from criticism lest she might mar his joy. But she counted +the days, and when her child had come, she said to herself, _then_ he +must work. + +This morbid life was very different from what she had fancied the rich +future would be, as she looked into the grave, the end of her struggle, +that September afternoon. But she had grown to demand so much more from +_him_; she had grown so grave! His bright, boyish face, the gentle +curls, had been dear enough, and now she looked for the lines a man's +face should have. Why was he so terribly at ease? The world was bitter +and hard in its conditions, and a man should not play. + +Late in December the Leicesters called; they were like gleeful +sparrows, twittering about. Mrs. Edwards shuddered to see them again, +and when they were gone she gave up and became ill. + +Her tense mind relieved itself in hysterics, which frightened her to +further repression. Then one night she heard herself moaning: "Why did +I have to take all? It was so little, so very little, I wanted, and I +had to take all. Oh, Will, Will, you should have done for yourself! Why +did you need this? Why couldn't you do as other men do? It's no harder +for you than for them." Then she recollected herself. Edwards was +holding her hand and soothing her. + +Some weeks later, when she was very ill, she remembered those words, +and wondered if he had suspected anything. Her child came and died, and +she forgot this matter, with others. She lay nerveless for a long time, +without thought; Edwards and the doctor feared melancholia. So she was +taken to Italy for the cold months. Edwards cared for her tenderly, but +his caressing presence was irritating, instead of soothing, to her. She +was hungry for a justification that she could not bring about. + +At last it wore on into late spring. She began to force herself back +into the old activities, in order to leave no excuse for further +dawdling. Her attitude became terribly judicial and suspicious. + +An absorbing idleness had settled down over Edwards, partly excused to +himself by his wife's long illness. When he noticed that his desultory +days made her restless, he took to loafing about galleries or making +little excursions, generally in company with some forlorn artist he had +picked up. He had nothing, after all, so very definite that demanded +his time; he had not yet made up his mind for any attempts. And +something in the domestic atmosphere unsettled him. His wife held +herself aloof, with alien sympathies, he felt. + +So they drifted on to discontent and unhappiness until she could bear +it no longer without expression. + +"Aren't we to return to Paris soon?" she remarked one morning as they +idled over a late breakfast. "I am strong now, and I should like to +settle down." + +Edwards took the cue, idly welcoming any change. + +"Why, yes, in the fall. It's too near the summer now, and there's no +hurry." + +"Yes, there _is_ hurry," his wife replied, hastily. "We have lost +almost eight months." + +"Out of a lifetime," Edwards put in, indulgently. + +She paused, bewildered by the insinuation of his remark. But her mood +was too incendiary to avoid taking offence. "Do you mean that that +would be a _life_, loafing around all day, enjoying this, that, and the +other fine pleasure? That wasn't what we planned." + +"No, but I don't see why people who are not driven should drive +themselves. I want to get the taste of Harlem out of my mouth." He was +a bit sullen. A year ago her strict inquiry into his life would have +been absurd. Perhaps the money, her money, gave her the right. + +"If people don't drive themselves," she went on, passionately, "they +ought to be driven. It's cowardly to take advantage of having money to +do nothing. You wanted the--the opportunity to do something. Now you +have it." + +Edwards twisted his wicker chair into uncomfortable places. "Well, are +you sorry you happen to have given me the chance?" He looked at her +coldly, so that a suspicious thought shot into her mind. + +"Yes," she faltered, "if it means throwing it away, I _am_ sorry." + +She dared no more. Her mind was so close on the great sore in her +gentle soul. He lit a cigarette, and sauntered down the hotel garden. +But the look he had given her--a queer glance of disagreeable +intelligence--illumined her dormant thoughts. + +What if he had known all along? She remembered his meaning words that +hot night when they talked over Oliphant's illness for the first time. +And why had he been so yielding, so utterly passive, during the sordid +drama over the dying man? What kept him from alluding to the matter in +any way? Yes, he must have encouraged her to go on. _She_ had been his +tool, and he the passive spectator. The blind certainty of a woman made +the thing assured, settled. She picked up the faint yellow rose he had +laid by her plate, and tore it slowly into fine bits. On the whole, he +was worse than she. + +But before he returned she stubbornly refused to believe herself. + + * * * * * + +In the autumn they were again in Paris, in soberer quarters, which were +conducive to effort. Edwards was working fitfully with several +teachers, goaded on, as he must confess to himself, by a pitiless wife. +Not much was discussed between them, but he knew that the price of the +_statu quo_ was continued labor. + +She was watching him; he felt it and resented it, but he would not +understand. All the idealism, the worship of the first sweet months in +marriage, had gone. Of course that incense had been foolish, but it was +sweet. Instead, he felt these suspicious, intolerant eyes following his +soul in and out on its feeble errands. He comforted himself with the +trite consolation that he was suffering from the natural readjustment +in a woman's mind. It was too drastic for that, however. + +He was in the habit of leaving her in the evenings of the opera. The +light was too much for her eyes, and she was often tired. One wet April +night, when he returned late, he found her up, sitting by the window +that overlooked the steaming boulevard. Somehow his soul was +rebellious, and when she asked him about the opera he did not take the +pains to lie. + +"Oh, I haven't been there," he muttered, "I am beastly tired of it all. +Let's get out of it; to St. Petersburg or Norway--for the summer," he +added, guiltily. + +Now that the understanding impended she trembled, for hitherto she had +never actually known. In suspicion there was hope. So she almost +entreated. + +"We go to Vienna next winter anyway, and I thought we had decided on +Switzerland for the summer." + +"You decided! But what's the use of keeping up the mill night and day? +There's plenty of opportunity over there for an educated gentleman with +money, if what you are after is a 'sphere' for me." + +"You want to--to go back now?" + +"No, I want to be let alone." + +"Don't you care to pay for all you have had? Haven't you any sense of +justice to Uncle Oliphant, to your opportunities?" + +"Oliphant!" Edwards laughed, disagreeably. "Wouldn't he be pleased to +have an operetta, a Gilbert and Sullivan affair, dedicated to him! No. +I have tried to humor your idea of making myself famous. But what's the +use of being wretched?" The topic seemed fruitless. Mrs. Edwards looked +over to the slight, careless figure. He was sitting dejectedly on a +large fauteuil, smoking. He seemed fagged and spiritless. She almost +pitied him and gave in, but suddenly she rose and crossed the room. + +"We've made ourselves pretty unhappy," she said, apologetically, +resting her hand on the lapel of his coat. "I guess it's mostly my +fault, Will. I have wanted so much that you should do something fine +with Uncle Oliphant's money, with _yourself_. But we can make it up in +other ways." + +"What are you so full of that idea for?" Edwards asked, curiously. "Why +can't you be happy, even as happy as you were in Harlem?" His voice was +hypocritical. + +"Don't you know?" she flashed back. "You _do_ know, I believe. Tell me, +did you look over those papers on the davenport that night Uncle James +fainted?" + +The unexpected rush of her mind bewildered him. A calm lie would have +set matters to rights, but he was not master of it. + +"So you were willing--you knew?" + +"It wasn't my affair," he muttered, weakly, but she had left him. + +He wandered about alone for a few days until the suspense became +intolerable. When he turned up one afternoon in their apartments he +found preparations on foot for their departure. + +"We're going away?" he asked. + +"Yes, to New York." + +"Not so fast," he interrupted, bitterly. "We might as well face the +matter openly. What's the use of going back there?" + +"We can't live here, and besides I shall be wanted there." + +"You can't do anything now. Talk sensibly about it. I will not go back." + +She looked at him coldly, critically. "I cabled Slocum yesterday, and +we must live somehow." + +"You--" but she laid her hand on his arm. "It makes no difference now, +you know, and it can't be changed. I've done everything." + +CHICAGO, August, 1895. + + + +A REJECTED TITIAN + + +"John," my wife remarked in horrified tones, "he's coming to Rome!" + +"Who is coming to Rome--the Emperor?" + +"Uncle Ezra--see," she handed me the telegram. "Shall arrive in Rome +Wednesday morning; have Watkins at the Grand Hotel." + +I handed the despatch to Watkins. + +"Poor uncle!" my wife remarked. + +"He will get it in the neck," I added, profanely. + +"They ought to put nice old gentlemen like your uncle in bond when they +reach Italy," Watkins mused, as if bored in advance. "The _antichitas_ +get after them, like--like confidence-men in an American city, and the +same old story is the result; they find, in some mysterious fashion, a +wonderful Titian, a forgotten Giorgione, cheap at _cinque mille lire_. +Then it's all up with them. His pictures are probably decalcomanias, +you know, just colored prints pasted over board. Why, we _know_ every +picture in Venice; it's simply _impossible_--" + +Watkins was a connoisseur; he had bought his knowledge in the dearest +school of experience. + +"What are you going to do, Mr. Watkins?" my wife put in. "Tell him the +truth?" + +"There's nothing else to do. I used up all my ambiguous terms over that +daub he bought in the Piazza di Spagna--'reminiscential' of half a +dozen worthless things, 'suggestive,' etc. I can't work them over +again." Watkins was lugubrious. + +"Tell him the truth as straight as you can; it's the best medicine." I +was Uncle Ezra's heir; naturally, I felt for the inheritance. + +"Well," my wife was invariably cheerful, "perhaps he has found +something valuable; at least, one of them may be; isn't it possible?" + +Watkins looked at my wife indulgently. + +"He's been writing me about them for a month, suggesting that, as I was +about to go on to Venice, he would like to have me see them; such +treasures as I should find them. I have been waiting until he should +get out. It isn't a nice job, and your uncle--" + +"There are three of them, Aunt Mary writes: Cousin Maud has bought one, +with the advice of Uncle Ezra and Professor Augustus Painter, and +Painter himself is the last one to succumb." + +"They have all gone mad," Watkins murmured. + +"Where did Maudie get the cash?" I asked. + +"She had a special gift on coming of age, and she has been looking +about for an opportunity for throwing it away"--my wife had never +sympathized with my cousin, Maud Vantweekle. "She had better save it +for her trousseau, if she goes on much more with that young professor. +Aunt Mary should look after her." + +Watkins rose to go. + +"Hold on a minute," I said. "Just listen to this delicious epistle from +Uncle Ezra." + +"'... We have hoped that you would arrive in Venice before we break up +our charming home here. Mary has written you that Professor Painter has +joined us at the Palazzo Palladio, complementing our needs and +completing our circle. He has an excellent influence for seriousness +upon Maud; his fine, manly qualities have come out. Venice, after two +years of Berlin, has opened his soul in a really remarkable manner. All +the beauty lying loose around here has been a revelation to him--'" + +"Maud's beauty," my wife interpreted. + +"'And our treasures you will enjoy so much--such dashes of color, such +great slaps of light! I was the first to buy--they call it a Savoldo, +but I think no third-rate man could be capable of so much--such +reaching out after infinity. However, that makes little difference. I +would not part with it, now that I have lived these weeks with so fine +a thing. Maud won a prize in her Bonifazio, which she bought under my +advice. Then Augustus secured the third one, a Bissola, and it has had +the greatest influence upon him already; it has given him his education +in art. He sits with it by the hour while he is at work, and its charm +has gradually produced a revolution in his character. We had always +found him too Germanic, and he had immured himself in that barbarous +country for so long over his Semitic books that his nature was stunted +on one side. His picture has opened a new world for him. Your Aunt Mary +and I already see the difference in his character; he is gentler, less +narrowly interested in the world. This precious bit of fine art has +been worth its price many times, but I don't think Augustus would part +with it for any consideration now that he has lived with it and learned +to know its power.'" + +"I can't see why he is coming to Rome," Watkins commented at the end. +"If they are confident that they know all about their pictures, and +don't care anyway who did them, and are having all this spiritual +love-feast, what in the world do they want any expert criticism of +their text for? Now for such people to buy pictures, when they haven't +a mint of money! Why don't they buy something within their means really +fine--a coin, a Van Dyck print? I could get your uncle a Whistler +etching for twenty-five pounds; a really fine thing, you know--" + +This was Watkins's hobby. + +"Oh, well, it won't be bad in the end of the hall at New York; it's as +dark as pitch there; and then Uncle Ezra can leave it to the +Metropolitan as a Giorgione. It will give the critics something to do. +And I suppose that in coming on here he has in mind to get an +indorsement for his picture that will give it a commercial value. He's +canny, is my Uncle Ezra, and he likes to gamble too, like the rest of +us. If he should draw a prize, it wouldn't be a bad thing to brag of." + +Watkins called again the next morning. + +"Have you seen Uncle Ezra?" my wife asked, anxiously. + +"No. Three telegrams. Train was delayed--I suppose by the importance of +the works of art it's bringing on." + +"When do you expect him?" + +"About noon." + +"Mr. Watkins," my wife flamed out, "I believe you are just shirking it, +to meet that poor old man with his pictures. You ought to have been at +the station, or at least at the hotel. Why, it's twelve now!" + +Watkins hung his head. + +"I believe you are a coward," my wife went on. "Just think of his +arriving there, all excitement over his pictures, and finding you gone!" + +"Well, well," I said, soothingly, "it's no use to trot off now, +Watkins; stay to breakfast. He will be in shortly. When he finds you +are out at the hotel he will come straight on here, I am willing to +bet." + +Watkins looked relieved at my suggestion. + +"I believe you meant to run away all along," my wife continued, +severely, "and to come here for refuge." + +Watkins sulked. + +We waited in suspense, straining our ears to hear the sound of a cab +stopping in the street. At last one did pull up. My wife made no +pretence of indifference, but hurried to the window. + +"It's Uncle Ezra, with a big, black bundle. John, run down--No! there's +a facchino." + +We looked at each other and laughed. + +"The three!" + +Our patron of art came in, with a warm, gentle smile, his tall, thin +figure a little bent with the fatigue of the journey, his beard a +little grayer and dustier than usual, and his hands all a-tremble with +nervous impatience and excitement. He had never been as tremulous +before an opinion from the Supreme Court. My wife began to purr over +him soothingly; Watkins looked sheepish; I hurried them all off to +breakfast. + +The omelette was not half eaten before Uncle Ezra jumped up, and began +unstrapping the oil-cloth covering to the pictures. There was +consternation at the table. My wife endeavored soothingly to bring +Uncle Ezra's interest back to breakfast, but he was not to be fooled. +My Uncle Ezra was a courageous man. + +"Of course you fellows," he said, smiling at Watkins, in his suave +fashion, "are just whetting your knives for me, I know. That's right. I +want to know the worst, the hardest things you can say. You can't +destroy the intrinsic _worth_ of the pictures for us; I have lived with +mine too long, and know how precious it is!" + +At last the three pictures were tipped up against the wall, and the +Madonnas and saints in gold, red, and blue were beaming out insipidly +at us. Uncle Ezra affected indifference. Watkins continued with the +omelette. "We'll look them over after breakfast," he said, severely, +thus getting us out of the hole temporarily. + +After breakfast my wife cooked up some engagement, and hurried me off. +We left Uncle Ezra in the hands of the physician. Two hours later, when +we entered, the operation had been performed--we could see at a +glance--and in a bloody fashion. The pictures were lying about the vast +room as if they had been spat at. Uncle Ezra smiled wanly at us, with +the courage of the patient who is a sceptic about physicians. + +"Just what I expected," he said, briskly, to relieve Watkins, who was +smoking, with the air of a man who has finished his job and is now +cooling off. "Mr. Watkins thinks Painter's picture and Maud's are +copies, Painter's done a few years ago and Maud's a little older, the +last century. My Savoldo he finds older, but repainted. You said cinque +cento, Mr. Watkins?" + +"Perhaps, Mr. Williams," Watkins answered, and added, much as a dog +would give a final shake to the bird, "_Much_ repainted, hardly +anything left of the original. There may be a Savoldo underneath, but +you don't see it." Watkins smiled at us knowingly. My wife snubbed him. + +"Of course, Uncle Ezra, _that's_ one man's opinion. I certainly should +not put much faith in one critic, no matter how eminent he may be. Just +look at the guide-books and see how the 'authorities' swear at one +another. Ruskin says every man is a fool who can't appreciate his +particular love, and Burckhardt calls it a daub, and Eastlake insipid. +Now, there are a set of young fellows who think they know all about +paint and who painted what. They're renaming all the great +masterpieces. Pretty soon they will discover that some tenth-rate +fellow painted the Sistine Chapel." + +Watkins put on an aggrieved and expostulatory manner. Uncle Ezra cut in. + +"Oh! my dear! Mr. Watkins may be right, quite right. It's his business +to know, I am sure, and I anticipated all that he would say; indeed, I +have come off rather better than I expected. There is old paint in it +somewhere." + +"Pretty far down," Watkins muttered. My wife bristled up, but Uncle +Ezra assumed his most superb calm. + +"It makes no difference to me, of course, as far as the _worth_ of the +work of art is concerned. I made up my mind before I came here that my +picture was worth a great deal to me, much more than I paid for it." +There was a heroic gasp. Watkins interposed mercilessly, "And may I +ask, Mr. Williams, what you did give for it?" + +Uncle Ezra was an honest man. "Twenty-five hundred lire," he replied, +sullenly. + +"Excuse me" (Watkins was behaving like a pitiless cad), "but you paid a +great deal too much for it, I assure you. I could have got it for----" + +"Mr. Watkins," my wife was hardly civil to him, "it doesn't matter much +what you could have got it for." + +"No," Uncle Ezra went on bravely, "I am a little troubled as to what +this may mean to Maud and Professor Painter, for you see their pictures +are copies." + +"Undoubted modern copies," the unquenchable Watkins emended. + +"Maud has learned a great deal from her picture. And as for Painter, it +has been an education in art, an education in life. He said to me the +night before I came away, 'Mr. Williams, I wouldn't take two thousand +for that picture; it's been the greatest influence in my life.'" + +I thought Watkins would have convulsions. + +"And it has brought those two young souls together in a marvellous way, +this common interest in fine art. You will find Maud a much more +serious person, Jane. No, if I were Painter I certainly should not care +a fig whether it proves to be a copy or not. I shouldn't let that +influence me in my love for such an educational wonder." + +The bluff was really sublime, but painful. My wife gave a decided hint +to Watkins that his presence in such a family scene was awkward. He +took his hat and cane. Uncle Ezra rose and grasped him cordially by the +hand. + +"You have been very generous, Mr. Watkins," he said, in his own sweet +way, "to do such an unpleasant job. It's a large draft to make on the +kindness of a friend." + +"Oh, don't mention it, Mr. Williams; and if you want to buy something +really fine, a Van Dyck print--a----" + +Uncle Ezra was shooing him toward the door. From the stairs we could +still hear his voice. "Or a Whistler etching for twenty-five pounds, I +could get you, now, a very fine----" + +"No, thank you, Mr. Watkins," Uncle Ezra said, firmly. "I don't believe +I have any money just now for such an investment." + +My wife tiptoed about the room, making faces at the exposed +masterpieces. "What shall we do?" Uncle Ezra came back into the room, +his face a trifle grayer and more worn. "Capital fellow, that Watkins," +he said; "so firm and frank." + +"Uncle," I ventured at random, "I met Fluegel the other day in the +street. You know Fluegel's new book on the Renaissance. He's the coming +young critic in art, has made a wonderful reputation the last three +years, is on the _Beaux Arts_ staff, and really _knows_. He is living +out at Frascati. I could telegraph and have him here this afternoon, +perhaps." + +"Well, I don't know;" his tone, however, said "Yes." "I don't care much +for expert advice--for specialists. But it wouldn't do any harm to hear +what he has to say. And Maud and Painter have made up their minds that +Maud's is a Titian." + +So I ran out and sent off the despatch. My wife took Uncle Ezra down to +the Forum and attempted to console him with the ugliness of genuine +antiquity, while I waited for Fluegel. He came in a tremendous hurry, +his little, muddy eyes winking hard behind gold spectacles. + +"Ah, yes," he began to paw the pictures over as if they were live +stock, "that was bought for a Bonifazio," he had picked up Maud's +ruby-colored prize. "Of course, of course, it's a copy, an old copy, of +Titian's picture, No. 3,405, in the National Gallery at London. There +is a replica in the Villa Ludovisi here at Rome. It's a stupid copy, +some alterations, all for the bad--worthless--well, not to the +_antichita_, for it must be 1590, I should say. But worthless for us +and in bad condition. I wouldn't give cinque lire for it." + +"And the Bissola?" I said. "Oh, that was done in the seventeenth +century--it would make good kindling. But this," he turned away from +Painter's picture with a gesture of contempt, "this is Domenico +Tintoretto fast enough, at least what hasn't been stippled over and +painted out. St. Agnes's leg here is entire, and that tree in the +background is original. A damn bad man, but there are traces of his +slop work. Perhaps the hair is by him, too. Well, good-by, old fellow; +I must be off to dinner." + +That was slight consolation; a leg, a tree, and some wisps of hair in a +picture three feet six by four feet eight. Our dinner that evening was +labored. The next morning Uncle Ezra packed his three treasures +tenderly, putting in cotton-wool at the edges, my wife helping him to +make them comfortable. We urged him to stay over with us for a few +days; we would all go on later to Venice. But Uncle Ezra seemed moved +by some hidden cause. Back he would trot at once. "Painter will want +his picture," he said, "he has been waiting on in Venice just for this, +and I must not keep him." Watkins turned up as we were getting into the +cab to see Uncle Ezra off, and insisted upon accompanying us to the +station. My wife took the opportunity to rub into him Fluegel's remarks, +which, at least, made Watkins out shady in chronology. At the station +we encountered a new difficulty. The ticket collector would not let the +pictures through the gate. My uncle expostulated in pure Tuscan. +Watkins swore in Roman. + +"Give him five lire, Mr. Williams." + +Poor Uncle Ezra fumbled in his pocket-book for the piece of money. He +had never bribed in his life. It was a terrible moral fall, to see him +tremblingly offer the piece of scrip. The man refused, "positive +orders, _permesso_ necessary," etc., etc. The bell rang; there was a +rush. Uncle Ezra looked unhappy. + +"Here," Watkins shouted, grabbing the precious pictures in a manner far +from reverent, "I'll send these on, Mr. Williams; run for your train." +Uncle Ezra gave one undecided glance, and then yielded. "You will look +after them," he pleaded, "carefully." + +"You shall have them safe enough," my wife promised. + +"Blast the pasteboards," Watkins put in under his breath, "the best +thing to do with them is to chop 'em up." He was swinging them back and +forth under his arm. My wife took them firmly from him. "He shall have +his pictures, and not from your ribald hands." + +A week later Rome became suddenly oppressively warm. We started off for +Venice, Watkins tagging on incorrigibly. "I want to see 'Maud,'" he +explained. The pictures had been packed and sent ahead by express. "The +storm must have burst, tears shed, tempers cooled, mortification set +in," I remarked, as we were being shoved up the Grand Canal toward the +Palazzo Palladio. "There they are in the balcony," my wife exclaimed, +"waving to us. Something is up; Maudie is hanging back, with Aunt Mary, +and Professor Painter is at the other end, with Uncle Ezra." + +The first thing that caught the eye after the flurry of greetings was +the impudent blue and red of Uncle Ezra's "Sancta Conversazione," +Domenico Tintoretto, Savoldo, or what not; St. Agnes's leg and all, +beaming at us from the wall. The other two were not there. My wife +looked at me. Maudie was making herself very gracious with little +Watkins. Painter's solemn face began to lower more and more. Aunt Mary +and Uncle Ezra industriously poured oil by the bucket upon the social +sea. + +At last Maud rose: "You _must_ take me over there at once, Mr. Watkins. +It will be such an enjoyment to have someone who really knows about +pictures and has taste." This shot at poor Painter; then to my wife, +"Come, Jane, you will like to see your room." + +Painter crossed to me and suggested, lugubriously, a cigar on the +balcony. He smoked a few minutes in gloomy silence. + +"Does that fellow know anything?" he emitted at last, jerking his head +at Watkins, who was pouring out information at Uncle Ezra. I began +gently to give Charles Henderson Watkins a fair reputation for +intelligence. "I mean anything about art? Of course it doesn't matter +what he says about my picture, whether it is a copy or not, but Miss +Vantweekle takes it very hard about hers. She blames me for having been +with her when she bought it, and having advised her and encouraged her +to put six hundred dollars into it." + +"Six hundred," I gasped. + +"Cheap for a Bonifazio, or a _Titian_, as we thought it." + +"Too cheap," I murmured. + +"Well, I got bitten for about the same on my own account. I sha'n't get +that Rachel's library at Berlin, that's all. The next time you catch me +fooling in a subject where I don't know my bearings--like fine art--You +see Mr. Williams found my picture one day when he was nosing about at +an _antichita's_, and thought it very fine. I admire Mr. Williams +tremendously, and I valued his opinion about art subjects much more +then than I do now. He and Mrs. Williams were wild over it. They had +just bought their picture, and they wanted us each to have one. They +have lots of sentiment, you know." + +"Lots," I assented. + +"Mrs. Williams got at me, and well, she made me feel that it would +bring me nearer to Miss Vantweekle. You know she goes in for art, and +she used to be impatient with me because I couldn't appreciate. I was +dumb when she walked me up to some old Madonna, and the others would go +on at a great rate. Well, in a word, I bought it for my education, and +I guess I have got it! + +"Then the man, he's an old Jew on the Grand Canal--Raffman, you know +him? He got out another picture, the Bonifazio. The Williamses began to +get up steam over that, too. They hung over that thing Mr. Williams +bought, that Savoldo or Domenico Tintoretto, and prowled about the +churches and the galleries finding traces of it here in the style of +this picture and that; in short, we all got into a fever about +pictures, and Miss Vantweekle invested all the money an aunt had given +her before coming abroad, in that Bonifazio. + +"I must say that Miss Vantweekle held off some time, was doubtful about +the picture; didn't feel that she wanted to put all her money into it. +But she caught fire in the general excitement, and I may say"--here a +sad sort of conscious smile crept over the young professor's face--"at +that time I had a good deal of influence with her. She bought the +picture, we brought it home, and put it up at the other end of the +hall. We spent hours over that picture, studying out every line, +placing every color. We made up our minds soon enough that it wasn't a +Bonifazio, but we began to think--now don't laugh, or I'll pitch you +over the balcony--it was an early work by Titian. There was an attempt +in it for great things, as Mr. Williams said: no small man could have +planned it. One night we had been talking for hours about them, and we +were all pretty well excited. Mr. Williams suggested getting Watkins's +opinion. Maud--Miss Vantweekle said, loftily, 'Oh! it does not make any +difference what the critics say about it, the picture means everything +to me'; and I, like a fool, felt happier than ever before in my life. +The next morning Mr. Williams telegraphed you and set off." + +He waited. + +"And when he returned?" + +"It's been hell ever since." + +He was in no condition to see the comic side of the affair. Nor was +Miss Vantweekle. She was on my wife's bed in tears. + +"All poor Aunt Higgins's present gone into that horrid thing," she +moaned, "and all the dresses I was planning to get in Paris. I shall +have to go home looking like a perfect dowd!" + +"But think of the influence it has been in your life--the education you +have received from that picture. How can you call all that color, those +noble faces, 'that horrid thing?'" I said, reprovingly. She sat upright. + +"See here, Jerome Parker, if you ever say anything like that again, I +will never speak to you any more, or to Jane, though you are my +cousins." + +"They have tried to return the picture," my wife explained. "Professor +Painter and Uncle Ezra took it over yesterday; but, of course, the Jew +laughed at them." + +"'A copy!' he said." Maud explained, "Why, it's no more a copy than +Titian's 'Assumption.' He could show us the very place in a palace on +the Grand Canal where it had hung for four hundred years. Of course, +all the old masters used the same models, and grouped their pictures +alike. Very probably Titian had a picture something like it. What of +that? He defied us to find the exact original." + +"Well," I remarked, soothingly, "that ought to comfort you, I am sure. +Call your picture a new Titian, and sell it when you get home." + +"Mr. Watkins says that's an old trick," moaned Maud, "that story about +the palace. He says old Raffman has a pal among the Italian nobility, +and works off copies through him all the time. I won't say anything +about Uncle Ezra; he has been as kind and good as he can be, only a +little too enthusiastic. But Professor Painter!" + +She tossed her head. + +The atmosphere in the Palazzo Palladio for the next few days was highly +charged. + +At dinner Uncle Ezra placidly made remarks about the Domenico +Tintoretto, almost vaingloriously, I thought. "Such a piece of Venice +to carry away. We missed it so much, those days you had it in Rome. It +is so precious that I cannot bear to pack it up and lose sight of it +for five months. Mary, just see that glorious piece of color over +there." + +Meantime some kind of conspiracy was on foot. Maud went off whole +mornings with Watkins and Uncle Ezra. We were left out as +unsympathetic. Painter wandered about like a sick ghost. He would sit +glowering at Maud and Watkins while they held whispered conversations +at the other end of the hall. Watkins was the hero. He had accepted +Fluegel's judgment with impudent grace. + +"A copy of Titian, of course," he said to me; "really, it is quite hard +on poor Miss Vantweekle. People, even learned people, who don't know +about such things, had better not advise. I have had the photographs of +all Titian's pictures sent on, and we have found the original of your +cousin's picture. Isn't it very like?" + +It was very like; a figure was left out in the copy, the light was +changed, but still it was a happy guess of Fluegel. + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" I said to Maud, who had just +joined us. + +"Oh, Mr. Watkins has kindly consented to manage the matter for me; I +believe he has a friend here, an artist, Mr. Hare, who will give expert +judgment on it. Then the American vice-consul is a personal friend of +Mr. Watkins, and also Count Corner, the adviser at the Academy. We +shall frighten the old Jew, sha'n't we, Mr. Watkins?" + +I walked over to the despised Madonna that was tipped up on its side, +ready to be walked off on another expedition of defamation. + +"Poor Bonifazio," I sighed, "Maud, how can you part with a work of fine +art that has meant so much to you?" + +"Do you think, Jerome, I would go home and have Uncle Higgins, with his +authentic Rembrandt and all his other pictures, laugh at me and my +Titian? I'd burn it first." + +I turned to Uncle Ezra. "Uncle, what strange metamorphosis has happened +to this picture? The spiritual light from that color must shine as +brightly as ever; the intrinsic value remains forever fixed in Maud's +soul; it is desecration to reject such a precious message. Why, it's +like sending back the girl you married because her pedigree proved +defective, or because she had lost her fortune. It's positively brutal!" + +Maud darted a venomous glance at me; however, I had put the judge in a +hole. + +"I cannot agree with you, Jerome." Uncle Ezra could never be put in a +hole. "Maud's case is a very different one from Mr. Painter's or mine. +We can carry back what we like personally, but for Maud to carry home a +doubtful picture into the atmosphere she has to live in--why, it would +be intolerable--with her uncle a connoisseur, all her friends owners of +masterpieces." Uncle Ezra had a flowing style. "It would expose her to +annoyance, to mortification--constant, daily. Above all, to have taken +a special gift, a fund of her aunt's, and to apply it in this mistaken +fashion is cruel." + +Painter remarked bitterly to me afterward, "He wants to crawl on his +share of the responsibility. I'd buy the picture if I could raise the +cash, and end the whole miserable business." + +Indeed, Watkins seemed the only one blissfully in his element. As my +wife remarked, Watkins had exchanged his interest in pictures for an +interest in woman. Certainly he had planned his battle well. It came +off the next day. They all left in a gondola at an early hour. Painter +and I watched them from the balcony. After they were seated, Watkins +tossed in carelessly the suspected picture. What went on at the +_antichita's_ no one of the boat-load ever gave away. Watkins had a +hold on the man somehow, and the evidence of the fraud was +overwhelming. About noon they came back, Maud holding an enormous +envelope in her hand. + +"I can never, never thank you enough, Mr. Watkins," she beamed at him. +"You have saved me from such mortification and unhappiness, and you +were so _clever_." + +That night at dinner Uncle Ezra was more than usually genial, and +beamed upon Maud and Watkins perpetually. Watkins was quite the hero +and did his best to look humble. + +"How much rent did the spiritual influence cost, Maud?" I asked. She +was too happy to be offended. "Oh, we bought an old ring to make him +feel pleased, five pounds, and Mr. Hare's services were worth five +pounds, and Mr. Watkins thinks we should give the vice-consul a box of +cigars. + +"Let's see; ten pounds and a box of cigars, that's three hundred lire +at the price of exchange. You had the picture just three weeks, a +hundred lire a week for the use of all that education in art, all that +spiritual influence. Quite cheap, I should say." + +"And Mr. Watkins's services, Maud!" my wife asked, viciously. There was +a slight commotion at the table. + +"May I, Maud?" Watkins murmured. + +"As you please, Charles," Maud replied, with her eyes lowered to the +table. + +"Maud has given herself," Uncle Ezra said, gleefully. + +Painter rose from the table and disappeared into his room. Pretty soon +he came out bearing a tray with a dozen champagne glasses, of +modern-antique Venetian glass. + +"Let me present this to you, Miss Vantweekle," he pronounced, solemnly, +"as an engagement token. I, I exchanged my picture for them this +morning." + +"Some Asti Spumante, Ricci." + +"To the rejected Titian--" I suggested for the first toast. + +VENICE, May, 1896. + + + +PAYMENT IN FULL + +The two black horses attached to the light buggy were chafing in the +crisp October air. Their groom was holding them stiffly, as if bolted +to the ground, in the approved fashion insisted upon by the mistress of +the house. Old Stuart eyed them impatiently from the tower window of +the breakfast-room where he was smoking his first cigar; Mrs. Stuart +held him in a vise of astounding words. + +"They will need not only the lease of a house in London for two years, +but a great deal of money besides," she continued in even tones, +ignoring his impatience. + +"I've done enough for 'em already," the old fellow protested, drawing +on his driving gloves over knotted hands stained by age. + +Mrs. Stuart rustled the letter that lay, with its envelope, beside her +untouched plate. It bore the flourishes of a foreign hotel and a +foreign-looking stamp. + +"My mother writes that their summer in Wiesbaden has made it surer that +Lord Raincroft is interested in Helen. It is evidently a matter of +time. I say two years--it may be less." + +"Well," her husband broke in. "Haven't they enough to live on?" + +"At my marriage," elucidated Mrs. Stuart, imperturbably, "you settled +on them securities which yield about five thousand a year. That does +not give them the means to take the position which I expect for my +family in such a crisis. They must have a large house, must entertain +lavishly," she swept an impassive hand toward him in royal emphasis, +"and do all that that set expects--to meet them as equals. You could +not imagine that Lord Raincroft would marry Helen out of a pension?" + +"I don't care a damn how he marries her, or if he marries her at all." +He rose, testily. "I guess my family would have thought five thousand a +year enough to marry the gals on, and to spare, and it was more'n you +ever had in your best days." + +"Naturally," her voice showed scorn at his perverse lack of +intelligence. "Out contract was made with that understanding." + +"Let Helen marry a feller who is willing to go half way for her without +a palace. Why didn't you encourage her marrying Blake, as smart a young +man as I ever had? She was taken enough with him." + +"Because I did not think it fit for my sister to marry your junior +partner, who, five years ago, was your best floor-walker." + +"Well, Blake is a college-educated man and a hustler. He's bound to get +on if I back him. If Blake weren't likely enough, there's plenty more +in Chicago like me--smart business men who want a handsome young wife." + +"Perhaps we have had enough of Stuart, Hodgson, and Blake. There are +other careers in the world outside Chicago." + +"Tut, tut! I ain't going to fight here all day. What's the figure? +What's the figure?" He slapped his breeches with the morning paper. + +"You will have to take the house in London (the Duke of Waminster's is +to let, mamma writes), and give them two hundred thousand dollars in +addition to their present income for the two years." She let her eyes +fall on his toast and coffee. The old man turned about galvanically and +peered at her. + +"You're crazy! two hundred thousand these times, so's your sister can +get married?" + +"She's the last," interposed Mrs. Stuart, deftly. + +"I tell you I've done more than most men. I've paid your old bills, +your whole family's, your brothers' in college, to the tune of five +thousand a year (worthless scamps!) and put 'em in business. You've had +all of 'em at Newport and Paris, let alone their living here off and on +nearly twenty years. Now you think I can shell out two hundred thousand +and a London house as easily as I'd buy pop-corn." + +"It was our understanding." Mrs. Stuart began on her breakfast. + +"Not much. I've done better by you than I agreed to, because you've +been a good wife to me. I settled a nice little fortune on you +independent of your widder's rights or your folks." + +"Your daughter will benefit by that," Mrs. Stuart corrected. + +"Well, what's that to do with it?" He seemed to lose the scent. + +"What was our understanding when I agreed to marry you?" + +"I've done more'n I promised, I tell you." + +"As you very well know, I married you because my family were in +desperate circumstances. Our understanding was that I should be a good +wife, and you were to make my family comfortable according to my views. +Isn't that right?" + +The old man blanched at this businesslike presentation; his voice grew +feebler. + +"And I have, Beatty. I have! I've done everything by you I promised. +And I built this great house and another at Newport, and you ain't +never satisfied." + +"That was our agreement, then," she continued, without mercy. "I was +just nineteen, and wise, for a girl, and you had forty-seven pretty +wicked years. There wasn't any nonsense between us. I was a stunning +girl, the most talked about in New York at that time. I was to be a +good wife, and we weren't to have any words. Have I kept my promise?" + +"Yes, you've been a good woman, Beatty, better'n I deserved. But won't +you take less, say fifty thousand?" He advanced conciliatorily. "That's +an awful figure!" + +His wife rose, composed as ever and stately in her well-sustained forty +years. + +"Do you think _any_ price is too great in payment for these twenty-one +years?" Contempt crept in. "Not one dollar less, two hundred thousand, +and I cable mamma to-day." + +Stuart shrivelled up. + +"Do you refuse?" she remarked, lightly, for he stood irresolutely near +the door. + +"I won't stand that!" and he went out. + +When he had left Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast; a young woman +Came in hastily from the hall, where she had bade her father good-by. +She stood in the window watching the coachman surrender the horses to +the old man. The groom moved aside quickly, and in a moment the two +horses shot nervously through the ponderous iron gateway. The delicate +wheels just grazed the stanchions, lifting the light buggy in the air +to a ticklish angle. It righted itself and plunged down the boulevard. +Fast horses and cigars were two of the few pleasures still left the old +store-keeper. There was another--a costly one--which was not always +forthcoming. + +Miss Stuart watched the groom close the ornate iron gates, and then +turned inquiringly to her mother. + +"What's up with papa?" + +Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast in silence. She was superbly +preserved, and queenly for an American woman. It seemed as if something +had stayed the natural decay of her powers, of her person, and had put +her always at this impassive best. Something had stopped her heart to +render her passionless, and thus to embalm her for long years of +mechanical activity. She would not decay, but when her time should come +she would merely stop--the spring would snap. + +The daughter had her mother's height and her dark coloring. But her +large, almost animal eyes, and her roughly moulded hands spoke of some +homely, prairie inheritance. Her voice was timid and hesitating. + +At last Mrs. Stuart, her mail and breakfast exhausted at the same +moment, Rose to leave the room. + +"Oh, Edith," she remarked, authoritatively, "if you happen to drive +down town this morning, will you tell your father that we are going to +Winetka for a few weeks? Or telephone him, if you find it more +convenient. And send the boys to me. Miss Bates will make all +arrangements. I think there is a train about three." + +"Why, mamma, you don't mean to stay there! I thought we were to be here +all winter. And my lessons at the Art Institute?" + +Mrs. Stuart smiled contemptuously. "Lessons at the Art Institute are +not the most pressing matter for my daughter, who is about to come out. +You can amuse yourself with golf and tennis as long as they last. Then, +perhaps, you will have a chance to continue your lessons in Paris." + +"And papa!" protested the daughter, "I thought he couldn't leave this +winter?" + +Mrs. Stuart smiled again provokingly. "Yes?" + +"Oh, I can't understand!" Her pleading was almost passionate, but still +low and sweet. "I want so much to go on with my lessons with the other +girls. And I want to go out here with all the girls I know." + +"We will have them at Winetka. And Stuyvesant Wheelright--you liked him +last summer." + +The girl colored deeply. "I don't want him in the house. I had rather +go away. I'll go to Vassar with Mary Archer. You needn't hunt up any +man for me." + +"Pray, do you think I would tolerate a college woman in my house? It's +well enough for school-teachers. And what does your painting amount to? +You will paint sufficiently well, I dare say, to sell a few daubs, and +so take the bread and butter from some poor girl. But I am afraid, my +dear, we couldn't admit your pictures to the gallery." + +The girl's eyes grew tearful at this tart disdain. "I love it, and papa +has money enough to let me paint 'daubs' as long as I like. Please, +please let me go on with it!" + + * * * * * + +That afternoon the little caravan started for the deserted summer home +at Winetka, on a high bluff above the sandy lake-shore. It had been +bought years before, when not even the richest citizens dreamed of +going East for the summer. Of late it had been used only rarely, in the +autumn or late spring, or as a retreat in which to rusticate the boys +with their tutor. When filled with a large house-party, it made a jolly +place, though not magnificent enough for the developed hospitalities of +Mrs. Stuart. + +Old Stuart came home to an empty palace. He had not believed that his +reserved wife would take such high measures, and he felt miserably +lonely after the usual round of elaborate dinners to which he had grown +grumblingly accustomed. His one senile passion was his pride in her, +and he was avaricious of the lost days while she was absent from her +usual victorious post as the mistress of that great house. The next day +his heart sank still lower, for he saw in the Sunday papers a little +paragraph to the effect that Mrs. Stuart had invited a brilliant +house-party to her autumn home in Winetka, and that it was rumored she +and her lovely young daughter would spend the winter in London with +their relatives. It made the old man angry, for he could see with what +deliberation she had planned for a long campaign. Even the comforts of +his club were denied him; everyone knew him and everyone smiled at the +little domestic disturbance. So he asked his secretary, young Spencer, +to make his home for the present in the sprawling, brand-new "palace" +that frowned out on the South Boulevard. Young Spencer accepted, out of +pity for the old man; for he wasn't a toady and he knew his own worth. + +People did talk in the clubs and elsewhere about the divided +establishments. It would have been worse had the division come earlier, +as had been predicted often enough, or had Mrs. Stuart ever given in +her younger days a handle for any gossip. But her conduct had been so +frigidly correct that it stood in good service at this crisis. She +would not have permitted a scandal. That also was in the contract. + +Of course there was communication between the two camps, the gay +polo-playing, dinner-giving household on the bluff, and the forlorn, +tottering old man with his one aide-de-camp, the blithe young +secretary. Now and then the sons would turn up at the offices +down-town, amiably expectant of large checks. Stuart grimly referred +them to their mother. He had some vague idea of starving the opposition +out, but his wife's funds were large and her credit, as long as there +should be no recognized rupture, perfect. + +The daughter, Edith, frequently established connections. In some way +she had got permission to take her lessons at the Art Institute. Her +mother's open contempt for her aesthetic impulses had ruined her +illusion about her ability, for Mrs. Stuart knew her ground in +painting. But she still loved the atmosphere of the great studio-room +at the Art Institute. She liked the poor girls and the Western +bohemianism and the queer dresses, and above all she liked to linger +over her own little easel, undisturbed by the creative flurry around, +dreaming of woods and soft English gardens and happy hours along a +river where the water went gently, tenderly, on to the sea. And her +sweet eyes, large and black like her mother's, but softer and gentler, +to go with her low voice, would moisten a bit from the dream. "So +nice," he would murmur to her picture, "to sit here and think of the +quiet and rest, such as good pictures always paint. I'd like not to go +back with Thomas to the train--to Winetka where they play polo and +dress up and dance and flirt, but to sail away over the sea----" + +Then her eyes would see in the purplish light of her picture a certain +face that meant another life. She would blush to herself, and her voice +would stop. For she couldn't think aloud about him. + +Some days, when the murky twilight came on early, she would steal away +altogether from the gay party in Winetka and spend the night with her +lonely father. They would have a queer, stately dinner for three served +in the grand dining-room by the English butler and footman. Stuart +never had much to say to her; she wasn't his "smart," queenly wife who +brought all people to her feet. When he came to his cigar and his +whiskey, she would take young Spencer to the gallery, where they +discussed the new French pictures, very knowingly, Spencer thought. She +would describe for him the intricacies of a color-scheme of some tender +Diaz, and that would lead them into the leafy woods about Barbizon and +other realms of sentiment. + +When they returned to the library she would feel that there were +compensations for this dreary separation at Winetka and that her +enormous home had never been so nice and comfortable before. As she +bade the two men good-night, her father would come to the door, rubbing +his eyes and forlorn over his great loss, and to her murmured +"Good-night" he would sigh, "so like her mother." "Quite the softest +voice in the world," thought Spencer. + +Once in her old little tower room that she still preferred to keep, +covered with her various attempts at sea, and sky, and forest, she was +blissfully conscious of independence, so far from Stuyvesant Wheelright +and his mother--quite an ugly old dame with no better manners than the +plain Chicago people (who despised them all as "pork-packers" and +"shop-keepers," nevertheless). + +On one of these visits late in October, Edith had found her father +ailing from a cold. He asked her, shamefacedly, to tell her mother that +"he was very bad." Mrs. Stuart, leaving the house-party in full go, +started at once for the town-house. Old Stuart had purposely stayed at +home on the chances that his wife would relent. When she came in, she +found him lying in the same morning-room, where hostilities had begun +three months before. He grew confused, like an erring school-boy, as +his wife kissed him and asked after his health in a neutral sort of +way. He made out that he was threatened with a complication of diseases +that might finally end him. + +"Well, what can I do for you now," Mrs. Stuart said, with business-like +directness. + +"Spencer's looking after things pretty much. He's honest and faithful, +but he ain't got any head like yours, Beatty, and times are awful hard. +People won't pay rents, and I don't dare to throw 'em out. Stores and +houses would lie empty these days. Then there's the North Shore +Electric--I was a fool to go in so heavy the Fair year and tie up all +my money. I s'pose you know the bonds ain't reached fifty this fall. +I'm not so tremendously wealthy as folks think." + +Mrs. Stuart exactly comprehended this sly speech; she knew also that +there was some truth in it. + +"Say, Beatty, it's so nice to have you here!" The old man raised +himself and capered about like a gouty old house-dog. + +He made the most of his illness, for he suspected that it was a +condition of truce, not a bond of peace. While he was in bed Mrs. +Stuart drove to the city each day and, with Spencer's help, conducted +business for long hours. She had had experience in managing large +charities; she knew people, and when a tenant could pay, with a little +effort, he found Madam more pitiless than the old shop-keeper. Every +afternoon she would take her stenographer to Stuart's room and consult +with him. + +"Ain't she a wonder?" the old man would exclaim to Spencer, in new +admiration for his wife. And Spencer, watching the stately, +authoritative woman day after day as she worked quickly, exactly, with +the repose and dignity of a perfect machine, shivered back an unwilling +assent. + +"She's marvellous!" + +All accidents played into the hands of this masterful woman. Her own +presence in town kept her daughter at Winetka _en evidence_ for +Stuyvesant Wheelright and Mrs. Wheelright. For Mrs. Stuart had +determined upon him as, on the whole, the most likely arrangement that +she could make. He was American, but of the best, and Mrs. Stuart was +wise enough to prefer the domestic aristocracy. So to her mind affairs +were not going badly. The truce would conclude ultimately in a senile +capitulation; meantime, she could advance money for the household in +London. + +When Stuart had been nursed back into comparative activity, the grand +dinners began once more--a convenient rebuttal for all gossip. The +usual lists of distinguished strangers, wandering English story-tellers +in search of material for a new "shilling shocker," artists suing to +paint her or "Mademoiselle l'Inconnue," crept from time to time into +the genial social column of the newspaper. + +Stuart spent the evenings in state on a couch at the head of the +drawing-room, where he usually remained until the guests departed. In +this way he got a few words with his wife before she sent him to bed. +One night his enthusiasm over her bubbled out. + +"You're a great woman, Beatty!" She looked a little pale, but otherwise +unworn by her laborious month. It was not blood that fed those even +pulses. + +"You will not need my help now. You can see to your business yourself," +she remarked. + +"Say, Beatty, you won't leave me again, will you!" he quavered, +beseechingly. "I need you these last years; 'twon't be for long." + +"Oh, you are strong and quite well again," she asserted, not unkindly. + +"Will a hundred thousand do?" he pleaded. "Times are bad and ready +money is scarce, as you know." + +"Sell the electric bonds," she replied, sitting down, as if to settle +the matter. + +"Sell them bonds at fifty?" The old shop-keeper grew red in the face. + +"What's that!" she remarked, disdainfully. "What have I given?" Her +husband said nothing. "As I told you when we first talked the matter +over, I have done my part to the exact letter of the law. You admit I +have been a good and faithful wife, don't you? You know," a note of +passion crept into her colorless voice, "You know that there hasn't +been a suggestion of scandal with our home. I married you, young, +beautiful, admired; I am handsome now." She drew herself up +disdainfully. "I have not wanted for opportunity, I think you might +know; but not one man in all the world can boast I have dropped an +eyelash for his words. Not one syllable of favor have I given any man +but you. Am I not right?" + +Stuart nodded. + +"Then what do you haggle for over a few dollars? Have I ever given you +reason to repent our arrangement? Have I not helped you in business, in +social matters put you where you never could go by yourself? And do you +think my price is high?" + +"Money is so scarce," Stuart protested, feebly. + +"Suppose it left you only half a million, all told! What's that, in +comparison to what I have given? Think of that. I don't complain, but +you know we women estimate things differently. And when we sell +ourselves, we name the price; and it matters little how big it is," + +Her scorn pierced the old man's somewhat leathery sensibilities. + +"Well, if it's a question of price, when is it going to end--when shall +I have paid up? Next year you'll want half a million hard cash." + +"There is no end." + +The next morning, Mrs. Stuart returned to Winetka; the rupture +threatened to prolong itself indefinitely. Stuart found it hard to give +in completely, and it made him sore to think that their marriage had +remained a business matter for over twenty years. And yet it was hard +to face death without all the satisfaction money could buy him. The +crisis came, however, in an unexpected manner. + +One morning Stuart found his daughter waiting for him at his office. +She had slipped away from Winetka, and taken an early train. + +"What's up, Ede?" + +"Oh, papa!" the young girl gasped "They make me so unhappy, every day, +and I can't stand it. Mamma wants me to marry Stuyvesant Wheelright, +and he's there all the time." + +"Who's he?" Stuart asked, sharply. His daughter explained briefly. + +"He is what mamma calls 'eligible'; he is a great swell in New York, +and I don't like him. Oh, papa, I can't be a _grande dame_, like mamma, +can I? Won't you tell her so, papa? Make up with her; pay her the money +she wants for Aunt Helen, and then perhaps she'll let me paint." + +"No, you're not the figure your mother is, and never will be," Stuart +said, almost slightingly. "I don't think, Ede, you'll ever make a great +lady like her." + +"I don't think she is very happy," the girl bridled, in her own defence. + +"Well, perhaps not, perhaps not. But who do you want to marry, anyway? +You had better marry someone, Ede, 'fore I die." + +"I don't know--that is, it doesn't matter much just now. I should like +to go to California, perhaps, with the Stearns girls. I want to paint, +just daubs, you know--I can't do any better. But you tell mamma I can't +be a great swell. I shouldn't be happy, either."' + +The old man resolved to yield. That very afternoon he drove out to +Winetka along the lake shore. He had himself gotten up in his stiffest +best. He held the reins high and tight, his body erect in the approved +form; while now and then he glanced back to see if the footmen were as +rigid as my lady demanded. For Mrs. Stuart loved good form, and he felt +nervously apprehensive, as if he were again suing for her maiden +favors. He was conscious, too, that he had little enough to offer +her--the last months had brought humility. Beside him young Spencer +lolled, enjoying, with a free heart, his day off in the gentle, +spring-like air. Perhaps he divined that his lady would not need so +much propitiation. + +They surprised a party just setting forth from the Winetka house as +they drove up with a final flourish. Their unexpected arrival scattered +the guests into little, curious groups; everyone anticipated immediate +dissolution. They speculated on the terms, and the opinion prevailed +that Stuart's expedition from town indicated complete surrender. +Meanwhile Stuart asked for an immediate audience, and husband and wife +went up at once to Mrs. Stuart's little library facing out over the +bluff that descended to the lake. + +"Well, Beatty," old Stuart cried, without preliminary effort, "I just +can't live without you--that's the whole of it." She smiled. "I ain't +much longer to live, and then you're to have it all. So why shouldn't +you take what you want now?" He drew out several checks from his +pocket-book. + +"You can cable your folks at once and go ahead. You've been the best +sort of wife, as you said, and--I guess I owe you more'n I've paid for +your puttin' up with an old fellow like me all these years." + +Mrs. Stuart had a new sensation of pity for his pathetic surrender. + +"There's one thing, Beatty," he continued, "so long as I live you'll +own I oughter rule in my own house, manage the boys, and that." Mrs. +Stuart nodded. "Now I want you to come back with me and break up this +party." + +Mrs. Stuart took the checks. + +"You've made it a bargain, Beatty. You said I was to pay your family +what you wanted, and you were to obey me at that price?" + +"Well," replied Mrs. Stuart, good-humoredly. "We'll all go up +to-morrow. Isn't that early enough?" + +"That ain't all, Beatty. You can't make everybody over; you couldn't +brush me up much; you can't make a grand lady out of Edith." + +Mrs. Stuart looked up inquiringly. + +"Now you've had your way about your family, and I want you to let Ede +alone." + +"Why?" + +"She doesn't want that Wheelright fellow, and if you think it over +you'll see that she couldn't do as you have. She ain't the sort." + +Mrs. Stuart twitched at the checks nervously. + +"I sort of think Spencer wants her; in fact, he said so coming out +here." + +"Impertinent puppy!" + +"And I told him he could have her, if she wanted him. I don't think I +should like to see another woman of mine live the sort of life you have +with me. It's hard on 'em." His voice quivered. + +Beatrice, Lady Stuart of Winetka, as they called her, stood silently +looking out to the lake, reviewing "the sort of life she had lived" +from the time she had made up her mind to take the shop-keeper's +millions to this moment of concession. It was a grim panorama, and she +realized now that it had not meant complete satisfaction to either +party. Her twenty or more frozen years made her uncomfortable. While +they waited, young Spencer and Miss Stuart came slowly up the terraced +bluff. + +"Well, John," Mrs. Stuart smiled kindly. "I think this is the last +payment,--in full. Let's go down to congratulate them." + +CHICAGO, March, 1895. + + + +A PROTHALAMION + +_The best man has gone for a game of billiards with the host. The maid +of honor is inditing an epistle to one who must fall. The bridesmaids +have withdrawn themselves, each with some endurable usher, to an +appropriate retreat upon the other coasts of the veranda. The night is +full of starlight in May. The lovers discover themselves at last alone._ + +_He._ What was that flame-colored book Maud was reading to young Bishop? + +_She. The Dolly Dialogues_; you remember we read them in London when +they came out. + +_He._ What irreverent literature we tolerate nowadays! I suppose it's +the aftermath of agnosticism. + +_She._ It didn't occur to me that it was irreligious. + +_He._ Irreverent, I said--the tone of our world. + +_She._ But how I love that world of ours--even the _Dolly Dialogues_! + +_He_. Because you love it, this world you feel, you are reverent toward +it. I have hated it so many years; it carried so much pain with it that +I thought every expression of life was pain, and now, now, if it were +not for Maud and the _Dolly Dialogues_, these last days would seem to +launch us afresh upon quite another world. + +_She_. Yes, another world, where there is a new terror, a strange, +inhuman terror that I never thought of before, the terror of death. + +_He_. Why, what a perversity! You think of immortality as so real, so +sure! Relief from that terror of death is the proper fruit of your firm +belief. + +_She_. But I never cared before about the shape, the form, the kind of +that other life. I was content to believe it quite different from this, +for I knew this so well, enjoyed it so much. When the jam-pot should be +empty, I did not want another one just like it. But now.... + +_He_. I know. And I lived so much a stranger to the experiences I could +have about me that I was indifferent to what came after. Now, what I +am, what I have, is so precious that I cannot believe in any change +which should let me know of this life as past and impossible. That +would be "the supreme grief of remembering in misery the happy days +that have been." + +_She._ It makes me shiver; it is so blasphemous to hate the state of +being of a spirit. That would seem to degrade love, if through love we +dread to lose our bodies. + +_He._ Strange! You have come to this confession out of a trusting +religion and I from doubt--at the best indifference. You are ashamed to +confess what seems to you wholly blasphemous against that noble faith +and prayer of a Christian; and I find an invigorating pleasure in your +blasphemy. There is no conceivable life of a spirit to compare with the +pain, even, of the human body; it is better to suffer than to know no +difference. + +_She._ But "the resurrection of the body": perhaps the creed, word for +word without interpretation, would not mean that empty life which we +moderns have grown to consider the supreme and liberal conception of +existence. + +_He._ Resurrection in a purified form fit for the bliss, whatever one +of all the many shapes men have dreamed it may vision itself in! + +_She._ But this love of life, this excessive joy, must fade away. The +record of the world is not that we keep that. Think of the old people +who dream peacefully of death, after knowing all the fulness of this +life. Think of the wretches who pray for it. That vision of the life of +spirits which is so dreadful to us has been the comfort of the ages. +There must be some inner necessity for it. Perhaps with our bodies our +wills become worn out. + +_He_. That, I think, is the mystery--the wearing out, which is death. +For death occurs oftener in life than we think; I know so many dead +people who are walking about. As for sick people, physicians say that +in a long illness they never have to warn a patient of the coming end. +He knows it, subtly, from some dim, underground intimation. Without +acknowledging it, he arranges himself, so to speak, for the grave, and +comforts himself with those visions that religion holds out. Or does he +comfort himself? + +But apart from the dying, there are so many out of whose bodies and +spirits life is ebbing. It may have been a little flood-tide, but they +know it is going. You see it on their faces. They become dull. That +leprosy of death attacks their life, joint by joint. They lay aside one +pleasure, one function, one employment of their minds after another. +The machine may run on, but the soul is dying. That is what I call +_death in life_. + + + +THE EPISODE OF LIFE. + +Jack Lynton is becoming stone like that. His is a case in point, and a +good one, because the atrophy is coming about not from physical +disease, or from any dissipation. You would call him sane and full of +fire. He was. He married three years ago. Their life was full, too, +like ours, and precious. They did not throw it away; they were wise +guardians of all its possibilities. The second summer--I was with them, +and Jack has told me much besides--Mary began talking, almost in joke, +of these matters, of what one must prepare for; of second marriages, +and all that. We chatted in as idle fashion as do most people over the +utterly useless topics of life. One exquisite September day, all +steeped in the essence of sunshine--misty everywhere over the +fields--how well I remember it!--she spoke again in jest about +something that might happen after her death. I saw a trace of pain on +Jack's face. She saw it, and was sad for a moment. Now I know that all +through that late summer and autumn those two were fighting death in +innuendoes. They were not morbid people, but death went to bed with +them each night. + +Of course, this apprehension, this miasma, came in slowly, like those +autumn sea-mists; appearing once a month, twice this week--a little +oftener each time. + +Jack is a sensible man; he does not shy at a shadow. His nerves are +tranquil, and respond as they ought. They went about the business of +life as joyfully as you or I, and in October we were all back in town. +Now, Mary is dying; the doctor sees it now. I do not mean that he +should have known it before. _She_ knew it, and _she_ noted how the +life was fading away until the time came when what was so full of +action, of feeling, of desire, was merely a shell--impervious to +sensation. + +And Jack is dying, too--his health is good enough, but pain which he +cannot master is killing him into numbness. He watches each joy, each +experience with which they were both tremulous, depart. And do you +suppose it is any comfort for those two honest souls to believe that +their spirits will recognize each other in some curious state that has +dispensed with sense? Do you suppose that a million of years of a +divine communion would make up for one spoken word, for even a shade of +agony that passes across Mary's face? + +_She_. If God should change their souls in that other world, then +perhaps their longings would be quite different; so that what we think +of with chill they would accept as a privilege. + +_He_. In other words, those two, who have learned to know each other in +human terms, who have loved and suffered in the body, will have ended +their page? Some strange transformation into another two? Why not +simply an end to the book? Would that not be easier? + +_She_. If one had the courage to accept these few years of life and ask +for no more. + +_He_. I think that it is cowardice which makes one accept the ghostly +satisfaction of a surviving spirit. + + + +WHEN THE BODY IN LIFE FEELS THE SPIRIT. + +_She_. But have you never forgotten the body, dreamed what it would be +to feel God? You have known those moments when your soul, losing the +sense of contact with men or women, groped alone, in an enveloping +calm, and knew content. I have had it in times of intoxication from +music--not the personal, passionate music of to-day, but some one or +two notes that sink the mazy present into darkness. I knew that my +senses were gone for the time, and in their place I held a comfortable +consciousness of power. There have been other times--in Lent, at the +close of the drama of Christ--beside the sea--after a long +dance--illusory moments when one forgot the body and wondered. + +_He._ I know. One night in the Sierras we camped high up above the +summits of the range. The altitude, perhaps, or the long ride through +the forest, kept me awake. Our fires died down; a chalky mist rose from +the valleys, and, filtering through the ravines, at last capped the +granite heads. The smouldering tree-trunks we had lit for fires and the +little patch of rock where we lay, made an island in that white sea. +Between us and the black spaces among the stars there was nothing. How +eternally quiet it was! I can feel that isolation now coming over my +soul like the stealthy fog, until I lay there, unconscious of my body, +in a wondering placidity, watching the stars burn and fade. I could +seem to feel them whirl in their way through the heavens. And then a +thought detached itself from me, the conception of an eternity passed +in placidity like that without the pains of sense, the obligations of +action; I loved it then--that cold residence of thought! + +_She._ You have known it, too. Those moments when the body in life +feels the state of spirit come rarely and awe one. Dear heart, perhaps +if our spirits were purified and experienced we should welcome that +perpetual contemplation. We cannot be Janus-faced, but the truth may +lie with the monks, who killed this life in order to obtain a grander +one. + + + +TWO SOULS IN HEAVEN REMEMBER THE LIFE LIVED ON EARTH. + +_He._ Can you conceive of any heaven for which you would change this +shameful world? Any heaven, I mean, of spirits, not merely an Italian +palace of delights? + +_She._ There is the heaven of the Pagans, the heaven of glorified +earth, but---- + +_He._ Would you like to dine without tasting the fruit and the wine? +What attainment would it be to walk in fields of asphodel, when all the +colors of all the empyrean were equally dazzling, and perceived by the +mind alone? For my part, I should prefer to hold one human violet. + +_She_. The heaven of the Christian to-day? + +_He_. That may be interpreted in two ways: the heaven where we know +nothing but God, and the heaven where we remember our former life. Let +us pass the first, for the second is the heaven passionately desired by +those who have suffered here, who have lost their friends. + +Suppose that we two had finished with the episode of death, and had +come out beyond into that tranquillity of spirit where sorrows change +to harmony. You and I would go together, or, perhaps, less fortunate, +one should wait the other, but finally both would experience this +transformation from body into spirit. Should you like it? Would it fill +your heart with content--if you remembered the past? I think not. +Suppose we should walk out some fresh morning, as we love to do now, +and look at that earth we had been compelled to abandon. Where would be +that fierce joy of inrushing life? for, I fancy, we should ever have a +level of contentment and repose. Indeed, there would be no evening with +its comforting calm, no especially still nights, no mornings: nothing +is precious when nothing changes, and where all can be had for eternity. + +We should talk, as of old, but the conversation of old men and women +would be dramatic and passionate to ours. For everything must needs be +known, and there could be no distinctions in feeling. Should you see +your sister dying in agony at sea, you would smile tranquilly at her +temporary and childish sorrow. All the affairs of this life would not +strike you, pierce your heart, or move your pulse. They would repeat +themselves in your eyes with a monotonous precision, and they would be +done almost before the actors had begun. Indeed, if you should not be +incapable of blasphemy, you would rebel at this blind game, played out +with such fever. + +We must not forget that our creative force would be spent: planning, +building, executing, toiling patiently for some end that is mirrored +only in our minds--how much of our joy comes from these!--would be laid +aside. We should have shaken the world as much as we could: now, +_peace_.... Again, I say, peace is felt only after a storm. Like +Ulysses, we should look wistfully out from the isolation of heaven to +the resounding waves of this unconquered world. + +Of course, one may say that the mind might fashion cures for all this; +that a greater architect would build a saner heaven. But, remember, +that we must not change the personal sense; in heaven, however you plan +it, no mortal must lose that "I" so painfully built from the human +ages. If you destroy his sense of the past life, his treasures acquired +in this earth, you break the rules of the game: you begin again and we +have nothing to do with it. + +_She._ You have not yet touched upon the cruellest condition of the +life of the spirit. + +_He._ Ah, dearest, I know that. You mean the love of the person. +Indeed, so quick it hurts me that I doubt if you would be walking that +morning in heaven with me alone. Perhaps, however, the memories of our +common life on earth would make you single me out. Let us think so. We +should walk on to some secluded spot, apart from the other spirits, and +with our eyes cast down so that we might not see that earth we were +remembering. You would look up at last with a touch of that defiance I +love so now, as if a young goddess were tossing away divine cares to +shine out again in smiles. Ah, how sad! + +I should have some stir about the heart, some desire to kiss you, to +embrace you, to possess you, as the inalienable joy of my life. My hand +could not even touch you! Would our eyes look love? Could we have any +individual longing for one-another, any affection kept apart to +ourselves, not swallowed up in that general loving-kindness and +universal beatification proper to spirits? + +I know upon earth to-day some women, great souls, too, who are +incapable of an individual love. They may be married, they may have +children; they are good wives and good mothers; but their souls are too +large for a single passion. Their world blesses them, worships them, +makes saints of them, but no man has ever touched the bottom of their +hearts. I suppose their husbands are happy in the general happiness, +yet they must be sad some days, over this barren love. Hours come when +they must long, even for the little heart of a coquette that has +dedicated itself to one other and with that other would trustingly +venture into hell. + +Well, that universal love is the only kind such spirits as you and I +should be, could know. Would that content you? + +We should sit mournfully silent, two impotent hearts, and remember, +remember. I should worship your exquisite body as I had known it on +earth. I should see that head as it bends to-night; I should hear again +your voice in those words you were singing when I passed your way that +first time; and your eyes would burn with the fire of our relinquished +love. It would all come faintly out of the past, deadened by a thin +film of recollection; now it strikes with a fierce joy, almost like a +physical blow, and wakes me to life, to desire. + +_She._ Yes. We women say we love the spirit of the man we have chosen, +but it is a spirit that acts and expresses itself in the body. To that +body, with all its habits, so unconscious! its sure force and power, we +are bound--more than the man is bound to the loveliness of the woman he +adores. We--I, it is safer so, perhaps--understand what I see, what I +feel, what I touch, what I have kissed and loved. That is mine and +becomes mine more each day I live with it and possess it. That love of +the concrete is our limitation, so we are told, but it is our joy. + +_He_. So we should sit, without words, for we would shrink from speech +as too sad, and we should know swiftly the thought of the other. And +when the sense of our loss became quite intolerable, we should walk on +silently, in a growing horror of the eternity ahead. At last one of us, +moved by some acute remembrance of our deadened selves, would go to the +Master of the Spirits and, standing before him in rebellion, would say: +"Cast us out as unfit for this heaven, and if Thou canst not restore us +into that past state at least give us Hell, where we may suffer a +common pain, instead of this passive calm and contemplation." + + + +THE MEASURE OF JOY IN LIFE. + +_She._ Yet, how short it will be! How awful to have the days and weeks +and months slip by, and know that at the best there is only a reprieve +of a few years. I think from this night I shall have my shadow of +death. I shall always be doing things for the last time; a sad life +that! And perhaps we change; as you say, we may become dead in life, +prepared for a different state; and in that change we may find a new +joy--a longing for perfection and peace. + +_He_. That would be an acknowledgment of defeat, indeed, and that is +the sad result of so much living. The world has been too hard, we +cry--there is so much heartbreaking, so much misery, so few arrive! We +look to another world where all that will be made right, and where we +shall suffer no more. + +Let the others have their opiate. You, at least, I think, are too brave +for that kind of comfort. Does it not seem a little grasping to ask for +eternity, because we have fifty years of action? And an eternity of +passivity, because we have not done well with action? No, the world has +had too much of that coddling, that kind of shuffle through, as if it +were a way station where we must spend the night and make the best of +sorry accommodations. Our benevolence, our warmheartedness, goes +overmuch to making the beds a bit better, especially for the feeble and +the sick and old, and those who come badly fitted out. We help the +unfortunate to slide through: I think it would be more sensible to make +it worth their while to stay. The great philanthropists are those who +ennoble life, and make it a valuable possession. It would be well to +poison the forlorn, hurry them post haste to some other world where +they may find the conditions better suited. Then give their lot of +misery and opportunity to another who can find joy in his burden. + +_She._ A world without mercy would be hard--it would be full of a +strident clamor like a city street. + +_He._ Mercy for all; no favoritism for a few. Whoever could find a new +joy, a lasting activity; whoever could keep his body and mind in full +health and could show what a tremendous reality it is to live--would be +the merciful man. There would be less of that leprosy, death in life, +and the last problem of death itself would not be insurmountable. + +So I think the common men who know things, concrete things,--the price +of grain, if you will; the men of affairs who have their minds on the +struggle; the artists who in paint or words explore new +possibilities--all these are the merciful men, the true comforters whom +we should honor. They make life precious--aside from its physical value. + +You know the keen movement that runs through your whole being when you +come face to face with some great Rembrandt portrait. How much the man +knew who made it, who saw it unmade! Or that Bellini's Pope we used to +watch, whose penetrating smile taught us about life. And the greater +Titian, the man with a glove, that looks at you like a live soul, one +whom a man created to live for the joy of other men. In another form, I +feel the same gift of life in a new enterprise: a railroad carried +through; a corrupt government cleaned for the day. And, again, that +Giorgione at Paris, where the men and women are doing nothing in +particular, but living in the sunlight, a joyful, pagan band. + +And then think of the simpler, deeper notes of the symphony, the +elements of light and warmth and color in our world, the very seeds of +existence. I count that day the richest when we floated into the Cape +harbor in the little rowboat, bathed in the afternoon sun. The +fishermen were lazily winging in, knowing, like birds, the storm that +would soon be on them. We drank the sun in all our pores. It rained +down on you, and glorified your face and the flesh of your arms and +your hands. We landed, and walked across the evening fields to that +little hut. Then nature lived and glowed with the fervor of actual +experience. You and the air and the sun-washed ocean, all were some +great throbs of actualities. + +_She._ You remember how I liked to ride with you and sail, the stormy +days. How I loved to feel your body battling even feebly with the wind +and rain. I loved to see your face grow crimson under the lash of the +waves, and then to _feel_ you, alive and mine! + +_He._ It would not be bad, a heaven like that, of perpetual physical +presentiment, of storms and sun, and rich fields, and long waves +rolling up the beaches. For nerves ever alive and strung healthily all +along the gamut of sensation! Days with terrific gloom, like the German +forests of the Middle Ages; days with small nights spent on the sea; +September days with a concealed meaning in the air. One would ride and +battle and sail and eat. Then long kisses of love in bodies that spoke. + +_She._ And yet, how strange to life as it is is that picture--like some +mediaeval song with the real people left out; strange to the dirty +streets, the breakfasts in sordid rooms, the ignoble faces, the houses +with failure written across the door-posts; strange to the life of papa +and mamma; to the comfortable home; the chatter of the day; the horses; +the summer trips--everything we have lived, you and I. + +_He._ Incomplete, and hence merely a literary paradise. It is well, +too, as it is, for until we can go to bed with the commonplace, and +dine with sorrow, we are but children,--brilliant children, but with +the unpleasant mark of the child. Not sorrow accepted, my love, and +bemoaned; but sorrow fought and dislodged. He is great who feels the +pain and sorrow and absorbs it and survives--he who can remain calm in +it and believe in it. It is a fight; only the strong hold their own. +That fight we call duty. + +And duty makes the only conceivable world given the human spirit and +the human frame: even should we believe that the world is a revolving +palaestrinum without betterment. And the next world--the next? It must +be like ours, too, in its action; it must call upon the same +activities, the same range of desires and loves and hates. Grander, +perhaps, more adorned, with greater freedom, with more swing, with a +less troubled song as it rushes on its course. But a world like unto +ours, with effort, with the keen jangle of persons in effort, with +sorrow, aye, and despair: for there must be forfeits! + +Is that not better than to slink away to death with the forlorn comfort +of a + +"_Requiescat in pace?_" + +PARIS, December, 1895. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories, by +Robert Herrick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS, OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 8113.txt or 8113.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/1/1/8113/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Bidwell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +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 can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8113] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 15, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Bidwell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS + +AND OTHER STORIES + +by + +ROBERT HERRICK + + + +TO + +G. H. P. + + + +LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS: + +A MODERN ACCOUNT + +NO. I. INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY. + +(_Eastlake has renewed an episode of his past life. The formalities have +been satisfied at a chance meeting, and he continues_.) + +... So your carnations lie over there, a bit beyond this page, in a +confusion of manuscripts. Sweet source of this idle letter and gentle +memento of the house on Grant Street and of you! I fancy I catch their +odor before it escapes generously into the vague darkness beyond my +window. They whisper: "Be tender, be frank; recall to her mind what is +precious in the past. For departed delights are rosy with deceitful hopes, +and a woman's heart becomes heavy with living. We are the woman you once +knew, but we are much more. We have learned new secrets, new emotions, new +ambitions, in love--we are fuller than before." So--for to-morrow they +will be shrivelled and lifeless--I take up their message to-night. + +I see you now as this afternoon at the Goodriches', when you came in +triumphantly to essay that hot room of empty, passive folk. Someone was +singing somewhere, and we were staring at one another. There you stood at +the door, placing us; the roses, scattered in plutocratic profusion, had +drooped their heads to our hot faces. We turned from the music to _you_. +You knew it, and you were glad of it. You knew that they were busy about +you, that you and your amiable hostess made an effective group at the head +of the room. You scented their possible disapproval with zest, for you had +so often mocked their good-will with impunity that you were serenely +confident of getting what you wanted. Did you want a lover? Not that I +mean to offer myself in flesh and blood: God forbid that I should join the +imploring procession, even at a respectful distance! My pen is at your +service. I prefer to be your historian, your literary maid--half slave, +half confidant; for then you will always welcome me. If I were a lover, I +might some day be inopportune. That would not be pleasant. + +Yes, they were chattering about you, especially around the table where +some solid ladies of Chicago served iced drinks. I was sipping it all in +with the punch, and looking at the pinks above the dark hair, and +wondering if you found having your own way as good fun as when you were +eighteen. You have gained, my dear lady, while I have been knocking about +the world. You are now more than "sweet": you are almost handsome. I +suppose it is a question of lights and the time of day whether or not you +are really brilliant. And you carry surety in your face. There is nothing +in Chicago to startle you, perhaps not in the world. + +She at the punch remarked, casually, to her of the sherbet: "I wonder when +Miss Armstrong will settle matters with Lane? It is the best she can do +now, though he isn't as well worth while as the men she threw over." And +her neighbor replied: "She might do worse than Lane. She could get more +from him than the showy ones." So Lane is the name of the day. They have +gauged you and put you down at Lane. I took an ice and waited--but you +will have to supply the details. + +Meantime, you sailed on, with that same everlasting enthusiasm upon your +face that I knew six years ago, until you spied me. How extremely natural +you made your greeting! I confess I believed that I had lived for that +smile six years, and suffered a bad noise for the sound of your voice. It +seemed but a minute until we found ourselves almost alone with the solid +women at the ices. One swift phrase from you, and we had slipped back +through the meaningless years till we stood _there_ in the parlor at Grant +Street, mere boy and girl. The babbling room vanished for a few golden +moments. Then you rustled off, and I believe I told Mrs. Goodrich that +musicales were very nice, for they gave you a chance to talk. And I went +to the dressing-room, wondering what rare chance had brought me again +within the bondage of that voice. + +Then, then, dear pinks, you came sailing over the stairs, peeping out from +that bunch of lace. I loitered and spoke. Were the eyes green, or blue, or +gray; ambition, or love, or indifference to the world? I was at my old +puzzle again, while you unfastened the pinks, and, before the butler, who +acquiesced at your frivolity in impertinent silence, you held them out to +me. Only you know the preciousness of unsought-for favors. "Write me," you +said; and I write. + +What should man write about to you but of love and yourself? My pen, I +see, has not lost its personal gait in running over the mill books. +Perhaps it politely anticipates what is expected! So much the better, say, +for you expect what all men give--love and devotion. You would not know +a man who could not love you. Your little world is a circle of +possibilities. Let me explain. Each lover is a possible conception of life +placed at a slightly different angle from his predecessor or successor. +Within this circle you have turned and turned, until your head is a bit +weary. But I stand outside and observe the whirligig. Shall I be drawn in? +No, for I should become only a conventional interest. "If the salt," etc. +I remember you once taught in a mission school. + +The flowers will tell me no more! Next time give me a rose--a huge, +hybrid, opulent rose, the product of a dozen forcing processes--and +I will love you a new way. As the flowers say good-by, I will say +goodnight. Shall I burn them? No, for they would smoulder. And if I left +them here alone, to-morrow they would be wan. There! I have thrown them +out wide into that gulf of a street twelve stories below. They will +flutter down in the smoky darkness, and fall, like a message from the land +of the lotus-eaters, upon a prosy wayfarer. And safe in my heart there +lives that gracious picture of my lady as she stands above me and gives +them to me. That is eternal: you and the pinks are but phantoms. Farewell! + + + +NO. II. ACQUIESCENT AND ENCOURAGING. + +(_Miss Armstrong replies on a dull blue, canvas-textured page, over which +her stub-pen wanders in fashionable negligence. She arrives on the third +page at the matter in hand_.) + +Ah, it was very sweet, your literary love-letter. Considerable style, as +you would say, but too palpably artificial. If you want to deceive this +woman, my dear sir trifler, you must disguise your mockery more artfully. + +Why didn't I find you at the Stanwoods'? I had Nettie send you a card. I +had promised you to a dozen delightful women, "our choicest lot," who were +all agog to see my supercilious and dainty sir.... Why will you always +play with things? Perhaps you will say because I am not worth serious +moments. You play with everything, I believe, and that is banal. Ever +sincerely, + +EDITH ARMSTRONG. + + + +NO. III. EXPLANATORY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake has the masculine fondness for seeing himself in the right_.) + +I turned the Stanwoods' card down, and for your sake, or rather for the +sake of your memory. I preferred to sit here and dream about you in the +midst of my chimney-pots and the dull March mists rather than to run the +risk of another, and perhaps fatal, impression. And so far as you are +concerned your reproach is just. Do I "play with everything"? Perhaps I +am afraid that it might play with me. Imagine frolicking with tigers, who +might take you seriously some day, as a tidbit for afternoon tea--if you +should confess that you were serious! That's the way I think of the world, +or, rather, your part of it. Surely, it is a magnificent game, whose rules +we learn completely just as our blood runs too slowly for active exercise. +I like to break off a piece of its cake (or its rank cheese at times) and +lug it away with me to my den up here for further examination. I think +about it, I dream over it; yes, in a reflective fashion, I _feel_. It is a +charming, experimental way of living. + +Then, after the echo becomes faint and lifeless, or, if you prefer, the +cheese too musty, I sally out once more to refresh my larder. You play +also in your way, but not so intelligently (pardon me), for you deceive +yourself from day to day that your particular object, your temporary mood, +is the one eternal thing in life. After all, you have mastered but one +trick--the trick of being loved. With that trick you expect to take the +world; but, alas! you capture only an old man's purse or a young man's +passion. + +Artificial, my letters--yes, if you wish. I should say, not crude-- +matured, considered. I discuss the love you long to experience. I dangle +it before your eyes as a bit of the drapery that goes to the ball of life. +But when dawn almost comes and the ball is over, you mustn't expect the +paper roses to smell. This mystifies you a little, for you are a plain, +downright siren. Your lovers' songs have been in simple measures. Well, +the moral is this: take my love-letters as real (in their way) as the +play, or rather, the opera; infinitely true for the moment, unreal for the +hour, eternal as the dead passions of the ages. Further, it is better to +feel the aromatic attributes of love than the dangerous or unlovely +reality. You can flirt with number nine or marry number ten, but I shall +be stored away in your drawer for a life. + +You have carried me far afield, away from men and things. So, for a +moment, I have stopped to listen to the hum of this chaotic city as it +rises from Dearborn and State in the full blast of a commercial noon. You +wonder why an unprofitable person like myself lives here, and not in an +up-town club with my fellows. Ah, my dear lady, I wish to see the game +always going on in its liveliest fashion. So I have made a den for myself, +not under the eaves of a hotel, but on the roof, among the ventilators. +Here I can see the clouds of steam and the perpetual pall of smoke below +me. I can revel in gorgeous sunsets when the fiery light threads the smoke +and the mists and the sodden clouds eastward over the lake. And at night I +take my steamer chair to the battlements and peer over into a sea of +lights below. As I sit writing to you, outside go the click and rattle of +the elevator gates and other distant noises of humanity. My echo comes +directly enough, but it does not deafen me. Below there exists my barber, +and farther down that black pit of an elevator lies lunch, or a cigar, or +a possible cocktail, if the mental combination should prove unpleasant. +Across the hall is Aladdin's lamp, otherwise my banker; and above all is +Haroun al Raschid. Am I not wise? In the morning, if it is fair, I take a +walk among the bulkheads on the roof, and watch the blue deception of the +lake. Perhaps, if the wind comes booming in, I hear the awakening roar in +the streets and think of work. Perhaps the clear emptiness of a Sunday +hovers over the shore; then I wonder what you will say to this letter. +Will you feel with me that you should live on a housetop and eat cheese? +Do you long for a cool stream without flies, and a carpet of golden sand? +Do you want a coal fire and a husband home at six-thirty, or a third-class +ticket to the realms of nonsense? Are you thinking of Lane's income, or +Smith's cleverness, or the ennui of too many dinners? + +I know: you are thinking of love while you read this, and are happy. If I +might send you a new sensation in every line, I should be happy, too, for +your prodigal nature demands novelty. I should then be master for a +moment. And love is mastery and submission, the two poles of a strong +magnet. Adieu. + + + +NO. IV. FURTHER AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake continues apropos of a chance meeting_.) + +So you rather like the curious flavor of this new dish, but it puzzles +you. You ask for facts? What a stamp Chicago has put on your soul! You +will continue to regard as facts the feeble fancies that God has allowed +to petrify. I warn you that facts kill, but you shall have them. I had +meditated a delightful sheet of love that has been disdainfully shoved +into the waste-basket. A grave moral there for you, my lady! + +Do you remember when I was very young and _gauche_? Doubtless, for women +never forget first impressions of that sort. You dressed very badly, and +were quite ceremonious. I was the bantling son of one of your father's +provincial correspondents, to adopt the suave term of the foreigners. I +had been sent to Chicago to fit for a technical school, where I was to +learn to be very clever about mill machinery. Perhaps you remember my +father--a sweet-natured, wiry, active man, incapable of conceiving an +interest in life that was divorced from respectability. I think he had +some imagination, for now and then he was troubled about my becoming a +loafer. However, he certainly kept it in control: I was to become a great +mill owner. + +It was all luck at first: you were luck, and the Tech. was luck. Then I +found my voice and saw my problem: to cross my father's aspirations, to be +other than the Wabash mill owner, would have been cruel. You see his +desires were more passionate than mine. I worried through the mechanical, +deadening routine of the Tech. somehow, and finally got courage enough to +tell him that I could not accept Wabash quite yet. I had the audacity to +propose two years abroad. We compromised on one, but I understood that I +must not finally disappoint him. He cared so much that it would have been +wicked. A few people in this world have positive and masterful +convictions. An explosion or insanity comes if their wills smoulder in +ineffectual silence. Most of us have no more than inclinations. It seems +wise and best that those of mere inclinations should waive their +prejudices in favor of those who feel intensely. So much for the great +questions of individuality and personality that set the modern world +a-shrieking. This is a commonplace solution of the great family problem +Turgenieff propounded in "Fathers and Sons." Perchance you have heard of +Turgenieff? + +So I prepared to follow my father's will, for I loved him exceedingly. His +life had not been happy, and his nature, as I have said, was a more +exacting one than mine. The price of submission, however, was not plain to +me until I was launched that year in Paris in a strange, cosmopolitan +world. I was supposed to attend courses at the Ecole Polytechnique, but I +became mad with the longings that are wafted about Europe from capital to +capital. I went to Italy--to Venice and Florence and Rome--to Athens and +Constantinople and Vienna. In a word, I unfitted myself for Wabash as +completely as I could, and troubled my spirit with vain attempts after art +and feeling. + +You women do not know the intoxication of five-and-twenty--a few hundred +francs in one's pockets, the centuries behind, creation ahead. You do not +know what it is to hunger after the power of understanding and the power +of expression; to see the world as divine one minute and a mechanic hell +the next; to feel the convictions of the vagabond; to grudge each sunbeam +that falls unseen by you on some mouldering gate in some neglected city, +each face of the living wherein possible life looks out untried by you, +each picture that means a new curiosity. No, for, after all, you are +material souls; you need a Bradshaw and a Baedeker, even in the land of +dreams. All men, I like to think, for one short breath in their lives, +believe this narrow world to be shoreless. They feel that they should die +in discontent if they could not experience, test, this wonderful +conglomerate of existence. It is an old, old matter I am writing you +about. We have classified it nicely, these days; we call it the "romantic +spirit," and we say that it is made three parts of youth and two of +discontent--a perpetual expression of the world's pessimism. + +I look back, and I think that I have done you wrong. Women like you have +something nearly akin to this mood. Some time in your lives you would all +be romantic lovers. The commonest of you anticipate a masculine soul that +shall harmonize your discontent into happiness. Most of you are not very +nice about it; you make your hero out of the most obvious man. Yet it is +pathetic, that longing for something beyond yourselves. That passionate +desire for a complete illusion in love is the one permanent note you women +have attained in literature. In your heart of hearts you would all (until +you become stiff in the arms of an unlovely life) follow a cabman, if he +could make the world dance for you in this joyous fashion. Some are hard +to satisfy--for example, you, my lady--and you go your restless, brilliant +little way, flirting with this man, coquetting with that, examining a +third, until your heart grows weary or until you are at peace. You may +marry for money or for love, and in twenty years you will teach your +daughters that love doesn't pay at less than ten thousand a year. But you +don't expect them to believe you, and they don't. + +I am not sneering at you. I would not have it otherwise, for the world +would be one half cheaper if women like you did not follow the perpetual +instinct. True, civilization tends to curb this romantic desire, but when +civilization runs against a passionate nature we have a tragedy. The world +is sweeter, deeper, for that. Live and love, if you can, and give the lie +to facts. Be restless, be insatiable, be wicked, but believe that your +body and soul were meant for more than food and raiment; that somewhere, +somehow, some day, you will meet the dream made real, and that _he_ will +unlock the secrets of this life. + +It is late. I am tired. The noises of the city begin, far down in the +darkness. This carries love. + + + +NO. V. AROUSED. + +(_Miss Armstrong protests and invites_.) + +It is real, real, _real_. If I can say so, after going on all these years +with but one idea (according to my good friends) of settling myself +comfortably in some large home, shouldn't you believe it? You have lived +more interestingly than I, and you are not dependent, as most of us are. +You really mock me through it all. You think I am worthy of only a kind of +candy that you carry about for agreeable children, which you call love. To +me, sir, it reads like an insult--your message of love tucked in concisely +at the close. + +No, keep to facts, for they are your _metier_. You make them interesting. +Tell me more about your idle, contemplative self. And let me see you +to-morrow at the Thorntons'. Leave your sombre eyes at home, and don't +expect infinities in tea-gabble. I saw you at the opera last night. For +some moments, while Melba was singing, I wanted you and your confectioner's +love. That Melba might always sing, and the tide always flood the marshes! +On the whole, I like candy. Send me a page of it. + +E. A. + + + +NO. VI. AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake, disregarding her comments, continues._) + +Dear lady, did you ever read some stately bit of prose, which caught in +its glamour of splendid words the vital, throbbing world of affairs and +passions, some crystallization of a rich experience, and then by chance +turn to the "newsy" column of an American newspaper? (Forsooth, these must +be literary letters!) Well, that tells the sensations of going from Europe +to Wabash. I had caught the sound of the greater harmony, or struggle, and +I must accept the squeak of the melodeon. I did not think highly of +myself; had started too far back in the race, and I knew that laborious +years of intense zeal would place me only third class, or even lower, in +any pursuit of the arts. Perhaps if I had felt that I could have made a +good third class, I should have fought it out in Europe. There are some +things man cannot accomplish, however, our optimistic national creed to +the contrary. And there would have been something low in disappointing my +father for such ignoble results, such imperfect satisfaction. + +So to Wabash I went. I resolved to adapt myself to the billiards and +whiskey of the Commercial Club, and to the desk in the inner office behind +the glass partitions. And I like to think that I satisfied my father those +two years in the mills. After a time I achieved a lazy content. At first I +tried to deceive myself; to think that the newsy column of Wabash was as +significant as the grand page of London or Paris. That simple yarn didn't +satisfy me many months. + +Then my father died. I hung on at the mills for a time, until the strikes +and the general depression gave me valid reasons for withdrawing. To skip +details, I sold out my interests, and with my little capital came to +Chicago. My income, still dependent in some part upon those Wabash mills, +trembles back and forth in unstable equilibrium. + +Chicago was too much like Wabash just then. I went to Florence to join a +man, half German Jew, half American, wholly cosmopolite, whom I had known +in Paris. His life was very thin: it consisted wholly of interests--a +tenuous sort of existence. I can thank him for two things: that I did not +remain forever in Italy, trying to say something new, and that I began a +definite task. I should send you my book (now that it is out and people +are talking about it), but it would bore you, and you would feel that you +must chatter about it. It is a good piece of journeyman work. I gathered +enough notes for another volume, and then I grew restless. Business called +me home for a few months, so I came back to Chicago. Of all places! you +say. Yes, to Chicago, to see this brutal whirlpool as it spins and spins. +It has fascinated me, I admit, and I stay on--to live up among the +chimneys, hanging out over the cornice of a twelve-story building; to soak +myself in the steam and smoke of the prairie and in the noises of a city's +commerce. + +Am I content? Yes, when I am writing to you; or when the pile of +manuscripts at my side grows painfully page by page; or when, peering out +of the fort-like embrasure, I can see the sun drenched in smoke and mist +and the "sky-scrapers" gleam like the walls of a Colorado canon. I have +enough to buy me existence, and at thirty I still find peepholes into +hopes. + +Are these enough facts for you? Shall I send you an inventory of my room, +of my days, of my mental furniture? Some long afternoon I will spirit you +up here in that little steel cage, and you shall peer out of my window, +tapping your restless feet, while you sniff at the squalor below. You will +move softly about, questioning the watercolors, the bits of bric-a-brac, +the dusty manuscripts, the dull red hangings, not quite understanding the +fox in his hole. You will gratefully catch the sounds from the mound below +our feet, and when you say good-by and drop swiftly down those long +stories you will gasp a little sigh of relief. You will pull down your +veil and drive off to an afternoon tea, feeling that things as they are +are very nice, and that a little Chicago mud is worth all the clay of the +studios. And I? I shall take the roses out of the vase and throw them +away. I shall say, "Enough!" But somehow you will have left a suggestion +of love about the place. I shall fancy that I still hear your voice, which +will be so far away dealing out banalities. I shall treasure the words you +let wander heedlessly out of the window. I shall open my book and write, +"To-day she came--_beatissima hora_." + + + +NO. VII. OF THE NATURE OF A CONFESSION. + +(_Miss Armstrong is nearing the close of her fifth season. Prospect and +retrospect are equally uninviting. She wills to escape_.) + +I shall probably be thinking about the rents in your block, and wondering +if the family had best put up a sky-scraper, instead of doing all the +pretty little things you mention in your letter. At five-and-twenty one +becomes practical, if one is a woman whose father has left barely enough +to go around among two women who like luxury, and two greedy boys at +college with expensive "careers" ahead. This letter finds me in the trough +of the wave. I wonder if it's what you call "the ennui of many dinners?" +More likely it's because we can't keep our cottage at Sorrento. Well-a- +day! it's gray this morning, and I will write off a fit of the blues. + +I think it's about time to marry number nine. It would relieve the family +immensely. I suspect they think I have had my share of fun. Probably you +will take this as an exquisite joke, but 'tis the truth, alas! + +Last night I was at the Hoffmeyers' at dinner. It was slow. All such +dinners are slow. The good Fraus don't know how to mix the sheep and the +goats. For a passing moment they talked about you and about your book in a +puzzled way. They think you so clever and so odd. But I know how hollow he +is, and how thin his fame! I got some points on the new L from the +Hoffmeyers and young Mr. Knowlton. That was interesting and exciting. We +dealt in millions as if they were checkers. These practical men have a +better grip on life than the cynics and dreamers like you. You call them +plebeian and _bourgeois_ and Philistine and limited--all the bad names in +your select vocabulary. But they know how to feel in the good, old, +common-sense way. You've lost that. I like plebeian earnestness and push. +I like success at something, and hearty enjoyment, and good dinners, and +big men who talk about a million as if it were a ten-spot in the game. + +You see I am looking for number nine and my four horses. Then I mean to +invite you to my country house, to have a lot of "fat" girls to meet you +who will talk slang at you, and one of them shall marry you--one whose +father is a great newspaper man. And your new papa will start you in the +business of making public opinion. You will play with that, too, but, +then, you will be coining money. + +No, not here in Chicago, but if you had talked to me at Sorrento as you +write me from your sanctum on the roof, I might have listened and dreamed. +The sea makes me believe and hope. I love it so! That's why I made mamma +take a house near the lake--to be near a little piece of infinity. Yes, if +you had paddled me out of the harbor at Sorrento, some fine night when the +swell was rippling in, like the groaning of a sleepy beast, and the hills +were a-hush on the shore, then we might have gone on to that place you are +so fond of, "the land east of the sun, and west of the moon." + + + +NO. VIII. BIOGRAPHIC AND JUDICIAL. + +(_Eastlake replies analytically_.) + +But don't marry him until we are clear on all matters. I haven't finished +your case. And don't marry that foreign-looking cavalier you were riding +with to-day in the park. You are too American ever to be at home over +there. You would smash their fragile china, and you wouldn't understand. +England might fit you, though, for England is something like that dark +green, prairie park, with its regular, bushy trees against a Gainsborough +sky. You live deeply in the fierce open air. The English like that. +However, America must not lose you. + +You it was, I am sure, who moved your family in that conventional +pilgrimage of ambitious Chicagoans--west, south, north. Neither your +father nor your mother would have stirred from sober little Grant Street +had you not felt the pressing necessity for a career. Rumor got hold of +you first on the South Side, and had it that you were experimenting with +some small contractor. The explosion which followed reached me even in +Vienna. Did you feel that you could go farther, or did you courageously +run the risk of wrecking him then instead of wrecking yourself and him +later? Oh well, he's comfortably married now, and all the pain you gave +him was probably educative. You may look at his flaunting granite house on +that broad boulevard, and think well of your courage. + +Your father died. You moved northward to that modest house tucked in +lovingly under the ample shelter of the millionnaires on the Lake Shore +Drive. I fancy there has always been the gambler in your nerves; that you +have sacrificed your principle to getting a rapid return on your money. +And you have dominated your family: you sent your two brothers to Harvard, +and filled them with ambitions akin to yours. Now you are impatient +because the thin ice cracks a bit. + +But I have great faith: you will mend matters by some shrewd deal with the +manipulators at Hoffmeyer's, or by marrying number nine. You will do it +honestly--I mean the marrying; for you will convince him that you love, so +far as love is in you, and you will convince yourself that marriage, the +end of it all, is unselfish, though prosaic. You will accept resignation +with an occasional sigh, feeling that you have gone far, perhaps as far as +you can go. I trust that solution will not come quickly, however, because +I cannot regard it as a brilliant ending to your evolution. For you have +kept yourself sweet and clean from fads, and mean pushing, and the vulgar +machinery of society. You never forced your way or intrigued. You have +talked and smiled and bewitched yourself straight to the point where you +now are. You were eager and curious about pleasures, and the world has +dealt liberally with you. + +Were you perilously near the crisis when you wrote me? Did the reflective +tone come because you were brought at last squarely to the mark, because +you must decide what one of the possible conceptions of life you really +want? Don't think, I pray you; go straight on to the inevitable solution, +for when you become conscious you are lost. + +Do you wonder that I love you, my hybrid rose; that I follow the heavy +petals as they push themselves out into their final bloom; that I gather +the aroma to comfort my heart in these lifeless pages? I follow you about +in your devious path from tea to dinner or dance, or I wait at the opera +or theatre to watch for a new light in your face, to see your world +written in a smile. You are dark, and winning, and strong. You are pagan +in your love of sensuous, full things. You are grateful to the biting air +as it touches your cheek and sends the blood leaping in glad life. You +love water and fire and wind, elemental things, and you love them with +fervor and passion. All this to the world! Much more intimate to me, who +can read the letters you scrawl for the impudent, careless world. For deep +down in the core of that rose there lies a soul that permeates it all--a +longing, restless soul, one moment revealing a heaven that the next is +shut out in dark despair. + +Yes, keep the cottage by the sea for one more dream. Perchance I shall +find something stable, eternal, something better than discontent and +striving; for the sea is great and makes peace. + + + +NO. IX. CRITICISM. + +(_Miss Armstrong vindicates herself by scorning._) + +You are a tissue of phrases. You feel only words. You love! What mockery +to hear you handle the worn, old words! You have secluded yourself in +careful isolation from the human world you seem to despise. You have no +right to its passions and solaces. Incarnate selfishness, dear friend, I +suspect you are. You would not permit the disturbance of a ripple in the +contemplative lake of your life such as love and marriage might bring. + +Pray what right may you have to stew me in a saucepan up on your roof, and +to send me flavors of myself done up nicely into little packages labelled +deceitfully "love"? It is lucky that this time you have come across a +woman who has played the game before, and can meet you point by point. But +I am too weary to argue with a man who carries two-edged words, flattery +on one side and sneers on the reverse. Mark this one thing, nevertheless: +if I should decide to sell myself advantageously next season I should be +infinitely better than you,--for I am only a woman. + +E. A. + + + +NO. X. THE LIMITATION OF LIFE. + +(_Eastlake summarizes, and intends to conclude._) + +My lady, my humor of to-day makes me take up the charges in your last +letters; I will define, not defend, myself. You fall out with me because I +am a dilettante (or many words to that one effect), and you abuse me +because I deal in the form rather than the matter of love. Is that not +just to you? + +In short, I am not as your other admirers, and the variation in the +species has lost the charm of novelty. + +Believe me that I am honest to-day, at least; indeed, I think you will +understand. Only the college boy who feeds on Oscar Wilde and sentimental +pessimism has that disease of indifference with which you crudely charge +me. It is a kind of chicken-pox, cousin-French to the evils of literary +Paris. But I must not thank God too loudly, or you will think I am one +with them at heart. + +No, I am in earnest, in terrible earnest, about all this--I mean life and +what to do with it. That is a great day when a man comes into his own, no +matter how paltry the pittance may be the gods have given him--when he +comes to know just how far he can go, and where lies his path of least +resistance. That I know. I am tremendously sure of myself now, and, like +your good business men, I go about my affairs and dispose of my life with +its few energies in a cautious, economical way. + +What is all this I make so much to-do about? Very little, I confess, but +to me more serious than L's and sky-scrapers; yes, than love. Mine is an +infinite labor: first to shape the true tool, and then to master the +material! I grant you I may die any day like a rat on a housetop, with +only a bundle of musty papers, the tags of broken conversations, and one +or two dead, distorted nerves. That is our common risk. But I shall +accomplish as much of the road as God permits the snail, and I shall have +moulded something; life will have justified itself to me, or I to life. +But that is not our problem to-day. + +Why do I isolate myself? Because a few pursuits in life are great +taskmasters and jealous ones. A wise man who had felt that truth wrote +about it once. I must husband my devotions: love, except the idea of love, +is not for me; pleasure, except the idea of pleasure, is too keen for me; +energy, except the ideas energy creates, is beyond me. I am limited, +definite, alone, without you. + +I confess that two passions are greater than any man, the passion for God +and the passion of a great love. They send a man hungry and naked into the +street, and make his subterfuges with existence ridiculous. How rarely +they come! How inadequate the man who is mistaken about them! We peer into +the corners of life after them, but they elude us. There are days of +splendid consciousness, and we think we have them--then---- + +No, it is foolish, _bete_, dear lady, to be deceived by a sentiment; +better the comfortable activities of the world. They will suit you best; +leave the other for the dream hidden in a glass of champagne. + +But let me love you always. Let me fancy you, when I walk down these +gleaming boulevards in the silent evenings, as you sit flashingly lovely +by some soft lamplight, wrapped about in the cotton-wools of society. That +will reconcile me to the roar of these noonday streets. The city exists +for _you_. + + + +NO. XI. UNSATISFIED. + +(_Miss Armstrong wills to drift_.) + +... Come to Sorrento.... + + + +NO. XII. THE ILLUSION. + +(_Eastlake resumes some weeks later. He has put into Bar Harbor on a +yachting trip. He sits writing late at night by the light of the binnacle +lamp_.) + +Sweet lady, a few hours ago we slipped in here past the dark shore of your +village, in almost dead calm, just parting the heavy waters with our prow. +It was the golden set of the summer afternoon: a thrush or two were +already whistling clear vespers in he woods; all else was fruitfully calm. + +And then, in the stillness of the ebb, we floated together, you and I, +round that little lighthouse into the sheltering gloom of the woods. Then +we drifted beyond it all, in serene solution of this world's fret! To- +morrows you may keep for another. + +This night was richly mine. You brought your simple self, undisturbed by +the people who expect of you, without your little airs of experience. I +brought incense, words, devotion, and love. And I treasure now a few pure +tones, some simple motions of your arm with the dripping paddle, a few +pure feelings written on your face. That is all, but it is much. We got +beyond necessity and the impertinent commonplace of Chicago. We had +ourselves, and that was enough. + +And to-night, as I lie here under the cool, complete heavens, with only a +twinkling cottage light here and there in the bay to remind me of unrest, +I see life afresh in the old, simple, eternal lines. These are _our_ days +of full consciousness. + +Do you remember that clearing in the woods where the long weeds and grass +were spotted with white stones--burial-place it was--their bright faces +turned ever to the sunshine and the stars? They spoke of other lives than +yours and mine. Forgotten little units in our disdainful world, we pass +them scornfully by. Other lives, and perhaps better, do you think? For +them the struggle never came which holds us in a fist of brass, and +thrashes us up and down the pavement of life. Perhaps--can you not, at one +great leap, fancy it?--two sincere souls could escape from this brass +master, and live, unmindful of strife, for a little grave on a hillside in +the end? They must be strong souls to renounce that cherished hope of +triumph, to be content with the simple, antique things, just living and +loving--the eternal and brave things; for, after all, what you and I burn +for so restlessly is a makeshift ambition. We wish to go far, "to make the +best of ourselves." Why not, once for all, rely upon God to make? Why not +live and rejoice? + +And the little graves are not bad: to lie long years within sound of this +great-hearted ocean, with the peaceful, upturned stones bearing this full +legend, "This one loved and lived...." Forgive me for making you sad. +Perhaps you merely laugh at the intoxication your clear air has brought +about. Well, dearest lady, the ships are striking their eight bells for +midnight, the gayest cottages are going out, light by light, and somewhere +in the still harbor I can hear a fisherman laboriously sweeping his boat +away to the ocean. Away!--that is the word for us: I, in this boat +southward, and ever away, searching in grim fashion for an accounting with +Fate; you, in your intrepid loveliness, to other lives. And if I return +some weeks hence, when I have satisfied the importunate business claims, +what then? Shall we slip the cables and drift quietly out "to the land +east of the sun and west of the moon"? + + + +NO. XIII. SANITY. + +(_Eastlake refuses Miss Armstrong's last invitation, continues, and +concludes_.) + +Last night was given to me for insight. You were brilliantly your best, +and set in the meshes of gold and precious stones that the gods willed for +you. There was not a false note, not an attribute wanting. Over your head +were mellow, clear, electric lights that showed forth coldly your +faultless suitability. From the exquisitely fit pearls about your neck to +the scents of the wine and the flowers, all was as it should be. I watched +your face warm with multifold impressions, your nostrils dilate with +sensuousness, appreciation, your pagan head above the perfect bosom; about +you the languid eyes of your well-fed neighbors. + +The dusky recesses of the rooms, heavy with opulent comfort, stretched +away from our long feast. There you could rest, effectually sheltered from +the harsh noises of the world. And I rejoiced. Each minute I saw more +clearly things as they are. I saw you giving the nicest dinners in +Chicago, and scurrying through Europe, buying a dozen pictures here and +there, building a great house, or perhaps, tired of Chicago, trying your +luck in New York; but always pressing on, seizing this exasperating life, +and tenaciously sucking out the rich enjoyments thereof! For the gold has +entered your heart. + +What splendid folly we played at Sorrento! If you had deceived yourself +with a sentiment, how long would you have maintained the illusion? When +would the morning have come for your restless eyes to stare out at the +world in longing and the unuttered sorrow of regret? Ah, I touch you but +with words! The cadence of a phrase warms your heart, and you fancy your +emotion is supreme, inevitable. Nevertheless, you are a practical goddess: +you can rise beyond the waves toward the glorious ether, but at night you +sink back. 'Tis alluring, but--eternal? + +Few of us can risk being romantic. The penalty is too dreadful. To be +successful, we must maintain the key of our loveliest enthusiasm without +stimulants. You need the stimulants. You imagined that you were tired, +that rest could come in a lover's arms. Better the furs that are soft +about your neck, for they never grow cold. Perchance the lover will come, +also, as a prince with his princedom. It will be comfortable to have your +cake and the frosting, too. If not, take the frosting; go glittering on +with your pulses full of the joys, until you are old and fagged and the +stupid world refuses to revolve. Remember my sure word that you were meant +for dinners, for power and pleasure and excitement. Trust no will-o'-the- +wisp that would lead you into the stony paths of romance. + +Some days in the years to come I shall enter at your feasts and watch you +in admiration and love. (For I shall always love you.) Then will stir in +your heart a mislaid feeling of some joy untasted. But you will smile +wisely, and marvel at my exact judgment. You will think of another world +where words and emotions alone are alive, where it is always high tide, +and you will be glad that you did not force the gates. For life is not +always lyric. Farewell. + + + +NO. XIV. THAT OTHER WORLD. + +(_Miss Armstrong writes with a calm heart_.) + +I have but a minute before I must go down to meet _him_. Then it will be +settled. I can hear his voice now and mother's. I must be quick. + +So you tested me and found me wanting in "inevitableness." I was too much +clay, it seems, and "pagan." What a strange word that is! You mean I love +to enjoy; and, perhaps you are right, that I need my little world. Who +knows? One cannot read the whole story--even you, dear master--until we +are dead. We can never tell whether I am only frivolous and sensuous, or +merely a woman who takes the best substitute at hand for life. I do not +protest, and I think I never shall. I, too, am very sure--_now_. You have +pointed out the path and I shall follow it to the end. + +But one must have other moments, not of regret, but of wonder. Did you +have too little faith? Am I so cheap and weak? Before you read this it +will all be over.... Now and then it seems I want only a dress for my +back, a bit of food, rest, and your smile. But you have judged otherwise, +and perhaps you are right. At any rate, I will think so. Only I know that +the hours will come when I shall wish that I might lie among those little +white gravestones above the beach. + +CHICAGO, November, 1893. + + + +A QUESTION OF ART + +I + +John Clayton had pretty nearly run the gamut of the fine arts. As a boy at +college he had taken a dilettante interest in music, and having shown some +power of sketching the summer girl he had determined to become an artist. +His numerous friends had hoped such great things for him that he had been +encouraged to spend the rest of his little patrimony in educating himself +abroad. It took him nearly two years to find out what being an artist +meant, and the next three in thinking what he wanted to do. In Paris and +Munich and Rome, the wealth of the possible had dazzled him and confused +his aims; he was so skilful and adaptable that in turn he had wooed almost +all the arts, and had accomplished enough trivial things to raise very +pretty expectations of his future powers. He had enjoyed an uncertain +glory among the crowd of American amateurs. When his purse had become +empty he returned to America to realize on his prospects. + +On his arrival he had elaborately equipped a studio in Boston, but as he +found the atmosphere "too provincial" he removed to New York. There he was +much courted at a certain class of afternoon teas. He was in full bloom of +the "might do," but he had his suspicions that a fatally limited term of +years would translate the tense into "might have done." He argued, +however, that he had not yet found the right _milieu_; he was fond of that +word--conveniently comprehensive of all things that might stimulate his +will. He doubted if America ever could furnish him a suitable _milieu_ for +the expression of his artistic instincts. But in the meantime necessity +for effort was becoming more urgent; he could not live at afternoon teas. + +Clayton was related widely to interesting and even influential people. One +woman, a distant cousin, had taken upon herself his affairs. + +"I will give you another chance," she said, in a business-like tone, after +he had been languidly detailing his condition to her and indicating +politely that he was coming to extremities. "Visit me this summer at Bar +Harbor. You shall have the little lodge at the Point for a studio, and you +can take your meals at the hotel near by. In that way you will be +independent. Now, there are three ways, any one of which will lead you out +of your difficulties, and if you don't find one that suits you before +October, I shall leave you to your fate." + +The young man appeared interested. + +"You can model something--that's your line, isn't it?" + +Clayton nodded meekly. He had resolved to become a sculptor during his +last six months in Italy. + +"And so put you on your feet, professionally." Clayton sighed. "Or you can +find some rich patron or patroness who will send you over for a couple of +years more until your _chef d' oeuvre_ makes its appearance." Her pupil +turned red, and began to murmur, but she kept on unperturbed. "Or, best of +all, you can marry a girl with some money and then do what you like." At +this Clayton rose abruptly. + +"I haven't come to that," he growled. + +"Don't be silly," she pursued. "You are really charming; good character; +exquisite manners; pleasant habits; success with women. You needn't feel +flattered, for this is your stock in trade. You are decidedly interesting, +and lots of those girls who are brought there every year to get them in +would be glad to make such an exchange. You know everybody, and you could +give any girl a good standing in Boston or New York. Besides, there is +your genius, which may develop. That will be thrown in to boot; it may +bear interest." + +Clayton, who had begun by feeling how disagreeable his situation was when +it exposed him to this kind of hauling over, ended by bursting into a +cordial laugh at the frank materialism with which his cousin presented his +case. "Well," he exclaimed, "it's no go to talk to you about the claims +and ideals of art, Cousin Della, but I will accept your offer, if only for +the sake of modelling a bust of 'The Energetic Matron (American).'" + +"Of course, I don't make much of ideals in art and all that," replied his +cousin, "but I will put this through for you, as Harry says. You must +promise me only one thing: no flirting with Harriet and Mary. Henry has +been foolish and lost money, as you know, and I cannot have another beggar +on my hands!" + + + +II + +By the end of July Clayton had found out two things definitely; he was +standing in his little workshop, pulling at his mustache and looking +sometimes at a half-completed sketch, and sometimes at the blue stretch of +water below the cliff. The conclusions were that he certainly should not +become interested in Harriet and Mary, and, secondly, that Mount Desert +made him paint rather than model. + +"It's no place," he muttered, "except for color and for a poet. A man +would have to shut himself up in a cellar to escape those glorious hills +and the bay, if he wanted to work at that putty." He cast a contemptuous +glance at a rough bust of his Cousin Della, the only thing he had +attempted. As a solution of his hopeless problem he picked up a pipe and +was hunting for some tobacco, preparatory to a stroll up Newport, when +someone sounded timidly at the show knocker of the front door. + +"Is that you, Miss Marston?" Clayton remarked, in a disappointed tone, as +a middle-aged woman entered. + +"The servants were all away," she replied, "and Della thought you might +like some lunch to recuperate you from your labors." This was said a +little maliciously, as she looked about and found nothing noteworthy going +on. + +"I was just thinking of knocking off for this morning and taking a walk. +Won't you come? It's such glorious weather and no fog," he added, +parenthetically, as if in justification of his idleness. + +"Why do you happen to ask me?" Miss Marston exclaimed, impetuously. "You +have hitherto never paid any more attention to my existence than if I had +been Jane, the woman who usually brings your lunch." She gasped at her own +boldness. This was not coquettishness, and was evidently unusual. + +"Why! I really wish you would come," said the young man, helplessly. "Then +I'll have a chance to know you better." + +"Well! I will." She seemed to have taken a desperate step. Miss Jane +Marston, Della's sister-in-law, had always been the superfluous member of +her family. Such unenviable tasks as amusing or teaching the younger +children, sewing, or making up whist sets, had, as is usual with the odd +members in a family, fallen to her share. All this Miss Marston hated in a +slow, rebellious manner. From always having just too little money to live +independently, she had been forced to accept invitations for long visits +in uninteresting places. As a girl and a young woman, she had shown a +delicate, retiring beauty that might have been made much of, and in spite +of gray hair, thirty-five years, and a somewhat drawn look, arising from +her discontent, one might discover sufficient traces of this fading beauty +to idealize her. All this summer she had watched the wayward young artist +with a keen interest in the fresh life he brought among her flat +surroundings. His buoyancy cheered her habitual depression; his eagerness +and love of life made her blood flow more quickly, out of sympathy; and +his intellectual alertness bewildered and fascinated her. She was still +shy at thirty-five, and really very timid and apologetic for her +commonplaceness; but at times the rebellious bitterness at the bottom of +her heart would leap forth in a brusque or bold speech. She was still +capable of affording surprise. + +"Won't I spoil the inspiration?" she ventured, after a long silence. + +"Bother the inspiration!" groaned Clayton. "I wish I were a blacksmith, or +a sailor, or something honest. I feel like a hypocrite. I have started out +at a pace that I can't keep up!" + +Miss Marston felt complimented by this apparent confidence. If she had had +experience in that kind of nature, she would have understood how +indifferent Clayton was to her personally. He would have made the same +confession to the birds, if they had happened to produce the same +irritation in his mind. + +"They all say your work is so brilliant," she said, soothingly. + +"Thunder!" he commented. "I wish they would not say anything kind and +pleasant and cheap. At college they praised my verses, and the theatres +stole my music for the Pudding play, and the girls giggled over my +sketches. And now, at twenty-six, I don't know whether I want to fiddle, +or to write an epic, or to model, or to paint. I am a victim of every +artistic impulse." + +"I know what you should do," she said, wisely, when they had reached a +shady spot and were cooling themselves. + +"Smoke?" queried Clayton, quizzically. + +"You ought to marry!" + +"That's every woman's great solution, great panacea," he replied, +contemptuously. + +"It would steady you and make you work." + +"No," he replied, thoughtfully, "not unless she were poor, and in that +case it would be from the frying-pan into the fire!" + +"You should work," she went on, more courageously. "And a wife would give +you inspiration and sympathy." + +"I have had too much of the last already," he sighed. "And it's better not +to have it all of one sort. After awhile a woman doesn't produce pleasant +or profitable reactions in my soul. Yes, I know," he added, as he noticed +her look of wonderment, "I am selfish and supremely egotistical. Every +artist is; his only lookout, however, should be that his surroundings +don't become stale. Or, if you prefer to put it more humanely, an artist +isn't fit to marry; it's criminal for him to marry and break a woman's +heart." + +After this heroic confession he paused to smoke. "Besides, no woman whom I +ever knew really understands art and the ends which the artist is after. +She has the temperament, a superficial appreciation and interest, but she +hasn't the stimulus of insight. She's got the nerves, but not the head." + +"But you just said that you had had too much sympathy and molly-coddling." + +"Did I? Well, I was wrong. I need a lot, and I don't care how idiotic. It +makes me courageous to have even a child approve. I suppose that shows how +closely we human animals are linked together. We have got to have the +consent of the world, or at any rate a small part of it, to believe +ourselves sane. So I need the chorus of patrons, admiring friends, kind +women, etc., while I play the Protagonist, to tell me that I am all right, +to go ahead. Do you suppose any one woman would be enough? What a great +posture for an arm!" His sudden exclamation was called out by the attitude +that Miss Marston had unconsciously assumed in the eagerness of her +interest. She had thrown her hand over a ledge above them, and was leaning +lightly upon it. The loose muslin sleeve had fallen back, revealing a +pretty, delicately rounded arm, not to be suspected from her slight +figure. Clayton quickly squirmed a little nearer, and touching the arm +with an artist's instinct, brought out still more the fresh white flesh +and the delicate veining. + +"Don't move. That would be superb in marble!" Miss Marston blushed +painfully. + +"How strange you are," she murmured, as she rose. "You just said that you +had given up modelling, or I would let you model my arm in order to give +you something to do. You should try to stick to something." + +"Don't be trite," laughed Clayton, "and don't make me consistent. You will +keep yourself breathless if you try that!" + +"I know what you need," she said, persistently unmindful of his +admonition. "You need the spur. It doesn't make so much difference _what_ +you do--you're clever enough." + +"'Truth from the mouths of babes----'" + +"I am not a babe." She replied to his mocking, literally. "Even if I am +stupid and commonplace, I may have intuitions like other women." + +"Which lead you to think that it's all chance whether Raphael paints or +plays on the piano. Well, I don't know that you are so absurd. That's my +theory: an artist is a fund of concentrated, undistributed energy that has +any number of possible outlets, but selects one. Most of us are artists, +but we take so many outlets that the hogshead becomes empty by leaking. +Which shall it be? Shall we toss up a penny?" + +"Painting," said Miss Marston, decisively. "You must stick to that." + +"How did you arrive at that conclusion--have you observed my work?" + +"No! I'll let you know some time, but now you must go to work. Come!" She +rose, as if to go down to the lodge that instant. Clayton, without feeling +the absurdity of the comedy, rose docilely and followed her down the path +for some distance. He seemed completely dominated by the sudden enthusiasm +and will that chance had flung him. + +"There's no such blessed hurry," he remarked at last, when the first +excitement had evanesced. "The light will be too bad for work by the time +we reach Bar Harbor. Let's rest here in this dark nook, and talk it all +over." + +Clayton was always abnormally eager to talk over anything. Much of his +artistic energy had trickled away in elusive snatches of talk. "Come," he +exclaimed, enthusiastically, "I have it. I will begin a great work--a +modern Magdalen or something of that sort. We can use you in just that +posture, kneeling before a rock with outstretched hands, and head turned +away. We will make everything of the hands and arms!" + +Miss Marston blushed her slow, unaccustomed blush. At first sight it +pleased her to think that she had become so much a part of this +interesting young man's plans, but in a moment she laughed calmly at the +frank desire he expressed to leave out her face, and the characteristic +indifference he had shown in suggesting negligently such a subject. + +"All right. I am willing to be of any service. But you will have to make +use of the early hours. I teach the children at nine." + +"Splendid!" he replied, as the vista of a new era of righteousness dawned +upon him. "We shall have the fresh morning light, and the cool and the +beauty of the day. And I shall have plenty of time to loaf, too." + +"No, you mustn't loaf. You will find me a hard task-mistress!" + + + +III + +True to her word, Miss Marston rapped at the door of the studio promptly +at six the next morning. She smiled fearfully, and finding no response, +tried stones at the windows above. She kept saying to herself, to keep up +her courage: "He won't think about me, and I am too old to care, anyway." +Soon a head appeared, and Clayton called out, in a sleepy voice: + +"I dreamt it was all a joke; but wait a bit, and we will talk it over." + +Miss Marston entered the untidy studio, where the _debris_ of a month's +fruitless efforts strewed the floor. Bits of clay and carving-tools, +canvases hurled face downward in disgust and covered with paint-rags, lay +scattered about. She tip-toed around, carefully raising her skirt, and +examined everything. Finally, discovering an alcohol-lamp and a coffee- +pot, she prepared some coffee, and when Clayton appeared--a somewhat +dishevelled god--he found her hunting for biscuit. + +"You can't make an artist of me at six in the morning," he growled. + +In sudden inspiration, Miss Marston threw open the upper half of the door +and admitted a straight pathway of warm sun that led across the water just +rippling at their feet. The hills behind the steep shore were dark with a +mysterious green and fresh with a heavy dew, and from the nooks in the +woods around them thrush was answering thrush. Miss Marston gave a sigh of +content. The warm, strong sunlight strengthened her and filled her wan +cheeks, as the sudden interest in the artist's life seemed to have +awakened once more the vigor of her feelings. She clasped her thin hands +and accepted both blessings. Clayton also revived. At first he leant +listlessly against the door-post, but as minute by minute he drank in the +air and the beauty and the hope, his weary frame dilated with incoming +sensations. "God, what beauty!" he murmured, and he accepted +unquestioningly the interference in his life brought by this woman just as +he accepted the gift of sunshine and desire. + +"Come to work," said Miss Marston, at last. + +"That's no go," he replied, "that subject we selected." + +"I dare say you won't do much with it, but it will do as well as any other +for experiment and practice." + +"I see that you want those arms preserved." + +The little woman shrank into her shell for a moment: her lazy artist could +scatter insults as negligently as epigrams. Then she blazed out. + +"Mr. Clayton, I didn't come here to be insulted." + +Clayton, utterly surprised, opened his sleepy eyes in real alarm. + +"Bless you, my dear Miss Marston, I can't insult anybody. I never mean +anything." + +"Perhaps that's the trouble," replied Miss Marston, somewhat mollified. +But the sitting was hardly a success. Clayton wasted almost all his time +in improvising an easel and in preparing his brushes. Miss Marston had to +leave him just as he was ready to throw himself into his work. He was +discontented, and, instead of improving the good light and the long day, +he took a pipe and went away into the hills. The next morning he felt +curiously ashamed when Miss Marston, after examining the rough sketch on +the easel, said: + +"Is that all?" + +And this day he painted, but in a fit of gloomy disgust destroyed +everything. So it went on for a few weeks. Miss Marston was more regular +than an alarm-clock; sometimes she brought some work, but oftener she sat +vacantly watching the young man at work. Her only standard of +accomplishment was quantity. One day, when Clayton had industriously +employed a rainy afternoon in putting in the drapery for the figure, she +was so much pleased by the quantity of the work accomplished that she +praised him gleefully. Clayton, who was, as usual, in an ugly mood, cast +an utterly contemptuous look at her and then turned to his easel. + +"You mustn't look at me like that," the woman said, almost frightened. + +"Then don't jabber about my pictures." + +Her lips quivered, but she was silent. She began to realize her position +of galley-slave, and welcomed with a dull joy the contempt and insults to +come. + +One morning Clayton was not to be found. He did not appear during that +week, and at last Miss Marston determined to find him. She made an excuse +for a journey to Boston, and divining where Clayton could be found, she +sent him word at a certain favorite club that she wanted to see him. He +called at her modest hotel, dejected, listless, and somewhat shamefaced; +he found Miss Marston calm and commonplace as usual. But it was the calm +of a desperate resolve, won after painful hours, that he little +recognized. Her instinct to attach herself to this strange, unaccountable +creature, to make him effective to himself, had triumphed over her +prejudices. She humbled herself joyfully, recognizing a mission. + +"Della said that I might presume on your escort home," she remarked dryly, +trembling for fear that she had exposed herself to some contemptuous +retort. One great attraction, however, in Clayton was that he never +expected the conventional. It did not occur to him as particularly absurd +that this woman, ten years his senior, should hunt him up in this fashion. +He took such eccentricities as a matter of course, and whatever the +circumstances or the conversation, found it all natural and reasonable. +Women did not fear him, but talked indiscreetly to him about all things. + +"What's the use of keeping up this ridiculous farce about my work?" he +said, sadly. Then he sought for a conventional phrase. "Your unexpected +interest and enthusiasm in my poor attempts have been most kind, my dear +Miss Marston. But you must allow me to go to the dogs in my own fashion; +that's the inalienable right of every emancipated soul in these days." The +politeness and mockery of this little epigram stung the woman. + +"Don't be brutal, as well as good for nothing," she said, bitterly. +"You're as low as if you took to drink or any other vice, and you know it. +I can't appreciate your fine ideas, perhaps, but I know you ought to do +something more than talk. You're terribly ambitious, but you're too weak +to do anything but talk. I don't care what you think about my +interference. I can make you work, and I will make you do something. +You know you need the whip, and if none of your pleasant friends will give +it to you, I can. Come!" she added, pleadingly. + +"Jove!" exclaimed the young man, slowly, "I believe you're an awful trump. +I will go back." + +On their return they scarcely spoke. Miss Marston divined that her +companion felt ashamed and awkward, and that his momentary enthusiasm had +evaporated under the influence of a long railroad ride. While they were +waiting for the steamer at the Mount Desert ferry, she said, as +negligently as she could, "I have telegraphed for a carriage, but you had +better walk up by yourself." + +He nodded assent. "So you will supply the will for the machine, if I will +grind out the ideas. But it will never succeed," he added, gloomily. "Of +course I am greatly obliged and all that, and I will stick to it until +October for the sake of your interest." In answer she smiled with an air +of proprietorship. + +One effect of this spree upon Clayton was that he took to landscape during +the hours that he had formerly loafed. He found some quiet bits of dell +with water, and planted his easel regularly every day. Sometimes he sat +dreaming or reading, but he felt an unaccustomed responsibility if, when +his mentor appeared with the children late in the afternoon, he hadn't +something to show for his day. She never attempted to criticise except as +to the amount performed, and she soon learned enough not to measure this +by the area of canvas. Although Clayton had abandoned the Magdalen in +utter disgust, Miss Marston persisted in the early morning sittings. She +made herself useful in preparing his coffee and in getting his canvas +ready. They rarely talked. Sometimes Clayton, in a spirit of deviltry, +would tease his mentor about their peculiar relationship, about herself, +or, worse than all, would run himself and say very true things about his +own imperfections. Then, on detecting the tears that would rise in the +tired, faded eyes of the woman he tortured, he would throw himself into +his work. + +So the summer wore away and the brilliant September came. The unsanctified +crowds flitted to the mountains or the town, and the island and sea +resumed the air of free-hearted peace which was theirs by right. Clayton +worked still more out of doors on marines, attempting to grasp the +perplexing brilliancy that flooded everything. + +"It's no use," he said, sadly, as he packed up his kit one evening in the +last of September. "I really don't know the first thing about color. I +couldn't exhibit a single thing I have done this entire summer." + +"What's the real matter?" asked Miss Marston, with a desperate calm. + +"Why, I have fooled about so much that I have lost a lot I learnt over +there in Paris." + +"Why don't you get--get a teacher?" + +Clayton laughed ironically. "I am pretty old to start in, especially as I +have just fifty dollars to my name, and a whole winter before me." + +They returned silently. The next morning Miss Marston appeared at the +usual hour and made the coffee. After Clayton had finished his meagre +meal, she sat down shyly and looked at him. + +"You've never interested yourself much in my plans, but I am going to tell +you some of them. I'm sick of living about like a neglected cat, and I am +going to New York to--to keep boarders." Her face grew very red. "They +will make a fuss, but I am ready to break with them all." + +"So you, too, find dependence a burden?" commented Clayton, indifferently. + +"You haven't taken much pains to know me," she replied. "And if I were a +man," she went on, with great scorn, "I would die before I would be +dependent!" + +"Talking about insults--but an artist isn't a man," remarked Clayton, +philosophically smoking his pipe. + +"I hate you when you're like that," Miss Marston remarked, with intense +bitterness. + +"Then you must hate me pretty often! But continue with your plans. Don't +let our little differences in temperament disturb us." + +"Well," she continued, "I have written to some friends who spend the +winters in New York, and out of them I think I shall find enough +boarders--enough to keep me from starving. And the house has a large upper +story with a north light." She stopped and peeped at him furtively. + +"Oh," said Clayton, coolly, "and you're thinking that I would make a good +tenant." + +"Exactly," assented Miss Marston, uncomfortably. + +"And who will put up the tin: for you don't suppose that I am low enough +to live off you?" + +"No," replied the woman, quietly. "I shouldn't allow that, though I was +not quite sure you would be unwilling. But you can borrow two or three +hundred dollars from your brother, and by the time that's gone you ought +to be earning something. You could join a class; the house isn't far from +those studios." + +Clayton impulsively seized her arms and looked into her face. She was +startled and almost frightened. + +"I believe," he began, but the words faded away. + +"No, don't say it. You believe that I am in love with you, and do this to +keep you near me. Don't be quite such a brute, for you _are_ a brute, a +grasping, egotistical, intolerant brute." She smiled slightly. "But don't +think that I am such a fool as not to know how impossible _that_ is." + +Clayton still held her in astonishment. "I think I was going to say that I +was in love with you." + +"Oh, no," she laughed, sadly. "I am coffee and milk and bread and butter, +the 'stuff that dreams are made on.' You want some noble young woman--a +goddess, to make you over, to make you human. I only save you from the +poor-house." + + + +IV + +There followed a bitter two years for this strange couple. Clayton +borrowed a thousand dollars--a more convenient number to remember, he +said, than three hundred dollars--and induced a prominent artist "who +happens to know something," to take him into his crowded classes for a +year. He began with true grit to learn again what he had forgotten and +some things that he had never known. At the end of the year he felt that +he could go alone, and the artist agreed, adding, nonchalantly: "You may +get there; God knows; but you need loads of work." + +Domestically, the life was monotonous. Clayton had abandoned his old +habits, finding it difficult to harmonize his present existence with his +clubs and his fashionable friends. Besides, he hoarded every cent and, +with Miss Marston's aid, wrung the utmost of existence out of the few +dollars he had left. Miss Marston's modest house was patronized by elderly +single ladies. It was situated on one of those uninteresting East Side +streets where you can walk a mile without remembering an individual stone. +The table, in food and conversation, was monotonous. In fact, Clayton +could not dream of a more inferior _milieu_ for the birth of the great +artist. + +Miss Marston had fitted herself to suit his needs, and in submitting to +this difficult position felt that she was repaying a loan of a new life. +He was so curious, so free, so unusual, so fond of ideas, so entertaining, +even in his grim moods, that he made her stupid life over. She could enjoy +vicariously by feeling his intense interest in all living things. In +return, she learnt the exact time to bring him an attractive lunch, and +just where to place it so that it would catch his eye without calling out +a scowl of impatience. She made herself at home in his premises, so that +all friction was removed from the young artist's life. He made no +acknowledgment of her devotion, but he worked grimly, doggedly, with a +steadiness that he had never before known. Once, early in the first +winter, having to return to Boston on some slight business, he permitted +himself to be entrapped by old friends and lazed away a fortnight. On his +return Miss Marston noticed with a pang that this outing had done him +good; that he seemed to have more spirit, more vivaciousness, more ideas, +and more zest for his work. So, in a methodical fashion, she thought out +harmless dissipations for him. She induced him to take her to the opera, +even allowing him to think that it was done from pure charity to her. +Sunday walks in the picturesque nooks of New York--they both shunned the +Fifth Avenue promenade for different reasons--church music, interesting +novels, all the "fuel," as Clayton remarked, that she could find she piled +into his furnace. She made herself acquainted with the peculiar literature +that seemed to stimulate his imagination, and sometimes she read him +asleep in the evenings to save his overworked eyes. Her devotion he took +serenely, as a rule. During the second winter, however, after a slight +illness brought on by over-application, he seemed to have a thought upon +his mind that troubled him. One day he impatiently threw down his palette +and put his hands upon her shoulders. + +"Little woman, why do you persist in using up your life on me?" + +"I am gambling," she replied, evasively. + +"What do you expect to get if you win?" + +"A few contemptuous thanks; perhaps free tickets when you exhibit, or a +line in your biography. But seriously, Jack, don't you know women well +enough to understand how they enjoy drudging for someone who is powerful?" + +"But even if I have any ability, which you can't tell, how do you enjoy +it? You can't appreciate a picture." + +She smiled. "Don't bother yourself about me. I get my fun, as you say, +because you make me feel things I shouldn't otherwise. I suppose that's +the only pay you artists ever give those who slave for you?" + +Such talks were rare. They experienced that physical and mental unity in +duality which comes to people who live and think and work together for a +common aim. They had not separated a day since that first visit to Boston. +The summer had been spent at a cheap boarding-house on Cape Ann, in order +that Clayton might sketch in company with the artist who had been teaching +him. Neither thought of conventionality; it was too late for that. + +As the second year came to an end, the pressure of poverty began to be +felt. Clayton refused to make any efforts to sell his pictures. He eked +out his capital and went on. The end of his thousand came; he took to +feeding himself in his rooms. He sold his clothes, his watch, his books, +and at last the truck he had accumulated abroad. "More fuel for the fire," +he said bitterly. + +"I will lend you something," remarked Miss Marston. + +"No, thanks," he said, shortly, and then added, with characteristic +brutality, "my body is worth a hundred. Stevens will give that for it, +which would cover the room-rent. And my brother will have to whistle for +his cash or take it out in paint and canvas." + +She said nothing, for she had a scheme in reserve. She was content +meantime to see him pinched; it brought out the firmer qualities in the +man. Her own resources, moreover, were small, for the character of her +boarders had fallen. Unpleasant rumors had deprived her of the +unexceptionable set of middle-aged ladies with whom she had started, but +she had pursued her course unaltered. The reproach of her relatives, who +considered her disgraced, had been a sweet solace to her pride. + +The rough struggle had told on them both. He had forgotten his delicate +habits, his nicety of dress. A cheap suit once in six months was all that +he could afford. His mind had become stolidly fixed, so that he did not +notice the gradual change. It was a grim fight! The elements were +relentless; day by day the pounding was harder, and the end of his +resistance seemed nearer. Although he was deeply discontented with his +work, he did not dare to think of ultimate failure, for it unnerved him +for several days. Miss Marston's quiet assumption, however, that it was +only a question of months, irritated him. + +"God must have put the idea into your head that I am a genius," he would +mutter fiercely at her. "I never did, nor work of mine. You don't know +good from bad, anyway, and we may both be crazy." He buried his face in +his hands, overcome by the awfulness of failure. She put her arms about +his head. + +"Well, we can stand it a little longer, and then----" + +"And then?" he asked, grimly. + +"Then," she looked at him significantly. They both understood. "Lieber +Gott," he murmured, "thou hast a soul." And he kissed her gently, as in +momentary love. She did not resist, but both were indifferent to passion, +so much their end absorbed them. + +At last she insisted upon trying to sell some marines at the art stores. +She brought him back twenty-five dollars, and he did not suspect that she +was the patron. He looked at the money wistfully. + +"I thought we should have a spree on the first money I earned. But it's +all fuel now." + +Her eyes filled with tears at this sign of humanity. "Next time, perhaps." + +"So you think that's the beginning of a fortune. I have failed--failed if +you get ten thousand dollars for every canvas in this shop. You will never +know why. Perhaps I don't myself." And then he went to work. Some weeks +later he came to her again. This time she tried to enlist the sympathy of +the one successful artist Clayton knew, and through his influence she +succeeded in selling a number of pictures and placed others upon sale. She +was so happy, so sure that the prophetic instinct in her soul was +justified, that she told Clayton of her previous fraud. He listened +carefully; his face twitched, as if his mind were adjusting itself to new +ideas. First he took twenty-five dollars from the money she had just +brought him and handed it to her. Then putting his arms about her, he +looked inquisitively down into her face, only a bit more tenderly than he +squinted at his canvases. + +"Jane!" She allowed him to kiss her once or twice, and then she pushed him +away, making a pathetic bow. + +"Thanks for your sense of gratitude. You're becoming more civilized. Only +I wish it had been something more than money you had been thankful for. Is +money the only sacrifice you understand?" + +"You can take your dues in taunts if you like. I never pretended to be +anything but a huge, and possibly productive polypus. I am honest enough, +anyway, not to fool with lovers' wash. You ought to know how I feel toward +you--you're the best woman I ever knew." + +"Kindest to you, you mean? No, Jack," she continued, tenderly; "you can +have me, body and soul. I am yours fast enough now, what there is left of +me. I have given you my reputation, and that sort of thing long ago--no, +you needn't protest. I know you despise people who talk like that, and I +don't reproach you. But don't deceive yourself. You feel a little moved +just now. If I had any charms, like a pretty model, you might acquire some +kind of attachment for me, but love--you never dreamed of it. And," she +continued, after a moment, "I begin to think, after watching you these two +years, never will. So I am safe in saying that I am yours to do with what +you will. I am fuel. Only, oh, Jack, if you break my heart, your last fuel +will be gone. You can't do without me!" + +It seemed very absurd to talk about breaking hearts--a tired, silent man; a +woman unlovely from sordid surroundings, from age, and from care. Clayton +pulled back the heavy curtain to admit the morning light, for they had +talked for hours before coming to the money question. The terrible, +passionate glare of a summer sun in the city burst in from the neighboring +housetops. + +"Why don't you curse _Him_?" muttered Clayton. + +"Why?" + +"Because He gave you a heart to love, and made you lonely, and then wasted +your love!" + +"Jack, the worst hasn't come. It's not all wasted." + + + +V + +Clayton gradually became conscious of a new feeling about his work. He was +master of his tools, for one thing, and he derived exquisite pleasure from +the exercise of execution. The surety of his touch, the knowledge of the +exact effect he was after, made his working hours an absorbing pleasure +rather than an exasperating penance. And through his secluded life, with +its singleness of purpose, its absence of the social ambitions of his +youth, and the complexity of life in the world, the restlessness and +agitation of his earlier devotion to his art disappeared. He was content +to forget the expression of himself--that youthful longing--in +contemplating and enjoying the created matter. In other words, the art of +creation was attended with less friction. He worked unconsciously, and he +did not, hen-like, call the attention of the entire barnyard to each new- +laid egg. He felt also that human, comfortable weariness after labor when +self sinks out of sight in the universal wants of mankind--food and sleep. +Perhaps the fact that he could now earn enough to relieve him from actual +want, that to some extent he had wrestled with the world and wrung from it +the conditions of subsistence, relieved the strain under which he had been +laboring. He sold his pictures rarely, however, and only when absolutely +compelled to get money. Miss Marston could not comprehend his feeling +about the inadequacy of his work, and he gave up attempting to make her +understand where he failed. + +The bond between them had become closer. This one woman filled many human +relationships for him--mother, sister, friend, lover, and wife in one. The +boarding-house had come to be an affair of transients and young clerks, so +that all her time that could be spared from the drudgery of housekeeping +was spent in the studio. Slowly he became amenable to her ever-present +devotion, and even, in his way, thoughtful for her. And she was almost +happy. + +The end came in this way. One day Clayton was discovered on the street by +an intimate college friend. They had run upon each other abruptly, and +Clayton, finding that escape was decently impossible, submitted without +much urging to be taken to one of his old clubs for a quiet luncheon. As a +result he did not return that night, but sent a note to Miss Marston +saying that he had gone to Lenox with a college chum. That note chilled +her heart. She felt that this was the beginning of the end, and the +following week she spent in loneliness in the little studio, sleeping upon +the neglected lounge. And yet she divined that the movement and stimulus +of this vacation was what Clayton needed most. She feared he was becoming +stale, and she knew that in a week, or a fortnight, or perhaps a month, he +would return and plunge again into his work. + +He came back. He hardly spoke to her; he seemed absorbed in the conception +of a new work. And when she brought him his usual luncheon she found the +door locked, the first time in many months. She sat down on the stairs and +waited--how long she did not know--waited, staring down the dreary hall +and at the faded carpet and at herself, faded to suit the surroundings. At +length she knocked, and Clayton came, only to take her lunch and say +absently that he was much absorbed by a new picture and should not be +disturbed. Would she bring his meals? He seemed to refuse tacitly an +entrance to the studio. So a week passed, and then one day Clayton +disappeared again, saying that he was going into the country for another +rest. He went out as he had come in, absorbed in some dream or plan of +great work. Pride kept her from entering his rooms during that week. + +One day, however, he came back as before and plunged again into his work. +This time she found the door ajar and entered noiselessly, as she had +learned to move. He was hard at work; she admired his swift movements that +seemed premeditated, the ease with which the picture before him was +rowing. Surely he had a man's power, now, to execute what his spirit +conceived! And the mechanical effort gave him evidently great pleasure. +His complete absorption indicated the most intense though unconscious +pleasure. + +The picture stunned her. She knew that she was totally ignorant of art, +but she knew that the picture before her was the greatest thing Clayton +had accomplished. It seemed to breathe power. And she saw without surprise +that the subject was a young woman. Clayton's form hid the face, but she +could see the outline of a woman beside a dory, on a beach, in the early +morning. So it had come. + +When she was very close to Clayton, he felt her presence, and they both +stood still, looking at the picture. It was almost finished--all was +planned. Miss Marston saw only the woman. She was youthful, just between +girlhood and womanhood--unconscious, strong, and active as the first; with +the troubled mystery of the second. The artist had divined an exquisite +moment in life, and into the immature figure, the face of perfect repose, +the supple limbs, he had thrown the tender mystery that met the morning +light. It was the new birth--that ancient, solemn, joyous beginning of +things in woman and in day. + +Clayton approached his picture as if lovingly to hide it. "Isn't it +immense?" he murmured. "It's come at last. I don't daub any more, but I +can see, I can paint! God, it's worth the hell I have been through--" + +He paused, for he felt that his companion had left him. + +"Jane," he said, curiously examining her face. "Jane, what's the matter?" + +"Don't you know?" she replied, looking steadily at him. He looked first at +her and then at the picture, and then back again. Suddenly the facts in +the case seemed to get hold of him. "Jane," he cried, impetuously, "it's +all yours--you gave me the power, and made me human, too--or a little more +so than I was. But I am killing you by living in this fashion. Why don't +you end it?" + +She smiled feebly at his earnestness. "There is only one end," she +whispered, and pointed to his picture. Clayton comprehended, and seizing a +paint-rag would have ruined it, but the woman caught his hand. + +"Don't let us be melodramatic. Would you ruin what we have been living for +all these years? Don't be silly--you would always regret it." + +"It's your life against a little fame." + +"No, against your life." They stood, nervelessly eying the picture. + +"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried, at last, "why did God make men like you? You +take it all, everything that life gives, sunshine and love and hope and +opportunity. Your roots seem to suck out what you want from the whole +earth, and you leave the soil exhausted. My time has gone; I know it, I +know it, and I knew it would go. Now some other life will be sacrificed. +For you'll break her heart whether she's alive now or you're dreaming of +someone to come. You'll treat her as you have everything. It isn't any +fault--you don't understand." The words ended with a moan. Clayton sat +doggedly looking at his picture. But his heart refused to be sad. + +LITTLE CRANBERRY, ME., + +August, 1893. + + + +MARE MARTO + +I + +The narrow slant of water that could be seen between the posts of the +felza was rippling with little steely waves. The line of the heavy beak +cut the opening between the tapering point of the Lido and the misty +outline of Tre Porti. Inside the white lighthouse tower a burnished man- +of-war lay at anchor, a sluggish mass like a marble wharf placed squarely +in the water. From the lee came a slight swell of a harbor-boat puffing +its devious course to the Lido landing. The sea-breeze had touched the +locust groves of San Niccolo da Lido, and caught up the fragrance of the +June blossoms, filling the air with the soft scent of a feminine city. + +When the scrap of the island Sant' Elena came enough into the angle to +detach itself from the green mass of the Giardino Pubblico, the prow swung +softly about, flapping the little waves, and pointed in shore where a +bridge crossed an inlet into the locust trees. + +"You can see the Italian Alps," Miss Barton remarked, pulling aside the +felza curtains and pointing lazily to the snow masses on the blue north +horizon. "That purplish other sea is the Trevisan plain, and back of it is +Castelfranco--Giorgione's Castelfranco--and higher up where the blue +begins to break into the first steps of the Alps is perched +Asolo--Browning's Asolo. Oh! It is so sweet! a little hill town! And +beyond are Bassano and Belluno, and somewhere in the mist before you get +to those snow-heads is Pieve da Cadore." Her voice dropped caressingly +over the last vowels. The mere, procession of names was a lyric sent +across sea to the main. + +"They came over them, then, the curious ones," the younger man of the two +who lounged on cushions underneath the felza remarked, as if to prolong +the theme. "To the gates of Paradise," he continued, while his companion +motioned to the gondolier. "And they broke them open, but they could never +take the swag after all." + +He laughed at her puzzled look. He seemed to mock her, and his face became +young in spite of the bald-looking temples and forehead, and the copperish +skin that indicated years of artificial heat. + +"They got some things," the older man put in, "and they have been living +off 'em ever since." + +"But they never got _it_," persisted his companion, argumentatively. +"Perhaps they were afraid." + +The gondola was gliding under the stone bridge, skilfully following the +line of the key-stones in the arch. It passed out into a black pool at the +feet of the Church of San Niccolo. The marble bishop propped up over the +pediment of the door lay silently above the pool. The grove of blossoming +locusts dropped white-laden branches over a decaying barca chained to the +shore. + +"What is _'it'_?" the girl asked, slowly turning her face from the +northern mountains. She seemed to carry a suggestion of abundance, of +opulence; of beauty made of emphasis. "You," the young man laughed back, +enigmatically. + +"They came again and again, and they longed for you, and would have +carried you away by force. But their greedy arms snatched only a few +jewels, a dress or two, and _you_ they left." + +The girl caught at a cluster of locust blossoms that floated near. + +"It is an allegory." + +"I'll leave Niel to untie his riddles." Their companion lit his pipe and +strode ashore. "I am off for an hour with the Adriatic. Don't bother about +me if you get tired of waiting." + +He disappeared in the direction of the Lido bathing stablimento. The two +gathered up cushions and rugs, and wandered into the grove. The shade was +dark and cool. Beyond were the empty acres of a great fort grown up in a +tangle of long grass like an abandoned pasture. Across the pool they could +see the mitred bishop sleeping aloft in the sun, and near him the lesser +folk in their graves beside the convent wall. + +"No, I am not all that," Miss Barton said, thoughtfully, her face bending, +as if some rich, half-open rose were pondering. + +"_He_ says that I am a fragment, a bit of detritus that has been washed +around the world--" + +"And finally lodged and crystallized in Italy." + +This mystified her again, as if she were compelled to use a medium of +expression that was unfamiliar. + +"Papa was consul-general, you know, first at Madrid, then in the East, and +lastly merely a consul at Milan." She fell back in relief upon a statement +of fact. + +"Yes, I know." + +"And mamma--she was from the South but he married her in Paris. They +called me the polyglot bebe at the convent." She confided this as lazily +interesting, like the clouds, or the locusts, or the faint chatter of the +Adriatic waves around the breakwater of the Lido. + +"Nevertheless you are Venice, you are Italy, you are Pagan"--the young man +iterated almost solemnly, as if a Puritan ancestry demanded this reproach. +Then he rolled his body half over and straightened himself to look at her +rigidly. "How did you come about? How could Council Bluffs make it?" His +voice showed amusement at its own intensity. She shook her head. + +"I don't know," she said, softly. + +"It doesn't seem real. They tell me so, just as they say that the marble +over there comes from that blue mountain. But why bother about it? I am +here----" + +They drifted on in personal chat until the sunlight came in parallel lines +between the leaves. + +"Where is Caspar?" he said at last, reluctantly. "It's too late to get +back to the Britannia for dinner." He jumped up as if conscious of a +fault. + +"Oh, we'll dine here. Caspar has found some one at the stablimento and has +gone off. Ask Bastian--there must be some place where we can get enough to +eat." + +Lawrence hesitated as if not quite sure of the outcome of such +unpremeditation. But Miss Barton questioned the gondolier. "The +Buon Pesche--that will be lovely; Bastian will paddle over and order the +supper. We can walk around." + +So Lawrence, as if yielding against his judgment, knelt down and picked up +her wrap. "Bastian will take care of the rest," she said, gleefully, +walking on ahead through the long grass of the abandoned fort. "Be a bit +of detritus, too, and enjoy the few half-hours," she added, coaxingly, +over her shoulder. + +When they were seated at the table under the laurel-trees before the Buon +Pesche, Lawrence threw himself into the situation, with all the robustness +of a moral resolve to do the delightful and sinful thing. Just why it +should be sinful to dine there out-doors in an evening light of luminous +gold, with the scent of locusts eddying about, and the mirage-like show of +Venice sleeping softly over beyond--was not quite clear. Perhaps because +his companion seemed so careless and unfamiliar with the monitions of +strenuous living; perhaps because her face was brilliant and naive--some +spontaneous thing of nature, unmarked by any lines of consciousness. + +Under a neighboring tree a couple were already eating, or quarrelling in +staccato phrases. Lawrence thought that the man was an artist. + +Miss Barton smiled at his seriousness, crossing her hands placidly on the +table and leaning forward. To her companion she gleamed, as if a wood- +thing, a hamadryad, had slipped out from the laurel-tree and come to dine +with him in the dusk. + +The woman of the inn brought a flask of thin yellow wine and placed it +between them. Lawrence mutely decanted it into the glasses. + +"Well?" she said, questioningly. + +Her companion turned his head away to the solemn, imperial mountains, that +were preparing with purple and gold for a night's oblivion. + +"You are thinking of Nassau Street, New York, of the rooms divided by +glass partitions, and typewriters and the bundles of documents--bah! +Chained!" She sipped scornfully a drop or two from the glass. + +The man flushed. + +"No, not that exactly. I am thinking of the police courts, of the squalor, +of taking a deposition in a cell with the filthy breathing all about. The +daily jostle." He threw his head back. + +"Don't try it again," she whispered. + +"I am only over for six weeks, you know, health--" + +"Yes? and there is a girl in Lowell,"--she read his mind impudently. + +"Was," he emended, with an uneasy blush. + +"Poor, starved one! Here is our fish and spaghetti. To-night is a night of +feast." + +The dusk grew grayer, more powderish; the mountains faded away, and the +long Lido banks disappeared into lines pointed by the lights of Torcello +and Murano. Sant' Elena became sea, and the evening wind from the +Adriatic started in toward the city. A few sailors who had come for a +glass were sitting under the arbor of the Buon Pesche smoking, with an +occasional stinging word dropped nonchalantly into the dusk. Their hostess +was working in the garden patch behind the house. At last the artist moved +off with his companion through the grove of laurel between the great well- +heads. Bastian loitered suggestively near. + +So they gathered their thoughts and followed the gondolier to the bank. +Miss Barton lingered by one of the well-heads to peer at the pitchy +bottom. + +"Here they came for fresh water, the last gift of Venice before they took +sail. And sometimes a man never went farther--it was a safe kind of a +grave." She laughed unconcernedly. + +"Perhaps you came out of the locusts and took a hand in pitching the +bodies in." + +The woman shivered. + +"No! no! I only brought them here." + +Bastian turned the prow into the current, heading to weather Sant' Elena. +Lawrence took an oar silently. He liked the rush on the forward stroke, +the lingering recovery. The evening puffs were cool. They slid on past a +ghostly full-rigged ship from the north, abandoned at the point of Sant' +Elena, until the black mass of trees in the Giardino Pubblico loomed up. A +little off the other quarter the lights from the island of San Lazzaro +gleamed and faded. It was so very silent on the waste of waters! + +"Come." + +Lawrence looked back at his companion; she was holding her hat idly, +huddled limply on the cushions. + +"Come," she said again, adding mockingly---- + +"If you are so ferocious, we shall get there too soon." + +Lawrence gave up his oar and lay down at her feet. Bastian's sweep dipped +daintily in and out; the good current was doing his work. They drifted +silently on near Venice. The halo of light above the squares grew +brighter. San Giorgio Maggiore appeared suddenly off the quarter. + +Miss Barton signed to the gondolier to wait. They were outside the city +wash; the notes of the band in San Marco came at intervals; the water +slipped noiselessly around the channels, and fire-fly lights from the +gondolas twinkled on the Grand Canal. San Giorgio was asleep. + +Miss Barton's head was leaning forward, her eyes brooding over the black +outlines, her ears sensuously absorbing the gurgle of the currents. A big +market boat from Palestrina winged past them, sliding over the oily water. +Several silent figures were standing in the stern. + +Lawrence looked up; her eyes seemed lit with little candles placed behind. +Her face gleamed, and one arm slipped from her wrap to the cushion by his +side. + +"Bella Venezia," he murmured. + +She smiled, enveloping him, mastering him, taking him as a child with her +ample powers. + +"You will never go back to 'that'!" + +Her arm by his side filled out the thought. + +"Never," he heard himself say as on a stage, and the dusky lights from +that radiant face seemed very near. + +"Because----" + +"Because I am----" + +"Sh," she laid her fingers lightly on his forehead. "There is no thine and +mine." + +Bastian dipped his sweep once more. San Giorgio's austere facade went out +into the black night. One cold ripple of Adriatic wind stirred the felza +curtains. + + + +II + +The garden on the Giudecca was a long narrow strip on the seaward side, +blossoming profusely with flowers. A low vine-covered villino slanted +along the canal; beyond, there was a cow-house where a boy was feeding +some glossy cows. The garden was full of the morning sun. + +Lawrence could see her from the open door, a white figure, loitering in a +bed of purple tulips. Her dark hair was loosely knotted up; stray wisps +fell about her ears. + +Lawrence closed the door that opened from the canal and walked softly +through the plats of lilies and tulips. Miss Barton glanced up. + +"Ecco! il cavaliere!" + +"Didn't you expect me!" he asked, clumsily, revealing one potent reason +for his appearance. + +She smiled for an answer. + +"Last night," he began again, explanatorily. Her eyes followed his lips +and interrupted him. + +"What do you think of our place?" She had turned away as if to direct his +speech into indifferent channels. + +He looked about bewildered. + +"I can't think anything; I _feel_ it; it's one mass of sense." + +"Exactly. We found it, papa and I, one day two years ago when we were +paddling around the Giudecca. One is so much at home here. At night you +can see the lights along the Lido, and all the campaniles over there in +Venice. Then the Redentore sweeps up so grandly--" + +Lawrence slapped a bending tulip. + +"Yes, the world lies far away." + +"And you are afraid to lose sight of it," she turned on him swiftly. And +she added, before he could find defence, "You have come to redeem your +words, to tell me that you love me desperately; that you want to make an +engagement; and some day marry me and go over there to live?" + +She laughed. + +"Well?" + +"Caspar would do that." + +"And Severance has something to offer," Lawrence remarked, bluntly. + +"Half a million." + +She began to walk slowly across the little grass-plot over to the Lido +side. Here the oily swell was gurgling in the stone embankment. + +She was like a plant flowering in the garden--a plant, part lily, part +hyacinth. + +"And you do not want me," she began, softly, less to him than to herself. +"I don't fit in. You cannot take me up and put me aside, at your will. You +would be _mine_." + +"Good!" + +"It should have been different. We should never have met. They should have +made you a saint, or a priest, or a pastor for the bleeding world. You are +a trifle late; half a century ago, you could have given your soul to God, +quite easily, and not bothered about one woman." + +"Yes, I agree, but that was settled by the way the world has ground," the +young man sighed. "Why should it bother you, my fooling with the forlorn +and wretched--the others? Any more than I mind your dealings with men?" + +They turned about and crossed the dozen paces to the Redentore wall where +lay a blade of dark shade. + +"You could flirt with the multitude? Yes, I should object," she looked at +him slowly, "I couldn't understand it." + +He threw his head back as if to look beyond Venice. + +"The maimed in body and spirit," he muttered. + +"They call you; I call you; you----" + +"I was starved," he pleaded, "I love flesh and glory, too." + +She laughed unconcernedly. + +"Oh, no. I think not. You are trying to very hard. You think you are +enjoying your wine and your figs and the sun; but you say a prayer." + +Her words taunted him. The vines on the villino swayed in the sun. + +"Come, we will go out to the water, and I will master your doubt." + +They stood silent, looking at each other, half curiously. At length she +uttered what was common to their minds. + +"Marry the world; it woos you. Love me and leave me; love another and +leave her. The world, that is your mistress." + +"And the world incarnate, that is you. The world, breathing, living, +loving, the world a passion of delight." + +Their hands touched for a moment. Then she said, hastily: + +"Too late! There is Caspar. I forgot we were to go to Burano. Will you +join us?" + +A figure in white ducks was coming toward them. His cordial smile seemed +to include a comment--a mental note of some hint he must give. "In stalks +the world of time and place," the young man muttered. "No, I will not go +with you." + +He helped her into the waiting gondola. She settled back upon the +cushions, stretched one languid arm in farewell. He could feel the smile +with which she swept Caspar Severance, the women at work in the rio over +their kettles, the sun-bright stretch of waters--all impartially. + +He lay down in the shade of the Redentore wall. Eight weeks ago there had +been a dizzy hour, a fainting scene in a crowded court-room, a +consultation with a doctor, the conventional prescription, a fortnight of +movement--then _this_. He had cursed that combination of nerve and tissue; +equally he cursed this. One word to his gondolier and in two hours he +could be on the train for Milan, Paris, London--then indefinite years of +turning about in the crowd, of jostling and being jostled. But he lay +still while the sun crept over him. + +She was so unreal, once apart from her presence, like an evanescent mirage +on the horizon of the mind. He told himself that he had seen her, heard +her voice; that her eyes had been close to his, that she had touched him; +that there had been moments when she stood with the flowers of the garden. + +He shook the drowsy sun from his limbs and went away, closing the door +softly on the empty garden. Venice, too, was a shadow made between water +and sun. The boat slipped in across the Zattere, in and out of cool water +alleys, under church windows and palings of furtive gardens, until he came +to the plashings of the waves on the marble steps along the Grand Canal. +Empty! that, too, was empty from side to side between cool palace facades, +the length of its expressive curve. From silence and emptiness into +silence the gondola pushed. Someone to incarnate this empty, vacuous +world! Memory troubled itself with a face, and eyes, and hair, and a voice +that mocked the little goings up and down of men. + + + +III + +In the afternoon Lawrence and Severance were dawdling over coffee in the +Piazza. A strident band sent up voluminous notes that boomed back and +forth between the palace and the stone arches of the procurate. + +"And Burano?" Lawrence suggested, idly. The older man nodded. + +"We lunched there--convent--Miss Barton bought lace." + +He broke the pause by adding, negligently: + +"I think I shall marry her." + +Lawrence smoked; he could see the blue water about San Giorgio. + +"Marry her," he repeated, vaguely. "You are engaged?" + +Severance nodded. + +The young man reached out a bony hand. One had but to wait to still the +problems of life. They strolled across the piazza. + +"When do you leave?" Severance inquired. + +"To-night," almost slipped from the young man's lips. He was murmuring to +himself. "I have played with Venice and lost. I must return to my busy +village." + +"I can't tell," he said. + +Severance daintily stepped into a gondola. "La Giudecca." + +Lawrence turned into the swarming alleys leading to the Rialto. + +Streams of Venetians were eddying about the cul-de-sacs and enclosed +squares, hurrying over the bridges of the canals, turning in and out of +the calles, or coming to rest at the church doors. Lawrence drifted +tranquilly on. He had slipped a cable; he was free and ready for the open +sea. Following at random any turning that offered, he came out suddenly +upon Verocchio's black horseman against the black sky. The San Zanipolo +square was deserted; the cavernous San Zanipolo tenanted by tombs. Stone +figures, seated, a-horse, lying carved in death, started out from the +silent walls. + +"Condottieri," the man muttered, "great robbers who saw and took! +Briseghella, Mocenigo, Leonardo Loredan, Vittore Capello." He rolled the +powerful names under his breath. "They are right--Take, enjoy; then die." +And he saw a hill sleeping sweetly in the mountains, where the sun rested +on its going down, and a villino with two old trees where the court seemed +ever silent. In the stealthy, passing hours she came and sat in the sun, +and _was_. And the two remembered, looking on the valley road, that +somewhere lay in the past a procession of storms and mornings and nights +which was called the world, and a procession of people which was called +life. But she looked at him and smiled. + +Outside in the square the transparent dusk of Venice settled down. In the +broad canal of the Misericordia a faint plash and drip from a passing +gondola; then, in a moment, as the boat rounded into the rio, a resounding +"Stai"; again silence and the robber in bronze. + + + +IV + +He waited for a sign from the Giudecca. He told himself that Theodosia +Barton was not done with him yet, nor he with her. + +The tourist-stream, turning northward from Rome and Florence, met in +Venice a new stream of Germans. The paved passage beside the hotel garden +was alive with a cosmopolitan picnic party. Lawrence lingered and watched; +perhaps when the current set strongly to the north again, it would carry +him along with it. + +He had not seen Caspar Severance. Each day of delay made it more awkward +to meet him, made the confession of disappointment more obvious, he +reflected. Each day it was easier to put out to the lagoons for a still +dream, and return when the Adriatic breeze was winding into the heated +calles. Over there, in the heavy-scented garden on the Giudecca, lined +against a purplish sea, she was resting; she had given free warning for +him to go, but she was there----. + +"She holds me here in the Mare Morto, where the sea-weeds wind about and +bind." + +And he believed that he should meet her somewhere in the dead lagoon, out +yonder around the city, in the enveloping gloom of the waters which held +the pearl of Venice. + +So each afternoon his gondola crept out from the Fondamenta del Zattere +into the ruffling waters of the Giudecca canal, and edged around the +deserted Campo di Marte. There the gondolier labored in the viscous sea- +grass. + +One day, from far behind, came the plash of an oar in the channel. As the +narrow hull swept past, he saw a hand gather in the felza curtains, and a +woman kneel to his side. + +"So Bastian takes you always to the dead sea," she tossed aboard. + +"Bastian might convoy other forestieri," Lawrence defended. + +"Really? here to the laguna morta?" and as his gondola slid into the +channel, she added: + +"I knew you were in Venice; you could not go without--another time." + +"What would that bring?" he questioned her with his eyes. + +"How should I know?" she answered, evasively. "Come with me out to the San +Giorgio in Alga. It is the loneliest place in Venice!" + +Lawrence sat at her feet. The gondola moved on between the sea-weed banks. +Away off by Chioggia, filmy gray clouds grew over the horizon. + +"Rain." + +She shook her head. "For the others, landward. Those opalescent clouds +streaking the sky are merely the undertone of Venice; they are always +_here_." + +"The note of sadness," he suggested. + +"You thought to have ended with _me_." + +She rested her head on her hands and looked at him. He preferred to have +her mention Caspar Severance. + +"Whenever I was beyond your eyes, you were not quite sure. You went back +to your hotel and wondered. The wine was over strong for your temperate +nerves, and there was so much to do elsewhere!" she mocked him. + +"After all, I was a fragment. And you judged in your wise new-world +fashion that fragments were--useless." + +Just ahead was a tiny patch of earth, rimmed close to the edge by ruined +walls. The current running landward drew them about the corner, under the +madonna's hand, and the gondola came to rest beside the lichens and +lizards of a crumbling wharf. + +"No," she continued, "I shall not let you go so easily." One hand fell +beside his arm, figuratively indicating her thought. + +"And I shall carry you off," he responded, slowly. "It lies between you-- +and all, everything." + +The gondolier had gone ashore. Silence had swallowed him up. + +"All, myself and the others; effort, variety--for the man who loves _you_, +there is but one act in life." + +"Splendid!" Her lips parted as if savoring his words. + +His voice went on, low, strained to plunge his words into her heart. + +"You are the woman, the curious thing that God made to stir life. You +would draw all activities to you, and through you nothing may pass. Like +the dead sea of grass you encompass the end of desire. You have been with +me from my manhood, the fata morgana that laughed at my love of other +creatures. I must meet you, I knew, face to face!" + +His lips closed. + +"Go on!" + +"I have met you," he added, sullenly, "and should I turn away, I should +not forget you. You will go with me, and I shall hunger for you and hate +you, and you will make it over, my life, to fill the hollow of your hand." + +"To fill the hollow of my hand," she repeated softly, as if not +understanding. + +"You will mould it and pat it and caress it, until it fits. You will never +reason about it, nor doubt, nor talk; the tide flows underneath into the +laguna morta, and never wholly flows out. God has painted in man's mind +the possible; and he has painted the delusions, the impossible--and that +is woman?" + +"Impossible," she murmured. "Oh, no, not that!" + +Her eyes compelled him; her hand dropped to his hand. Venice sank into a +gray blot in the lagoon. The water was waveless like a deep night. + +"Possible for a moment," he added, dreamily, "possible as the unsung +lyric. Possible as the light of worlds behind the sun and moon. Possible +as the mysteries of God that the angels whisper----" + +"The only possible," again her eyes flamed; the dark hair gleamed black +above the white face. + +"And that is enough for us forever!" + + + +V + +The heavy door of the Casa Lesca swung in, admitting Lawrence to a damp +stone-flagged room. At the farther end it opened on a little cortile, +where gnarled rose-bushes were in bloom. A broken Venus, presiding over a +dusty fountain, made the centre of the cortile, and there a strapping girl +from the campagna was busy trimming the stalks of a bunch of roses. The +signorina had not arrived; Lawrence lounged against the gunwale of a +gondola, which lay on one side of the court. + +A pretentious iron gate led from the cortile to the farm, where the +running vines stretched from olive-stump to trellis, weaving a mat of +undulating green. It was so quiet, here in the rear of the palace, that +one could almost hear the hum of the air swimming over the broad vine +leaves. + +Lawrence, at first alert, then drowsy, reclined in the shade, and watched +the girl. From time to time she threw him a soft word of Venetian. Then, +gathering her roses, she shook them in his face and tripped up the stairs +to the palace above. + +He had made the appointment without intention, but he came to fulfil it in +a tumult of energy. + +_She_ must choose and _he_ arrange--for that future which troubled his +mind. But the heated emptiness of the June afternoon soothed his will. He +saw that whatever she bade, that he would do. Still here, while he was +alone, before her presence came to rule, he plotted little things. When he +was left with himself he wondered about it; no, he did not want her, did +not want it! His life was over there, beyond her, and she must bend to +that conception. People, women, anyone, this piece of beauty and sense, +were merely episodic. The sum was made from all, and greater than all. + +The door groaned, and he turned to meet her, shivering in the damp +passage. She gathered a wrap about her shoulders. + +"Caspar would not go," she explained, appealingly. + +"Which one is to go?" the young man began. She sank down on a bench and +turned her head wearily to the vineyard. Over the swaying tendrils of the +vine, a dark line, a blue slab of salt water, made the horizon. + +"Should I know?" her face said, mutely. + +"He thinks you should," she spoke, calmly. "He has been talking two hours +about you, your future, your brilliant performances----" + +"That detained you!" + +"He is plotting to make you a great man. You belong to the world, he said, +and, the world would have you. They need you to plan and exhort, I +believe." + +"So you come to tell me--" + +"Let us go out to the garden." She laid her hand reprovingly on his arm. +"We can see the pictures later." + +She took his arm and directed him down the arched walk between the vines, +toward the purple sea. + +"I did not realize that--that you were a little Ulysses. He warned me!" + +"Indeed!" + +"That you would love and worship at any wayside shrine; that the spirit of +devotion was not in you." + +"And you believed?" + +She nodded. + +"It seemed so. I have thought so. Once a few feet away and you are +wondering!" + +The young man was guiltily silent. + +"And I am merely a wayside chapel, good for an idle prayer." + +"Make it perpetual." + +Her arm was heavy. + +"Caspar wants you--away. He will try to arrange it. Perhaps you will +yield, and I shall lose." + +"You mean he will make them recall me." + +She said nothing. + +"You can end it now." He stopped and raised her arm. They stood for a +moment, revolving the matter; a gardener came down the path. "You will get +the message tonight," she said, gloomily. "Go! The message will say +'come,' and you will obey." + +Lawrence turned. + +"Shall we see the pictures?" + +The peasant girl admitted them to the hall, and opened, here and there, a +long shutter. The vast hall, in the form of a Latin cross, revealed a +dusky line of frescoes. + +"Veronese," she murmured. Lawrence turned to the open window that looked +across the water to the piazza. Beneath, beside the quay, a green-painted +Greek ship was unloading grain. Some panting, half-naked men were +shovelling the oats. + +"We might go," he said; "Caspar is probably waiting for his report. You +can tell him that he has won." + +Suddenly he felt her very near him. + +"No, not that way!" + +"You are good to--love," she added deliberatively, placing her hands +lightly on his heart. + +"You do not care enough; ah! that is sad, sad. Caspar, or denial, or God-- +nothing would stand if you cared, more than you care for the little people +and things. See, I can take you now. I can say you are mine. I can make +you love--as another may again. But love me, now, as if no other minute +could ever follow." + +She sighed the words. + +"Here I am, to be loved. Let us settle nothing. Let us have this minute +for a few kisses." + +The hall filled with dusk. The girl came back again. Suddenly a bell began +ringing. + +"Caspar," she said. "Stay here; I will go." + +"We will go together." + +"No," she waved him back. "You will get the message. Caspar is right. You +are not for any woman for always." + +"Go," he flung out, angrily. + +The great doors of the hall had rattled to, leaving him alone half will- +less. He started and then returned to the balcony over the fondamenta. +In the half-light he could see her stepping into a waiting gondola, and +certain words came floating up clearly as if said to him---- + +"To-morrow evening, the Contessa Montelli, at nine." But she seemed to be +speaking to her companion. The gondola shot out into the broad canal. + + + +VI + +The long June day, Lawrence sat with the yellow cablegram before his eyes. +The message had come, indeed, and the way had been cleared. Eleven--the +train for Paris! passed; then, two, and now it was dusk again. + +Had she meant those words for him? So carelessly flung back. That he would +prove. + + * * * * * + +"The signorina awaits you." The man pointed to the garden, and turned back +with his smoking lamp up the broad staircase that clung to one side of the +court. Across the strip of garden lay a bar of moonlight on the grass. + +She was standing over the open well-head at the farther end where the +grass grew in rank tufts. The gloomy wall of the palace cast a shadow that +reached to the well. Just as he entered, a church-clock across the rio +struck the hour on a cracked bell. + +"My friend has gone in--she is afraid of the night air," Miss Barton +explained. "Perhaps she is afraid of ghosts," she added, as the young man +stood silent by her side. "An old doge killed his wife and her children +here, some centuries ago. They say the woman walks. Are you afraid?" + +"Of only one ghost----" + +"Not yet a ghost!" Indeed, her warm, breathing self threw a spirit of life +into the moonlight and gainsaid his idle words. + +"I have come for you," he said, a little peremptorily. "To do it I have +lost my engagement with life." + +"So the message came. You refused, and now you look for a reward. A man +must be paid!" + +"I tried to keep the other engagement and could not!" + +"I shall make you forget it, as if it were some silly boyish dream." She +began to walk over the moonlit grass. "I was waiting for that--sacrifice. +For if you desire _me_, you must leave the other engagements, always." + +"I know it." + +"I lie in the laguna morta, and the dead are under me, and the living are +caught in my sea-weed." She laughed. + +"Now, we have several long hours of moonlight. Shall we stay here?" + +The young man shivered. + +"No, the Lady Dogessa might disturb us. Let us go out toward Murano." + +"Are you really--alive and mine, not Severance's?" he threw out, +recklessly. + +She stopped and smiled. + +"First you tell me that I disturb your plans; then you want to know if I +am preoccupied. You would like to have me as an 'extra' in the +subscription." + +As they came out on the flags by the gondola, another boat was pushing a +black prow into the rio from the Misericordia canal. It came up to the +water-steps where the two stood. Caspar Severance stepped out. + +"Caspar!" Miss Barton laughed. + +"They told me you were here for dinner," he explained. He was in evening +clothes, a Roman cloak hanging from his shoulders. He looked, standing on +the steps below the other two, like an impertinent intrusion. + +"Lawrence! I thought you were on your way home." + +Lawrence shook his head. All three were silent, wondering who would dare +to open the final theme. + +"The Signora Contessa had a headache," Miss Barton began, nonchalantly. + +Severance glanced skeptically at the young American by her side. + +"So you fetched il dottore americano? Well, Giovanni is waiting to carry +us home." + +Miss Barton stepped forward slowly, as if to enter the last gondola whose +prow was nuzzling by the steps. + +Lawrence took her hand and motioned to his gondola. + +"Miss Barton----" + +Severance smiled, placidly. + +"You will miss the midnight train." + +The young man halted a moment, and Miss Barton's arm slipped into his +fingers. + +"Perhaps," he muttered. + +"The night will be cool for you," Severance turned to the woman. She +wavered a moment. + +"You will miss more than the midnight train," Severance added to the young +fellow, in a low voice. + +Lawrence knelt beside his gondola. He glanced up into the face of the +woman above him. "Will you come?" he murmured. She gathered up her dress +and stepped firmly into the boat. Severance, left alone on the fondamenta, +watched the two. Then he turned back to his gondola. The two boats floated +out silently into the Misericordia Canal. + +"To the Cimeterio," Miss Barton said. "To the Canale Grande," Severance +motioned. + +The two men raised their hats. + + * * * * * + +For a few moments the man and the woman sat without words, until the +gondola cleared the Fondamenta Nuova, and they were well out in the sea of +moonlight. Ahead of them lay the stucco walls of the Cimeterio, glowing +softly in the white light. Some dark spots were moving out from the city +mass to their right, heading for the silent island. + +"There goes the conclusion," Lawrence nodded to the funeral boats. + +"But between us and them lies a space of years--life." + +"Who decided?" + +"You looked. It was decided." + +The city detached itself insensibly from them, lying black behind. A light +wind came down from Treviso, touching the white waves. + +"You are thinking that back there, up the Grand Canal, lie fame and +accomplishment. You are thinking that now you have your fata +morgana--nothing else. You are already preparing a grave for her in your +mind!" + +Lawrence took her head in his hands. "Never," he shot out the word. +"Never--you are mine; I have come all these ocean miles to find you. I +have come for an accounting with the vision that troubles man." Her face +drew nearer. + +"I am Venice, you said. I am set in the mare morto. I am built on the sea- +weed. But from me you shall not go. You came over the mountains for this." + +The man sighed. Some ultimate conception of life seemed to outline itself +on the whitish walls of the Cimeterio--a question of sex. The man would go +questioning visions. The woman was held by one. + +"Caspar Severance will find his way, and will play your game for you," she +went on coaxingly. "But this," her eyes were near him, "_this_ is a moment +of life. You have chosen. There is no mine and thine." + +One by one the campaniles of Venice loomed, dark pillars in the white sky. +And all around toward Mestre and Treviso and Torcello; to San Pietro di +Castello and the grim walls of the arsenal, the mare morto heaved gently +and sighed. + +CHICAGO, January, 1897. + + + +THE PRICE OF ROMANCE + +They were paying the price of their romance, and the question was whether +they would pay it cheerfully. They had been married a couple of years, and +the first flush of excitement over their passion and the stumbling-blocks +it had met was fading away. When he, an untried young lawyer and delicate +dilettante, had married her she was a Miss Benton, of St. Louis, "niece of +Oliphant, that queer old fellow who made his money in the Tobacco Trust," +and hence with no end of prospects. Edwards had been a pleasant enough +fellow, and Oliphant had not objected to his loafing away a vacation about +the old house at Quogue. Marriage with his niece, the one remaining member +of his family who walked the path that pleased him, was another thing. She +had plenty of warning. Had he not sent his only son adrift as a beggar +because he had married a little country cousin? He could make nothing out +of Edwards except that he was not keen after business--loafed much, smoked +much, and fooled with music, possibly wrote songs at times. + +Yet Miss Benton had not expected that cruel indifference when she +announced her engagement to the keen old man. For she was fond of him and +grateful. + +"When do you think of marrying?" had been his single comment. She guessed +the unexpressed complement to that thought, "You can stay here until that +time. Then good-by." + +She found in herself an admirable spirit, and her love added devotion and +faith in the future, her lover's future. So she tided over the months of +her engagement, when her uncle's displeasure settled down like a fog over +the pleasant house. Edwards would run down frequently, but Oliphant +managed to keep out of his way. It was none of his affair, and he let them +see plainly this aspect of it. Her spirit rose. She could do as other +women did, get on without candy and roses, and it hurt her to feel that +she had expected money from her uncle. She could show him that they were +above that. + +So they were married and went to live in a little flat in Harlem, very +modest, to fit their income. Oliphant had bade her good-by with the +courtesy due to a tiresome Sunday visitor. "Oh, you're off, are you?" his +indifferent tones had said. "Well, good-by; I hope you will have a good +time." And that was all. Even the colored cook had said more; the servants +in general looked deplorable. Wealth goes so well with a pretty, bright +young woman! + +Thus it all rested in the way they would accept the bed they had made. +Success would be ample justification. Their friends watched to see how +well they would solve the problem they had so jauntily set themselves. + +Edwards was by no means a _faineant_--his record at the Columbia Law +School promised better than that, and he had found a place in a large +office that might answer for the stepping-stone. As yet he had not +individualized himself; he was simply charming, especially in correct +summer costume, luxuriating in indolent conversation. He had the well- +bred, fine-featured air of so many of the graduates from our Eastern +colleges. The suspicion of effeminacy which he suggested might be unjust, +but he certainly had not experienced what Oliphant would call "life." He +had enough interest in music to dissipate in it. Marriage was an excellent +settler, though, on a possible income of twelve hundred! + +The two years had not the expected aspiring march, however; ten-dollar +cases, even, had not been plenty in Edwards's path, and he suspected that +he was not highly valued in his office. He had been compelled to tutor a +boy the second year, and the hot summers made him listless. In short, he +felt that he had missed his particular round in the ladder. He should have +studied music, or tried for the newspapers as a musical critic. +Sunday afternoons he would loll over the piano, picturing the other life-- +that life which is always so alluring! His wife followed him heroically +into all his moods with that pitiful absorption such women give to the men +they love. She believed in him tremendously, if not as a lawyer, as a man +and an artist. Somehow she hadn't been an inspiration, and for that she +humbly blamed herself. How was it accomplished, this inspiration? A loving +wife inspired the ordinary man. Why not an artist? + +They got into the habit of planning their life all differently--so that it +might not be limited and futile. _If_ they had a few thousand dollars! +That was a bad sign, and she knew it, and struggled against it. _If_ she +could only do something to keep the pot boiling while he worked at his +music for fame and success! But she could reduce expenses; so the one +servant went, and the house-bills grew tinier and tinier. However, they +didn't "make connections," and--something was wrong--she wondered what. + +As the second summer came in they used to stroll out of their stuffy +street of an evening, up St. Nicholas Avenue, to the Park, or to the +Riverside Drive. There they would sit speechless, she in a faded blue +serge skirt with a crisp, washed-out shirtwaist, and an old sailor hat-- +dark and pretty, in spite of her troubled face; he in a ready-made black +serge suit, yet very much the gentleman--pale and listless. Their eyes +would seek out any steamer in the river below, or anything else that +reminded them of other conditions. He would hum a bit from an opera. They +needed no words; their faces were evident, though mute, indications of the +tragedy. Then they would return at bed-time into the sultry streets, where +from the open windows of the flats came the hammered music of the city. +Such discordant efforts for harmony! Her heart would fill over him, +yearning like a mother to cherish him in all the pleasant ways of life, +but impotent, impotent! + +She never suggested greater effort. Conditions were hard, she said over +and over; if there were only a little money to give him a start in another +direction. She admired his pride in never referring to old Oliphant. Her +uncle was often in her mind, but she felt that even if she could bring +herself to petition him, her husband would indignantly refuse to consider +the matter. + +Still, she thought about it, and especially this summer, for she knew he +was then at Quogue. Moreover, she expected her first child. That worried +her daily; she saw how hopeless another complication would make their +fate. She cried over it at night when the room was too hot to sleep. And +then she reproached herself; God would punish her for not wanting her +baby. + +One day she had gone down town to get some materials for the preparations +she must make. She liked to shop, for sometimes she met old friends; this +time in a large shop she happened upon a woman she had known at Quogue, +the efficient wife of a successful minister in Brooklyn. This Mrs. +Leicester invited her to lunch at the cafe at the top of the building, and +she had yielded, after a little urging, with real relief. They sat down at +a table near the window--it was so high up there was not much noise--and +the streets suddenly seemed interesting to Mrs. Edwards. The quiet table, +the pleasant lunch, and the energetic Mrs. Leicester were all refreshing. + +"And how is your husband?" Mrs. Leicester inquired, keenly. As a +minister's wife she was compelled to interest herself in sentimental +complications that inwardly bored her. It was a part of her professional +duties. She had taken in this situation at once--she had seen that kind of +thing before; it made her impatient. But she liked the pretty little woman +before her, and was sorry she hadn't managed better. + +"Pretty well," Mrs. Edwards replied, consciously. "The heat drags one down +so!" + +Mrs. Leicester sent another quick glance across the table. "You haven't +been to Quogue much of late, have you? You know how poorly your uncle is." + +"No! _You_ must know that Uncle James doesn't see us." + +"Well," Mrs. Leicester went on, hastily, "he's been quite ill and feeble, +and they say he's growing queer. He never goes away now, and sees nobody. +Most of the servants have gone. I don't believe he will last long." + +Then her worldliness struggled with her conventional position, and she +relapsed into innuendo. "He ought to have someone look after him, to see +him die decently, for he can't live beyond the autumn, and the only person +who can get in is that fat, greasy Dr. Shapless, who is after his money +for the Methodist missions. He goes down every week. I wonder where Mr. +Oliphant's son can be?" + +Mrs. Edwards took in every word avidly while she ate. But she let the +conversation drift off to Quogue, their acquaintances, and the difficulty +of shopping in the summer. "Well, I must be going to get the train," +exclaimed Mrs. Leicester at last. With a sigh the young wife rose, looked +regretfully down at the remains of their liberal luncheon, and then walked +silently to the elevator. They didn't mention Oliphant again, but there +was something understood between them. Mrs. Leicester hailed a cab; just +as she gathered her parcels to make a dive, she seemed illuminated with an +idea. "Why don't you come down some Sunday--visit us? Mr. Leicester would +be delighted." + +Mrs. Edwards was taken unawares, but her instincts came to her rescue. + +"Why, we don't go anywhere; it's awfully kind, and I should be delighted; +I am afraid Mr. Edwards can't." + +"Well," sighed Mrs. Leicester, smiling back, unappeased, "come if you can; +come alone." The cab drove off, and the young wife felt her cheeks burn. + + * * * * * + +The Edwardses had never talked over Oliphant or his money explicitly. They +shrank from it; it would be a confession of defeat. There was something +abhorrently vulgar in thus lowering the pitch of their life. They had come +pretty near it often this last summer. But each feared what the other +might think. Edwards especially was nervous about the impression it might +make on his wife, if he should discuss the matter. Mrs. Leicester's talk, +however, had opened possibilities for the imagination. So little of Uncle +James's money, she mused, would make them ideally happy--would put her +husband on the road to fame. She had almost made up her mind on a course +of action, and she debated the propriety of undertaking the affair without +her husband's knowledge. She knew that his pride would revolt from her +plan. She could pocket her own pride, but she was tender of his +conscience, of his comfort, of his sensibilities. It would be best to act +at once by herself--perhaps she would fail, anyway--and to shield him from +the disagreeable and useless knowledge and complicity. She couldn't resist +throwing out some feelers, however, at supper that night. He had come in +tired and soiled after a day's tramp collecting bills that wouldn't +collect this droughty season. She had fussed over him and coaxed a smile +out, and now they were at their simple tea. + +She recounted the day's events as indifferently as possible, but her face +trembled as she described the luncheon, the talk, the news of her uncle, +and at last Mrs. Leicester's invitation. Edwards had started at the first +mention of Quogue. + +"It's been in his mind," she thought, half-relieved, and his nervous +movements of assumed indifference made it easier for her to go on. + +"It was kind of her, wasn't it?" she ended. + +"Yes," Edwards replied, impressively. "Of course you declined." + +"Oh, yes; but she seemed to expect us all the same." Edwards frowned, but +he kept an expectant silence. So she remarked, tentatively: + +"It would be so pleasant to see dear old Quogue again." Her hypocrisy made +her flush. Edwards rose abruptly from the table and wandered about the +room. At length he said, in measured tones, his face averted from her: + +"_Of course_, under the circumstances, we cannot visit Quogue while your +uncle lives--unless he should send for us." Thus he had put himself +plainly on record. His wife suddenly saw the folly and meanness of her +little plans. + +It was hardly a disappointment; her mind felt suddenly relieved from an +unpleasant responsibility. She went to her husband, who was nervously +playing at the piano, and kissed him, almost reverently. It had been a +temptation from which he had saved her. They talked that evening a good +deal, planning what they would do if they could get over to Europe for a +year, calculating how cheaply they could go. It was an old subject. +Sometimes it kept off the blues; sometimes it indicated how blue they +were. Mrs. Edwards forgot the disturbance of the day until she was lying +wide awake in her hot bed. Then the old longings came in once more; she +saw the commonplace present growing each month more dreary; her husband +drudging away, with his hopes sinking. Suddenly he spoke: + +"What made Mrs. Leicester ask us, do you suppose?" So he was thinking of +it again. + +"I don't know!" she replied, vaguely. Soon his voice came again: + +"You understand, Nell, that I distinctly disapprove of our making any +effort _that way_." She didn't think that her husband was a hypocrite. She +did not generalize when she felt deeply. But she knew that her husband +didn't want the responsibility of making any effort. Somehow she felt that +he would be glad if she should make the effort and take the responsibility +on her own shoulders. + +Why had he lugged it into plain light again if he hadn't expected her to +do something? How could she accomplish it without making it unpleasant for +him? Before daylight she had it planned, and she turned once and kissed +her husband, protectingly. + + * * * * * + +That August morning, as she walked up the dusty road, fringed with +blossoming golden-rod, toward the little cottage of the Leicesters, she +was content, in spite of her tumultuous mind. It was all so heavenly +quiet! the thin, drooping elms, with their pendent vines, like the +waterfalls of a maiden lady; the dusty snarls of blackberry bushes; the +midsummer contented repose of the air, and that distantly murmuring sea-- +it was all as she remembered it in her childhood. A gap of disturbed years +closed up, and peace once more! The old man slowly dying up beyond in that +deserted, gambrel-roofed house would Forget and forgive. + +Mrs. Leicester received her effusively, anxious now not to meddle +dangerously in what promised to be a ticklish business. Mrs. Edwards must +stay as long as she would. The Sundays were especially lonely, for Mr. +Leicester did not think she should bear the heat of the city so soon, and +left her alone when he returned to Brooklyn for his Sunday sermon. Of +course, stay as long as Mr. Edwards could spare her--a month; if possible. + +At the mention of Mr. Edwards the young wife had a twinge of remorse for +the manner in which she had evaded him--her first deceit for his sake. She +had talked vaguely about visiting a friend at Moriches, and her husband +had fallen in with the idea. New York was like a finely divided furnace, +radiating heat from every tube-like street. So she was to go for a week or +ten days. Perhaps the matter would arrange itself before that time was up; +if not, she would write him what she had done. But ten days seemed so long +that she put uncomfortable thoughts out of her head. + +Mrs. Leicester showed her to her room, a pretty little box, into which the +woodbine peeped and nodded, and where from one window she could get a +glimpse of the green marshes, with the sea beyond. After chatting awhile, +her hostess went out, protesting that her guest must be too tired to come +down. Mrs. Edwards gladly accepted the excuse, ate the luncheon the maid +brought, in two bites, and then prepared to sally forth. + +She knew the path between the lush meadow-grass so well! Soon she was at +the entrance to the "Oliphant place." It was more run down than two years +ago; the lower rooms were shut up tight in massive green blinds that +reached to the warped boards of the veranda. It looked old, neglected, +sad, and weary; and she felt almost justified in her mission. She could +bring comfort and light to the dying man. + +In a few minutes she was smothering the hysterical enthusiasm of her old +friend, Dinah. It was as she had expected: Oliphant had grown more +suspicious and difficult for the last two years, and had refused to see a +doctor, or, in fact, anyone but the Rev. Dr. Shapless and a country lawyer +whom he used when absolutely necessary. He hadn't left his room for a +month; Dinah had carried him the little he had seen fit to eat. She was +evidently relieved to see her old mistress once more at hand. She asked no +questions, and Mrs. Edwards knew that she would obey her absolutely. + +They were sitting in Oliphant's office, a small closet off the more +pretentious library, and Mrs. Edwards could see the disorder into which +the old man's papers had fallen. The confusion preceding death had already +set in. + +After laying aside her hat, she went up, unannounced, to her uncle's room, +determined not to give him an opportunity to dismiss her out of hand. He +was lying with his eyes closed, so she busied herself in putting the room +to rights, in order to quiet her nerves. The air was heavily languorous, +and soon in the quiet country afternoon her self-consciousness fell +asleep, and she went dreaming over the irresponsible past, the quiet +summers, and the strange, stern old man. Suddenly she knew that he was +awake and watching her closely. She started, but, as he said nothing, she +went on with her dusting, her hand shaking. + +He made no comment while she brought him his supper and arranged the bed. +Evidently he would accept her services. Her spirit leapt up with the joy +of success. That was the first step. She deemed it best to send for her +meagre satchel, and to take possession of her old room. In that way she +could be more completely mistress of the situation and of him. She had had +no very definite ideas of action before that afternoon; her one desire had +been to be on the field of battle, to see what could be done, perhaps to +use a few tears to soften the implacable heart. But now her field opened +out. She must keep the old man to herself, within her own care--not that +she knew specifically what good that would do, but it was the tangible +nine points of the law. + +The next morning Oliphant showed more life, and while she was helping him +into his dressing-gown, he vouchsafed a few grunts, followed by a piercing +inquiry: + +"Is _he_ dead yet?" + +The young wife flushed with indignant protest. + +"Broke, perhaps?" + +"Well, we haven't starved yet." But she was cowed by his cynical +examination. He relapsed into silence; his old, bristly face assumed a +sardonic peace whenever his eyes fell upon her. She speculated about that +wicked beatitude; it made her uncomfortable. He was still, however--never +a word from morning till night. + +The routine of little duties about the sickroom she performed +punctiliously. In that way she thought to put her conscience to rights, to +regard herself in the kind role of ministering angel. That illusion was +hard to attain in the presence of the sardonic comment the old man seemed +to add. After all, it was a vulgar grab after the candied fruits of this +life. + +She had felt it necessary to explain her continued absence to her husband. +Mrs. Leicester, who did not appear to regard her actions as unexpected, +had undertaken that delicate business. Evidently, she had handled it +tactfully, for Mrs. Edwards soon received a hurried note. He felt that she +was performing her most obvious duty; he could not but be pleased that the +breach caused by him had been thus tardily healed. As long as her uncle +continued in his present extremity, she must remain. He would run down to +the Leicesters over Sundays, etc. Mrs. Edwards was relieved; it was nice +of him--more than that, delicate--not to be stuffy over her action. + +The uppermost question these days of monotonous speculation was how long +would this ebb-tide of a tenacious life flow. She took a guilty interest +in her uncle's condition, and yet she more than half wished him to live. +Sometimes he would rally. Something unfulfilled troubled his mind, and +once he even crawled downstairs. She found him shakily puttering over the +papers in his huge davenport. He asked her to make a fire in the grate, +and then, gathering up an armful of papers, he knelt down on the brick +hearth, but suddenly drew back. His deep eyes gleamed hatefully at her. +Holding out several stiff papers, he motioned to her to burn them. Usually +she would have obeyed docilely enough, but this deviltry of merriment she +resented. While she delayed, standing erect before the smouldering sticks, +she noticed that a look of terror crept across the sick face. A spasm +shook him, and he fainted. After that his weakness kept him in bed. She +wondered what he had been so anxious to burn. + +From this time her thoughts grew more specific. Just how should she attain +her ends? Had he made a will? Could he not now do something for them, or +would it be safer to bide their time? Indeed, for a few moments she +resolved to decide all by one straightforward prayer. She began, and the +old man seemed so contentedly prepared for the scene that she remained +dumb. + +In this extremity of doubt she longed to get aid from her husband. Yet +under the circumstances she dared to admit so little. One Saturday +afternoon he called at the house; she was compelled to share some of her +perplexities. + +"He seems so very feeble," she remarked. They were sitting on the veranda +some distance from Oliphant's room, yet their conversation was furtive. +"Perhaps he should see a doctor or a minister." + +"No, I don't think so," Edwards replied, assuringly. "You see, he doesn't +believe in either, and such things should be left to the person himself, +as long as he's in his right mind." + +"And a lawyer?" Mrs. Edwards continued, probingly. + +"Has he asked for one?" + +"No, but he seems to find it hard to talk." + +"I guess it's best not to meddle. Who's that?" + +A little, fat man in baggy black trousers and a seersucker coat was +panting up the gentle hill to the gate. He had a puggy nose and a heavy, +thinly bearded face incased about the eyes in broad steel spectacles. + +"That must be Dr. Shapless," she said, in a flutter. + +"What of it?" Edwards replied. + +"He mustn't come in," she cried, with sudden energy. "You must see him, +and send him away! He wants to see Uncle Oliphant. Tell him he's too +sick--to come another day." Edwards went down the path to meet him. +Through the window she could hear a low conversation, and then crunched +gravel. Meantime Oliphant seemed restlessly alert, expectant of something, +and with suspicious eyes intent on her. + +Her heart thumped with relief when the gate clicked. Edwards had been +effective that time. Oliphant was trying to say something, but the hot +August day had been too much for him--it all ended in a mumble. Then she +pulled in the blinds, settled the pillows nervously, and left the room in +sheer fright. + +The fight had begun--and grimly. + + * * * * * + +"I wonder what the old cove wanted?" Edwards said the next day; "he was +dead set on seeing your uncle; said he had an engagement with him, and +looked me up and down. I stood him off, but he'll be down again." + +"Don't you know about that new fund the Methodists are raising? Uncle +Oliphant has always helped the Methodists, and I suppose Dr. Shapless +wanted to see him about some contributions." Edwards asked no more +questions, and, in fact, got back to town on a pretext of business that +afternoon. He was clearly of no use in Quogue. His wife sent for a +physician that week. It was tardy justice to propriety, but it was safe +then, for Oliphant had given up all attempts to talk. + +The doctor came, looked at the old man, and uttered a few remarks. He +would come again. Mrs. Edwards did not need to be told that the end was +near. The question was, how soon? + +That week had another scare. Somehow old Slocum, the local lawyer Oliphant +used, had been summoned, and one morning she ran across him in the hall. +She knew the man well of old. He was surprised and pleased to see her, and +it was not difficult to get him out of the house without arousing his +suspicions. But he would talk so boisterously; she felt her uncle's eyes +aflame in anger. + +"Be sure and send for me when he rallies, quick," Slocum whispered loudly +in the hall. "Perhaps we can do a little something for some folks." And +with a wink he went out. + +Had she done the clever thing, after all, in shooing old Slocum out? Her +mind went over the possibilities in tense anxiety. If there were no will, +James, Jr., would get the whole, she thought. If there was a will already +in the house, in that old davenport, what then? Would Shapless get the +money? She grew keen in speculation. To leave her in the lurch, to give it +all to that greasy Shapless, would be the most natural trick in the world +for an incisive old fellow like Oliphant. + +It was too much! She cried a little, and she began to hate the helpless +man upstairs. It occurred to her to poke about in the papers in the +adjoining room. She must do it at once, for she expected Edwards every +moment. + +First she ran upstairs to see if her uncle was all right. As soon as she +entered, he glared at her bitterly and would have spoken. She noted the +effort and failure, elated. He could not betray her now, unless he rallied +wonderfully. So leaving the door ajar, she walked firmly downstairs. Now +she could satisfy her desire. + +If the money were _all_ left to Shapless? She might secure the will, and +bargain with the old parasite for a few thousands of dollars. Her mind was +full of wild schemes. If she only knew a little more about affairs! She +had heard of wills, and read many novels that turned upon wills lost or +stolen. They had always seemed to her improbable, mere novels. Necessity +was stranger than fiction. + +It did not take long to find the very articles she was after; evidently +Oliphant had been overhauling them on that last excursion from his room. +The package lay where he had dropped it when he fainted. There were two +documents. She unfolded them on the top of the mussy desk. They were hard +reading in all their legal dress, and her head was filled with fears lest +her husband should walk in. She could make out, however, that Oliphant was +much richer than she had ever vaguely supposed, and that since her +departure he had relented toward his son. For by the first will in date +she was the principal heir, a lot of queer charities coming in besides. In +the second, James, Jr., received something. Her name did not appear. +Several clauses had been added from time to time, each one giving more +money and lands to the Methodists. Probably Shapless was after another +codicil when he called. + +It had taken her into the twilight to gain even a meagre idea of all this. +She was preparing to fold the documents up in their common wrapper, when +she felt the door open behind her. All she could see in the terror of the +moment was the gaunt white arm of her uncle, and the two angry eyes in the +shaking head. She shrieked, from pure nervousness, and at her cry the old +man fell in a heap. + +The accident steeled her nerves. Dinah came in in a panic, and as they +were lifting the bony frame from the floor Edwards arrived. With his +assistance they got the sick man to bed. + +That was clearly the last gasp. Yet Mrs. Edwards shook in dread every time +she entered the room. The look seemed conscious still, intensified +malignity and despair creeping in. She was afraid and guilty and unstrung. +Perhaps, with some sudden revival of his forces, he would kill her. He was +lying there, too still for defeat. His life had been an expression of +hates; the last one might be dreadful. + +Yet she stood to her post in the sick-room, afraid, as she knew, to trust +herself with her husband. Her mind was soiled with seething thoughts, and, +in contrast, his seemed so fresh and pure! If she could keep him +unsuspicious of her, all would be well in the end. But the task she had +set herself for him was hard, so hard! + +That night when all was still she crept downstairs and groped about in the +davenport for the papers. They had been lying there unopened where they +had fallen earlier in the evening. She struck a match, caught up the +fresher document, and hugged it to her as she toiled upstairs. When she +had tucked it away in her satchel the end seemed near. They must wait now. + +She put her husband out of her mind. Outside, the warm summer days died +away over the sea, one by one, and the grass beyond the gates grew heavier +with dust. Life was tense in its monotony. + + * * * * * + +That had happened on a Saturday; Monday Dr. Shapless came again, his shoes +dusty from his long walk from the station. He looked oiled as ever, but +more determined. Mrs. Edwards daringly permitted him to see the dying +man--he had been lying in a stupor--for she was afraid that the reverend +doctor's loud tones in the hall might exasperate Oliphant to some wild +act. Dr. Shapless shut her from the room when he went in, but he did not +stay long. A restless despair had settled down on her uncle's face, there +to remain for the last few hours. + +Her heart sank; she longed to cry out to the poor old man on the bed that +_she_ did not want his money. She remained with him all night, yet she did +not dare to approach his bed. She would disturb him. + +He died the next afternoon, and at the last he looked out on the world and +at her with his final note of intelligence. It was pathetic, a suggestion +of past tenderness defeated, and of defeat in hate, too. She shuddered as +she closed his sad eyes; it was awful to meddle with a man's last +purposes. + +The funeral was almost surreptitious; old Dinah, the Leicesters, and the +Edwardses occupied the one carriage that followed him to the graveyard +across the village. They met a hay-cart or two on their way, but no +curious neighbors. Old Oliphant's death aroused no interest in this +village, ridden with summer strangers. + +The day was impersonally suave and tender, with its gentle haze and autumn +premonitions. Mr. Leicester said a few equivocal words, while Mrs. Edwards +gazed helplessly into the grave. The others fell back behind the minister. +Between her and her uncle down there something remained unexplained, and +her heart ached. + + * * * * * + +They spent that night at the Leicesters', for Mrs. Edwards wearily refused +to return to the Oliphant place. Edwards carried the keys over to Slocum, +and told him to take the necessary steps toward settling the old man's +affairs. The next day they returned to the little flat in Harlem. The +Leicesters found their presence awkward, now that there was nothing to do, +and Mrs. Edwards was craving to be alone with her husband, to shut out the +past month from their lives as soon as possible. + +These September days, while they both waited in secret anxiety, she clung +to him as she had never before. He was pure, the ideal she had voluntarily +given up, given up for his sake in order that he might have complete +perfection. His delicate sensitiveness kept him from referring to that +painful month, or to possible expectations. She worshipped him the more, +and was thankful for his complete ignorance. Their common life could go on +untainted and noble. + +Yet Edwards betrayed his nervous anxiety. His eagerness for the mail every +morning, his early return from business, indicated his troubled mind. + +The news came at breakfast-time. Mrs. Edwards handed Slocum's letter +across the table and waited, her face wanly eager. The letter was long; it +took some half-dozen large letter-sheets for the country lawyer to tell +his news, but in the end it came. He had found the will and was happy to +say that Mrs. Edwards was a large, a very large, beneficiary. Edwards read +these closing sentences aloud. He threw down the letter and tried to take +her in his arms. But she tearfully pushed him away, and then, repenting, +clasped his knees. + +"Oh, Will! it's so much, so very much," she almost sobbed. + +Edwards looked as if that were not an irremediable fault in their good +luck. He said nothing. Already he was planning their future movements. +Under the circumstances neither cared to discuss their happiness, and so +they got little fun from the first bloom. + +In spite of Mrs. Edwards's delicate health and her expected confinement +they decided to go abroad. She was feverishly anxious for him to begin his +real work at once, to prove himself; and it might be easier to forget her +one vicious month when the Atlantic had been crossed. They put their +affairs to rights hurriedly, and early in November sailed for France. + +The Leicesters were at the dock to bid them God-speed and to chirrup over +their good fortune. + +"It's all like a good, old-fashioned story," beamed Mrs. Leicester, +content with romance for once, now that it had arranged itself so +decorously. + +"Very satisfactory; quite right," the clergyman added. "We'll see you soon +in Paris. We're thinking of a gay vacation, and will let you know." + +Edwards looked fatuous; his wife had an orderly smile. She was glad when +Sandy Hook sank into the mist. She had only herself to avoid now. + +They took some pleasant apartments just off the Rue de Rivoli, and then +their life subsided into the complacent commonplace of possession. She was +outwardly content to enjoy with her husband, to go to the galleries, the +opera, to try the restaurants, and to drive. + +Yet her life went into one idea, a very fixed idea, such as often takes +hold of women in her condition. She was eager to see him at work. If he +accomplished something--even content!--she would feel justified and +perhaps happy. As to the child, the idea grew strange to her. Why should +she have a third in the problem? For she saw that the child must take its +part in her act, must grow up and share their life and inherit the +Oliphant money. In brief, she feared the yet unborn stranger, to whom she +would be responsible in this queer way. And the child could not repair the +wrong as could her husband. Certainly the child was an alien. + +She tried to be tender of her husband in his boyish glee and loafing. She +could understand that he needed to accustom himself to his new freedom, to +have his vacation first. She held herself in, tensely, refraining from +criticism lest she might mar his joy. But she counted the days, and when +her child had come, she said to herself, _then_ he must work. + +This morbid life was very different from what she had fancied the rich +future would be, as she looked into the grave, the end of her struggle, +that September afternoon. But she had grown to demand so much more from +_him_; she had grown so grave! His bright, boyish face, the gentle curls, +had been dear enough, and now she looked for the lines a man's face should +have. Why was he so terribly at ease? The world was bitter and hard in its +conditions, and a man should not play. + +Late in December the Leicesters called; they were like gleeful sparrows, +twittering about. Mrs. Edwards shuddered to see them again, and when they +were gone she gave up and became ill. + +Her tense mind relieved itself in hysterics, which frightened her to +further repression. Then one night she heard herself moaning: "Why did I +have to take all? It was so little, so very little, I wanted, and I had to +take all. Oh, Will, Will, you should have done for yourself! Why did you +need this? Why couldn't you do as other men do? It's no harder for you +than for them." Then she recollected herself. Edwards was holding her hand +and soothing her. + +Some weeks later, when she was very ill, she remembered those words, and +wondered if he had suspected anything. Her child came and died, and she +forgot this matter, with others. She lay nerveless for a long time, +without thought; Edwards and the doctor feared melancholia. So she was +taken to Italy for the cold months. Edwards cared for her tenderly, but +his caressing presence was irritating, instead of soothing, to her. She +was hungry for a justification that she could not bring about. + +At last it wore on into late spring. She began to force herself back into +the old activities, in order to leave no excuse for further dawdling. Her +attitude became terribly judicial and suspicious. + +An absorbing idleness had settled down over Edwards, partly excused to +himself by his wife's long illness. When he noticed that his desultory +days made her restless, he took to loafing about galleries or making +little excursions, generally in company with some forlorn artist he had +picked up. He had nothing, after all, so very definite that demanded his +time; he had not yet made up his mind for any attempts. And something in +the domestic atmosphere unsettled him. His wife held herself aloof, with +alien sympathies, he felt. + +So they drifted on to discontent and unhappiness until she could bear it +no longer without expression. + +"Aren't we to return to Paris soon?" she remarked one morning as they +idled over a late breakfast. "I am strong now, and I should like to settle +down." + +Edwards took the cue, idly welcoming any change. + +"Why, yes, in the fall. It's too near the summer now, and there's no +hurry." + +"Yes, there _is_ hurry," his wife replied, hastily. "We have lost almost +eight months." + +"Out of a lifetime," Edwards put in, indulgently. + +She paused, bewildered by the insinuation of his remark. But her mood was +too incendiary to avoid taking offence. "Do you mean that that would be a +_life_, loafing around all day, enjoying this, that, and the other fine +pleasure? That wasn't what we planned." + +"No, but I don't see why people who are not driven should drive +themselves. I want to get the taste of Harlem out of my mouth." He was a +bit sullen. A year ago her strict inquiry into his life would have been +absurd. Perhaps the money, her money, gave her the right. + +"If people don't drive themselves," she went on, passionately, "they ought +to be driven. It's cowardly to take advantage of having money to do +nothing. You wanted the--the opportunity to do something. Now you have +it." + +Edwards twisted his wicker chair into uncomfortable places. "Well, are you +sorry you happen to have given me the chance?" He looked at her coldly, so +that a suspicious thought shot into her mind. + +"Yes," she faltered, "if it means throwing it away, I _am_ sorry." + +She dared no more. Her mind was so close on the great sore in her gentle +soul. He lit a cigarette, and sauntered down the hotel garden. But the +look he had given her--a queer glance of disagreeable intelligence-- +illumined her dormant thoughts. + +What if he had known all along? She remembered his meaning words that hot +night when they talked over Oliphant's illness for the first time. And why +had he been so yielding, so utterly passive, during the sordid drama over +the dying man? What kept him from alluding to the matter in any way? Yes, +he must have encouraged her to go on. _She_ had been his tool, and he the +passive spectator. The blind certainty of a woman made the thing assured, +settled. She picked up the faint yellow rose he had laid by her plate, and +tore it slowly into fine bits. On the whole, he was worse than she. + +But before he returned she stubbornly refused to believe herself. + + * * * * * + +In the autumn they were again in Paris, in soberer quarters, which were +conducive to effort. Edwards was working fitfully with several teachers, +goaded on, as he must confess to himself, by a pitiless wife. Not much was +discussed between them, but he knew that the price of the _statu quo_ was +continued labor. + +She was watching him; he felt it and resented it, but he would not +understand. All the idealism, the worship of the first sweet months in +marriage, had gone. Of course that incense had been foolish, but it was +sweet. Instead, he felt these suspicious, intolerant eyes following his +soul in and out on its feeble errands. He comforted himself with the trite +consolation that he was suffering from the natural readjustment in a +woman's mind. It was too drastic for that, however. + +He was in the habit of leaving her in the evenings of the opera. The light +was too much for her eyes, and she was often tired. One wet April night, +when he returned late, he found her up, sitting by the window that +overlooked the steaming boulevard. Somehow his soul was rebellious, and +when she asked him about the opera he did not take the pains to lie. + +"Oh, I haven't been there," he muttered, "I am beastly tired of it all. +Let's get out of it; to St. Petersburg or Norway--for the summer," he +added, guiltily. + +Now that the understanding impended she trembled, for hitherto she had +never actually known. In suspicion there was hope. So she almost +entreated. + +"We go to Vienna next winter anyway, and I thought we had decided on +Switzerland for the summer." + +"You decided! But what's the use of keeping up the mill night and day? +There's plenty of opportunity over there for an educated gentleman with +money, if what you are after is a 'sphere' for me." + +"You want to--to go back now?" + +"No, I want to be let alone." + +"Don't you care to pay for all you have had? Haven't you any sense of +justice to Uncle Oliphant, to your opportunities?" + +"Oliphant!" Edwards laughed, disagreeably. "Wouldn't he be pleased to have +an operetta, a Gilbert and Sullivan affair, dedicated to him! No. I have +tried to humor your idea of making myself famous. But what's the use of +being wretched?" The topic seemed fruitless. Mrs. Edwards looked over to +the slight, careless figure. He was sitting dejectedly on a large +fauteuil, smoking. He seemed fagged and spiritless. She almost pitied him +and gave in, but suddenly she rose and crossed the room. + +"We've made ourselves pretty unhappy," she said, apologetically, resting +her hand on the lapel of his coat. "I guess it's mostly my fault, Will. I +have wanted so much that you should do something fine with Uncle +Oliphant's money, with _yourself_. But we can make it up in other ways." + +"What are you so full of that idea for?" Edwards asked, curiously. "Why +can't you be happy, even as happy as you were in Harlem?" His voice was +hypocritical. + +"Don't you know?" she flashed back. "You _do_ know, I believe. Tell me, +did you look over those papers on the davenport that night Uncle James +fainted?" + +The unexpected rush of her mind bewildered him. A calm lie would have set +matters to rights, but he was not master of it. + +"So you were willing--you knew?" + +"It wasn't my affair," he muttered, weakly, but she had left him. + +He wandered about alone for a few days until the suspense became +intolerable. When he turned up one afternoon in their apartments he found +preparations on foot for their departure. + +"We're going away?" he asked. + +"Yes, to New York." + +"Not so fast," he interrupted, bitterly. "We might as well face the matter +openly. What's the use of going back there?" + +"We can't live here, and besides I shall be wanted there." + +"You can't do anything now. Talk sensibly about it. I will not go back." + +She looked at him coldly, critically. "I cabled Slocum yesterday, and we +must live somehow." + +"You--" but she laid her hand on his arm. "It makes no difference now, you +know, and it can't be changed. I've done everything." + +CHICAGO, August, 1895. + + + +A REJECTED TITIAN + + +"John," my wife remarked in horrified tones, "he's coming to Rome!" + +"Who is coming to Rome--the Emperor?" + +"Uncle Ezra--see," she handed me the telegram. "Shall arrive in Rome +Wednesday morning; have Watkins at the Grand Hotel." + +I handed the despatch to Watkins. + +"Poor uncle!" my wife remarked. + +"He will get it in the neck," I added, profanely. + +"They ought to put nice old gentlemen like your uncle in bond when they +reach Italy," Watkins mused, as if bored in advance. "The _antichitas_ get +after them, like--like confidence-men in an American city, and the same +old story is the result; they find, in some mysterious fashion, a +wonderful Titian, a forgotten Giorgione, cheap at _cinque mille lire_. +Then it's all up with them. His pictures are probably decalcomanias, you +know, just colored prints pasted over board. Why, we _know_ every picture +in Venice; it's simply _impossible_--" + +Watkins was a connoisseur; he had bought his knowledge in the dearest +school of experience. + +"What are you going to do, Mr. Watkins?" my wife put in. "Tell him the +truth?" + +"There's nothing else to do. I used up all my ambiguous terms over that +daub he bought in the Piazza di Spagna--'reminiscential' of half a dozen +worthless things, 'suggestive,' etc. I can't work them over again." +Watkins was lugubrious. + +"Tell him the truth as straight as you can; it's the best medicine." I was +Uncle Ezra's heir; naturally, I felt for the inheritance. + +"Well," my wife was invariably cheerful, "perhaps he has found something +valuable; at least, one of them may be; isn't it possible?" + +Watkins looked at my wife indulgently. + +"He's been writing me about them for a month, suggesting that, as I was +about to go on to Venice, he would like to have me see them; such +treasures as I should find them. I have been waiting until he should get +out. It isn't a nice job, and your uncle--" + +"There are three of them, Aunt Mary writes: Cousin Maud has bought one, +with the advice of Uncle Ezra and Professor Augustus Painter, and Painter +himself is the last one to succumb." + +"They have all gone mad," Watkins murmured. + +"Where did Maudie get the cash?" I asked. + +"She had a special gift on coming of age, and she has been looking about +for an opportunity for throwing it away"--my wife had never sympathized +with my cousin, Maud Vantweekle. "She had better save it for her +trousseau, if she goes on much more with that young professor. Aunt Mary +should look after her." + +Watkins rose to go. + +"Hold on a minute," I said. "Just listen to this delicious epistle from +Uncle Ezra." + +"'... We have hoped that you would arrive in Venice before we break up our +charming home here. Mary has written you that Professor Painter has joined +us at the Palazzo Palladio, complementing our needs and completing our +circle. He has an excellent influence for seriousness upon Maud; his fine, +manly qualities have come out. Venice, after two years of Berlin, has +opened his soul in a really remarkable manner. All the beauty lying loose +around here has been a revelation to him--'" + +"Maud's beauty," my wife interpreted. + +"'And our treasures you will enjoy so much--such dashes of color, such +great slaps of light! I was the first to buy--they call it a Savoldo, but +I think no third-rate man could be capable of so much--such reaching out +after infinity. However, that makes little difference. I would not part +with it, now that I have lived these weeks with so fine a thing. Maud won +a prize in her Bonifazio, which she bought under my advice. Then Augustus +secured the third one, a Bissola, and it has had the greatest influence +upon him already; it has given him his education in art. He sits with it +by the hour while he is at work, and its charm has gradually produced a +revolution in his character. We had always found him too Germanic, and he +had immured himself in that barbarous country for so long over his Semitic +books that his nature was stunted on one side. His picture has opened a +new world for him. Your Aunt Mary and I already see the difference in his +character; he is gentler, less narrowly interested in the world. This +precious bit of fine art has been worth its price many times, but I don't +think Augustus would part with it for any consideration now that he has +lived with it and learned to know its power.'" + +"I can't see why he is coming to Rome," Watkins commented at the end. "If +they are confident that they know all about their pictures, and don't care +anyway who did them, and are having all this spiritual love-feast, what in +the world do they want any expert criticism of their text for? Now for +such people to buy pictures, when they haven't a mint of money! Why don't +they buy something within their means really fine--a coin, a Van Dyck +print? I could get your uncle a Whistler etching for twenty-five pounds; a +really fine thing, you know--" + +This was Watkins's hobby. + +"Oh, well, it won't be bad in the end of the hall at New York; it's as +dark as pitch there; and then Uncle Ezra can leave it to the Metropolitan +as a Giorgione. It will give the critics something to do. And I suppose +that in coming on here he has in mind to get an indorsement for his +picture that will give it a commercial value. He's canny, is my Uncle +Ezra, and he likes to gamble too, like the rest of us. If he should draw a +prize, it wouldn't be a bad thing to brag of." + +Watkins called again the next morning. + +"Have you seen Uncle Ezra?" my wife asked, anxiously. + +"No. Three telegrams. Train was delayed--I suppose by the importance of +the works of art it's bringing on." + +"When do you expect him?" + +"About noon." + +"Mr. Watkins," my wife flamed out, "I believe you are just shirking it, to +meet that poor old man with his pictures. You ought to have been at the +station, or at least at the hotel. Why, it's twelve now!" + +Watkins hung his head. + +"I believe you are a coward," my wife went on. "Just think of his arriving +there, all excitement over his pictures, and finding you gone!" + +"Well, well," I said, soothingly, "it's no use to trot off now, Watkins; +stay to breakfast. He will be in shortly. When he finds you are out at the +hotel he will come straight on here, I am willing to bet." + +Watkins looked relieved at my suggestion. + +"I believe you meant to run away all along," my wife continued, severely, +"and to come here for refuge." + +Watkins sulked. + +We waited in suspense, straining our ears to hear the sound of a cab +stopping in the street. At last one did pull up. My wife made no pretence +of indifference, but hurried to the window. + +"It's Uncle Ezra, with a big, black bundle. John, run down--No! there's a +facchino." + +We looked at each other and laughed. + +"The three!" + +Our patron of art came in, with a warm, gentle smile, his tall, thin +figure a little bent with the fatigue of the journey, his beard a little +grayer and dustier than usual, and his hands all a-tremble with nervous +impatience and excitement. He had never been as tremulous before an +opinion from the Supreme Court. My wife began to purr over him soothingly; +Watkins looked sheepish; I hurried them all off to breakfast. + +The omelette was not half eaten before Uncle Ezra jumped up, and began +unstrapping the oil-cloth covering to the pictures. There was +consternation at the table. My wife endeavored soothingly to bring Uncle +Ezra's interest back to breakfast, but he was not to be fooled. My Uncle +Ezra was a courageous man. + +"Of course you fellows," he said, smiling at Watkins, in his suave +fashion, "are just whetting your knives for me, I know. That's right. I +want to know the worst, the hardest things you can say. You can't destroy +the intrinsic _worth_ of the pictures for us; I have lived with mine too +long, and know how precious it is!" + +At last the three pictures were tipped up against the wall, and the +Madonnas and saints in gold, red, and blue were beaming out insipidly at +us. Uncle Ezra affected indifference. Watkins continued with the omelette. +"We'll look them over after breakfast," he said, severely, thus getting us +out of the hole temporarily. + +After breakfast my wife cooked up some engagement, and hurried me off. We +left Uncle Ezra in the hands of the physician. Two hours later, when we +entered, the operation had been performed--we could see at a glance--and +in a bloody fashion. The pictures were lying about the vast room as if +they had been spat at. Uncle Ezra smiled wanly at us, with the courage of +the patient who is a sceptic about physicians. + +"Just what I expected," he said, briskly, to relieve Watkins, who was +smoking, with the air of a man who has finished his job and is now cooling +off. "Mr. Watkins thinks Painter's picture and Maud's are copies, +Painter's done a few years ago and Maud's a little older, the last +century. My Savoldo he finds older, but repainted. You said cinque cento, +Mr. Watkins?" + +"Perhaps, Mr. Williams," Watkins answered, and added, much as a dog would +give a final shake to the bird, "_Much_ repainted, hardly anything left of +the original. There may be a Savoldo underneath, but you don't see it." +Watkins smiled at us knowingly. My wife snubbed him. + +"Of course, Uncle Ezra, _that's_ one man's opinion. I certainly should not +put much faith in one critic, no matter how eminent he may be. Just look +at the guide-books and see how the 'authorities' swear at one another. +Ruskin says every man is a fool who can't appreciate his particular love, +and Burckhardt calls it a daub, and Eastlake insipid. Now, there are a set +of young fellows who think they know all about paint and who painted what. +They're renaming all the great masterpieces. Pretty soon they will +discover that some tenth-rate fellow painted the Sistine Chapel." + +Watkins put on an aggrieved and expostulatory manner. Uncle Ezra cut in. + +"Oh! my dear! Mr. Watkins may be right, quite right. It's his business to +know, I am sure, and I anticipated all that he would say; indeed, I have +come off rather better than I expected. There is old paint in it +somewhere." + +"Pretty far down," Watkins muttered. My wife bristled up, but Uncle Ezra +assumed his most superb calm. + +"It makes no difference to me, of course, as far as the _worth_ of the +work of art is concerned. I made up my mind before I came here that my +picture was worth a great deal to me, much more than I paid for it." There +was a heroic gasp. Watkins interposed mercilessly, "And may I ask, Mr. +Williams, what you did give for it?" + +Uncle Ezra was an honest man. "Twenty-five hundred lire," he replied, +sullenly. + +"Excuse me" (Watkins was behaving like a pitiless cad), "but you paid a +great deal too much for it, I assure you. I could have got it for----" + +"Mr. Watkins," my wife was hardly civil to him, "it doesn't matter much +what you could have got it for." + +"No," Uncle Ezra went on bravely, "I am a little troubled as to what this +may mean to Maud and Professor Painter, for you see their pictures are +copies." + +"Undoubted modern copies," the unquenchable Watkins emended. + +"Maud has learned a great deal from her picture. And as for Painter, it +has been an education in art, an education in life. He said to me the +night before I came away, 'Mr. Williams, I wouldn't take two thousand for +that picture; it's been the greatest influence in my life.'" + +I thought Watkins would have convulsions. + +"And it has brought those two young souls together in a marvellous way, +this common interest in fine art. You will find Maud a much more serious +person, Jane. No, if I were Painter I certainly should not care a fig +whether it proves to be a copy or not. I shouldn't let that influence me +in my love for such an educational wonder." + +The bluff was really sublime, but painful. My wife gave a decided hint to +Watkins that his presence in such a family scene was awkward. He took his +hat and cane. Uncle Ezra rose and grasped him cordially by the hand. + +"You have been very generous, Mr. Watkins," he said, in his own sweet way, +"to do such an unpleasant job. It's a large draft to make on the kindness +of a friend." + +"Oh, don't mention it, Mr. Williams; and if you want to buy something +really fine, a Van Dyck print--a----" + +Uncle Ezra was shooing him toward the door. From the stairs we could still +hear his voice. "Or a Whistler etching for twenty-five pounds, I could get +you, now, a very fine----" + +"No, thank you, Mr. Watkins," Uncle Ezra said, firmly. "I don't believe I +have any money just now for such an investment." + +My wife tiptoed about the room, making faces at the exposed masterpieces. +"What shall we do?" Uncle Ezra came back into the room, his face a trifle +grayer and more worn. "Capital fellow, that Watkins," he said; "so firm +and frank." + +"Uncle," I ventured at random, "I met Flugel the other day in the street. +You know Flugel's new book on the Renaissance. He's the coming young +critic in art, has made a wonderful reputation the last three years, is on +the _Beaux Arts_ staff, and really _knows_. He is living out at Frascati. +I could telegraph and have him here this afternoon, perhaps." + +"Well, I don't know;" his tone, however, said "Yes." "I don't care much +for expert advice--for specialists. But it wouldn't do any harm to hear +what he has to say. And Maud and Painter have made up their minds that +Maud's is a Titian." + +So I ran out and sent off the despatch. My wife took Uncle Ezra down to +the Forum and attempted to console him with the ugliness of genuine +antiquity, while I waited for Flugel. He came in a tremendous hurry, his +little, muddy eyes winking hard behind gold spectacles. + +"Ah, yes," he began to paw the pictures over as if they were live stock, +"that was bought for a Bonifazio," he had picked up Maud's ruby-colored +prize. "Of course, of course, it's a copy, an old copy, of Titian's +picture, No. 3,405, in the National Gallery at London. There is a replica +in the Villa Ludovisi here at Rome. It's a stupid copy, some alterations, +all for the bad--worthless--well, not to the _antichita_, for it must be +1590, I should say. But worthless for us and in bad condition. I wouldn't +give cinque lire for it." + +"And the Bissola?" I said. "Oh, that was done in the seventeenth +century--it would make good kindling. But this," he turned away from +Painter's picture with a gesture of contempt, "this is Domenico Tintoretto +fast enough, at least what hasn't been stippled over and painted out. St. +Agnes's leg here is entire, and that tree in the background is original. A +damn bad man, but there are traces of his slop work. Perhaps the hair is +by him, too. Well, good-by, old fellow; I must be off to dinner." + +That was slight consolation; a leg, a tree, and some wisps of hair in a +picture three feet six by four feet eight. Our dinner that evening was +labored. The next morning Uncle Ezra packed his three treasures tenderly, +putting in cotton-wool at the edges, my wife helping him to make them +comfortable. We urged him to stay over with us for a few days; we would +all go on later to Venice. But Uncle Ezra seemed moved by some hidden +cause. Back he would trot at once. "Painter will want his picture," he +said, "he has been waiting on in Venice just for this, and I must not keep +him." Watkins turned up as we were getting into the cab to see Uncle Ezra +off, and insisted upon accompanying us to the station. My wife took the +opportunity to rub into him Flugel's remarks, which, at least, made +Watkins out shady in chronology. At the station we encountered a new +difficulty. The ticket collector would not let the pictures through the +gate. My uncle expostulated in pure Tuscan. Watkins swore in Roman. + +"Give him five lire, Mr. Williams." + +Poor Uncle Ezra fumbled in his pocket-book for the piece of money. He had +never bribed in his life. It was a terrible moral fall, to see him +tremblingly offer the piece of scrip. The man refused, "positive orders, +_permesso_ necessary," etc., etc. The bell rang; there was a rush. Uncle +Ezra looked unhappy. + +"Here," Watkins shouted, grabbing the precious pictures in a manner far +from reverent, "I'll send these on, Mr. Williams; run for your train." +Uncle Ezra gave one undecided glance, and then yielded. "You will look +after them," he pleaded, "carefully." + +"You shall have them safe enough," my wife promised. + +"Blast the pasteboards," Watkins put in under his breath, "the best thing +to do with them is to chop 'em up." He was swinging them back and forth +under his arm. My wife took them firmly from him. "He shall have his +pictures, and not from your ribald hands." + +A week later Rome became suddenly oppressively warm. We started off for +Venice, Watkins tagging on incorrigibly. "I want to see 'Maud,'" he +explained. The pictures had been packed and sent ahead by express. "The +storm must have burst, tears shed, tempers cooled, mortification set in," +I remarked, as we were being shoved up the Grand Canal toward the Palazzo +Palladio. "There they are in the balcony," my wife exclaimed, "waving to +us. Something is up; Maudie is hanging back, with Aunt Mary, and Professor +Painter is at the other end, with Uncle Ezra." + +The first thing that caught the eye after the flurry of greetings was the +impudent blue and red of Uncle Ezra's "Sancta Conversazione," Domenico +Tintoretto, Savoldo, or what not; St. Agnes's leg and all, beaming at us +from the wall. The other two were not there. My wife looked at me. Maudie +was making herself very gracious with little Watkins. Painter's solemn +face began to lower more and more. Aunt Mary and Uncle Ezra industriously +poured oil by the bucket upon the social sea. + +At last Maud rose: "You _must_ take me over there at once, Mr. Watkins. It +will be such an enjoyment to have someone who really knows about pictures +and has taste." This shot at poor Painter; then to my wife, "Come, Jane, +you will like to see your room." + +Painter crossed to me and suggested, lugubriously, a cigar on the balcony. +He smoked a few minutes in gloomy silence. + +"Does that fellow know anything?" he emitted at last, jerking his head at +Watkins, who was pouring out information at Uncle Ezra. I began gently to +give Charles Henderson Watkins a fair reputation for intelligence. "I mean +anything about art? Of course it doesn't matter what he says about my +picture, whether it is a copy or not, but Miss Vantweekle takes it very +hard about hers. She blames me for having been with her when she bought +it, and having advised her and encouraged her to put six hundred dollars +into it." + +"Six hundred," I gasped. + +"Cheap for a Bonifazio, or a _Titian_, as we thought it." + +"Too cheap," I murmured. + +"Well, I got bitten for about the same on my own account. I sha'n't get +that Rachel's library at Berlin, that's all. The next time you catch me +fooling in a subject where I don't know my bearings--like fine art--You +see Mr. Williams found my picture one day when he was nosing about at an +_antichita's_, and thought it very fine. I admire Mr. Williams +tremendously, and I valued his opinion about art subjects much more then +than I do now. He and Mrs. Williams were wild over it. They had just +bought their picture, and they wanted us each to have one. They have lots +of sentiment, you know." + +"Lots," I assented. + +"Mrs. Williams got at me, and well, she made me feel that it would bring +me nearer to Miss Vantweekle. You know she goes in for art, and she used +to be impatient with me because I couldn't appreciate. I was dumb when she +walked me up to some old Madonna, and the others would go on at a great +rate. Well, in a word, I bought it for my education, and I guess I have +got it! + +"Then the man, he's an old Jew on the Grand Canal--Raffman, you know him? +He got out another picture, the Bonifazio. The Williamses began to get up +steam over that, too. They hung over that thing Mr. Williams bought, that +Savoldo or Domenico Tintoretto, and prowled about the churches and the +galleries finding traces of it here in the style of this picture and that; +in short, we all got into a fever about pictures, and Miss Vantweekle +invested all the money an aunt had given her before coming abroad, in that +Bonifazio. + +"I must say that Miss Vantweekle held off some time, was doubtful about +the picture; didn't feel that she wanted to put all her money into it. But +she caught fire in the general excitement, and I may say"--here a sad sort +of conscious smile crept over the young professor's face--"at that time I +had a good deal of influence with her. She bought the picture, we brought +it home, and put it up at the other end of the hall. We spent hours over +that picture, studying out every line, placing every color. We made up our +minds soon enough that it wasn't a Bonifazio, but we began to think--now +don't laugh, or I'll pitch you over the balcony--it was an early work by +Titian. There was an attempt in it for great things, as Mr. Williams said: +no small man could have planned it. One night we had been talking for +hours about them, and we were all pretty well excited. Mr. Williams +suggested getting Watkins's opinion. Maud--Miss Vantweekle said, loftily, +'Oh! it does not make any difference what the critics say about it, the +picture means everything to me'; and I, like a fool, felt happier than +ever before in my life. The next morning Mr. Williams telegraphed you and +set off." + +He waited. + +"And when he returned?" + +"It's been hell ever since." + +He was in no condition to see the comic side of the affair. Nor was Miss +Vantweekle. She was on my wife's bed in tears. + +"All poor Aunt Higgins's present gone into that horrid thing," she moaned, +"and all the dresses I was planning to get in Paris. I shall have to go +home looking like a perfect dowd!" + +"But think of the influence it has been in your life--the education you +have received from that picture. How can you call all that color, those +noble faces, 'that horrid thing?'" I said, reprovingly. She sat upright. + +"See here, Jerome Parker, if you ever say anything like that again, I will +never speak to you any more, or to Jane, though you are my cousins." + +"They have tried to return the picture," my wife explained. "Professor +Painter and Uncle Ezra took it over yesterday; but, of course, the Jew +laughed at them." + +"'A copy!' he said." Maud explained, "Why, it's no more a copy than +Titian's 'Assumption.' He could show us the very place in a palace on the +Grand Canal where it had hung for four hundred years. Of course, all the +old masters used the same models, and grouped their pictures alike. Very +probably Titian had a picture something like it. What of that? He defied +us to find the exact original." + +"Well," I remarked, soothingly, "that ought to comfort you, I am sure. +Call your picture a new Titian, and sell it when you get home." + +"Mr. Watkins says that's an old trick," moaned Maud, "that story about the +palace. He says old Raffman has a pal among the Italian nobility, and +works off copies through him all the time. I won't say anything about +Uncle Ezra; he has been as kind and good as he can be, only a little too +enthusiastic. But Professor Painter!" + +She tossed her head. + +The atmosphere in the Palazzo Palladio for the next few days was highly +charged. + +At dinner Uncle Ezra placidly made remarks about the Domenico Tintoretto, +almost vaingloriously, I thought. "Such a piece of Venice to carry away. +We missed it so much, those days you had it in Rome. It is so precious +that I cannot bear to pack it up and lose sight of it for five months. +Mary, just see that glorious piece of color over there." + +Meantime some kind of conspiracy was on foot. Maud went off whole mornings +with Watkins and Uncle Ezra. We were left out as unsympathetic. Painter +wandered about like a sick ghost. He would sit glowering at Maud and +Watkins while they held whispered conversations at the other end of the +hall. Watkins was the hero. He had accepted Flugel's judgment with +impudent grace. + +"A copy of Titian, of course," he said to me; "really, it is quite hard on +poor Miss Vantweekle. People, even learned people, who don't know about +such things, had better not advise. I have had the photographs of all +Titian's pictures sent on, and we have found the original of your cousin's +picture. Isn't it very like?" + +It was very like; a figure was left out in the copy, the light was +changed, but still it was a happy guess of Flugel. + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" I said to Maud, who had just +joined us. + +"Oh, Mr. Watkins has kindly consented to manage the matter for me; I +believe he has a friend here, an artist, Mr. Hare, who will give expert +judgment on it. Then the American vice-consul is a personal friend of Mr. +Watkins, and also Count Corner, the adviser at the Academy. We shall +frighten the old Jew, sha'n't we, Mr. Watkins?" + +I walked over to the despised Madonna that was tipped up on its side, +ready to be walked off on another expedition of defamation. + +"Poor Bonifazio," I sighed, "Maud, how can you part with a work of fine +art that has meant so much to you?" + +"Do you think, Jerome, I would go home and have Uncle Higgins, with his +authentic Rembrandt and all his other pictures, laugh at me and my Titian? +I'd burn it first." + +I turned to Uncle Ezra. "Uncle, what strange metamorphosis has happened to +this picture? The spiritual light from that color must shine as brightly +as ever; the intrinsic value remains forever fixed in Maud's soul; it is +desecration to reject such a precious message. Why, it's like sending back +the girl you married because her pedigree proved defective, or because she +had lost her fortune. It's positively brutal!" + +Maud darted a venomous glance at me; however, I had put the judge in a +hole. + +"I cannot agree with you, Jerome." Uncle Ezra could never be put in a +hole. "Maud's case is a very different one from Mr. Painter's or mine. We +can carry back what we like personally, but for Maud to carry home a +doubtful picture into the atmosphere she has to live in--why, it would be +intolerable--with her uncle a connoisseur, all her friends owners of +masterpieces." Uncle Ezra had a flowing style. "It would expose her to +annoyance, to mortification--constant, daily. Above all, to have taken a +special gift, a fund of her aunt's, and to apply it in this mistaken +fashion is cruel." + +Painter remarked bitterly to me afterward, "He wants to crawl on his share +of the responsibility. I'd buy the picture if I could raise the cash, and +end the whole miserable business." + +Indeed, Watkins seemed the only one blissfully in his element. As my wife +remarked, Watkins had exchanged his interest in pictures for an interest +in woman. Certainly he had planned his battle well. It came off the next +day. They all left in a gondola at an early hour. Painter and I watched +them from the balcony. After they were seated, Watkins tossed in +carelessly the suspected picture. What went on at the _antichita's_ no one +of the boat-load ever gave away. Watkins had a hold on the man somehow, +and the evidence of the fraud was overwhelming. About noon they came back, +Maud holding an enormous envelope in her hand. + +"I can never, never thank you enough, Mr. Watkins," she beamed at him. +"You have saved me from such mortification and unhappiness, and you were +so _clever_." + +That night at dinner Uncle Ezra was more than usually genial, and beamed +upon Maud and Watkins perpetually. Watkins was quite the hero and did his +best to look humble. + +"How much rent did the spiritual influence cost, Maud?" I asked. She was +too happy to be offended. "Oh, we bought an old ring to make him feel +pleased, five pounds, and Mr. Hare's services were worth five pounds, and +Mr. Watkins thinks we should give the vice-consul a box of cigars. + +"Let's see; ten pounds and a box of cigars, that's three hundred lire at +the price of exchange. You had the picture just three weeks, a hundred +lire a week for the use of all that education in art, all that spiritual +influence. Quite cheap, I should say." + +"And Mr. Watkins's services, Maud!" my wife asked, viciously. There was a +slight commotion at the table. + +"May I, Maud?" Watkins murmured. + +"As you please, Charles," Maud replied, with her eyes lowered to the +table. + +"Maud has given herself," Uncle Ezra said, gleefully. + +Painter rose from the table and disappeared into his room. Pretty soon he +came out bearing a tray with a dozen champagne glasses, of modern-antique +Venetian glass. + +"Let me present this to you, Miss Vantweekle," he pronounced, solemnly, +"as an engagement token. I, I exchanged my picture for them this morning." + +"Some Asti Spumante, Ricci." + +"To the rejected Titian--" I suggested for the first toast. + +VENICE, May, 1896. + + + +PAYMENT IN FULL + +The two black horses attached to the light buggy were chafing in the crisp +October air. Their groom was holding them stiffly, as if bolted to the +ground, in the approved fashion insisted upon by the mistress of the +house. Old Stuart eyed them impatiently from the tower window of the +breakfast-room where he was smoking his first cigar; Mrs. Stuart held him +in a vise of astounding words. + +"They will need not only the lease of a house in London for two years, but +a great deal of money besides," she continued in even tones, ignoring his +impatience. + +"I've done enough for 'em already," the old fellow protested, drawing on +his driving gloves over knotted hands stained by age. + +Mrs. Stuart rustled the letter that lay, with its envelope, beside her +untouched plate. It bore the flourishes of a foreign hotel and a foreign- +looking stamp. + +"My mother writes that their summer in Wiesbaden has made it surer that +Lord Raincroft is interested in Helen. It is evidently a matter of time. I +say two years--it may be less." + +"Well," her husband broke in. "Haven't they enough to live on?" + +"At my marriage," elucidated Mrs. Stuart, imperturbably, "you settled on +them securities which yield about five thousand a year. That does not give +them the means to take the position which I expect for my family in such a +crisis. They must have a large house, must entertain lavishly," she swept +an impassive hand toward him in royal emphasis, "and do all that that set +expects--to meet them as equals. You could not imagine that Lord Raincroft +would marry Helen out of a pension?" + +"I don't care a damn how he marries her, or if he marries her at all." He +rose, testily. "I guess my family would have thought five thousand a year +enough to marry the gals on, and to spare, and it was more'n you ever had +in your best days." + +"Naturally," her voice showed scorn at his perverse lack of intelligence. +"Out contract was made with that understanding." + +"Let Helen marry a feller who is willing to go half way for her without a +palace. Why didn't you encourage her marrying Blake, as smart a young man +as I ever had? She was taken enough with him." + +"Because I did not think it fit for my sister to marry your junior +partner, who, five years ago, was your best floor-walker." + +"Well, Blake is a college-educated man and a hustler. He's bound to get on +if I back him. If Blake weren't likely enough, there's plenty more in +Chicago like me--smart business men who want a handsome young wife." + +"Perhaps we have had enough of Stuart, Hodgson, and Blake. There are other +careers in the world outside Chicago." + +"Tut, tut! I ain't going to fight here all day. What's the figure? What's +the figure?" He slapped his breeches with the morning paper. + +"You will have to take the house in London (the Duke of Waminster's is to +let, mamma writes), and give them two hundred thousand dollars in addition +to their present income for the two years." She let her eyes fall on his +toast and coffee. The old man turned about galvanically and peered at her. + +"You're crazy! two hundred thousand these times, so's your sister can get +married?" + +"She's the last," interposed Mrs. Stuart, deftly. + +"I tell you I've done more than most men. I've paid your old bills, your +whole family's, your brothers' in college, to the tune of five thousand a +year (worthless scamps!) and put 'em in business. You've had all of 'em at +Newport and Paris, let alone their living here off and on nearly twenty +years. Now you think I can shell out two hundred thousand and a London +house as easily as I'd buy pop-corn." + +"It was our understanding." Mrs. Stuart began on her breakfast. + +"Not much. I've done better by you than I agreed to, because you've been a +good wife to me. I settled a nice little fortune on you independent of +your widder's rights or your folks." + +"Your daughter will benefit by that," Mrs. Stuart corrected. + +"Well, what's that to do with it?" He seemed to lose the scent. + +"What was our understanding when I agreed to marry you?" + +"I've done more'n I promised, I tell you." + +"As you very well know, I married you because my family were in desperate +circumstances. Our understanding was that I should be a good wife, and you +were to make my family comfortable according to my views. Isn't that +right?" + +The old man blanched at this businesslike presentation; his voice grew +feebler. + +"And I have, Beatty. I have! I've done everything by you I promised. And I +built this great house and another at Newport, and you ain't never +satisfied." + +"That was our agreement, then," she continued, without mercy. "I was just +nineteen, and wise, for a girl, and you had forty-seven pretty wicked +years. There wasn't any nonsense between us. I was a stunning girl, the +most talked about in New York at that time. I was to be a good wife, and +we weren't to have any words. Have I kept my promise?" + +"Yes, you've been a good woman, Beatty, better'n I deserved. But won't you +take less, say fifty thousand?" He advanced conciliatorily. "That's an +awful figure!" + +His wife rose, composed as ever and stately in her well-sustained forty +years. + +"Do you think _any_ price is too great in payment for these twenty-one +years?" Contempt crept in. "Not one dollar less, two hundred thousand, +and I cable mamma to-day." + +Stuart shrivelled up. + +"Do you refuse?" she remarked, lightly, for he stood irresolutely near the +door. + +"I won't stand that!" and he went out. + +When he had left Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast; a young woman +Came in hastily from the hall, where she had bade her father good-by. +She stood in the window watching the coachman surrender the horses to +the old man. The groom moved aside quickly, and in a moment the two +horses shot nervously through the ponderous iron gateway. The delicate +wheels just grazed the stanchions, lifting the light buggy in the air +to a ticklish angle. It righted itself and plunged down the boulevard. +Fast horses and cigars were two of the few pleasures still left the old +store-keeper. There was another--a costly one--which was not always +forthcoming. + +Miss Stuart watched the groom close the ornate iron gates, and then turned +inquiringly to her mother. + +"What's up with papa?" + +Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast in silence. She was superbly +preserved, and queenly for an American woman. It seemed as if something +had stayed the natural decay of her powers, of her person, and had put +her always at this impassive best. Something had stopped her heart to +render her passionless, and thus to embalm her for long years of +mechanical activity. She would not decay, but when her time should come +she would merely stop--the spring would snap. + +The daughter had her mother's height and her dark coloring. But her large, +almost animal eyes, and her roughly moulded hands spoke of some homely, +prairie inheritance. Her voice was timid and hesitating. + +At last Mrs. Stuart, her mail and breakfast exhausted at the same moment, +Rose to leave the room. + +"Oh, Edith," she remarked, authoritatively, "if you happen to drive down +town this morning, will you tell your father that we are going to Winetka +for a few weeks? Or telephone him, if you find it more convenient. And +send the boys to me. Miss Bates will make all arrangements. I think there +is a train about three." + +"Why, mamma, you don't mean to stay there! I thought we were to be here +all winter. And my lessons at the Art Institute?" + +Mrs. Stuart smiled contemptuously. "Lessons at the Art Institute are not +the most pressing matter for my daughter, who is about to come out. You +can amuse yourself with golf and tennis as long as they last. Then, +perhaps, you will have a chance to continue your lessons in Paris." + +"And papa!" protested the daughter, "I thought he couldn't leave this +winter?" + +Mrs. Stuart smiled again provokingly. "Yes?" + +"Oh, I can't understand!" Her pleading was almost passionate, but still +low and sweet. "I want so much to go on with my lessons with the other +girls. And I want to go out here with all the girls I know." + +"We will have them at Winetka. And Stuyvesant Wheelright--you liked him +last summer." + +The girl colored deeply. "I don't want him in the house. I had rather go +away. I'll go to Vassar with Mary Archer. You needn't hunt up any man for +me." + +"Pray, do you think I would tolerate a college woman in my house? It's +well enough for school-teachers. And what does your painting amount to? +You will paint sufficiently well, I dare say, to sell a few daubs, and so +take the bread and butter from some poor girl. But I am afraid, my dear, +we couldn't admit your pictures to the gallery." + +The girl's eyes grew tearful at this tart disdain. "I love it, and papa +has money enough to let me paint 'daubs' as long as I like. Please, please +let me go on with it!" + + * * * * * + +That afternoon the little caravan started for the deserted summer home at +Winetka, on a high bluff above the sandy lake-shore. It had been bought +years before, when not even the richest citizens dreamed of going East for +the summer. Of late it had been used only rarely, in the autumn or late +spring, or as a retreat in which to rusticate the boys with their tutor. +When filled with a large house-party, it made a jolly place, though not +magnificent enough for the developed hospitalities of Mrs. Stuart. + +Old Stuart came home to an empty palace. He had not believed that his +reserved wife would take such high measures, and he felt miserably lonely +after the usual round of elaborate dinners to which he had grown +grumblingly accustomed. His one senile passion was his pride in her, and +he was avaricious of the lost days while she was absent from her usual +victorious post as the mistress of that great house. The next day his +heart sank still lower, for he saw in the Sunday papers a little paragraph +to the effect that Mrs. Stuart had invited a brilliant house-party to her +autumn home in Winetka, and that it was rumored she and her lovely young +daughter would spend the winter in London with their relatives. It made +the old man angry, for he could see with what deliberation she had planned +for a long campaign. Even the comforts of his club were denied him; +everyone knew him and everyone smiled at the little domestic disturbance. +So he asked his secretary, young Spencer, to make his home for the present +in the sprawling, brand-new "palace" that frowned out on the South +Boulevard. Young Spencer accepted, out of pity for the old man; for he +wasn't a toady and he knew his own worth. + +People did talk in the clubs and elsewhere about the divided +establishments. It would have been worse had the division come earlier, as +had been predicted often enough, or had Mrs. Stuart ever given in her +younger days a handle for any gossip. But her conduct had been so frigidly +correct that it stood in good service at this crisis. She would not have +permitted a scandal. That also was in the contract. + +Of course there was communication between the two camps, the gay polo- +playing, dinner-giving household on the bluff, and the forlorn, tottering +old man with his one aide-de-camp, the blithe young secretary. Now and +then the sons would turn up at the offices down-town, amiably expectant of +large checks. Stuart grimly referred them to their mother. He had some +vague idea of starving the opposition out, but his wife's funds were large +and her credit, as long as there should be no recognized rupture, perfect. + +The daughter, Edith, frequently established connections. In some way she +had got permission to take her lessons at the Art Institute. Her mother's +open contempt for her aesthetic impulses had ruined her illusion about her +ability, for Mrs. Stuart knew her ground in painting. But she still loved +the atmosphere of the great studio-room at the Art Institute. She liked +the poor girls and the Western bohemianism and the queer dresses, and +above all she liked to linger over her own little easel, undisturbed by +the creative flurry around, dreaming of woods and soft English gardens and +happy hours along a river where the water went gently, tenderly, on to the +sea. And her sweet eyes, large and black like her mother's, but softer and +gentler, to go with her low voice, would moisten a bit from the dream. "So +nice," he would murmur to her picture, "to sit here and think of the quiet +and rest, such as good pictures always paint. I'd like not to go back with +Thomas to the train--to Winetka where they play polo and dress up and +dance and flirt, but to sail away over the sea----" + +Then her eyes would see in the purplish light of her picture a certain +face that meant another life. She would blush to herself, and her voice +would stop. For she couldn't think aloud about him. + +Some days, when the murky twilight came on early, she would steal away +altogether from the gay party in Winetka and spend the night with her +lonely father. They would have a queer, stately dinner for three served in +the grand dining-room by the English butler and footman. Stuart never had +much to say to her; she wasn't his "smart," queenly wife who brought all +people to her feet. When he came to his cigar and his whiskey, she would +take young Spencer to the gallery, where they discussed the new French +pictures, very knowingly, Spencer thought. She would describe for him the +intricacies of a color-scheme of some tender Diaz, and that would lead +them into the leafy woods about Barbizon and other realms of sentiment. + +When they returned to the library she would feel that there were +compensations for this dreary separation at Winetka and that her enormous +home had never been so nice and comfortable before. As she bade the two +men good-night, her father would come to the door, rubbing his eyes and +forlorn over his great loss, and to her murmured "Good-night" he would +sigh, "so like her mother." "Quite the softest voice in the world," +thought Spencer. + +Once in her old little tower room that she still preferred to keep, +covered with her various attempts at sea, and sky, and forest, she was +blissfully conscious of independence, so far from Stuyvesant Wheelright +and his mother--quite an ugly old dame with no better manners than the +plain Chicago people (who despised them all as "pork-packers" and "shop- +keepers," nevertheless). + +On one of these visits late in October, Edith had found her father ailing +from a cold. He asked her, shamefacedly, to tell her mother that "he was +very bad." Mrs. Stuart, leaving the house-party in full go, started at +once for the town-house. Old Stuart had purposely stayed at home on the +chances that his wife would relent. When she came in, she found him lying +in the same morning-room, where hostilities had begun three months before. +He grew confused, like an erring school-boy, as his wife kissed him and +asked after his health in a neutral sort of way. He made out that he was +threatened with a complication of diseases that might finally end him. + +"Well, what can I do for you now," Mrs. Stuart said, with business-like +directness. + +"Spencer's looking after things pretty much. He's honest and faithful, but +he ain't got any head like yours, Beatty, and times are awful hard. People +won't pay rents, and I don't dare to throw 'em out. Stores and houses +would lie empty these days. Then there's the North Shore Electric--I was a +fool to go in so heavy the Fair year and tie up all my money. I s'pose you +know the bonds ain't reached fifty this fall. I'm not so tremendously +wealthy as folks think." + +Mrs. Stuart exactly comprehended this sly speech; she knew also that there +was some truth in it. + +"Say, Beatty, it's so nice to have you here!" The old man raised himself +and capered about like a gouty old house-dog. + +He made the most of his illness, for he suspected that it was a condition +of truce, not a bond of peace. While he was in bed Mrs. Stuart drove to +the city each day and, with Spencer's help, conducted business for long +hours. She had had experience in managing large charities; she knew +people, and when a tenant could pay, with a little effort, he found Madam +more pitiless than the old shop-keeper. Every afternoon she would take her +stenographer to Stuart's room and consult with him. + +"Ain't she a wonder?" the old man would exclaim to Spencer, in new +admiration for his wife. And Spencer, watching the stately, authoritative +woman day after day as she worked quickly, exactly, with the repose and +dignity of a perfect machine, shivered back an unwilling assent. + +"She's marvellous!" + +All accidents played into the hands of this masterful woman. Her own +presence in town kept her daughter at Winetka _en evidence_ for Stuyvesant +Wheelright and Mrs. Wheelright. For Mrs. Stuart had determined upon him +as, on the whole, the most likely arrangement that she could make. He was +American, but of the best, and Mrs. Stuart was wise enough to prefer the +domestic aristocracy. So to her mind affairs were not going badly. The +truce would conclude ultimately in a senile capitulation; meantime, she +could advance money for the household in London. + +When Stuart had been nursed back into comparative activity, the grand +dinners began once more--a convenient rebuttal for all gossip. The usual +lists of distinguished strangers, wandering English story-tellers in +search of material for a new "shilling shocker," artists suing to paint +her or "Mademoiselle l'Inconnue," crept from time to time into the genial +social column of the newspaper. + +Stuart spent the evenings in state on a couch at the head of the drawing- +room, where he usually remained until the guests departed. In this way he +got a few words with his wife before she sent him to bed. One night his +enthusiasm over her bubbled out. + +"You're a great woman, Beatty!" She looked a little pale, but otherwise +unworn by her laborious month. It was not blood that fed those even +pulses. + +"You will not need my help now. You can see to your business yourself," +she remarked. + +"Say, Beatty, you won't leave me again, will you!" he quavered, +beseechingly. "I need you these last years; 'twon't be for long." + +"Oh, you are strong and quite well again," she asserted, not unkindly. + +"Will a hundred thousand do?" he pleaded. "Times are bad and ready money +is scarce, as you know." + +"Sell the electric bonds," she replied, sitting down, as if to settle the +matter. + +"Sell them bonds at fifty?" The old shop-keeper grew red in the face. + +"What's that!" she remarked, disdainfully. "What have I given?" Her +husband said nothing. "As I told you when we first talked the matter over, +I have done my part to the exact letter of the law. You admit I have been +a good and faithful wife, don't you? You know," a note of passion crept +into her colorless voice, "You know that there hasn't been a suggestion of +scandal with our home. I married you, young, beautiful, admired; I am +handsome now." She drew herself up disdainfully. "I have not wanted for +opportunity, I think you might know; but not one man in all the world can +boast I have dropped an eyelash for his words. Not one syllable of favor +have I given any man but you. Am I not right?" + +Stuart nodded. + +"Then what do you haggle for over a few dollars? Have I ever given you +reason to repent our arrangement? Have I not helped you in business, in +social matters put you where you never could go by yourself? And do you +think my price is high?" + +"Money is so scarce," Stuart protested, feebly. + +"Suppose it left you only half a million, all told! What's that, in +comparison to what I have given? Think of that. I don't complain, but you +know we women estimate things differently. And when we sell ourselves, we +name the price; and it matters little how big it is," + +Her scorn pierced the old man's somewhat leathery sensibilities. + +"Well, if it's a question of price, when is it going to end--when shall I +have paid up? Next year you'll want half a million hard cash." + +"There is no end." + +The next morning, Mrs. Stuart returned to Winetka; the rupture threatened +to prolong itself indefinitely. Stuart found it hard to give in +completely, and it made him sore to think that their marriage had remained +a business matter for over twenty years. And yet it was hard to face death +without all the satisfaction money could buy him. The crisis came, +however, in an unexpected manner. + +One morning Stuart found his daughter waiting for him at his office. She +had slipped away from Winetka, and taken an early train. + +"What's up, Ede?" + +"Oh, papa!" the young girl gasped "They make me so unhappy, every day, and +I can't stand it. Mamma wants me to marry Stuyvesant Wheelright, and he's +there all the time." + +"Who's he?" Stuart asked, sharply. His daughter explained briefly. + +"He is what mamma calls 'eligible'; he is a great swell in New York, and I +don't like him. Oh, papa, I can't be a _grande dame_, like mamma, can I? +Won't you tell her so, papa? Make up with her; pay her the money she wants +for Aunt Helen, and then perhaps she'll let me paint." + +"No, you're not the figure your mother is, and never will be," Stuart +said, almost slightingly. "I don't think, Ede, you'll ever make a great +lady like her." + +"I don't think she is very happy," the girl bridled, in her own defence. + +"Well, perhaps not, perhaps not. But who do you want to marry, anyway? You +had better marry someone, Ede, 'fore I die." + +"I don't know--that is, it doesn't matter much just now. I should like to +go to California, perhaps, with the Stearns girls. I want to paint, just +daubs, you know--I can't do any better. But you tell mamma I can't be a +great swell. I shouldn't be happy, either."' + +The old man resolved to yield. That very afternoon he drove out to Winetka +along the lake shore. He had himself gotten up in his stiffest best. He +held the reins high and tight, his body erect in the approved form; while +now and then he glanced back to see if the footmen were as rigid as my +lady demanded. For Mrs. Stuart loved good form, and he felt nervously +apprehensive, as if he were again suing for her maiden favors. He was +conscious, too, that he had little enough to offer her--the last months +had brought humility. Beside him young Spencer lolled, enjoying, with a +free heart, his day off in the gentle, spring-like air. Perhaps he divined +that his lady would not need so much propitiation. + +They surprised a party just setting forth from the Winetka house as they +drove up with a final flourish. Their unexpected arrival scattered the +guests into little, curious groups; everyone anticipated immediate +dissolution. They speculated on the terms, and the opinion prevailed that +Stuart's expedition from town indicated complete surrender. Meanwhile +Stuart asked for an immediate audience, and husband and wife went up at +once to Mrs. Stuart's little library facing out over the bluff that +descended to the lake. + +"Well, Beatty," old Stuart cried, without preliminary effort, "I just +can't live without you--that's the whole of it." She smiled. "I ain't much +longer to live, and then you're to have it all. So why shouldn't you take +what you want now?" He drew out several checks from his pocket-book. + +"You can cable your folks at once and go ahead. You've been the best sort +of wife, as you said, and--I guess I owe you more'n I've paid for your +puttin' up with an old fellow like me all these years." + +Mrs. Stuart had a new sensation of pity for his pathetic surrender. + +"There's one thing, Beatty," he continued, "so long as I live you'll own I +oughter rule in my own house, manage the boys, and that." Mrs. Stuart +nodded. "Now I want you to come back with me and break up this party." + +Mrs. Stuart took the checks. + +"You've made it a bargain, Beatty. You said I was to pay your family what +you wanted, and you were to obey me at that price?" + +"Well," replied Mrs. Stuart, good-humoredly. "We'll all go up to-morrow. +Isn't that early enough?" + +"That ain't all, Beatty. You can't make everybody over; you couldn't brush +me up much; you can't make a grand lady out of Edith." + +Mrs. Stuart looked up inquiringly. + +"Now you've had your way about your family, and I want you to let Ede +alone." + +"Why?" + +"She doesn't want that Wheelright fellow, and if you think it over you'll +see that she couldn't do as you have. She ain't the sort." + +Mrs. Stuart twitched at the checks nervously. + +"I sort of think Spencer wants her; in fact, he said so coming out here." + +"Impertinent puppy!" + +"And I told him he could have her, if she wanted him. I don't think I +should like to see another woman of mine live the sort of life you have +with me. It's hard on 'em." His voice quivered. + +Beatrice, Lady Stuart of Winetka, as they called her, stood silently +looking out to the lake, reviewing "the sort of life she had lived" from +the time she had made up her mind to take the shop-keeper's millions to +this moment of concession. It was a grim panorama, and she realized now +that it had not meant complete satisfaction to either party. Her twenty or +more frozen years made her uncomfortable. While they waited, young Spencer +and Miss Stuart came slowly up the terraced bluff. + +"Well, John," Mrs. Stuart smiled kindly. "I think this is the last +payment,--in full. Let's go down to congratulate them." + +CHICAGO, March, 1895. + + + +A PROTHALAMION + +_The best man has gone for a game of billiards with the host. The maid of +honor is inditing an epistle to one who must fall. The bridesmaids have +withdrawn themselves, each with some endurable usher, to an appropriate +retreat upon the other coasts of the veranda. The night is full of +starlight in May. The lovers discover themselves at last alone._ + +_He._ What was that flame-colored book Maud was reading to young Bishop? + +_She. The Dolly Dialogues_; you remember we read them in London when they +came out. + +_He._ What irreverent literature we tolerate nowadays! I suppose it's the +aftermath of agnosticism. + +_She._ It didn't occur to me that it was irreligious. + +_He._ Irreverent, I said--the tone of our world. + +_She._ But how I love that world of ours--even the _Dolly Dialogues_! + +_He_. Because you love it, this world you feel, you are reverent toward +it. I have hated it so many years; it carried so much pain with it that I +thought every expression of life was pain, and now, now, if it were not +for Maud and the _Dolly Dialogues_, these last days would seem to launch +us afresh upon quite another world. + +_She_. Yes, another world, where there is a new terror, a strange, inhuman +terror that I never thought of before, the terror of death. + +_He_. Why, what a perversity! You think of immortality as so real, so +sure! Relief from that terror of death is the proper fruit of your firm +belief. + +_She_. But I never cared before about the shape, the form, the kind of +that other life. I was content to believe it quite different from this, +for I knew this so well, enjoyed it so much. When the jam-pot should be +empty, I did not want another one just like it. But now.... + +_He_. I know. And I lived so much a stranger to the experiences I could +have about me that I was indifferent to what came after. Now, what I am, +what I have, is so precious that I cannot believe in any change which +should let me know of this life as past and impossible. That would be "the +supreme grief of remembering in misery the happy days that have been." + +_She._ It makes me shiver; it is so blasphemous to hate the state of being +of a spirit. That would seem to degrade love, if through love we dread to +lose our bodies. + +_He._ Strange! You have come to this confession out of a trusting religion +and I from doubt--at the best indifference. You are ashamed to confess +what seems to you wholly blasphemous against that noble faith and prayer +of a Christian; and I find an invigorating pleasure in your blasphemy. +There is no conceivable life of a spirit to compare with the pain, even, +of the human body; it is better to suffer than to know no difference. + +_She._ But "the resurrection of the body": perhaps the creed, word for +word without interpretation, would not mean that empty life which we +moderns have grown to consider the supreme and liberal conception of +existence. + +_He._ Resurrection in a purified form fit for the bliss, whatever one of +all the many shapes men have dreamed it may vision itself in! + +_She._ But this love of life, this excessive joy, must fade away. The +record of the world is not that we keep that. Think of the old people who +dream peacefully of death, after knowing all the fulness of this life. +Think of the wretches who pray for it. That vision of the life of spirits +which is so dreadful to us has been the comfort of the ages. There must be +some inner necessity for it. Perhaps with our bodies our wills become worn +out. + +_He_. That, I think, is the mystery--the wearing out, which is death. For +death occurs oftener in life than we think; I know so many dead people who +are walking about. As for sick people, physicians say that in a long +illness they never have to warn a patient of the coming end. He knows it, +subtly, from some dim, underground intimation. Without acknowledging it, +he arranges himself, so to speak, for the grave, and comforts himself with +those visions that religion holds out. Or does he comfort himself? + +But apart from the dying, there are so many out of whose bodies and +spirits life is ebbing. It may have been a little flood-tide, but they +know it is going. You see it on their faces. They become dull. That +leprosy of death attacks their life, joint by joint. They lay aside one +pleasure, one function, one employment of their minds after another. +The machine may run on, but the soul is dying. That is what I call _death +in life_. + + + +THE EPISODE OF LIFE. + +Jack Lynton is becoming stone like that. His is a case in point, and a +good one, because the atrophy is coming about not from physical disease, +or from any dissipation. You would call him sane and full of fire. He was. +He married three years ago. Their life was full, too, like ours, and +precious. They did not throw it away; they were wise guardians of all its +possibilities. The second summer--I was with them, and Jack has told me +much besides--Mary began talking, almost in joke, of these matters, of +what one must prepare for; of second marriages, and all that. We chatted +in as idle fashion as do most people over the utterly useless topics of +life. One exquisite September day, all steeped in the essence of +sunshine--misty everywhere over the fields--how well I remember it!--she +spoke again in jest about something that might happen after her death. I +saw a trace of pain on Jack's face. She saw it, and was sad for a moment. +Now I know that all through that late summer and autumn those two were +fighting death in innuendoes. They were not morbid people, but death went +to bed with them each night. + +Of course, this apprehension, this miasma, came in slowly, like those +autumn sea-mists; appearing once a month, twice this week--a little +oftener each time. + +Jack is a sensible man; he does not shy at a shadow. His nerves are +tranquil, and respond as they ought. They went about the business of life +as joyfully as you or I, and in October we were all back in town. Now, +Mary is dying; the doctor sees it now. I do not mean that he should have +known it before. _She_ knew it, and _she_ noted how the life was fading +away until the time came when what was so full of action, of feeling, of +desire, was merely a shell--impervious to sensation. + +And Jack is dying, too--his health is good enough, but pain which he +cannot master is killing him into numbness. He watches each joy, each +experience with which they were both tremulous, depart. And do you suppose +it is any comfort for those two honest souls to believe that their spirits +will recognize each other in some curious state that has dispensed with +sense? Do you suppose that a million of years of a divine communion would +make up for one spoken word, for even a shade of agony that passes across +Mary's face? + +_She_. If God should change their souls in that other world, then perhaps +their longings would be quite different; so that what we think of with +chill they would accept as a privilege. + +_He_. In other words, those two, who have learned to know each other in +human terms, who have loved and suffered in the body, will have ended +their page? Some strange transformation into another two? Why not simply +an end to the book? Would that not be easier? + +_She_. If one had the courage to accept these few years of life and ask +for no more. + +_He_. I think that it is cowardice which makes one accept the ghostly +satisfaction of a surviving spirit. + + + +WHEN THE BODY IN LIFE FEELS THE SPIRIT. + +_She_. But have you never forgotten the body, dreamed what it would be to +feel God? You have known those moments when your soul, losing the sense of +contact with men or women, groped alone, in an enveloping calm, and knew +content. I have had it in times of intoxication from music--not the +personal, passionate music of to-day, but some one or two notes that sink +the mazy present into darkness. I knew that my senses were gone for the +time, and in their place I held a comfortable consciousness of power. +There have been other times--in Lent, at the close of the drama of +Christ--beside the sea--after a long dance--illusory moments when one +forgot the body and wondered. + +_He._ I know. One night in the Sierras we camped high up above the summits +of the range. The altitude, perhaps, or the long ride through the forest, +kept me awake. Our fires died down; a chalky mist rose from the valleys, +and, filtering through the ravines, at last capped the granite heads. The +smouldering tree-trunks we had lit for fires and the little patch of rock +where we lay, made an island in that white sea. Between us and the black +spaces among the stars there was nothing. How eternally quiet it was! I +can feel that isolation now coming over my soul like the stealthy fog, +until I lay there, unconscious of my body, in a wondering placidity, +watching the stars burn and fade. I could seem to feel them whirl in their +way through the heavens. And then a thought detached itself from me, the +conception of an eternity passed in placidity like that without the pains +of sense, the obligations of action; I loved it then--that cold residence +of thought! + +_She._ You have known it, too. Those moments when the body in life feels +the state of spirit come rarely and awe one. Dear heart, perhaps if our +spirits were purified and experienced we should welcome that perpetual +contemplation. We cannot be Janus-faced, but the truth may lie with the +monks, who killed this life in order to obtain a grander one. + + + +TWO SOULS IN HEAVEN REMEMBER THE LIFE LIVED ON EARTH. + +_He._ Can you conceive of any heaven for which you would change this +shameful world? Any heaven, I mean, of spirits, not merely an Italian +palace of delights? + +_She._ There is the heaven of the Pagans, the heaven of glorified earth, +but---- + +_He._ Would you like to dine without tasting the fruit and the wine? What +attainment would it be to walk in fields of asphodel, when all the colors +of all the empyrean were equally dazzling, and perceived by the mind +alone? For my part, I should prefer to hold one human violet. + +_She_. The heaven of the Christian to-day? + +_He_. That may be interpreted in two ways: the heaven where we know +nothing but God, and the heaven where we remember our former life. Let us +pass the first, for the second is the heaven passionately desired by those +who have suffered here, who have lost their friends. + +Suppose that we two had finished with the episode of death, and had come +out beyond into that tranquillity of spirit where sorrows change to +harmony. You and I would go together, or, perhaps, less fortunate, one +should wait the other, but finally both would experience this +transformation from body into spirit. Should you like it? Would it fill +your heart with content--if you remembered the past? I think not. Suppose +we should walk out some fresh morning, as we love to do now, and look at +that earth we had been compelled to abandon. Where would be that fierce +joy of inrushing life? for, I fancy, we should ever have a level of +contentment and repose. Indeed, there would be no evening with its +comforting calm, no especially still nights, no mornings: nothing is +precious when nothing changes, and where all can be had for eternity. + +We should talk, as of old, but the conversation of old men and women would +be dramatic and passionate to ours. For everything must needs be known, +and there could be no distinctions in feeling. Should you see your sister +dying in agony at sea, you would smile tranquilly at her temporary and +childish sorrow. All the affairs of this life would not strike you, pierce +your heart, or move your pulse. They would repeat themselves in your eyes +with a monotonous precision, and they would be done almost before the +actors had begun. Indeed, if you should not be incapable of blasphemy, you +would rebel at this blind game, played out with such fever. + +We must not forget that our creative force would be spent: planning, +building, executing, toiling patiently for some end that is mirrored only +in our minds--how much of our joy comes from these!--would be laid aside. +We should have shaken the world as much as we could: now, _peace_.... +Again, I say, peace is felt only after a storm. Like Ulysses, we should +look wistfully out from the isolation of heaven to the resounding waves of +this unconquered world. + +Of course, one may say that the mind might fashion cures for all this; +that a greater architect would build a saner heaven. But, remember, that +we must not change the personal sense; in heaven, however you plan it, no +mortal must lose that "I" so painfully built from the human ages. If you +destroy his sense of the past life, his treasures acquired in this earth, +you break the rules of the game: you begin again and we have nothing to do +with it. + +_She._ You have not yet touched upon the cruellest condition of the life +of the spirit. + +_He._ Ah, dearest, I know that. You mean the love of the person. Indeed, +so quick it hurts me that I doubt if you would be walking that morning in +heaven with me alone. Perhaps, however, the memories of our common life on +earth would make you single me out. Let us think so. We should walk on to +some secluded spot, apart from the other spirits, and with our eyes cast +down so that we might not see that earth we were remembering. You would +look up at last with a touch of that defiance I love so now, as if a young +goddess were tossing away divine cares to shine out again in smiles. Ah, +how sad! + +I should have some stir about the heart, some desire to kiss you, to +embrace you, to possess you, as the inalienable joy of my life. My hand +could not even touch you! Would our eyes look love? Could we have any +individual longing for one-another, any affection kept apart to ourselves, +not swallowed up in that general loving-kindness and universal +beatification proper to spirits? + +I know upon earth to-day some women, great souls, too, who are incapable +of an individual love. They may be married, they may have children; they +are good wives and good mothers; but their souls are too large for a +single passion. Their world blesses them, worships them, makes saints of +them, but no man has ever touched the bottom of their hearts. I suppose +their husbands are happy in the general happiness, yet they must be sad +some days, over this barren love. Hours come when they must long, even for +the little heart of a coquette that has dedicated itself to one other and +with that other would trustingly venture into hell. + +Well, that universal love is the only kind such spirits as you and I +should be, could know. Would that content you? + +We should sit mournfully silent, two impotent hearts, and remember, +remember. I should worship your exquisite body as I had known it on earth. +I should see that head as it bends to-night; I should hear again your +voice in those words you were singing when I passed your way that first +time; and your eyes would burn with the fire of our relinquished love. It +would all come faintly out of the past, deadened by a thin film of +recollection; now it strikes with a fierce joy, almost like a physical +blow, and wakes me to life, to desire. + +_She._ Yes. We women say we love the spirit of the man we have chosen, but +it is a spirit that acts and expresses itself in the body. To that body, +with all its habits, so unconscious! its sure force and power, we are +bound--more than the man is bound to the loveliness of the woman he +adores. We--I, it is safer so, perhaps--understand what I see, what I +feel, what I touch, what I have kissed and loved. That is mine and becomes +mine more each day I live with it and possess it. That love of the +concrete is our limitation, so we are told, but it is our joy. + +_He_. So we should sit, without words, for we would shrink from speech as +too sad, and we should know swiftly the thought of the other. And when the +sense of our loss became quite intolerable, we should walk on silently, in +a growing horror of the eternity ahead. At last one of us, moved by some +acute remembrance of our deadened selves, would go to the Master of the +Spirits and, standing before him in rebellion, would say: "Cast us out as +unfit for this heaven, and if Thou canst not restore us into that past +state at least give us Hell, where we may suffer a common pain, instead of +this passive calm and contemplation." + + + +THE MEASURE OF JOY IN LIFE. + +_She._ Yet, how short it will be! How awful to have the days and weeks and +months slip by, and know that at the best there is only a reprieve of a +few years. I think from this night I shall have my shadow of death. I +shall always be doing things for the last time; a sad life that! And +perhaps we change; as you say, we may become dead in life, prepared for a +different state; and in that change we may find a new joy--a longing for +perfection and peace. + +_He_. That would be an acknowledgment of defeat, indeed, and that is the +sad result of so much living. The world has been too hard, we cry--there +is so much heartbreaking, so much misery, so few arrive! We look to +another world where all that will be made right, and where we shall suffer +no more. + +Let the others have their opiate. You, at least, I think, are too brave +for that kind of comfort. Does it not seem a little grasping to ask for +eternity, because we have fifty years of action? And an eternity of +passivity, because we have not done well with action? No, the world has +had too much of that coddling, that kind of shuffle through, as if it were +a way station where we must spend the night and make the best of sorry +accommodations. Our benevolence, our warmheartedness, goes overmuch to +making the beds a bit better, especially for the feeble and the sick and +old, and those who come badly fitted out. We help the unfortunate to slide +through: I think it would be more sensible to make it worth their while to +stay. The great philanthropists are those who ennoble life, and make it a +valuable possession. It would be well to poison the forlorn, hurry them +post haste to some other world where they may find the conditions better +suited. Then give their lot of misery and opportunity to another who can +find joy in his burden. + +_She._ A world without mercy would be hard--it would be full of a strident +clamor like a city street. + +_He._ Mercy for all; no favoritism for a few. Whoever could find a new +joy, a lasting activity; whoever could keep his body and mind in full +health and could show what a tremendous reality it is to live--would be +the merciful man. There would be less of that leprosy, death in life, and +the last problem of death itself would not be insurmountable. + +So I think the common men who know things, concrete things,--the price of +grain, if you will; the men of affairs who have their minds on the +struggle; the artists who in paint or words explore new possibilities--all +these are the merciful men, the true comforters whom we should honor. They +make life precious--aside from its physical value. + +You know the keen movement that runs through your whole being when you +come face to face with some great Rembrandt portrait. How much the man +knew who made it, who saw it unmade! Or that Bellini's Pope we used to +watch, whose penetrating smile taught us about life. And the greater +Titian, the man with a glove, that looks at you like a live soul, one whom +a man created to live for the joy of other men. In another form, I feel +the same gift of life in a new enterprise: a railroad carried through; a +corrupt government cleaned for the day. And, again, that Giorgione at +Paris, where the men and women are doing nothing in particular, but living +in the sunlight, a joyful, pagan band. + +And then think of the simpler, deeper notes of the symphony, the elements +of light and warmth and color in our world, the very seeds of existence. I +count that day the richest when we floated into the Cape harbor in the +little rowboat, bathed in the afternoon sun. The fishermen were lazily +winging in, knowing, like birds, the storm that would soon be on them. We +drank the sun in all our pores. It rained down on you, and glorified your +face and the flesh of your arms and your hands. We landed, and walked +across the evening fields to that little hut. Then nature lived and glowed +with the fervor of actual experience. You and the air and the sun-washed +ocean, all were some great throbs of actualities. + +_She._ You remember how I liked to ride with you and sail, the stormy +days. How I loved to feel your body battling even feebly with the wind and +rain. I loved to see your face grow crimson under the lash of the waves, +and then to _feel_ you, alive and mine! + +_He._ It would not be bad, a heaven like that, of perpetual physical +presentiment, of storms and sun, and rich fields, and long waves rolling +up the beaches. For nerves ever alive and strung healthily all along the +gamut of sensation! Days with terrific gloom, like the German forests of +the Middle Ages; days with small nights spent on the sea; September days +with a concealed meaning in the air. One would ride and battle and sail +and eat. Then long kisses of love in bodies that spoke. + +_She._ And yet, how strange to life as it is is that picture--like some +mediaval song with the real people left out; strange to the dirty streets, +the breakfasts in sordid rooms, the ignoble faces, the houses with failure +written across the door-posts; strange to the life of papa and mamma; to +the comfortable home; the chatter of the day; the horses; the summer +trips--everything we have lived, you and I. + +_He._ Incomplete, and hence merely a literary paradise. It is well, too, +as it is, for until we can go to bed with the commonplace, and dine with +sorrow, we are but children,--brilliant children, but with the unpleasant +mark of the child. Not sorrow accepted, my love, and bemoaned; but sorrow +fought and dislodged. He is great who feels the pain and sorrow and +absorbs it and survives--he who can remain calm in it and believe in it. +It is a fight; only the strong hold their own. That fight we call duty. + +And duty makes the only conceivable world given the human spirit and the +human frame: even should we believe that the world is a revolving +palastrinum without betterment. And the next world--the next? It must be +like ours, too, in its action; it must call upon the same activities, the +same range of desires and loves and hates. Grander, perhaps, more adorned, +with greater freedom, with more swing, with a less troubled song as it +rushes on its course. But a world like unto ours, with effort, with the +keen jangle of persons in effort, with sorrow, aye, and despair: for there +must be forfeits! + +Is that not better than to slink away to death with the forlorn comfort of +a + +"_Requiescat in pace?_" + +PARIS, December, 1895. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories +by Robert Herrick + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS *** + +This file should be named 7lovl10.txt or 7lovl10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7lovl11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7lovl10a.txt + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Bidwell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8113] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 15, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Bidwell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS + +AND OTHER STORIES + +by + +ROBERT HERRICK + + + +TO + +G. H. P. + + + +LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS: + +A MODERN ACCOUNT + +NO. I. INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY. + +(_Eastlake has renewed an episode of his past life. The formalities have +been satisfied at a chance meeting, and he continues_.) + +... So your carnations lie over there, a bit beyond this page, in a +confusion of manuscripts. Sweet source of this idle letter and gentle +memento of the house on Grant Street and of you! I fancy I catch their +odor before it escapes generously into the vague darkness beyond my +window. They whisper: "Be tender, be frank; recall to her mind what is +precious in the past. For departed delights are rosy with deceitful hopes, +and a woman's heart becomes heavy with living. We are the woman you once +knew, but we are much more. We have learned new secrets, new emotions, new +ambitions, in love--we are fuller than before." So--for to-morrow they +will be shrivelled and lifeless--I take up their message to-night. + +I see you now as this afternoon at the Goodriches', when you came in +triumphantly to essay that hot room of empty, passive folk. Someone was +singing somewhere, and we were staring at one another. There you stood at +the door, placing us; the roses, scattered in plutocratic profusion, had +drooped their heads to our hot faces. We turned from the music to _you_. +You knew it, and you were glad of it. You knew that they were busy about +you, that you and your amiable hostess made an effective group at the head +of the room. You scented their possible disapproval with zest, for you had +so often mocked their good-will with impunity that you were serenely +confident of getting what you wanted. Did you want a lover? Not that I +mean to offer myself in flesh and blood: God forbid that I should join the +imploring procession, even at a respectful distance! My pen is at your +service. I prefer to be your historian, your literary maid--half slave, +half confidant; for then you will always welcome me. If I were a lover, I +might some day be inopportune. That would not be pleasant. + +Yes, they were chattering about you, especially around the table where +some solid ladies of Chicago served iced drinks. I was sipping it all in +with the punch, and looking at the pinks above the dark hair, and +wondering if you found having your own way as good fun as when you were +eighteen. You have gained, my dear lady, while I have been knocking about +the world. You are now more than "sweet": you are almost handsome. I +suppose it is a question of lights and the time of day whether or not you +are really brilliant. And you carry surety in your face. There is nothing +in Chicago to startle you, perhaps not in the world. + +She at the punch remarked, casually, to her of the sherbet: "I wonder when +Miss Armstrong will settle matters with Lane? It is the best she can do +now, though he isn't as well worth while as the men she threw over." And +her neighbor replied: "She might do worse than Lane. She could get more +from him than the showy ones." So Lane is the name of the day. They have +gauged you and put you down at Lane. I took an ice and waited--but you +will have to supply the details. + +Meantime, you sailed on, with that same everlasting enthusiasm upon your +face that I knew six years ago, until you spied me. How extremely natural +you made your greeting! I confess I believed that I had lived for that +smile six years, and suffered a bad noise for the sound of your voice. It +seemed but a minute until we found ourselves almost alone with the solid +women at the ices. One swift phrase from you, and we had slipped back +through the meaningless years till we stood _there_ in the parlor at Grant +Street, mere boy and girl. The babbling room vanished for a few golden +moments. Then you rustled off, and I believe I told Mrs. Goodrich that +musicales were very nice, for they gave you a chance to talk. And I went +to the dressing-room, wondering what rare chance had brought me again +within the bondage of that voice. + +Then, then, dear pinks, you came sailing over the stairs, peeping out from +that bunch of lace. I loitered and spoke. Were the eyes green, or blue, or +gray; ambition, or love, or indifference to the world? I was at my old +puzzle again, while you unfastened the pinks, and, before the butler, who +acquiesced at your frivolity in impertinent silence, you held them out to +me. Only you know the preciousness of unsought-for favors. "Write me," you +said; and I write. + +What should man write about to you but of love and yourself? My pen, I +see, has not lost its personal gait in running over the mill books. +Perhaps it politely anticipates what is expected! So much the better, say, +for you expect what all men give--love and devotion. You would not know +a man who could not love you. Your little world is a circle of +possibilities. Let me explain. Each lover is a possible conception of life +placed at a slightly different angle from his predecessor or successor. +Within this circle you have turned and turned, until your head is a bit +weary. But I stand outside and observe the whirligig. Shall I be drawn in? +No, for I should become only a conventional interest. "If the salt," etc. +I remember you once taught in a mission school. + +The flowers will tell me no more! Next time give me a rose--a huge, +hybrid, opulent rose, the product of a dozen forcing processes--and +I will love you a new way. As the flowers say good-by, I will say +goodnight. Shall I burn them? No, for they would smoulder. And if I left +them here alone, to-morrow they would be wan. There! I have thrown them +out wide into that gulf of a street twelve stories below. They will +flutter down in the smoky darkness, and fall, like a message from the land +of the lotus-eaters, upon a prosy wayfarer. And safe in my heart there +lives that gracious picture of my lady as she stands above me and gives +them to me. That is eternal: you and the pinks are but phantoms. Farewell! + + + +NO. II. ACQUIESCENT AND ENCOURAGING. + +(_Miss Armstrong replies on a dull blue, canvas-textured page, over which +her stub-pen wanders in fashionable negligence. She arrives on the third +page at the matter in hand_.) + +Ah, it was very sweet, your literary love-letter. Considerable style, as +you would say, but too palpably artificial. If you want to deceive this +woman, my dear sir trifler, you must disguise your mockery more artfully. + +Why didn't I find you at the Stanwoods'? I had Nettie send you a card. I +had promised you to a dozen delightful women, "our choicest lot," who were +all agog to see my supercilious and dainty sir.... Why will you always +play with things? Perhaps you will say because I am not worth serious +moments. You play with everything, I believe, and that is banal. Ever +sincerely, + +EDITH ARMSTRONG. + + + +NO. III. EXPLANATORY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake has the masculine fondness for seeing himself in the right_.) + +I turned the Stanwoods' card down, and for your sake, or rather for the +sake of your memory. I preferred to sit here and dream about you in the +midst of my chimney-pots and the dull March mists rather than to run the +risk of another, and perhaps fatal, impression. And so far as you are +concerned your reproach is just. Do I "play with everything"? Perhaps I +am afraid that it might play with me. Imagine frolicking with tigers, who +might take you seriously some day, as a tidbit for afternoon tea--if you +should confess that you were serious! That's the way I think of the world, +or, rather, your part of it. Surely, it is a magnificent game, whose rules +we learn completely just as our blood runs too slowly for active exercise. +I like to break off a piece of its cake (or its rank cheese at times) and +lug it away with me to my den up here for further examination. I think +about it, I dream over it; yes, in a reflective fashion, I _feel_. It is a +charming, experimental way of living. + +Then, after the echo becomes faint and lifeless, or, if you prefer, the +cheese too musty, I sally out once more to refresh my larder. You play +also in your way, but not so intelligently (pardon me), for you deceive +yourself from day to day that your particular object, your temporary mood, +is the one eternal thing in life. After all, you have mastered but one +trick--the trick of being loved. With that trick you expect to take the +world; but, alas! you capture only an old man's purse or a young man's +passion. + +Artificial, my letters--yes, if you wish. I should say, not crude-- +matured, considered. I discuss the love you long to experience. I dangle +it before your eyes as a bit of the drapery that goes to the ball of life. +But when dawn almost comes and the ball is over, you mustn't expect the +paper roses to smell. This mystifies you a little, for you are a plain, +downright siren. Your lovers' songs have been in simple measures. Well, +the moral is this: take my love-letters as real (in their way) as the +play, or rather, the opera; infinitely true for the moment, unreal for the +hour, eternal as the dead passions of the ages. Further, it is better to +feel the aromatic attributes of love than the dangerous or unlovely +reality. You can flirt with number nine or marry number ten, but I shall +be stored away in your drawer for a life. + +You have carried me far afield, away from men and things. So, for a +moment, I have stopped to listen to the hum of this chaotic city as it +rises from Dearborn and State in the full blast of a commercial noon. You +wonder why an unprofitable person like myself lives here, and not in an +up-town club with my fellows. Ah, my dear lady, I wish to see the game +always going on in its liveliest fashion. So I have made a den for myself, +not under the eaves of a hotel, but on the roof, among the ventilators. +Here I can see the clouds of steam and the perpetual pall of smoke below +me. I can revel in gorgeous sunsets when the fiery light threads the smoke +and the mists and the sodden clouds eastward over the lake. And at night I +take my steamer chair to the battlements and peer over into a sea of +lights below. As I sit writing to you, outside go the click and rattle of +the elevator gates and other distant noises of humanity. My echo comes +directly enough, but it does not deafen me. Below there exists my barber, +and farther down that black pit of an elevator lies lunch, or a cigar, or +a possible cocktail, if the mental combination should prove unpleasant. +Across the hall is Aladdin's lamp, otherwise my banker; and above all is +Haroun al Raschid. Am I not wise? In the morning, if it is fair, I take a +walk among the bulkheads on the roof, and watch the blue deception of the +lake. Perhaps, if the wind comes booming in, I hear the awakening roar in +the streets and think of work. Perhaps the clear emptiness of a Sunday +hovers over the shore; then I wonder what you will say to this letter. +Will you feel with me that you should live on a housetop and eat cheese? +Do you long for a cool stream without flies, and a carpet of golden sand? +Do you want a coal fire and a husband home at six-thirty, or a third-class +ticket to the realms of nonsense? Are you thinking of Lane's income, or +Smith's cleverness, or the ennui of too many dinners? + +I know: you are thinking of love while you read this, and are happy. If I +might send you a new sensation in every line, I should be happy, too, for +your prodigal nature demands novelty. I should then be master for a +moment. And love is mastery and submission, the two poles of a strong +magnet. Adieu. + + + +NO. IV. FURTHER AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake continues apropos of a chance meeting_.) + +So you rather like the curious flavor of this new dish, but it puzzles +you. You ask for facts? What a stamp Chicago has put on your soul! You +will continue to regard as facts the feeble fancies that God has allowed +to petrify. I warn you that facts kill, but you shall have them. I had +meditated a delightful sheet of love that has been disdainfully shoved +into the waste-basket. A grave moral there for you, my lady! + +Do you remember when I was very young and _gauche_? Doubtless, for women +never forget first impressions of that sort. You dressed very badly, and +were quite ceremonious. I was the bantling son of one of your father's +provincial correspondents, to adopt the suave term of the foreigners. I +had been sent to Chicago to fit for a technical school, where I was to +learn to be very clever about mill machinery. Perhaps you remember my +father--a sweet-natured, wiry, active man, incapable of conceiving an +interest in life that was divorced from respectability. I think he had +some imagination, for now and then he was troubled about my becoming a +loafer. However, he certainly kept it in control: I was to become a great +mill owner. + +It was all luck at first: you were luck, and the Tech. was luck. Then I +found my voice and saw my problem: to cross my father's aspirations, to be +other than the Wabash mill owner, would have been cruel. You see his +desires were more passionate than mine. I worried through the mechanical, +deadening routine of the Tech. somehow, and finally got courage enough to +tell him that I could not accept Wabash quite yet. I had the audacity to +propose two years abroad. We compromised on one, but I understood that I +must not finally disappoint him. He cared so much that it would have been +wicked. A few people in this world have positive and masterful +convictions. An explosion or insanity comes if their wills smoulder in +ineffectual silence. Most of us have no more than inclinations. It seems +wise and best that those of mere inclinations should waive their +prejudices in favor of those who feel intensely. So much for the great +questions of individuality and personality that set the modern world +a-shrieking. This is a commonplace solution of the great family problem +Turgénieff propounded in "Fathers and Sons." Perchance you have heard of +Turgénieff? + +So I prepared to follow my father's will, for I loved him exceedingly. His +life had not been happy, and his nature, as I have said, was a more +exacting one than mine. The price of submission, however, was not plain to +me until I was launched that year in Paris in a strange, cosmopolitan +world. I was supposed to attend courses at the École Polytechnique, but I +became mad with the longings that are wafted about Europe from capital to +capital. I went to Italy--to Venice and Florence and Rome--to Athens and +Constantinople and Vienna. In a word, I unfitted myself for Wabash as +completely as I could, and troubled my spirit with vain attempts after art +and feeling. + +You women do not know the intoxication of five-and-twenty--a few hundred +francs in one's pockets, the centuries behind, creation ahead. You do not +know what it is to hunger after the power of understanding and the power +of expression; to see the world as divine one minute and a mechanic hell +the next; to feel the convictions of the vagabond; to grudge each sunbeam +that falls unseen by you on some mouldering gate in some neglected city, +each face of the living wherein possible life looks out untried by you, +each picture that means a new curiosity. No, for, after all, you are +material souls; you need a Bradshaw and a Baedeker, even in the land of +dreams. All men, I like to think, for one short breath in their lives, +believe this narrow world to be shoreless. They feel that they should die +in discontent if they could not experience, test, this wonderful +conglomerate of existence. It is an old, old matter I am writing you +about. We have classified it nicely, these days; we call it the "romantic +spirit," and we say that it is made three parts of youth and two of +discontent--a perpetual expression of the world's pessimism. + +I look back, and I think that I have done you wrong. Women like you have +something nearly akin to this mood. Some time in your lives you would all +be romantic lovers. The commonest of you anticipate a masculine soul that +shall harmonize your discontent into happiness. Most of you are not very +nice about it; you make your hero out of the most obvious man. Yet it is +pathetic, that longing for something beyond yourselves. That passionate +desire for a complete illusion in love is the one permanent note you women +have attained in literature. In your heart of hearts you would all (until +you become stiff in the arms of an unlovely life) follow a cabman, if he +could make the world dance for you in this joyous fashion. Some are hard +to satisfy--for example, you, my lady--and you go your restless, brilliant +little way, flirting with this man, coquetting with that, examining a +third, until your heart grows weary or until you are at peace. You may +marry for money or for love, and in twenty years you will teach your +daughters that love doesn't pay at less than ten thousand a year. But you +don't expect them to believe you, and they don't. + +I am not sneering at you. I would not have it otherwise, for the world +would be one half cheaper if women like you did not follow the perpetual +instinct. True, civilization tends to curb this romantic desire, but when +civilization runs against a passionate nature we have a tragedy. The world +is sweeter, deeper, for that. Live and love, if you can, and give the lie +to facts. Be restless, be insatiable, be wicked, but believe that your +body and soul were meant for more than food and raiment; that somewhere, +somehow, some day, you will meet the dream made real, and that _he_ will +unlock the secrets of this life. + +It is late. I am tired. The noises of the city begin, far down in the +darkness. This carries love. + + + +NO. V. AROUSED. + +(_Miss Armstrong protests and invites_.) + +It is real, real, _real_. If I can say so, after going on all these years +with but one idea (according to my good friends) of settling myself +comfortably in some large home, shouldn't you believe it? You have lived +more interestingly than I, and you are not dependent, as most of us are. +You really mock me through it all. You think I am worthy of only a kind of +candy that you carry about for agreeable children, which you call love. To +me, sir, it reads like an insult--your message of love tucked in concisely +at the close. + +No, keep to facts, for they are your _metier_. You make them interesting. +Tell me more about your idle, contemplative self. And let me see you +to-morrow at the Thorntons'. Leave your sombre eyes at home, and don't +expect infinities in tea-gabble. I saw you at the opera last night. For +some moments, while Melba was singing, I wanted you and your confectioner's +love. That Melba might always sing, and the tide always flood the marshes! +On the whole, I like candy. Send me a page of it. + +E. A. + + + +NO. VI. AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. + +(_Eastlake, disregarding her comments, continues._) + +Dear lady, did you ever read some stately bit of prose, which caught in +its glamour of splendid words the vital, throbbing world of affairs and +passions, some crystallization of a rich experience, and then by chance +turn to the "newsy" column of an American newspaper? (Forsooth, these must +be literary letters!) Well, that tells the sensations of going from Europe +to Wabash. I had caught the sound of the greater harmony, or struggle, and +I must accept the squeak of the melodeon. I did not think highly of +myself; had started too far back in the race, and I knew that laborious +years of intense zeal would place me only third class, or even lower, in +any pursuit of the arts. Perhaps if I had felt that I could have made a +good third class, I should have fought it out in Europe. There are some +things man cannot accomplish, however, our optimistic national creed to +the contrary. And there would have been something low in disappointing my +father for such ignoble results, such imperfect satisfaction. + +So to Wabash I went. I resolved to adapt myself to the billiards and +whiskey of the Commercial Club, and to the desk in the inner office behind +the glass partitions. And I like to think that I satisfied my father those +two years in the mills. After a time I achieved a lazy content. At first I +tried to deceive myself; to think that the newsy column of Wabash was as +significant as the grand page of London or Paris. That simple yarn didn't +satisfy me many months. + +Then my father died. I hung on at the mills for a time, until the strikes +and the general depression gave me valid reasons for withdrawing. To skip +details, I sold out my interests, and with my little capital came to +Chicago. My income, still dependent in some part upon those Wabash mills, +trembles back and forth in unstable equilibrium. + +Chicago was too much like Wabash just then. I went to Florence to join a +man, half German Jew, half American, wholly cosmopolite, whom I had known +in Paris. His life was very thin: it consisted wholly of interests--a +tenuous sort of existence. I can thank him for two things: that I did not +remain forever in Italy, trying to say something new, and that I began a +definite task. I should send you my book (now that it is out and people +are talking about it), but it would bore you, and you would feel that you +must chatter about it. It is a good piece of journeyman work. I gathered +enough notes for another volume, and then I grew restless. Business called +me home for a few months, so I came back to Chicago. Of all places! you +say. Yes, to Chicago, to see this brutal whirlpool as it spins and spins. +It has fascinated me, I admit, and I stay on--to live up among the +chimneys, hanging out over the cornice of a twelve-story building; to soak +myself in the steam and smoke of the prairie and in the noises of a city's +commerce. + +Am I content? Yes, when I am writing to you; or when the pile of +manuscripts at my side grows painfully page by page; or when, peering out +of the fort-like embrasure, I can see the sun drenched in smoke and mist +and the "sky-scrapers" gleam like the walls of a Colorado canon. I have +enough to buy me existence, and at thirty I still find peepholes into +hopes. + +Are these enough facts for you? Shall I send you an inventory of my room, +of my days, of my mental furniture? Some long afternoon I will spirit you +up here in that little steel cage, and you shall peer out of my window, +tapping your restless feet, while you sniff at the squalor below. You will +move softly about, questioning the watercolors, the bits of bric-à-brac, +the dusty manuscripts, the dull red hangings, not quite understanding the +fox in his hole. You will gratefully catch the sounds from the mound below +our feet, and when you say good-by and drop swiftly down those long +stories you will gasp a little sigh of relief. You will pull down your +veil and drive off to an afternoon tea, feeling that things as they are +are very nice, and that a little Chicago mud is worth all the clay of the +studios. And I? I shall take the roses out of the vase and throw them +away. I shall say, "Enough!" But somehow you will have left a suggestion +of love about the place. I shall fancy that I still hear your voice, which +will be so far away dealing out banalities. I shall treasure the words you +let wander heedlessly out of the window. I shall open my book and write, +"To-day she came--_beatissima hora_." + + + +NO. VII. OF THE NATURE OF A CONFESSION. + +(_Miss Armstrong is nearing the close of her fifth season. Prospect and +retrospect are equally uninviting. She wills to escape_.) + +I shall probably be thinking about the rents in your block, and wondering +if the family had best put up a sky-scraper, instead of doing all the +pretty little things you mention in your letter. At five-and-twenty one +becomes practical, if one is a woman whose father has left barely enough +to go around among two women who like luxury, and two greedy boys at +college with expensive "careers" ahead. This letter finds me in the trough +of the wave. I wonder if it's what you call "the ennui of many dinners?" +More likely it's because we can't keep our cottage at Sorrento. Well-a- +day! it's gray this morning, and I will write off a fit of the blues. + +I think it's about time to marry number nine. It would relieve the family +immensely. I suspect they think I have had my share of fun. Probably you +will take this as an exquisite joke, but 'tis the truth, alas! + +Last night I was at the Hoffmeyers' at dinner. It was slow. All such +dinners are slow. The good Fraus don't know how to mix the sheep and the +goats. For a passing moment they talked about you and about your book in a +puzzled way. They think you so clever and so odd. But I know how hollow he +is, and how thin his fame! I got some points on the new L from the +Hoffmeyers and young Mr. Knowlton. That was interesting and exciting. We +dealt in millions as if they were checkers. These practical men have a +better grip on life than the cynics and dreamers like you. You call them +plebeian and _bourgeois_ and Philistine and limited--all the bad names in +your select vocabulary. But they know how to feel in the good, old, +common-sense way. You've lost that. I like plebeian earnestness and push. +I like success at something, and hearty enjoyment, and good dinners, and +big men who talk about a million as if it were a ten-spot in the game. + +You see I am looking for number nine and my four horses. Then I mean to +invite you to my country house, to have a lot of "fat" girls to meet you +who will talk slang at you, and one of them shall marry you--one whose +father is a great newspaper man. And your new papa will start you in the +business of making public opinion. You will play with that, too, but, +then, you will be coining money. + +No, not here in Chicago, but if you had talked to me at Sorrento as you +write me from your sanctum on the roof, I might have listened and dreamed. +The sea makes me believe and hope. I love it so! That's why I made mamma +take a house near the lake--to be near a little piece of infinity. Yes, if +you had paddled me out of the harbor at Sorrento, some fine night when the +swell was rippling in, like the groaning of a sleepy beast, and the hills +were a-hush on the shore, then we might have gone on to that place you are +so fond of, "the land east of the sun, and west of the moon." + + + +NO. VIII. BIOGRAPHIC AND JUDICIAL. + +(_Eastlake replies analytically_.) + +But don't marry him until we are clear on all matters. I haven't finished +your case. And don't marry that foreign-looking cavalier you were riding +with to-day in the park. You are too American ever to be at home over +there. You would smash their fragile china, and you wouldn't understand. +England might fit you, though, for England is something like that dark +green, prairie park, with its regular, bushy trees against a Gainsborough +sky. You live deeply in the fierce open air. The English like that. +However, America must not lose you. + +You it was, I am sure, who moved your family in that conventional +pilgrimage of ambitious Chicagoans--west, south, north. Neither your +father nor your mother would have stirred from sober little Grant Street +had you not felt the pressing necessity for a career. Rumor got hold of +you first on the South Side, and had it that you were experimenting with +some small contractor. The explosion which followed reached me even in +Vienna. Did you feel that you could go farther, or did you courageously +run the risk of wrecking him then instead of wrecking yourself and him +later? Oh well, he's comfortably married now, and all the pain you gave +him was probably educative. You may look at his flaunting granite house on +that broad boulevard, and think well of your courage. + +Your father died. You moved northward to that modest house tucked in +lovingly under the ample shelter of the millionnaires on the Lake Shore +Drive. I fancy there has always been the gambler in your nerves; that you +have sacrificed your principle to getting a rapid return on your money. +And you have dominated your family: you sent your two brothers to Harvard, +and filled them with ambitions akin to yours. Now you are impatient +because the thin ice cracks a bit. + +But I have great faith: you will mend matters by some shrewd deal with the +manipulators at Hoffmeyer's, or by marrying number nine. You will do it +honestly--I mean the marrying; for you will convince him that you love, so +far as love is in you, and you will convince yourself that marriage, the +end of it all, is unselfish, though prosaic. You will accept resignation +with an occasional sigh, feeling that you have gone far, perhaps as far as +you can go. I trust that solution will not come quickly, however, because +I cannot regard it as a brilliant ending to your evolution. For you have +kept yourself sweet and clean from fads, and mean pushing, and the vulgar +machinery of society. You never forced your way or intrigued. You have +talked and smiled and bewitched yourself straight to the point where you +now are. You were eager and curious about pleasures, and the world has +dealt liberally with you. + +Were you perilously near the crisis when you wrote me? Did the reflective +tone come because you were brought at last squarely to the mark, because +you must decide what one of the possible conceptions of life you really +want? Don't think, I pray you; go straight on to the inevitable solution, +for when you become conscious you are lost. + +Do you wonder that I love you, my hybrid rose; that I follow the heavy +petals as they push themselves out into their final bloom; that I gather +the aroma to comfort my heart in these lifeless pages? I follow you about +in your devious path from tea to dinner or dance, or I wait at the opera +or theatre to watch for a new light in your face, to see your world +written in a smile. You are dark, and winning, and strong. You are pagan +in your love of sensuous, full things. You are grateful to the biting air +as it touches your cheek and sends the blood leaping in glad life. You +love water and fire and wind, elemental things, and you love them with +fervor and passion. All this to the world! Much more intimate to me, who +can read the letters you scrawl for the impudent, careless world. For deep +down in the core of that rose there lies a soul that permeates it all--a +longing, restless soul, one moment revealing a heaven that the next is +shut out in dark despair. + +Yes, keep the cottage by the sea for one more dream. Perchance I shall +find something stable, eternal, something better than discontent and +striving; for the sea is great and makes peace. + + + +NO. IX. CRITICISM. + +(_Miss Armstrong vindicates herself by scorning._) + +You are a tissue of phrases. You feel only words. You love! What mockery +to hear you handle the worn, old words! You have secluded yourself in +careful isolation from the human world you seem to despise. You have no +right to its passions and solaces. Incarnate selfishness, dear friend, I +suspect you are. You would not permit the disturbance of a ripple in the +contemplative lake of your life such as love and marriage might bring. + +Pray what right may you have to stew me in a saucepan up on your roof, and +to send me flavors of myself done up nicely into little packages labelled +deceitfully "love"? It is lucky that this time you have come across a +woman who has played the game before, and can meet you point by point. But +I am too weary to argue with a man who carries two-edged words, flattery +on one side and sneers on the reverse. Mark this one thing, nevertheless: +if I should decide to sell myself advantageously next season I should be +infinitely better than you,--for I am only a woman. + +E. A. + + + +NO. X. THE LIMITATION OF LIFE. + +(_Eastlake summarizes, and intends to conclude._) + +My lady, my humor of to-day makes me take up the charges in your last +letters; I will define, not defend, myself. You fall out with me because I +am a dilettante (or many words to that one effect), and you abuse me +because I deal in the form rather than the matter of love. Is that not +just to you? + +In short, I am not as your other admirers, and the variation in the +species has lost the charm of novelty. + +Believe me that I am honest to-day, at least; indeed, I think you will +understand. Only the college boy who feeds on Oscar Wilde and sentimental +pessimism has that disease of indifference with which you crudely charge +me. It is a kind of chicken-pox, cousin-French to the evils of literary +Paris. But I must not thank God too loudly, or you will think I am one +with them at heart. + +No, I am in earnest, in terrible earnest, about all this--I mean life and +what to do with it. That is a great day when a man comes into his own, no +matter how paltry the pittance may be the gods have given him--when he +comes to know just how far he can go, and where lies his path of least +resistance. That I know. I am tremendously sure of myself now, and, like +your good business men, I go about my affairs and dispose of my life with +its few energies in a cautious, economical way. + +What is all this I make so much to-do about? Very little, I confess, but +to me more serious than L's and sky-scrapers; yes, than love. Mine is an +infinite labor: first to shape the true tool, and then to master the +material! I grant you I may die any day like a rat on a housetop, with +only a bundle of musty papers, the tags of broken conversations, and one +or two dead, distorted nerves. That is our common risk. But I shall +accomplish as much of the road as God permits the snail, and I shall have +moulded something; life will have justified itself to me, or I to life. +But that is not our problem to-day. + +Why do I isolate myself? Because a few pursuits in life are great +taskmasters and jealous ones. A wise man who had felt that truth wrote +about it once. I must husband my devotions: love, except the idea of love, +is not for me; pleasure, except the idea of pleasure, is too keen for me; +energy, except the ideas energy creates, is beyond me. I am limited, +definite, alone, without you. + +I confess that two passions are greater than any man, the passion for God +and the passion of a great love. They send a man hungry and naked into the +street, and make his subterfuges with existence ridiculous. How rarely +they come! How inadequate the man who is mistaken about them! We peer into +the corners of life after them, but they elude us. There are days of +splendid consciousness, and we think we have them--then---- + +No, it is foolish, _bête_, dear lady, to be deceived by a sentiment; +better the comfortable activities of the world. They will suit you best; +leave the other for the dream hidden in a glass of champagne. + +But let me love you always. Let me fancy you, when I walk down these +gleaming boulevards in the silent evenings, as you sit flashingly lovely +by some soft lamplight, wrapped about in the cotton-wools of society. That +will reconcile me to the roar of these noonday streets. The city exists +for _you_. + + + +NO. XI. UNSATISFIED. + +(_Miss Armstrong wills to drift_.) + +... Come to Sorrento.... + + + +NO. XII. THE ILLUSION. + +(_Eastlake resumes some weeks later. He has put into Bar Harbor on a +yachting trip. He sits writing late at night by the light of the binnacle +lamp_.) + +Sweet lady, a few hours ago we slipped in here past the dark shore of your +village, in almost dead calm, just parting the heavy waters with our prow. +It was the golden set of the summer afternoon: a thrush or two were +already whistling clear vespers in he woods; all else was fruitfully calm. + +And then, in the stillness of the ebb, we floated together, you and I, +round that little lighthouse into the sheltering gloom of the woods. Then +we drifted beyond it all, in serene solution of this world's fret! To- +morrows you may keep for another. + +This night was richly mine. You brought your simple self, undisturbed by +the people who expect of you, without your little airs of experience. I +brought incense, words, devotion, and love. And I treasure now a few pure +tones, some simple motions of your arm with the dripping paddle, a few +pure feelings written on your face. That is all, but it is much. We got +beyond necessity and the impertinent commonplace of Chicago. We had +ourselves, and that was enough. + +And to-night, as I lie here under the cool, complete heavens, with only a +twinkling cottage light here and there in the bay to remind me of unrest, +I see life afresh in the old, simple, eternal lines. These are _our_ days +of full consciousness. + +Do you remember that clearing in the woods where the long weeds and grass +were spotted with white stones--burial-place it was--their bright faces +turned ever to the sunshine and the stars? They spoke of other lives than +yours and mine. Forgotten little units in our disdainful world, we pass +them scornfully by. Other lives, and perhaps better, do you think? For +them the struggle never came which holds us in a fist of brass, and +thrashes us up and down the pavement of life. Perhaps--can you not, at one +great leap, fancy it?--two sincere souls could escape from this brass +master, and live, unmindful of strife, for a little grave on a hillside in +the end? They must be strong souls to renounce that cherished hope of +triumph, to be content with the simple, antique things, just living and +loving--the eternal and brave things; for, after all, what you and I burn +for so restlessly is a makeshift ambition. We wish to go far, "to make the +best of ourselves." Why not, once for all, rely upon God to make? Why not +live and rejoice? + +And the little graves are not bad: to lie long years within sound of this +great-hearted ocean, with the peaceful, upturned stones bearing this full +legend, "This one loved and lived...." Forgive me for making you sad. +Perhaps you merely laugh at the intoxication your clear air has brought +about. Well, dearest lady, the ships are striking their eight bells for +midnight, the gayest cottages are going out, light by light, and somewhere +in the still harbor I can hear a fisherman laboriously sweeping his boat +away to the ocean. Away!--that is the word for us: I, in this boat +southward, and ever away, searching in grim fashion for an accounting with +Fate; you, in your intrepid loveliness, to other lives. And if I return +some weeks hence, when I have satisfied the importunate business claims, +what then? Shall we slip the cables and drift quietly out "to the land +east of the sun and west of the moon"? + + + +NO. XIII. SANITY. + +(_Eastlake refuses Miss Armstrong's last invitation, continues, and +concludes_.) + +Last night was given to me for insight. You were brilliantly your best, +and set in the meshes of gold and precious stones that the gods willed for +you. There was not a false note, not an attribute wanting. Over your head +were mellow, clear, electric lights that showed forth coldly your +faultless suitability. From the exquisitely fit pearls about your neck to +the scents of the wine and the flowers, all was as it should be. I watched +your face warm with multifold impressions, your nostrils dilate with +sensuousness, appreciation, your pagan head above the perfect bosom; about +you the languid eyes of your well-fed neighbors. + +The dusky recesses of the rooms, heavy with opulent comfort, stretched +away from our long feast. There you could rest, effectually sheltered from +the harsh noises of the world. And I rejoiced. Each minute I saw more +clearly things as they are. I saw you giving the nicest dinners in +Chicago, and scurrying through Europe, buying a dozen pictures here and +there, building a great house, or perhaps, tired of Chicago, trying your +luck in New York; but always pressing on, seizing this exasperating life, +and tenaciously sucking out the rich enjoyments thereof! For the gold has +entered your heart. + +What splendid folly we played at Sorrento! If you had deceived yourself +with a sentiment, how long would you have maintained the illusion? When +would the morning have come for your restless eyes to stare out at the +world in longing and the unuttered sorrow of regret? Ah, I touch you but +with words! The cadence of a phrase warms your heart, and you fancy your +emotion is supreme, inevitable. Nevertheless, you are a practical goddess: +you can rise beyond the waves toward the glorious ether, but at night you +sink back. 'Tis alluring, but--eternal? + +Few of us can risk being romantic. The penalty is too dreadful. To be +successful, we must maintain the key of our loveliest enthusiasm without +stimulants. You need the stimulants. You imagined that you were tired, +that rest could come in a lover's arms. Better the furs that are soft +about your neck, for they never grow cold. Perchance the lover will come, +also, as a prince with his princedom. It will be comfortable to have your +cake and the frosting, too. If not, take the frosting; go glittering on +with your pulses full of the joys, until you are old and fagged and the +stupid world refuses to revolve. Remember my sure word that you were meant +for dinners, for power and pleasure and excitement. Trust no will-o'-the- +wisp that would lead you into the stony paths of romance. + +Some days in the years to come I shall enter at your feasts and watch you +in admiration and love. (For I shall always love you.) Then will stir in +your heart a mislaid feeling of some joy untasted. But you will smile +wisely, and marvel at my exact judgment. You will think of another world +where words and emotions alone are alive, where it is always high tide, +and you will be glad that you did not force the gates. For life is not +always lyric. Farewell. + + + +NO. XIV. THAT OTHER WORLD. + +(_Miss Armstrong writes with a calm heart_.) + +I have but a minute before I must go down to meet _him_. Then it will be +settled. I can hear his voice now and mother's. I must be quick. + +So you tested me and found me wanting in "inevitableness." I was too much +clay, it seems, and "pagan." What a strange word that is! You mean I love +to enjoy; and, perhaps you are right, that I need my little world. Who +knows? One cannot read the whole story--even you, dear master--until we +are dead. We can never tell whether I am only frivolous and sensuous, or +merely a woman who takes the best substitute at hand for life. I do not +protest, and I think I never shall. I, too, am very sure--_now_. You have +pointed out the path and I shall follow it to the end. + +But one must have other moments, not of regret, but of wonder. Did you +have too little faith? Am I so cheap and weak? Before you read this it +will all be over.... Now and then it seems I want only a dress for my +back, a bit of food, rest, and your smile. But you have judged otherwise, +and perhaps you are right. At any rate, I will think so. Only I know that +the hours will come when I shall wish that I might lie among those little +white gravestones above the beach. + +CHICAGO, November, 1893. + + + +A QUESTION OF ART + +I + +John Clayton had pretty nearly run the gamut of the fine arts. As a boy at +college he had taken a dilettante interest in music, and having shown some +power of sketching the summer girl he had determined to become an artist. +His numerous friends had hoped such great things for him that he had been +encouraged to spend the rest of his little patrimony in educating himself +abroad. It took him nearly two years to find out what being an artist +meant, and the next three in thinking what he wanted to do. In Paris and +Munich and Rome, the wealth of the possible had dazzled him and confused +his aims; he was so skilful and adaptable that in turn he had wooed almost +all the arts, and had accomplished enough trivial things to raise very +pretty expectations of his future powers. He had enjoyed an uncertain +glory among the crowd of American amateurs. When his purse had become +empty he returned to America to realize on his prospects. + +On his arrival he had elaborately equipped a studio in Boston, but as he +found the atmosphere "too provincial" he removed to New York. There he was +much courted at a certain class of afternoon teas. He was in full bloom of +the "might do," but he had his suspicions that a fatally limited term of +years would translate the tense into "might have done." He argued, +however, that he had not yet found the right _milieu_; he was fond of that +word--conveniently comprehensive of all things that might stimulate his +will. He doubted if America ever could furnish him a suitable _milieu_ for +the expression of his artistic instincts. But in the meantime necessity +for effort was becoming more urgent; he could not live at afternoon teas. + +Clayton was related widely to interesting and even influential people. One +woman, a distant cousin, had taken upon herself his affairs. + +"I will give you another chance," she said, in a business-like tone, after +he had been languidly detailing his condition to her and indicating +politely that he was coming to extremities. "Visit me this summer at Bar +Harbor. You shall have the little lodge at the Point for a studio, and you +can take your meals at the hotel near by. In that way you will be +independent. Now, there are three ways, any one of which will lead you out +of your difficulties, and if you don't find one that suits you before +October, I shall leave you to your fate." + +The young man appeared interested. + +"You can model something--that's your line, isn't it?" + +Clayton nodded meekly. He had resolved to become a sculptor during his +last six months in Italy. + +"And so put you on your feet, professionally." Clayton sighed. "Or you can +find some rich patron or patroness who will send you over for a couple of +years more until your _chef d' oeuvre_ makes its appearance." Her pupil +turned red, and began to murmur, but she kept on unperturbed. "Or, best of +all, you can marry a girl with some money and then do what you like." At +this Clayton rose abruptly. + +"I haven't come to that," he growled. + +"Don't be silly," she pursued. "You are really charming; good character; +exquisite manners; pleasant habits; success with women. You needn't feel +flattered, for this is your stock in trade. You are decidedly interesting, +and lots of those girls who are brought there every year to get them in +would be glad to make such an exchange. You know everybody, and you could +give any girl a good standing in Boston or New York. Besides, there is +your genius, which may develop. That will be thrown in to boot; it may +bear interest." + +Clayton, who had begun by feeling how disagreeable his situation was when +it exposed him to this kind of hauling over, ended by bursting into a +cordial laugh at the frank materialism with which his cousin presented his +case. "Well," he exclaimed, "it's no go to talk to you about the claims +and ideals of art, Cousin Della, but I will accept your offer, if only for +the sake of modelling a bust of 'The Energetic Matron (American).'" + +"Of course, I don't make much of ideals in art and all that," replied his +cousin, "but I will put this through for you, as Harry says. You must +promise me only one thing: no flirting with Harriet and Mary. Henry has +been foolish and lost money, as you know, and I cannot have another beggar +on my hands!" + + + +II + +By the end of July Clayton had found out two things definitely; he was +standing in his little workshop, pulling at his mustache and looking +sometimes at a half-completed sketch, and sometimes at the blue stretch of +water below the cliff. The conclusions were that he certainly should not +become interested in Harriet and Mary, and, secondly, that Mount Desert +made him paint rather than model. + +"It's no place," he muttered, "except for color and for a poet. A man +would have to shut himself up in a cellar to escape those glorious hills +and the bay, if he wanted to work at that putty." He cast a contemptuous +glance at a rough bust of his Cousin Della, the only thing he had +attempted. As a solution of his hopeless problem he picked up a pipe and +was hunting for some tobacco, preparatory to a stroll up Newport, when +someone sounded timidly at the show knocker of the front door. + +"Is that you, Miss Marston?" Clayton remarked, in a disappointed tone, as +a middle-aged woman entered. + +"The servants were all away," she replied, "and Della thought you might +like some lunch to recuperate you from your labors." This was said a +little maliciously, as she looked about and found nothing noteworthy going +on. + +"I was just thinking of knocking off for this morning and taking a walk. +Won't you come? It's such glorious weather and no fog," he added, +parenthetically, as if in justification of his idleness. + +"Why do you happen to ask me?" Miss Marston exclaimed, impetuously. "You +have hitherto never paid any more attention to my existence than if I had +been Jane, the woman who usually brings your lunch." She gasped at her own +boldness. This was not coquettishness, and was evidently unusual. + +"Why! I really wish you would come," said the young man, helplessly. "Then +I'll have a chance to know you better." + +"Well! I will." She seemed to have taken a desperate step. Miss Jane +Marston, Della's sister-in-law, had always been the superfluous member of +her family. Such unenviable tasks as amusing or teaching the younger +children, sewing, or making up whist sets, had, as is usual with the odd +members in a family, fallen to her share. All this Miss Marston hated in a +slow, rebellious manner. From always having just too little money to live +independently, she had been forced to accept invitations for long visits +in uninteresting places. As a girl and a young woman, she had shown a +delicate, retiring beauty that might have been made much of, and in spite +of gray hair, thirty-five years, and a somewhat drawn look, arising from +her discontent, one might discover sufficient traces of this fading beauty +to idealize her. All this summer she had watched the wayward young artist +with a keen interest in the fresh life he brought among her flat +surroundings. His buoyancy cheered her habitual depression; his eagerness +and love of life made her blood flow more quickly, out of sympathy; and +his intellectual alertness bewildered and fascinated her. She was still +shy at thirty-five, and really very timid and apologetic for her +commonplaceness; but at times the rebellious bitterness at the bottom of +her heart would leap forth in a brusque or bold speech. She was still +capable of affording surprise. + +"Won't I spoil the inspiration?" she ventured, after a long silence. + +"Bother the inspiration!" groaned Clayton. "I wish I were a blacksmith, or +a sailor, or something honest. I feel like a hypocrite. I have started out +at a pace that I can't keep up!" + +Miss Marston felt complimented by this apparent confidence. If she had had +experience in that kind of nature, she would have understood how +indifferent Clayton was to her personally. He would have made the same +confession to the birds, if they had happened to produce the same +irritation in his mind. + +"They all say your work is so brilliant," she said, soothingly. + +"Thunder!" he commented. "I wish they would not say anything kind and +pleasant and cheap. At college they praised my verses, and the theatres +stole my music for the Pudding play, and the girls giggled over my +sketches. And now, at twenty-six, I don't know whether I want to fiddle, +or to write an epic, or to model, or to paint. I am a victim of every +artistic impulse." + +"I know what you should do," she said, wisely, when they had reached a +shady spot and were cooling themselves. + +"Smoke?" queried Clayton, quizzically. + +"You ought to marry!" + +"That's every woman's great solution, great panacea," he replied, +contemptuously. + +"It would steady you and make you work." + +"No," he replied, thoughtfully, "not unless she were poor, and in that +case it would be from the frying-pan into the fire!" + +"You should work," she went on, more courageously. "And a wife would give +you inspiration and sympathy." + +"I have had too much of the last already," he sighed. "And it's better not +to have it all of one sort. After awhile a woman doesn't produce pleasant +or profitable reactions in my soul. Yes, I know," he added, as he noticed +her look of wonderment, "I am selfish and supremely egotistical. Every +artist is; his only lookout, however, should be that his surroundings +don't become stale. Or, if you prefer to put it more humanely, an artist +isn't fit to marry; it's criminal for him to marry and break a woman's +heart." + +After this heroic confession he paused to smoke. "Besides, no woman whom I +ever knew really understands art and the ends which the artist is after. +She has the temperament, a superficial appreciation and interest, but she +hasn't the stimulus of insight. She's got the nerves, but not the head." + +"But you just said that you had had too much sympathy and molly-coddling." + +"Did I? Well, I was wrong. I need a lot, and I don't care how idiotic. It +makes me courageous to have even a child approve. I suppose that shows how +closely we human animals are linked together. We have got to have the +consent of the world, or at any rate a small part of it, to believe +ourselves sane. So I need the chorus of patrons, admiring friends, kind +women, etc., while I play the Protagonist, to tell me that I am all right, +to go ahead. Do you suppose any one woman would be enough? What a great +posture for an arm!" His sudden exclamation was called out by the attitude +that Miss Marston had unconsciously assumed in the eagerness of her +interest. She had thrown her hand over a ledge above them, and was leaning +lightly upon it. The loose muslin sleeve had fallen back, revealing a +pretty, delicately rounded arm, not to be suspected from her slight +figure. Clayton quickly squirmed a little nearer, and touching the arm +with an artist's instinct, brought out still more the fresh white flesh +and the delicate veining. + +"Don't move. That would be superb in marble!" Miss Marston blushed +painfully. + +"How strange you are," she murmured, as she rose. "You just said that you +had given up modelling, or I would let you model my arm in order to give +you something to do. You should try to stick to something." + +"Don't be trite," laughed Clayton, "and don't make me consistent. You will +keep yourself breathless if you try that!" + +"I know what you need," she said, persistently unmindful of his +admonition. "You need the spur. It doesn't make so much difference _what_ +you do--you're clever enough." + +"'Truth from the mouths of babes----'" + +"I am not a babe." She replied to his mocking, literally. "Even if I am +stupid and commonplace, I may have intuitions like other women." + +"Which lead you to think that it's all chance whether Raphael paints or +plays on the piano. Well, I don't know that you are so absurd. That's my +theory: an artist is a fund of concentrated, undistributed energy that has +any number of possible outlets, but selects one. Most of us are artists, +but we take so many outlets that the hogshead becomes empty by leaking. +Which shall it be? Shall we toss up a penny?" + +"Painting," said Miss Marston, decisively. "You must stick to that." + +"How did you arrive at that conclusion--have you observed my work?" + +"No! I'll let you know some time, but now you must go to work. Come!" She +rose, as if to go down to the lodge that instant. Clayton, without feeling +the absurdity of the comedy, rose docilely and followed her down the path +for some distance. He seemed completely dominated by the sudden enthusiasm +and will that chance had flung him. + +"There's no such blessed hurry," he remarked at last, when the first +excitement had evanesced. "The light will be too bad for work by the time +we reach Bar Harbor. Let's rest here in this dark nook, and talk it all +over." + +Clayton was always abnormally eager to talk over anything. Much of his +artistic energy had trickled away in elusive snatches of talk. "Come," he +exclaimed, enthusiastically, "I have it. I will begin a great work--a +modern Magdalen or something of that sort. We can use you in just that +posture, kneeling before a rock with outstretched hands, and head turned +away. We will make everything of the hands and arms!" + +Miss Marston blushed her slow, unaccustomed blush. At first sight it +pleased her to think that she had become so much a part of this +interesting young man's plans, but in a moment she laughed calmly at the +frank desire he expressed to leave out her face, and the characteristic +indifference he had shown in suggesting negligently such a subject. + +"All right. I am willing to be of any service. But you will have to make +use of the early hours. I teach the children at nine." + +"Splendid!" he replied, as the vista of a new era of righteousness dawned +upon him. "We shall have the fresh morning light, and the cool and the +beauty of the day. And I shall have plenty of time to loaf, too." + +"No, you mustn't loaf. You will find me a hard task-mistress!" + + + +III + +True to her word, Miss Marston rapped at the door of the studio promptly +at six the next morning. She smiled fearfully, and finding no response, +tried stones at the windows above. She kept saying to herself, to keep up +her courage: "He won't think about me, and I am too old to care, anyway." +Soon a head appeared, and Clayton called out, in a sleepy voice: + +"I dreamt it was all a joke; but wait a bit, and we will talk it over." + +Miss Marston entered the untidy studio, where the _débris_ of a month's +fruitless efforts strewed the floor. Bits of clay and carving-tools, +canvases hurled face downward in disgust and covered with paint-rags, lay +scattered about. She tip-toed around, carefully raising her skirt, and +examined everything. Finally, discovering an alcohol-lamp and a coffee- +pot, she prepared some coffee, and when Clayton appeared--a somewhat +dishevelled god--he found her hunting for biscuit. + +"You can't make an artist of me at six in the morning," he growled. + +In sudden inspiration, Miss Marston threw open the upper half of the door +and admitted a straight pathway of warm sun that led across the water just +rippling at their feet. The hills behind the steep shore were dark with a +mysterious green and fresh with a heavy dew, and from the nooks in the +woods around them thrush was answering thrush. Miss Marston gave a sigh of +content. The warm, strong sunlight strengthened her and filled her wan +cheeks, as the sudden interest in the artist's life seemed to have +awakened once more the vigor of her feelings. She clasped her thin hands +and accepted both blessings. Clayton also revived. At first he leant +listlessly against the door-post, but as minute by minute he drank in the +air and the beauty and the hope, his weary frame dilated with incoming +sensations. "God, what beauty!" he murmured, and he accepted +unquestioningly the interference in his life brought by this woman just as +he accepted the gift of sunshine and desire. + +"Come to work," said Miss Marston, at last. + +"That's no go," he replied, "that subject we selected." + +"I dare say you won't do much with it, but it will do as well as any other +for experiment and practice." + +"I see that you want those arms preserved." + +The little woman shrank into her shell for a moment: her lazy artist could +scatter insults as negligently as epigrams. Then she blazed out. + +"Mr. Clayton, I didn't come here to be insulted." + +Clayton, utterly surprised, opened his sleepy eyes in real alarm. + +"Bless you, my dear Miss Marston, I can't insult anybody. I never mean +anything." + +"Perhaps that's the trouble," replied Miss Marston, somewhat mollified. +But the sitting was hardly a success. Clayton wasted almost all his time +in improvising an easel and in preparing his brushes. Miss Marston had to +leave him just as he was ready to throw himself into his work. He was +discontented, and, instead of improving the good light and the long day, +he took a pipe and went away into the hills. The next morning he felt +curiously ashamed when Miss Marston, after examining the rough sketch on +the easel, said: + +"Is that all?" + +And this day he painted, but in a fit of gloomy disgust destroyed +everything. So it went on for a few weeks. Miss Marston was more regular +than an alarm-clock; sometimes she brought some work, but oftener she sat +vacantly watching the young man at work. Her only standard of +accomplishment was quantity. One day, when Clayton had industriously +employed a rainy afternoon in putting in the drapery for the figure, she +was so much pleased by the quantity of the work accomplished that she +praised him gleefully. Clayton, who was, as usual, in an ugly mood, cast +an utterly contemptuous look at her and then turned to his easel. + +"You mustn't look at me like that," the woman said, almost frightened. + +"Then don't jabber about my pictures." + +Her lips quivered, but she was silent. She began to realize her position +of galley-slave, and welcomed with a dull joy the contempt and insults to +come. + +One morning Clayton was not to be found. He did not appear during that +week, and at last Miss Marston determined to find him. She made an excuse +for a journey to Boston, and divining where Clayton could be found, she +sent him word at a certain favorite club that she wanted to see him. He +called at her modest hotel, dejected, listless, and somewhat shamefaced; +he found Miss Marston calm and commonplace as usual. But it was the calm +of a desperate resolve, won after painful hours, that he little +recognized. Her instinct to attach herself to this strange, unaccountable +creature, to make him effective to himself, had triumphed over her +prejudices. She humbled herself joyfully, recognizing a mission. + +"Della said that I might presume on your escort home," she remarked dryly, +trembling for fear that she had exposed herself to some contemptuous +retort. One great attraction, however, in Clayton was that he never +expected the conventional. It did not occur to him as particularly absurd +that this woman, ten years his senior, should hunt him up in this fashion. +He took such eccentricities as a matter of course, and whatever the +circumstances or the conversation, found it all natural and reasonable. +Women did not fear him, but talked indiscreetly to him about all things. + +"What's the use of keeping up this ridiculous farce about my work?" he +said, sadly. Then he sought for a conventional phrase. "Your unexpected +interest and enthusiasm in my poor attempts have been most kind, my dear +Miss Marston. But you must allow me to go to the dogs in my own fashion; +that's the inalienable right of every emancipated soul in these days." The +politeness and mockery of this little epigram stung the woman. + +"Don't be brutal, as well as good for nothing," she said, bitterly. +"You're as low as if you took to drink or any other vice, and you know it. +I can't appreciate your fine ideas, perhaps, but I know you ought to do +something more than talk. You're terribly ambitious, but you're too weak +to do anything but talk. I don't care what you think about my +interference. I can make you work, and I will make you do something. +You know you need the whip, and if none of your pleasant friends will give +it to you, I can. Come!" she added, pleadingly. + +"Jove!" exclaimed the young man, slowly, "I believe you're an awful trump. +I will go back." + +On their return they scarcely spoke. Miss Marston divined that her +companion felt ashamed and awkward, and that his momentary enthusiasm had +evaporated under the influence of a long railroad ride. While they were +waiting for the steamer at the Mount Desert ferry, she said, as +negligently as she could, "I have telegraphed for a carriage, but you had +better walk up by yourself." + +He nodded assent. "So you will supply the will for the machine, if I will +grind out the ideas. But it will never succeed," he added, gloomily. "Of +course I am greatly obliged and all that, and I will stick to it until +October for the sake of your interest." In answer she smiled with an air +of proprietorship. + +One effect of this spree upon Clayton was that he took to landscape during +the hours that he had formerly loafed. He found some quiet bits of dell +with water, and planted his easel regularly every day. Sometimes he sat +dreaming or reading, but he felt an unaccustomed responsibility if, when +his mentor appeared with the children late in the afternoon, he hadn't +something to show for his day. She never attempted to criticise except as +to the amount performed, and she soon learned enough not to measure this +by the area of canvas. Although Clayton had abandoned the Magdalen in +utter disgust, Miss Marston persisted in the early morning sittings. She +made herself useful in preparing his coffee and in getting his canvas +ready. They rarely talked. Sometimes Clayton, in a spirit of deviltry, +would tease his mentor about their peculiar relationship, about herself, +or, worse than all, would run himself and say very true things about his +own imperfections. Then, on detecting the tears that would rise in the +tired, faded eyes of the woman he tortured, he would throw himself into +his work. + +So the summer wore away and the brilliant September came. The unsanctified +crowds flitted to the mountains or the town, and the island and sea +resumed the air of free-hearted peace which was theirs by right. Clayton +worked still more out of doors on marines, attempting to grasp the +perplexing brilliancy that flooded everything. + +"It's no use," he said, sadly, as he packed up his kit one evening in the +last of September. "I really don't know the first thing about color. I +couldn't exhibit a single thing I have done this entire summer." + +"What's the real matter?" asked Miss Marston, with a desperate calm. + +"Why, I have fooled about so much that I have lost a lot I learnt over +there in Paris." + +"Why don't you get--get a teacher?" + +Clayton laughed ironically. "I am pretty old to start in, especially as I +have just fifty dollars to my name, and a whole winter before me." + +They returned silently. The next morning Miss Marston appeared at the +usual hour and made the coffee. After Clayton had finished his meagre +meal, she sat down shyly and looked at him. + +"You've never interested yourself much in my plans, but I am going to tell +you some of them. I'm sick of living about like a neglected cat, and I am +going to New York to--to keep boarders." Her face grew very red. "They +will make a fuss, but I am ready to break with them all." + +"So you, too, find dependence a burden?" commented Clayton, indifferently. + +"You haven't taken much pains to know me," she replied. "And if I were a +man," she went on, with great scorn, "I would die before I would be +dependent!" + +"Talking about insults--but an artist isn't a man," remarked Clayton, +philosophically smoking his pipe. + +"I hate you when you're like that," Miss Marston remarked, with intense +bitterness. + +"Then you must hate me pretty often! But continue with your plans. Don't +let our little differences in temperament disturb us." + +"Well," she continued, "I have written to some friends who spend the +winters in New York, and out of them I think I shall find enough +boarders--enough to keep me from starving. And the house has a large upper +story with a north light." She stopped and peeped at him furtively. + +"Oh," said Clayton, coolly, "and you're thinking that I would make a good +tenant." + +"Exactly," assented Miss Marston, uncomfortably. + +"And who will put up the tin: for you don't suppose that I am low enough +to live off you?" + +"No," replied the woman, quietly. "I shouldn't allow that, though I was +not quite sure you would be unwilling. But you can borrow two or three +hundred dollars from your brother, and by the time that's gone you ought +to be earning something. You could join a class; the house isn't far from +those studios." + +Clayton impulsively seized her arms and looked into her face. She was +startled and almost frightened. + +"I believe," he began, but the words faded away. + +"No, don't say it. You believe that I am in love with you, and do this to +keep you near me. Don't be quite such a brute, for you _are_ a brute, a +grasping, egotistical, intolerant brute." She smiled slightly. "But don't +think that I am such a fool as not to know how impossible _that_ is." + +Clayton still held her in astonishment. "I think I was going to say that I +was in love with you." + +"Oh, no," she laughed, sadly. "I am coffee and milk and bread and butter, +the 'stuff that dreams are made on.' You want some noble young woman--a +goddess, to make you over, to make you human. I only save you from the +poor-house." + + + +IV + +There followed a bitter two years for this strange couple. Clayton +borrowed a thousand dollars--a more convenient number to remember, he +said, than three hundred dollars--and induced a prominent artist "who +happens to know something," to take him into his crowded classes for a +year. He began with true grit to learn again what he had forgotten and +some things that he had never known. At the end of the year he felt that +he could go alone, and the artist agreed, adding, nonchalantly: "You may +get there; God knows; but you need loads of work." + +Domestically, the life was monotonous. Clayton had abandoned his old +habits, finding it difficult to harmonize his present existence with his +clubs and his fashionable friends. Besides, he hoarded every cent and, +with Miss Marston's aid, wrung the utmost of existence out of the few +dollars he had left. Miss Marston's modest house was patronized by elderly +single ladies. It was situated on one of those uninteresting East Side +streets where you can walk a mile without remembering an individual stone. +The table, in food and conversation, was monotonous. In fact, Clayton +could not dream of a more inferior _milieu_ for the birth of the great +artist. + +Miss Marston had fitted herself to suit his needs, and in submitting to +this difficult position felt that she was repaying a loan of a new life. +He was so curious, so free, so unusual, so fond of ideas, so entertaining, +even in his grim moods, that he made her stupid life over. She could enjoy +vicariously by feeling his intense interest in all living things. In +return, she learnt the exact time to bring him an attractive lunch, and +just where to place it so that it would catch his eye without calling out +a scowl of impatience. She made herself at home in his premises, so that +all friction was removed from the young artist's life. He made no +acknowledgment of her devotion, but he worked grimly, doggedly, with a +steadiness that he had never before known. Once, early in the first +winter, having to return to Boston on some slight business, he permitted +himself to be entrapped by old friends and lazed away a fortnight. On his +return Miss Marston noticed with a pang that this outing had done him +good; that he seemed to have more spirit, more vivaciousness, more ideas, +and more zest for his work. So, in a methodical fashion, she thought out +harmless dissipations for him. She induced him to take her to the opera, +even allowing him to think that it was done from pure charity to her. +Sunday walks in the picturesque nooks of New York--they both shunned the +Fifth Avenue promenade for different reasons--church music, interesting +novels, all the "fuel," as Clayton remarked, that she could find she piled +into his furnace. She made herself acquainted with the peculiar literature +that seemed to stimulate his imagination, and sometimes she read him +asleep in the evenings to save his overworked eyes. Her devotion he took +serenely, as a rule. During the second winter, however, after a slight +illness brought on by over-application, he seemed to have a thought upon +his mind that troubled him. One day he impatiently threw down his palette +and put his hands upon her shoulders. + +"Little woman, why do you persist in using up your life on me?" + +"I am gambling," she replied, evasively. + +"What do you expect to get if you win?" + +"A few contemptuous thanks; perhaps free tickets when you exhibit, or a +line in your biography. But seriously, Jack, don't you know women well +enough to understand how they enjoy drudging for someone who is powerful?" + +"But even if I have any ability, which you can't tell, how do you enjoy +it? You can't appreciate a picture." + +She smiled. "Don't bother yourself about me. I get my fun, as you say, +because you make me feel things I shouldn't otherwise. I suppose that's +the only pay you artists ever give those who slave for you?" + +Such talks were rare. They experienced that physical and mental unity in +duality which comes to people who live and think and work together for a +common aim. They had not separated a day since that first visit to Boston. +The summer had been spent at a cheap boarding-house on Cape Ann, in order +that Clayton might sketch in company with the artist who had been teaching +him. Neither thought of conventionality; it was too late for that. + +As the second year came to an end, the pressure of poverty began to be +felt. Clayton refused to make any efforts to sell his pictures. He eked +out his capital and went on. The end of his thousand came; he took to +feeding himself in his rooms. He sold his clothes, his watch, his books, +and at last the truck he had accumulated abroad. "More fuel for the fire," +he said bitterly. + +"I will lend you something," remarked Miss Marston. + +"No, thanks," he said, shortly, and then added, with characteristic +brutality, "my body is worth a hundred. Stevens will give that for it, +which would cover the room-rent. And my brother will have to whistle for +his cash or take it out in paint and canvas." + +She said nothing, for she had a scheme in reserve. She was content +meantime to see him pinched; it brought out the firmer qualities in the +man. Her own resources, moreover, were small, for the character of her +boarders had fallen. Unpleasant rumors had deprived her of the +unexceptionable set of middle-aged ladies with whom she had started, but +she had pursued her course unaltered. The reproach of her relatives, who +considered her disgraced, had been a sweet solace to her pride. + +The rough struggle had told on them both. He had forgotten his delicate +habits, his nicety of dress. A cheap suit once in six months was all that +he could afford. His mind had become stolidly fixed, so that he did not +notice the gradual change. It was a grim fight! The elements were +relentless; day by day the pounding was harder, and the end of his +resistance seemed nearer. Although he was deeply discontented with his +work, he did not dare to think of ultimate failure, for it unnerved him +for several days. Miss Marston's quiet assumption, however, that it was +only a question of months, irritated him. + +"God must have put the idea into your head that I am a genius," he would +mutter fiercely at her. "I never did, nor work of mine. You don't know +good from bad, anyway, and we may both be crazy." He buried his face in +his hands, overcome by the awfulness of failure. She put her arms about +his head. + +"Well, we can stand it a little longer, and then----" + +"And then?" he asked, grimly. + +"Then," she looked at him significantly. They both understood. "Lieber +Gott," he murmured, "thou hast a soul." And he kissed her gently, as in +momentary love. She did not resist, but both were indifferent to passion, +so much their end absorbed them. + +At last she insisted upon trying to sell some marines at the art stores. +She brought him back twenty-five dollars, and he did not suspect that she +was the patron. He looked at the money wistfully. + +"I thought we should have a spree on the first money I earned. But it's +all fuel now." + +Her eyes filled with tears at this sign of humanity. "Next time, perhaps." + +"So you think that's the beginning of a fortune. I have failed--failed if +you get ten thousand dollars for every canvas in this shop. You will never +know why. Perhaps I don't myself." And then he went to work. Some weeks +later he came to her again. This time she tried to enlist the sympathy of +the one successful artist Clayton knew, and through his influence she +succeeded in selling a number of pictures and placed others upon sale. She +was so happy, so sure that the prophetic instinct in her soul was +justified, that she told Clayton of her previous fraud. He listened +carefully; his face twitched, as if his mind were adjusting itself to new +ideas. First he took twenty-five dollars from the money she had just +brought him and handed it to her. Then putting his arms about her, he +looked inquisitively down into her face, only a bit more tenderly than he +squinted at his canvases. + +"Jane!" She allowed him to kiss her once or twice, and then she pushed him +away, making a pathetic bow. + +"Thanks for your sense of gratitude. You're becoming more civilized. Only +I wish it had been something more than money you had been thankful for. Is +money the only sacrifice you understand?" + +"You can take your dues in taunts if you like. I never pretended to be +anything but a huge, and possibly productive polypus. I am honest enough, +anyway, not to fool with lovers' wash. You ought to know how I feel toward +you--you're the best woman I ever knew." + +"Kindest to you, you mean? No, Jack," she continued, tenderly; "you can +have me, body and soul. I am yours fast enough now, what there is left of +me. I have given you my reputation, and that sort of thing long ago--no, +you needn't protest. I know you despise people who talk like that, and I +don't reproach you. But don't deceive yourself. You feel a little moved +just now. If I had any charms, like a pretty model, you might acquire some +kind of attachment for me, but love--you never dreamed of it. And," she +continued, after a moment, "I begin to think, after watching you these two +years, never will. So I am safe in saying that I am yours to do with what +you will. I am fuel. Only, oh, Jack, if you break my heart, your last fuel +will be gone. You can't do without me!" + +It seemed very absurd to talk about breaking hearts--a tired, silent man; a +woman unlovely from sordid surroundings, from age, and from care. Clayton +pulled back the heavy curtain to admit the morning light, for they had +talked for hours before coming to the money question. The terrible, +passionate glare of a summer sun in the city burst in from the neighboring +housetops. + +"Why don't you curse _Him_?" muttered Clayton. + +"Why?" + +"Because He gave you a heart to love, and made you lonely, and then wasted +your love!" + +"Jack, the worst hasn't come. It's not all wasted." + + + +V + +Clayton gradually became conscious of a new feeling about his work. He was +master of his tools, for one thing, and he derived exquisite pleasure from +the exercise of execution. The surety of his touch, the knowledge of the +exact effect he was after, made his working hours an absorbing pleasure +rather than an exasperating penance. And through his secluded life, with +its singleness of purpose, its absence of the social ambitions of his +youth, and the complexity of life in the world, the restlessness and +agitation of his earlier devotion to his art disappeared. He was content +to forget the expression of himself--that youthful longing--in +contemplating and enjoying the created matter. In other words, the art of +creation was attended with less friction. He worked unconsciously, and he +did not, hen-like, call the attention of the entire barnyard to each new- +laid egg. He felt also that human, comfortable weariness after labor when +self sinks out of sight in the universal wants of mankind--food and sleep. +Perhaps the fact that he could now earn enough to relieve him from actual +want, that to some extent he had wrestled with the world and wrung from it +the conditions of subsistence, relieved the strain under which he had been +laboring. He sold his pictures rarely, however, and only when absolutely +compelled to get money. Miss Marston could not comprehend his feeling +about the inadequacy of his work, and he gave up attempting to make her +understand where he failed. + +The bond between them had become closer. This one woman filled many human +relationships for him--mother, sister, friend, lover, and wife in one. The +boarding-house had come to be an affair of transients and young clerks, so +that all her time that could be spared from the drudgery of housekeeping +was spent in the studio. Slowly he became amenable to her ever-present +devotion, and even, in his way, thoughtful for her. And she was almost +happy. + +The end came in this way. One day Clayton was discovered on the street by +an intimate college friend. They had run upon each other abruptly, and +Clayton, finding that escape was decently impossible, submitted without +much urging to be taken to one of his old clubs for a quiet luncheon. As a +result he did not return that night, but sent a note to Miss Marston +saying that he had gone to Lenox with a college chum. That note chilled +her heart. She felt that this was the beginning of the end, and the +following week she spent in loneliness in the little studio, sleeping upon +the neglected lounge. And yet she divined that the movement and stimulus +of this vacation was what Clayton needed most. She feared he was becoming +stale, and she knew that in a week, or a fortnight, or perhaps a month, he +would return and plunge again into his work. + +He came back. He hardly spoke to her; he seemed absorbed in the conception +of a new work. And when she brought him his usual luncheon she found the +door locked, the first time in many months. She sat down on the stairs and +waited--how long she did not know--waited, staring down the dreary hall +and at the faded carpet and at herself, faded to suit the surroundings. At +length she knocked, and Clayton came, only to take her lunch and say +absently that he was much absorbed by a new picture and should not be +disturbed. Would she bring his meals? He seemed to refuse tacitly an +entrance to the studio. So a week passed, and then one day Clayton +disappeared again, saying that he was going into the country for another +rest. He went out as he had come in, absorbed in some dream or plan of +great work. Pride kept her from entering his rooms during that week. + +One day, however, he came back as before and plunged again into his work. +This time she found the door ajar and entered noiselessly, as she had +learned to move. He was hard at work; she admired his swift movements that +seemed premeditated, the ease with which the picture before him was +rowing. Surely he had a man's power, now, to execute what his spirit +conceived! And the mechanical effort gave him evidently great pleasure. +His complete absorption indicated the most intense though unconscious +pleasure. + +The picture stunned her. She knew that she was totally ignorant of art, +but she knew that the picture before her was the greatest thing Clayton +had accomplished. It seemed to breathe power. And she saw without surprise +that the subject was a young woman. Clayton's form hid the face, but she +could see the outline of a woman beside a dory, on a beach, in the early +morning. So it had come. + +When she was very close to Clayton, he felt her presence, and they both +stood still, looking at the picture. It was almost finished--all was +planned. Miss Marston saw only the woman. She was youthful, just between +girlhood and womanhood--unconscious, strong, and active as the first; with +the troubled mystery of the second. The artist had divined an exquisite +moment in life, and into the immature figure, the face of perfect repose, +the supple limbs, he had thrown the tender mystery that met the morning +light. It was the new birth--that ancient, solemn, joyous beginning of +things in woman and in day. + +Clayton approached his picture as if lovingly to hide it. "Isn't it +immense?" he murmured. "It's come at last. I don't daub any more, but I +can see, I can paint! God, it's worth the hell I have been through--" + +He paused, for he felt that his companion had left him. + +"Jane," he said, curiously examining her face. "Jane, what's the matter?" + +"Don't you know?" she replied, looking steadily at him. He looked first at +her and then at the picture, and then back again. Suddenly the facts in +the case seemed to get hold of him. "Jane," he cried, impetuously, "it's +all yours--you gave me the power, and made me human, too--or a little more +so than I was. But I am killing you by living in this fashion. Why don't +you end it?" + +She smiled feebly at his earnestness. "There is only one end," she +whispered, and pointed to his picture. Clayton comprehended, and seizing a +paint-rag would have ruined it, but the woman caught his hand. + +"Don't let us be melodramatic. Would you ruin what we have been living for +all these years? Don't be silly--you would always regret it." + +"It's your life against a little fame." + +"No, against your life." They stood, nervelessly eying the picture. + +"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried, at last, "why did God make men like you? You +take it all, everything that life gives, sunshine and love and hope and +opportunity. Your roots seem to suck out what you want from the whole +earth, and you leave the soil exhausted. My time has gone; I know it, I +know it, and I knew it would go. Now some other life will be sacrificed. +For you'll break her heart whether she's alive now or you're dreaming of +someone to come. You'll treat her as you have everything. It isn't any +fault--you don't understand." The words ended with a moan. Clayton sat +doggedly looking at his picture. But his heart refused to be sad. + +LITTLE CRANBERRY, ME., + +August, 1893. + + + +MARE MARTO + +I + +The narrow slant of water that could be seen between the posts of the +felza was rippling with little steely waves. The line of the heavy beak +cut the opening between the tapering point of the Lido and the misty +outline of Tre Porti. Inside the white lighthouse tower a burnished man- +of-war lay at anchor, a sluggish mass like a marble wharf placed squarely +in the water. From the lee came a slight swell of a harbor-boat puffing +its devious course to the Lido landing. The sea-breeze had touched the +locust groves of San Niccolò da Lido, and caught up the fragrance of the +June blossoms, filling the air with the soft scent of a feminine city. + +When the scrap of the island Sant' Elena came enough into the angle to +detach itself from the green mass of the Giardino Pubblico, the prow swung +softly about, flapping the little waves, and pointed in shore where a +bridge crossed an inlet into the locust trees. + +"You can see the Italian Alps," Miss Barton remarked, pulling aside the +felza curtains and pointing lazily to the snow masses on the blue north +horizon. "That purplish other sea is the Trevisan plain, and back of it is +Castelfranco--Giorgione's Castelfranco--and higher up where the blue +begins to break into the first steps of the Alps is perched +Asolo--Browning's Asolo. Oh! It is so sweet! a little hill town! And +beyond are Bassano and Belluno, and somewhere in the mist before you get +to those snow-heads is Pieve da Cadore." Her voice dropped caressingly +over the last vowels. The mere, procession of names was a lyric sent +across sea to the main. + +"They came over them, then, the curious ones," the younger man of the two +who lounged on cushions underneath the felza remarked, as if to prolong +the theme. "To the gates of Paradise," he continued, while his companion +motioned to the gondolier. "And they broke them open, but they could never +take the swag after all." + +He laughed at her puzzled look. He seemed to mock her, and his face became +young in spite of the bald-looking temples and forehead, and the copperish +skin that indicated years of artificial heat. + +"They got some things," the older man put in, "and they have been living +off 'em ever since." + +"But they never got _it_," persisted his companion, argumentatively. +"Perhaps they were afraid." + +The gondola was gliding under the stone bridge, skilfully following the +line of the key-stones in the arch. It passed out into a black pool at the +feet of the Church of San Niccolò. The marble bishop propped up over the +pediment of the door lay silently above the pool. The grove of blossoming +locusts dropped white-laden branches over a decaying barca chained to the +shore. + +"What is _'it'_?" the girl asked, slowly turning her face from the +northern mountains. She seemed to carry a suggestion of abundance, of +opulence; of beauty made of emphasis. "You," the young man laughed back, +enigmatically. + +"They came again and again, and they longed for you, and would have +carried you away by force. But their greedy arms snatched only a few +jewels, a dress or two, and _you_ they left." + +The girl caught at a cluster of locust blossoms that floated near. + +"It is an allegory." + +"I'll leave Niel to untie his riddles." Their companion lit his pipe and +strode ashore. "I am off for an hour with the Adriatic. Don't bother about +me if you get tired of waiting." + +He disappeared in the direction of the Lido bathing stablimento. The two +gathered up cushions and rugs, and wandered into the grove. The shade was +dark and cool. Beyond were the empty acres of a great fort grown up in a +tangle of long grass like an abandoned pasture. Across the pool they could +see the mitred bishop sleeping aloft in the sun, and near him the lesser +folk in their graves beside the convent wall. + +"No, I am not all that," Miss Barton said, thoughtfully, her face bending, +as if some rich, half-open rose were pondering. + +"_He_ says that I am a fragment, a bit of detritus that has been washed +around the world--" + +"And finally lodged and crystallized in Italy." + +This mystified her again, as if she were compelled to use a medium of +expression that was unfamiliar. + +"Papa was consul-general, you know, first at Madrid, then in the East, and +lastly merely a consul at Milan." She fell back in relief upon a statement +of fact. + +"Yes, I know." + +"And mamma--she was from the South but he married her in Paris. They +called me the polyglot bébé at the convent." She confided this as lazily +interesting, like the clouds, or the locusts, or the faint chatter of the +Adriatic waves around the breakwater of the Lido. + +"Nevertheless you are Venice, you are Italy, you are Pagan"--the young man +iterated almost solemnly, as if a Puritan ancestry demanded this reproach. +Then he rolled his body half over and straightened himself to look at her +rigidly. "How did you come about? How could Council Bluffs make it?" His +voice showed amusement at its own intensity. She shook her head. + +"I don't know," she said, softly. + +"It doesn't seem real. They tell me so, just as they say that the marble +over there comes from that blue mountain. But why bother about it? I am +here----" + +They drifted on in personal chat until the sunlight came in parallel lines +between the leaves. + +"Where is Caspar?" he said at last, reluctantly. "It's too late to get +back to the Britannia for dinner." He jumped up as if conscious of a +fault. + +"Oh, we'll dine here. Caspar has found some one at the stablimento and has +gone off. Ask Bastian--there must be some place where we can get enough to +eat." + +Lawrence hesitated as if not quite sure of the outcome of such +unpremeditation. But Miss Barton questioned the gondolier. "The +Buon Pesche--that will be lovely; Bastian will paddle over and order the +supper. We can walk around." + +So Lawrence, as if yielding against his judgment, knelt down and picked up +her wrap. "Bastian will take care of the rest," she said, gleefully, +walking on ahead through the long grass of the abandoned fort. "Be a bit +of detritus, too, and enjoy the few half-hours," she added, coaxingly, +over her shoulder. + +When they were seated at the table under the laurel-trees before the Buon +Pesche, Lawrence threw himself into the situation, with all the robustness +of a moral resolve to do the delightful and sinful thing. Just why it +should be sinful to dine there out-doors in an evening light of luminous +gold, with the scent of locusts eddying about, and the mirage-like show of +Venice sleeping softly over beyond--was not quite clear. Perhaps because +his companion seemed so careless and unfamiliar with the monitions of +strenuous living; perhaps because her face was brilliant and naïve--some +spontaneous thing of nature, unmarked by any lines of consciousness. + +Under a neighboring tree a couple were already eating, or quarrelling in +staccato phrases. Lawrence thought that the man was an artist. + +Miss Barton smiled at his seriousness, crossing her hands placidly on the +table and leaning forward. To her companion she gleamed, as if a wood- +thing, a hamadryad, had slipped out from the laurel-tree and come to dine +with him in the dusk. + +The woman of the inn brought a flask of thin yellow wine and placed it +between them. Lawrence mutely decanted it into the glasses. + +"Well?" she said, questioningly. + +Her companion turned his head away to the solemn, imperial mountains, that +were preparing with purple and gold for a night's oblivion. + +"You are thinking of Nassau Street, New York, of the rooms divided by +glass partitions, and typewriters and the bundles of documents--bah! +Chained!" She sipped scornfully a drop or two from the glass. + +The man flushed. + +"No, not that exactly. I am thinking of the police courts, of the squalor, +of taking a deposition in a cell with the filthy breathing all about. The +daily jostle." He threw his head back. + +"Don't try it again," she whispered. + +"I am only over for six weeks, you know, health--" + +"Yes? and there is a girl in Lowell,"--she read his mind impudently. + +"Was," he emended, with an uneasy blush. + +"Poor, starved one! Here is our fish and spaghetti. To-night is a night of +feast." + +The dusk grew grayer, more powderish; the mountains faded away, and the +long Lido banks disappeared into lines pointed by the lights of Torcello +and Murano. Sant' Elena became sea, and the evening wind from the +Adriatic started in toward the city. A few sailors who had come for a +glass were sitting under the arbor of the Buon Pesche smoking, with an +occasional stinging word dropped nonchalantly into the dusk. Their hostess +was working in the garden patch behind the house. At last the artist moved +off with his companion through the grove of laurel between the great well- +heads. Bastian loitered suggestively near. + +So they gathered their thoughts and followed the gondolier to the bank. +Miss Barton lingered by one of the well-heads to peer at the pitchy +bottom. + +"Here they came for fresh water, the last gift of Venice before they took +sail. And sometimes a man never went farther--it was a safe kind of a +grave." She laughed unconcernedly. + +"Perhaps you came out of the locusts and took a hand in pitching the +bodies in." + +The woman shivered. + +"No! no! I only brought them here." + +Bastian turned the prow into the current, heading to weather Sant' Elena. +Lawrence took an oar silently. He liked the rush on the forward stroke, +the lingering recovery. The evening puffs were cool. They slid on past a +ghostly full-rigged ship from the north, abandoned at the point of Sant' +Elena, until the black mass of trees in the Giardino Pubblico loomed up. A +little off the other quarter the lights from the island of San Lazzaro +gleamed and faded. It was so very silent on the waste of waters! + +"Come." + +Lawrence looked back at his companion; she was holding her hat idly, +huddled limply on the cushions. + +"Come," she said again, adding mockingly---- + +"If you are so ferocious, we shall get there too soon." + +Lawrence gave up his oar and lay down at her feet. Bastian's sweep dipped +daintily in and out; the good current was doing his work. They drifted +silently on near Venice. The halo of light above the squares grew +brighter. San Giorgio Maggiore appeared suddenly off the quarter. + +Miss Barton signed to the gondolier to wait. They were outside the city +wash; the notes of the band in San Marco came at intervals; the water +slipped noiselessly around the channels, and fire-fly lights from the +gondolas twinkled on the Grand Canal. San Giorgio was asleep. + +Miss Barton's head was leaning forward, her eyes brooding over the black +outlines, her ears sensuously absorbing the gurgle of the currents. A big +market boat from Palestrina winged past them, sliding over the oily water. +Several silent figures were standing in the stern. + +Lawrence looked up; her eyes seemed lit with little candles placed behind. +Her face gleamed, and one arm slipped from her wrap to the cushion by his +side. + +"Bella Venezia," he murmured. + +She smiled, enveloping him, mastering him, taking him as a child with her +ample powers. + +"You will never go back to 'that'!" + +Her arm by his side filled out the thought. + +"Never," he heard himself say as on a stage, and the dusky lights from +that radiant face seemed very near. + +"Because----" + +"Because I am----" + +"Sh," she laid her fingers lightly on his forehead. "There is no thine and +mine." + +Bastian dipped his sweep once more. San Giorgio's austere façade went out +into the black night. One cold ripple of Adriatic wind stirred the felza +curtains. + + + +II + +The garden on the Giudecca was a long narrow strip on the seaward side, +blossoming profusely with flowers. A low vine-covered villino slanted +along the canal; beyond, there was a cow-house where a boy was feeding +some glossy cows. The garden was full of the morning sun. + +Lawrence could see her from the open door, a white figure, loitering in a +bed of purple tulips. Her dark hair was loosely knotted up; stray wisps +fell about her ears. + +Lawrence closed the door that opened from the canal and walked softly +through the plats of lilies and tulips. Miss Barton glanced up. + +"Ecco! il cavaliere!" + +"Didn't you expect me!" he asked, clumsily, revealing one potent reason +for his appearance. + +She smiled for an answer. + +"Last night," he began again, explanatorily. Her eyes followed his lips +and interrupted him. + +"What do you think of our place?" She had turned away as if to direct his +speech into indifferent channels. + +He looked about bewildered. + +"I can't think anything; I _feel_ it; it's one mass of sense." + +"Exactly. We found it, papa and I, one day two years ago when we were +paddling around the Giudecca. One is so much at home here. At night you +can see the lights along the Lido, and all the campaniles over there in +Venice. Then the Redentore sweeps up so grandly--" + +Lawrence slapped a bending tulip. + +"Yes, the world lies far away." + +"And you are afraid to lose sight of it," she turned on him swiftly. And +she added, before he could find defence, "You have come to redeem your +words, to tell me that you love me desperately; that you want to make an +engagement; and some day marry me and go over there to live?" + +She laughed. + +"Well?" + +"Caspar would do that." + +"And Severance has something to offer," Lawrence remarked, bluntly. + +"Half a million." + +She began to walk slowly across the little grass-plot over to the Lido +side. Here the oily swell was gurgling in the stone embankment. + +She was like a plant flowering in the garden--a plant, part lily, part +hyacinth. + +"And you do not want me," she began, softly, less to him than to herself. +"I don't fit in. You cannot take me up and put me aside, at your will. You +would be _mine_." + +"Good!" + +"It should have been different. We should never have met. They should have +made you a saint, or a priest, or a pastor for the bleeding world. You are +a trifle late; half a century ago, you could have given your soul to God, +quite easily, and not bothered about one woman." + +"Yes, I agree, but that was settled by the way the world has ground," the +young man sighed. "Why should it bother you, my fooling with the forlorn +and wretched--the others? Any more than I mind your dealings with men?" + +They turned about and crossed the dozen paces to the Redentore wall where +lay a blade of dark shade. + +"You could flirt with the multitude? Yes, I should object," she looked at +him slowly, "I couldn't understand it." + +He threw his head back as if to look beyond Venice. + +"The maimed in body and spirit," he muttered. + +"They call you; I call you; you----" + +"I was starved," he pleaded, "I love flesh and glory, too." + +She laughed unconcernedly. + +"Oh, no. I think not. You are trying to very hard. You think you are +enjoying your wine and your figs and the sun; but you say a prayer." + +Her words taunted him. The vines on the villino swayed in the sun. + +"Come, we will go out to the water, and I will master your doubt." + +They stood silent, looking at each other, half curiously. At length she +uttered what was common to their minds. + +"Marry the world; it woos you. Love me and leave me; love another and +leave her. The world, that is your mistress." + +"And the world incarnate, that is you. The world, breathing, living, +loving, the world a passion of delight." + +Their hands touched for a moment. Then she said, hastily: + +"Too late! There is Caspar. I forgot we were to go to Burano. Will you +join us?" + +A figure in white ducks was coming toward them. His cordial smile seemed +to include a comment--a mental note of some hint he must give. "In stalks +the world of time and place," the young man muttered. "No, I will not go +with you." + +He helped her into the waiting gondola. She settled back upon the +cushions, stretched one languid arm in farewell. He could feel the smile +with which she swept Caspar Severance, the women at work in the rio over +their kettles, the sun-bright stretch of waters--all impartially. + +He lay down in the shade of the Redentore wall. Eight weeks ago there had +been a dizzy hour, a fainting scene in a crowded court-room, a +consultation with a doctor, the conventional prescription, a fortnight of +movement--then _this_. He had cursed that combination of nerve and tissue; +equally he cursed this. One word to his gondolier and in two hours he +could be on the train for Milan, Paris, London--then indefinite years of +turning about in the crowd, of jostling and being jostled. But he lay +still while the sun crept over him. + +She was so unreal, once apart from her presence, like an evanescent mirage +on the horizon of the mind. He told himself that he had seen her, heard +her voice; that her eyes had been close to his, that she had touched him; +that there had been moments when she stood with the flowers of the garden. + +He shook the drowsy sun from his limbs and went away, closing the door +softly on the empty garden. Venice, too, was a shadow made between water +and sun. The boat slipped in across the Zattere, in and out of cool water +alleys, under church windows and palings of furtive gardens, until he came +to the plashings of the waves on the marble steps along the Grand Canal. +Empty! that, too, was empty from side to side between cool palace façades, +the length of its expressive curve. From silence and emptiness into +silence the gondola pushed. Someone to incarnate this empty, vacuous +world! Memory troubled itself with a face, and eyes, and hair, and a voice +that mocked the little goings up and down of men. + + + +III + +In the afternoon Lawrence and Severance were dawdling over coffee in the +Piazza. A strident band sent up voluminous notes that boomed back and +forth between the palace and the stone arches of the procurate. + +"And Burano?" Lawrence suggested, idly. The older man nodded. + +"We lunched there--convent--Miss Barton bought lace." + +He broke the pause by adding, negligently: + +"I think I shall marry her." + +Lawrence smoked; he could see the blue water about San Giorgio. + +"Marry her," he repeated, vaguely. "You are engaged?" + +Severance nodded. + +The young man reached out a bony hand. One had but to wait to still the +problems of life. They strolled across the piazza. + +"When do you leave?" Severance inquired. + +"To-night," almost slipped from the young man's lips. He was murmuring to +himself. "I have played with Venice and lost. I must return to my busy +village." + +"I can't tell," he said. + +Severance daintily stepped into a gondola. "La Giudecca." + +Lawrence turned into the swarming alleys leading to the Rialto. + +Streams of Venetians were eddying about the cul-de-sacs and enclosed +squares, hurrying over the bridges of the canals, turning in and out of +the calles, or coming to rest at the church doors. Lawrence drifted +tranquilly on. He had slipped a cable; he was free and ready for the open +sea. Following at random any turning that offered, he came out suddenly +upon Verocchio's black horseman against the black sky. The San Zanipolo +square was deserted; the cavernous San Zanipolo tenanted by tombs. Stone +figures, seated, a-horse, lying carved in death, started out from the +silent walls. + +"Condottieri," the man muttered, "great robbers who saw and took! +Briseghella, Mocenigo, Leonardo Loredan, Vittore Capello." He rolled the +powerful names under his breath. "They are right--Take, enjoy; then die." +And he saw a hill sleeping sweetly in the mountains, where the sun rested +on its going down, and a villino with two old trees where the court seemed +ever silent. In the stealthy, passing hours she came and sat in the sun, +and _was_. And the two remembered, looking on the valley road, that +somewhere lay in the past a procession of storms and mornings and nights +which was called the world, and a procession of people which was called +life. But she looked at him and smiled. + +Outside in the square the transparent dusk of Venice settled down. In the +broad canal of the Misericordia a faint plash and drip from a passing +gondola; then, in a moment, as the boat rounded into the rio, a resounding +"Stai"; again silence and the robber in bronze. + + + +IV + +He waited for a sign from the Giudecca. He told himself that Theodosia +Barton was not done with him yet, nor he with her. + +The tourist-stream, turning northward from Rome and Florence, met in +Venice a new stream of Germans. The paved passage beside the hotel garden +was alive with a cosmopolitan picnic party. Lawrence lingered and watched; +perhaps when the current set strongly to the north again, it would carry +him along with it. + +He had not seen Caspar Severance. Each day of delay made it more awkward +to meet him, made the confession of disappointment more obvious, he +reflected. Each day it was easier to put out to the lagoons for a still +dream, and return when the Adriatic breeze was winding into the heated +calles. Over there, in the heavy-scented garden on the Giudecca, lined +against a purplish sea, she was resting; she had given free warning for +him to go, but she was there----. + +"She holds me here in the Mare Morto, where the sea-weeds wind about and +bind." + +And he believed that he should meet her somewhere in the dead lagoon, out +yonder around the city, in the enveloping gloom of the waters which held +the pearl of Venice. + +So each afternoon his gondola crept out from the Fondamenta del Zattere +into the ruffling waters of the Giudecca canal, and edged around the +deserted Campo di Marte. There the gondolier labored in the viscous sea- +grass. + +One day, from far behind, came the plash of an oar in the channel. As the +narrow hull swept past, he saw a hand gather in the felza curtains, and a +woman kneel to his side. + +"So Bastian takes you always to the dead sea," she tossed aboard. + +"Bastian might convoy other forestieri," Lawrence defended. + +"Really? here to the laguna morta?" and as his gondola slid into the +channel, she added: + +"I knew you were in Venice; you could not go without--another time." + +"What would that bring?" he questioned her with his eyes. + +"How should I know?" she answered, evasively. "Come with me out to the San +Giorgio in Alga. It is the loneliest place in Venice!" + +Lawrence sat at her feet. The gondola moved on between the sea-weed banks. +Away off by Chioggia, filmy gray clouds grew over the horizon. + +"Rain." + +She shook her head. "For the others, landward. Those opalescent clouds +streaking the sky are merely the undertone of Venice; they are always +_here_." + +"The note of sadness," he suggested. + +"You thought to have ended with _me_." + +She rested her head on her hands and looked at him. He preferred to have +her mention Caspar Severance. + +"Whenever I was beyond your eyes, you were not quite sure. You went back +to your hotel and wondered. The wine was over strong for your temperate +nerves, and there was so much to do elsewhere!" she mocked him. + +"After all, I was a fragment. And you judged in your wise new-world +fashion that fragments were--useless." + +Just ahead was a tiny patch of earth, rimmed close to the edge by ruined +walls. The current running landward drew them about the corner, under the +madonna's hand, and the gondola came to rest beside the lichens and +lizards of a crumbling wharf. + +"No," she continued, "I shall not let you go so easily." One hand fell +beside his arm, figuratively indicating her thought. + +"And I shall carry you off," he responded, slowly. "It lies between you-- +and all, everything." + +The gondolier had gone ashore. Silence had swallowed him up. + +"All, myself and the others; effort, variety--for the man who loves _you_, +there is but one act in life." + +"Splendid!" Her lips parted as if savoring his words. + +His voice went on, low, strained to plunge his words into her heart. + +"You are the woman, the curious thing that God made to stir life. You +would draw all activities to you, and through you nothing may pass. Like +the dead sea of grass you encompass the end of desire. You have been with +me from my manhood, the fata morgana that laughed at my love of other +creatures. I must meet you, I knew, face to face!" + +His lips closed. + +"Go on!" + +"I have met you," he added, sullenly, "and should I turn away, I should +not forget you. You will go with me, and I shall hunger for you and hate +you, and you will make it over, my life, to fill the hollow of your hand." + +"To fill the hollow of my hand," she repeated softly, as if not +understanding. + +"You will mould it and pat it and caress it, until it fits. You will never +reason about it, nor doubt, nor talk; the tide flows underneath into the +laguna morta, and never wholly flows out. God has painted in man's mind +the possible; and he has painted the delusions, the impossible--and that +is woman?" + +"Impossible," she murmured. "Oh, no, not that!" + +Her eyes compelled him; her hand dropped to his hand. Venice sank into a +gray blot in the lagoon. The water was waveless like a deep night. + +"Possible for a moment," he added, dreamily, "possible as the unsung +lyric. Possible as the light of worlds behind the sun and moon. Possible +as the mysteries of God that the angels whisper----" + +"The only possible," again her eyes flamed; the dark hair gleamed black +above the white face. + +"And that is enough for us forever!" + + + +V + +The heavy door of the Casa Lesca swung in, admitting Lawrence to a damp +stone-flagged room. At the farther end it opened on a little cortile, +where gnarled rose-bushes were in bloom. A broken Venus, presiding over a +dusty fountain, made the centre of the cortile, and there a strapping girl +from the campagna was busy trimming the stalks of a bunch of roses. The +signorina had not arrived; Lawrence lounged against the gunwale of a +gondola, which lay on one side of the court. + +A pretentious iron gate led from the cortile to the farm, where the +running vines stretched from olive-stump to trellis, weaving a mat of +undulating green. It was so quiet, here in the rear of the palace, that +one could almost hear the hum of the air swimming over the broad vine +leaves. + +Lawrence, at first alert, then drowsy, reclined in the shade, and watched +the girl. From time to time she threw him a soft word of Venetian. Then, +gathering her roses, she shook them in his face and tripped up the stairs +to the palace above. + +He had made the appointment without intention, but he came to fulfil it in +a tumult of energy. + +_She_ must choose and _he_ arrange--for that future which troubled his +mind. But the heated emptiness of the June afternoon soothed his will. He +saw that whatever she bade, that he would do. Still here, while he was +alone, before her presence came to rule, he plotted little things. When he +was left with himself he wondered about it; no, he did not want her, did +not want it! His life was over there, beyond her, and she must bend to +that conception. People, women, anyone, this piece of beauty and sense, +were merely episodic. The sum was made from all, and greater than all. + +The door groaned, and he turned to meet her, shivering in the damp +passage. She gathered a wrap about her shoulders. + +"Caspar would not go," she explained, appealingly. + +"Which one is to go?" the young man began. She sank down on a bench and +turned her head wearily to the vineyard. Over the swaying tendrils of the +vine, a dark line, a blue slab of salt water, made the horizon. + +"Should I know?" her face said, mutely. + +"He thinks you should," she spoke, calmly. "He has been talking two hours +about you, your future, your brilliant performances----" + +"That detained you!" + +"He is plotting to make you a great man. You belong to the world, he said, +and, the world would have you. They need you to plan and exhort, I +believe." + +"So you come to tell me--" + +"Let us go out to the garden." She laid her hand reprovingly on his arm. +"We can see the pictures later." + +She took his arm and directed him down the arched walk between the vines, +toward the purple sea. + +"I did not realize that--that you were a little Ulysses. He warned me!" + +"Indeed!" + +"That you would love and worship at any wayside shrine; that the spirit of +devotion was not in you." + +"And you believed?" + +She nodded. + +"It seemed so. I have thought so. Once a few feet away and you are +wondering!" + +The young man was guiltily silent. + +"And I am merely a wayside chapel, good for an idle prayer." + +"Make it perpetual." + +Her arm was heavy. + +"Caspar wants you--away. He will try to arrange it. Perhaps you will +yield, and I shall lose." + +"You mean he will make them recall me." + +She said nothing. + +"You can end it now." He stopped and raised her arm. They stood for a +moment, revolving the matter; a gardener came down the path. "You will get +the message tonight," she said, gloomily. "Go! The message will say +'come,' and you will obey." + +Lawrence turned. + +"Shall we see the pictures?" + +The peasant girl admitted them to the hall, and opened, here and there, a +long shutter. The vast hall, in the form of a Latin cross, revealed a +dusky line of frescoes. + +"Veronese," she murmured. Lawrence turned to the open window that looked +across the water to the piazza. Beneath, beside the quay, a green-painted +Greek ship was unloading grain. Some panting, half-naked men were +shovelling the oats. + +"We might go," he said; "Caspar is probably waiting for his report. You +can tell him that he has won." + +Suddenly he felt her very near him. + +"No, not that way!" + +"You are good to--love," she added deliberatively, placing her hands +lightly on his heart. + +"You do not care enough; ah! that is sad, sad. Caspar, or denial, or God-- +nothing would stand if you cared, more than you care for the little people +and things. See, I can take you now. I can say you are mine. I can make +you love--as another may again. But love me, now, as if no other minute +could ever follow." + +She sighed the words. + +"Here I am, to be loved. Let us settle nothing. Let us have this minute +for a few kisses." + +The hall filled with dusk. The girl came back again. Suddenly a bell began +ringing. + +"Caspar," she said. "Stay here; I will go." + +"We will go together." + +"No," she waved him back. "You will get the message. Caspar is right. You +are not for any woman for always." + +"Go," he flung out, angrily. + +The great doors of the hall had rattled to, leaving him alone half will- +less. He started and then returned to the balcony over the fondamenta. +In the half-light he could see her stepping into a waiting gondola, and +certain words came floating up clearly as if said to him---- + +"To-morrow evening, the Contessa Montelli, at nine." But she seemed to be +speaking to her companion. The gondola shot out into the broad canal. + + + +VI + +The long June day, Lawrence sat with the yellow cablegram before his eyes. +The message had come, indeed, and the way had been cleared. Eleven--the +train for Paris! passed; then, two, and now it was dusk again. + +Had she meant those words for him? So carelessly flung back. That he would +prove. + + * * * * * + +"The signorina awaits you." The man pointed to the garden, and turned back +with his smoking lamp up the broad staircase that clung to one side of the +court. Across the strip of garden lay a bar of moonlight on the grass. + +She was standing over the open well-head at the farther end where the +grass grew in rank tufts. The gloomy wall of the palace cast a shadow that +reached to the well. Just as he entered, a church-clock across the rio +struck the hour on a cracked bell. + +"My friend has gone in--she is afraid of the night air," Miss Barton +explained. "Perhaps she is afraid of ghosts," she added, as the young man +stood silent by her side. "An old doge killed his wife and her children +here, some centuries ago. They say the woman walks. Are you afraid?" + +"Of only one ghost----" + +"Not yet a ghost!" Indeed, her warm, breathing self threw a spirit of life +into the moonlight and gainsaid his idle words. + +"I have come for you," he said, a little peremptorily. "To do it I have +lost my engagement with life." + +"So the message came. You refused, and now you look for a reward. A man +must be paid!" + +"I tried to keep the other engagement and could not!" + +"I shall make you forget it, as if it were some silly boyish dream." She +began to walk over the moonlit grass. "I was waiting for that--sacrifice. +For if you desire _me_, you must leave the other engagements, always." + +"I know it." + +"I lie in the laguna morta, and the dead are under me, and the living are +caught in my sea-weed." She laughed. + +"Now, we have several long hours of moonlight. Shall we stay here?" + +The young man shivered. + +"No, the Lady Dogessa might disturb us. Let us go out toward Murano." + +"Are you really--alive and mine, not Severance's?" he threw out, +recklessly. + +She stopped and smiled. + +"First you tell me that I disturb your plans; then you want to know if I +am preoccupied. You would like to have me as an 'extra' in the +subscription." + +As they came out on the flags by the gondola, another boat was pushing a +black prow into the rio from the Misericordia canal. It came up to the +water-steps where the two stood. Caspar Severance stepped out. + +"Caspar!" Miss Barton laughed. + +"They told me you were here for dinner," he explained. He was in evening +clothes, a Roman cloak hanging from his shoulders. He looked, standing on +the steps below the other two, like an impertinent intrusion. + +"Lawrence! I thought you were on your way home." + +Lawrence shook his head. All three were silent, wondering who would dare +to open the final theme. + +"The Signora Contessa had a headache," Miss Barton began, nonchalantly. + +Severance glanced skeptically at the young American by her side. + +"So you fetched il dottore americano? Well, Giovanni is waiting to carry +us home." + +Miss Barton stepped forward slowly, as if to enter the last gondola whose +prow was nuzzling by the steps. + +Lawrence took her hand and motioned to his gondola. + +"Miss Barton----" + +Severance smiled, placidly. + +"You will miss the midnight train." + +The young man halted a moment, and Miss Barton's arm slipped into his +fingers. + +"Perhaps," he muttered. + +"The night will be cool for you," Severance turned to the woman. She +wavered a moment. + +"You will miss more than the midnight train," Severance added to the young +fellow, in a low voice. + +Lawrence knelt beside his gondola. He glanced up into the face of the +woman above him. "Will you come?" he murmured. She gathered up her dress +and stepped firmly into the boat. Severance, left alone on the fondamenta, +watched the two. Then he turned back to his gondola. The two boats floated +out silently into the Misericordia Canal. + +"To the Cimeterio," Miss Barton said. "To the Canale Grande," Severance +motioned. + +The two men raised their hats. + + * * * * * + +For a few moments the man and the woman sat without words, until the +gondola cleared the Fondamenta Nuova, and they were well out in the sea of +moonlight. Ahead of them lay the stucco walls of the Cimeterio, glowing +softly in the white light. Some dark spots were moving out from the city +mass to their right, heading for the silent island. + +"There goes the conclusion," Lawrence nodded to the funeral boats. + +"But between us and them lies a space of years--life." + +"Who decided?" + +"You looked. It was decided." + +The city detached itself insensibly from them, lying black behind. A light +wind came down from Treviso, touching the white waves. + +"You are thinking that back there, up the Grand Canal, lie fame and +accomplishment. You are thinking that now you have your fata +morgana--nothing else. You are already preparing a grave for her in your +mind!" + +Lawrence took her head in his hands. "Never," he shot out the word. +"Never--you are mine; I have come all these ocean miles to find you. I +have come for an accounting with the vision that troubles man." Her face +drew nearer. + +"I am Venice, you said. I am set in the mare morto. I am built on the sea- +weed. But from me you shall not go. You came over the mountains for this." + +The man sighed. Some ultimate conception of life seemed to outline itself +on the whitish walls of the Cimeterio--a question of sex. The man would go +questioning visions. The woman was held by one. + +"Caspar Severance will find his way, and will play your game for you," she +went on coaxingly. "But this," her eyes were near him, "_this_ is a moment +of life. You have chosen. There is no mine and thine." + +One by one the campaniles of Venice loomed, dark pillars in the white sky. +And all around toward Mestre and Treviso and Torcello; to San Pietro di +Castello and the grim walls of the arsenal, the mare morto heaved gently +and sighed. + +CHICAGO, January, 1897. + + + +THE PRICE OF ROMANCE + +They were paying the price of their romance, and the question was whether +they would pay it cheerfully. They had been married a couple of years, and +the first flush of excitement over their passion and the stumbling-blocks +it had met was fading away. When he, an untried young lawyer and delicate +dilettante, had married her she was a Miss Benton, of St. Louis, "niece of +Oliphant, that queer old fellow who made his money in the Tobacco Trust," +and hence with no end of prospects. Edwards had been a pleasant enough +fellow, and Oliphant had not objected to his loafing away a vacation about +the old house at Quogue. Marriage with his niece, the one remaining member +of his family who walked the path that pleased him, was another thing. She +had plenty of warning. Had he not sent his only son adrift as a beggar +because he had married a little country cousin? He could make nothing out +of Edwards except that he was not keen after business--loafed much, smoked +much, and fooled with music, possibly wrote songs at times. + +Yet Miss Benton had not expected that cruel indifference when she +announced her engagement to the keen old man. For she was fond of him and +grateful. + +"When do you think of marrying?" had been his single comment. She guessed +the unexpressed complement to that thought, "You can stay here until that +time. Then good-by." + +She found in herself an admirable spirit, and her love added devotion and +faith in the future, her lover's future. So she tided over the months of +her engagement, when her uncle's displeasure settled down like a fog over +the pleasant house. Edwards would run down frequently, but Oliphant +managed to keep out of his way. It was none of his affair, and he let them +see plainly this aspect of it. Her spirit rose. She could do as other +women did, get on without candy and roses, and it hurt her to feel that +she had expected money from her uncle. She could show him that they were +above that. + +So they were married and went to live in a little flat in Harlem, very +modest, to fit their income. Oliphant had bade her good-by with the +courtesy due to a tiresome Sunday visitor. "Oh, you're off, are you?" his +indifferent tones had said. "Well, good-by; I hope you will have a good +time." And that was all. Even the colored cook had said more; the servants +in general looked deplorable. Wealth goes so well with a pretty, bright +young woman! + +Thus it all rested in the way they would accept the bed they had made. +Success would be ample justification. Their friends watched to see how +well they would solve the problem they had so jauntily set themselves. + +Edwards was by no means a _fainéant_--his record at the Columbia Law +School promised better than that, and he had found a place in a large +office that might answer for the stepping-stone. As yet he had not +individualized himself; he was simply charming, especially in correct +summer costume, luxuriating in indolent conversation. He had the well- +bred, fine-featured air of so many of the graduates from our Eastern +colleges. The suspicion of effeminacy which he suggested might be unjust, +but he certainly had not experienced what Oliphant would call "life." He +had enough interest in music to dissipate in it. Marriage was an excellent +settler, though, on a possible income of twelve hundred! + +The two years had not the expected aspiring march, however; ten-dollar +cases, even, had not been plenty in Edwards's path, and he suspected that +he was not highly valued in his office. He had been compelled to tutor a +boy the second year, and the hot summers made him listless. In short, he +felt that he had missed his particular round in the ladder. He should have +studied music, or tried for the newspapers as a musical critic. +Sunday afternoons he would loll over the piano, picturing the other life-- +that life which is always so alluring! His wife followed him heroically +into all his moods with that pitiful absorption such women give to the men +they love. She believed in him tremendously, if not as a lawyer, as a man +and an artist. Somehow she hadn't been an inspiration, and for that she +humbly blamed herself. How was it accomplished, this inspiration? A loving +wife inspired the ordinary man. Why not an artist? + +They got into the habit of planning their life all differently--so that it +might not be limited and futile. _If_ they had a few thousand dollars! +That was a bad sign, and she knew it, and struggled against it. _If_ she +could only do something to keep the pot boiling while he worked at his +music for fame and success! But she could reduce expenses; so the one +servant went, and the house-bills grew tinier and tinier. However, they +didn't "make connections," and--something was wrong--she wondered what. + +As the second summer came in they used to stroll out of their stuffy +street of an evening, up St. Nicholas Avenue, to the Park, or to the +Riverside Drive. There they would sit speechless, she in a faded blue +serge skirt with a crisp, washed-out shirtwaist, and an old sailor hat-- +dark and pretty, in spite of her troubled face; he in a ready-made black +serge suit, yet very much the gentleman--pale and listless. Their eyes +would seek out any steamer in the river below, or anything else that +reminded them of other conditions. He would hum a bit from an opera. They +needed no words; their faces were evident, though mute, indications of the +tragedy. Then they would return at bed-time into the sultry streets, where +from the open windows of the flats came the hammered music of the city. +Such discordant efforts for harmony! Her heart would fill over him, +yearning like a mother to cherish him in all the pleasant ways of life, +but impotent, impotent! + +She never suggested greater effort. Conditions were hard, she said over +and over; if there were only a little money to give him a start in another +direction. She admired his pride in never referring to old Oliphant. Her +uncle was often in her mind, but she felt that even if she could bring +herself to petition him, her husband would indignantly refuse to consider +the matter. + +Still, she thought about it, and especially this summer, for she knew he +was then at Quogue. Moreover, she expected her first child. That worried +her daily; she saw how hopeless another complication would make their +fate. She cried over it at night when the room was too hot to sleep. And +then she reproached herself; God would punish her for not wanting her +baby. + +One day she had gone down town to get some materials for the preparations +she must make. She liked to shop, for sometimes she met old friends; this +time in a large shop she happened upon a woman she had known at Quogue, +the efficient wife of a successful minister in Brooklyn. This Mrs. +Leicester invited her to lunch at the cafe at the top of the building, and +she had yielded, after a little urging, with real relief. They sat down at +a table near the window--it was so high up there was not much noise--and +the streets suddenly seemed interesting to Mrs. Edwards. The quiet table, +the pleasant lunch, and the energetic Mrs. Leicester were all refreshing. + +"And how is your husband?" Mrs. Leicester inquired, keenly. As a +minister's wife she was compelled to interest herself in sentimental +complications that inwardly bored her. It was a part of her professional +duties. She had taken in this situation at once--she had seen that kind of +thing before; it made her impatient. But she liked the pretty little woman +before her, and was sorry she hadn't managed better. + +"Pretty well," Mrs. Edwards replied, consciously. "The heat drags one down +so!" + +Mrs. Leicester sent another quick glance across the table. "You haven't +been to Quogue much of late, have you? You know how poorly your uncle is." + +"No! _You_ must know that Uncle James doesn't see us." + +"Well," Mrs. Leicester went on, hastily, "he's been quite ill and feeble, +and they say he's growing queer. He never goes away now, and sees nobody. +Most of the servants have gone. I don't believe he will last long." + +Then her worldliness struggled with her conventional position, and she +relapsed into innuendo. "He ought to have someone look after him, to see +him die decently, for he can't live beyond the autumn, and the only person +who can get in is that fat, greasy Dr. Shapless, who is after his money +for the Methodist missions. He goes down every week. I wonder where Mr. +Oliphant's son can be?" + +Mrs. Edwards took in every word avidly while she ate. But she let the +conversation drift off to Quogue, their acquaintances, and the difficulty +of shopping in the summer. "Well, I must be going to get the train," +exclaimed Mrs. Leicester at last. With a sigh the young wife rose, looked +regretfully down at the remains of their liberal luncheon, and then walked +silently to the elevator. They didn't mention Oliphant again, but there +was something understood between them. Mrs. Leicester hailed a cab; just +as she gathered her parcels to make a dive, she seemed illuminated with an +idea. "Why don't you come down some Sunday--visit us? Mr. Leicester would +be delighted." + +Mrs. Edwards was taken unawares, but her instincts came to her rescue. + +"Why, we don't go anywhere; it's awfully kind, and I should be delighted; +I am afraid Mr. Edwards can't." + +"Well," sighed Mrs. Leicester, smiling back, unappeased, "come if you can; +come alone." The cab drove off, and the young wife felt her cheeks burn. + + * * * * * + +The Edwardses had never talked over Oliphant or his money explicitly. They +shrank from it; it would be a confession of defeat. There was something +abhorrently vulgar in thus lowering the pitch of their life. They had come +pretty near it often this last summer. But each feared what the other +might think. Edwards especially was nervous about the impression it might +make on his wife, if he should discuss the matter. Mrs. Leicester's talk, +however, had opened possibilities for the imagination. So little of Uncle +James's money, she mused, would make them ideally happy--would put her +husband on the road to fame. She had almost made up her mind on a course +of action, and she debated the propriety of undertaking the affair without +her husband's knowledge. She knew that his pride would revolt from her +plan. She could pocket her own pride, but she was tender of his +conscience, of his comfort, of his sensibilities. It would be best to act +at once by herself--perhaps she would fail, anyway--and to shield him from +the disagreeable and useless knowledge and complicity. She couldn't resist +throwing out some feelers, however, at supper that night. He had come in +tired and soiled after a day's tramp collecting bills that wouldn't +collect this droughty season. She had fussed over him and coaxed a smile +out, and now they were at their simple tea. + +She recounted the day's events as indifferently as possible, but her face +trembled as she described the luncheon, the talk, the news of her uncle, +and at last Mrs. Leicester's invitation. Edwards had started at the first +mention of Quogue. + +"It's been in his mind," she thought, half-relieved, and his nervous +movements of assumed indifference made it easier for her to go on. + +"It was kind of her, wasn't it?" she ended. + +"Yes," Edwards replied, impressively. "Of course you declined." + +"Oh, yes; but she seemed to expect us all the same." Edwards frowned, but +he kept an expectant silence. So she remarked, tentatively: + +"It would be so pleasant to see dear old Quogue again." Her hypocrisy made +her flush. Edwards rose abruptly from the table and wandered about the +room. At length he said, in measured tones, his face averted from her: + +"_Of course_, under the circumstances, we cannot visit Quogue while your +uncle lives--unless he should send for us." Thus he had put himself +plainly on record. His wife suddenly saw the folly and meanness of her +little plans. + +It was hardly a disappointment; her mind felt suddenly relieved from an +unpleasant responsibility. She went to her husband, who was nervously +playing at the piano, and kissed him, almost reverently. It had been a +temptation from which he had saved her. They talked that evening a good +deal, planning what they would do if they could get over to Europe for a +year, calculating how cheaply they could go. It was an old subject. +Sometimes it kept off the blues; sometimes it indicated how blue they +were. Mrs. Edwards forgot the disturbance of the day until she was lying +wide awake in her hot bed. Then the old longings came in once more; she +saw the commonplace present growing each month more dreary; her husband +drudging away, with his hopes sinking. Suddenly he spoke: + +"What made Mrs. Leicester ask us, do you suppose?" So he was thinking of +it again. + +"I don't know!" she replied, vaguely. Soon his voice came again: + +"You understand, Nell, that I distinctly disapprove of our making any +effort _that way_." She didn't think that her husband was a hypocrite. She +did not generalize when she felt deeply. But she knew that her husband +didn't want the responsibility of making any effort. Somehow she felt that +he would be glad if she should make the effort and take the responsibility +on her own shoulders. + +Why had he lugged it into plain light again if he hadn't expected her to +do something? How could she accomplish it without making it unpleasant for +him? Before daylight she had it planned, and she turned once and kissed +her husband, protectingly. + + * * * * * + +That August morning, as she walked up the dusty road, fringed with +blossoming golden-rod, toward the little cottage of the Leicesters, she +was content, in spite of her tumultuous mind. It was all so heavenly +quiet! the thin, drooping elms, with their pendent vines, like the +waterfalls of a maiden lady; the dusty snarls of blackberry bushes; the +midsummer contented repose of the air, and that distantly murmuring sea-- +it was all as she remembered it in her childhood. A gap of disturbed years +closed up, and peace once more! The old man slowly dying up beyond in that +deserted, gambrel-roofed house would Forget and forgive. + +Mrs. Leicester received her effusively, anxious now not to meddle +dangerously in what promised to be a ticklish business. Mrs. Edwards must +stay as long as she would. The Sundays were especially lonely, for Mr. +Leicester did not think she should bear the heat of the city so soon, and +left her alone when he returned to Brooklyn for his Sunday sermon. Of +course, stay as long as Mr. Edwards could spare her--a month; if possible. + +At the mention of Mr. Edwards the young wife had a twinge of remorse for +the manner in which she had evaded him--her first deceit for his sake. She +had talked vaguely about visiting a friend at Moriches, and her husband +had fallen in with the idea. New York was like a finely divided furnace, +radiating heat from every tube-like street. So she was to go for a week or +ten days. Perhaps the matter would arrange itself before that time was up; +if not, she would write him what she had done. But ten days seemed so long +that she put uncomfortable thoughts out of her head. + +Mrs. Leicester showed her to her room, a pretty little box, into which the +woodbine peeped and nodded, and where from one window she could get a +glimpse of the green marshes, with the sea beyond. After chatting awhile, +her hostess went out, protesting that her guest must be too tired to come +down. Mrs. Edwards gladly accepted the excuse, ate the luncheon the maid +brought, in two bites, and then prepared to sally forth. + +She knew the path between the lush meadow-grass so well! Soon she was at +the entrance to the "Oliphant place." It was more run down than two years +ago; the lower rooms were shut up tight in massive green blinds that +reached to the warped boards of the veranda. It looked old, neglected, +sad, and weary; and she felt almost justified in her mission. She could +bring comfort and light to the dying man. + +In a few minutes she was smothering the hysterical enthusiasm of her old +friend, Dinah. It was as she had expected: Oliphant had grown more +suspicious and difficult for the last two years, and had refused to see a +doctor, or, in fact, anyone but the Rev. Dr. Shapless and a country lawyer +whom he used when absolutely necessary. He hadn't left his room for a +month; Dinah had carried him the little he had seen fit to eat. She was +evidently relieved to see her old mistress once more at hand. She asked no +questions, and Mrs. Edwards knew that she would obey her absolutely. + +They were sitting in Oliphant's office, a small closet off the more +pretentious library, and Mrs. Edwards could see the disorder into which +the old man's papers had fallen. The confusion preceding death had already +set in. + +After laying aside her hat, she went up, unannounced, to her uncle's room, +determined not to give him an opportunity to dismiss her out of hand. He +was lying with his eyes closed, so she busied herself in putting the room +to rights, in order to quiet her nerves. The air was heavily languorous, +and soon in the quiet country afternoon her self-consciousness fell +asleep, and she went dreaming over the irresponsible past, the quiet +summers, and the strange, stern old man. Suddenly she knew that he was +awake and watching her closely. She started, but, as he said nothing, she +went on with her dusting, her hand shaking. + +He made no comment while she brought him his supper and arranged the bed. +Evidently he would accept her services. Her spirit leapt up with the joy +of success. That was the first step. She deemed it best to send for her +meagre satchel, and to take possession of her old room. In that way she +could be more completely mistress of the situation and of him. She had had +no very definite ideas of action before that afternoon; her one desire had +been to be on the field of battle, to see what could be done, perhaps to +use a few tears to soften the implacable heart. But now her field opened +out. She must keep the old man to herself, within her own care--not that +she knew specifically what good that would do, but it was the tangible +nine points of the law. + +The next morning Oliphant showed more life, and while she was helping him +into his dressing-gown, he vouchsafed a few grunts, followed by a piercing +inquiry: + +"Is _he_ dead yet?" + +The young wife flushed with indignant protest. + +"Broke, perhaps?" + +"Well, we haven't starved yet." But she was cowed by his cynical +examination. He relapsed into silence; his old, bristly face assumed a +sardonic peace whenever his eyes fell upon her. She speculated about that +wicked beatitude; it made her uncomfortable. He was still, however--never +a word from morning till night. + +The routine of little duties about the sickroom she performed +punctiliously. In that way she thought to put her conscience to rights, to +regard herself in the kind rôle of ministering angel. That illusion was +hard to attain in the presence of the sardonic comment the old man seemed +to add. After all, it was a vulgar grab after the candied fruits of this +life. + +She had felt it necessary to explain her continued absence to her husband. +Mrs. Leicester, who did not appear to regard her actions as unexpected, +had undertaken that delicate business. Evidently, she had handled it +tactfully, for Mrs. Edwards soon received a hurried note. He felt that she +was performing her most obvious duty; he could not but be pleased that the +breach caused by him had been thus tardily healed. As long as her uncle +continued in his present extremity, she must remain. He would run down to +the Leicesters over Sundays, etc. Mrs. Edwards was relieved; it was nice +of him--more than that, delicate--not to be stuffy over her action. + +The uppermost question these days of monotonous speculation was how long +would this ebb-tide of a tenacious life flow. She took a guilty interest +in her uncle's condition, and yet she more than half wished him to live. +Sometimes he would rally. Something unfulfilled troubled his mind, and +once he even crawled downstairs. She found him shakily puttering over the +papers in his huge davenport. He asked her to make a fire in the grate, +and then, gathering up an armful of papers, he knelt down on the brick +hearth, but suddenly drew back. His deep eyes gleamed hatefully at her. +Holding out several stiff papers, he motioned to her to burn them. Usually +she would have obeyed docilely enough, but this deviltry of merriment she +resented. While she delayed, standing erect before the smouldering sticks, +she noticed that a look of terror crept across the sick face. A spasm +shook him, and he fainted. After that his weakness kept him in bed. She +wondered what he had been so anxious to burn. + +From this time her thoughts grew more specific. Just how should she attain +her ends? Had he made a will? Could he not now do something for them, or +would it be safer to bide their time? Indeed, for a few moments she +resolved to decide all by one straightforward prayer. She began, and the +old man seemed so contentedly prepared for the scene that she remained +dumb. + +In this extremity of doubt she longed to get aid from her husband. Yet +under the circumstances she dared to admit so little. One Saturday +afternoon he called at the house; she was compelled to share some of her +perplexities. + +"He seems so very feeble," she remarked. They were sitting on the veranda +some distance from Oliphant's room, yet their conversation was furtive. +"Perhaps he should see a doctor or a minister." + +"No, I don't think so," Edwards replied, assuringly. "You see, he doesn't +believe in either, and such things should be left to the person himself, +as long as he's in his right mind." + +"And a lawyer?" Mrs. Edwards continued, probingly. + +"Has he asked for one?" + +"No, but he seems to find it hard to talk." + +"I guess it's best not to meddle. Who's that?" + +A little, fat man in baggy black trousers and a seersucker coat was +panting up the gentle hill to the gate. He had a puggy nose and a heavy, +thinly bearded face incased about the eyes in broad steel spectacles. + +"That must be Dr. Shapless," she said, in a flutter. + +"What of it?" Edwards replied. + +"He mustn't come in," she cried, with sudden energy. "You must see him, +and send him away! He wants to see Uncle Oliphant. Tell him he's too +sick--to come another day." Edwards went down the path to meet him. +Through the window she could hear a low conversation, and then crunched +gravel. Meantime Oliphant seemed restlessly alert, expectant of something, +and with suspicious eyes intent on her. + +Her heart thumped with relief when the gate clicked. Edwards had been +effective that time. Oliphant was trying to say something, but the hot +August day had been too much for him--it all ended in a mumble. Then she +pulled in the blinds, settled the pillows nervously, and left the room in +sheer fright. + +The fight had begun--and grimly. + + * * * * * + +"I wonder what the old cove wanted?" Edwards said the next day; "he was +dead set on seeing your uncle; said he had an engagement with him, and +looked me up and down. I stood him off, but he'll be down again." + +"Don't you know about that new fund the Methodists are raising? Uncle +Oliphant has always helped the Methodists, and I suppose Dr. Shapless +wanted to see him about some contributions." Edwards asked no more +questions, and, in fact, got back to town on a pretext of business that +afternoon. He was clearly of no use in Quogue. His wife sent for a +physician that week. It was tardy justice to propriety, but it was safe +then, for Oliphant had given up all attempts to talk. + +The doctor came, looked at the old man, and uttered a few remarks. He +would come again. Mrs. Edwards did not need to be told that the end was +near. The question was, how soon? + +That week had another scare. Somehow old Slocum, the local lawyer Oliphant +used, had been summoned, and one morning she ran across him in the hall. +She knew the man well of old. He was surprised and pleased to see her, and +it was not difficult to get him out of the house without arousing his +suspicions. But he would talk so boisterously; she felt her uncle's eyes +aflame in anger. + +"Be sure and send for me when he rallies, quick," Slocum whispered loudly +in the hall. "Perhaps we can do a little something for some folks." And +with a wink he went out. + +Had she done the clever thing, after all, in shooing old Slocum out? Her +mind went over the possibilities in tense anxiety. If there were no will, +James, Jr., would get the whole, she thought. If there was a will already +in the house, in that old davenport, what then? Would Shapless get the +money? She grew keen in speculation. To leave her in the lurch, to give it +all to that greasy Shapless, would be the most natural trick in the world +for an incisive old fellow like Oliphant. + +It was too much! She cried a little, and she began to hate the helpless +man upstairs. It occurred to her to poke about in the papers in the +adjoining room. She must do it at once, for she expected Edwards every +moment. + +First she ran upstairs to see if her uncle was all right. As soon as she +entered, he glared at her bitterly and would have spoken. She noted the +effort and failure, elated. He could not betray her now, unless he rallied +wonderfully. So leaving the door ajar, she walked firmly downstairs. Now +she could satisfy her desire. + +If the money were _all_ left to Shapless? She might secure the will, and +bargain with the old parasite for a few thousands of dollars. Her mind was +full of wild schemes. If she only knew a little more about affairs! She +had heard of wills, and read many novels that turned upon wills lost or +stolen. They had always seemed to her improbable, mere novels. Necessity +was stranger than fiction. + +It did not take long to find the very articles she was after; evidently +Oliphant had been overhauling them on that last excursion from his room. +The package lay where he had dropped it when he fainted. There were two +documents. She unfolded them on the top of the mussy desk. They were hard +reading in all their legal dress, and her head was filled with fears lest +her husband should walk in. She could make out, however, that Oliphant was +much richer than she had ever vaguely supposed, and that since her +departure he had relented toward his son. For by the first will in date +she was the principal heir, a lot of queer charities coming in besides. In +the second, James, Jr., received something. Her name did not appear. +Several clauses had been added from time to time, each one giving more +money and lands to the Methodists. Probably Shapless was after another +codicil when he called. + +It had taken her into the twilight to gain even a meagre idea of all this. +She was preparing to fold the documents up in their common wrapper, when +she felt the door open behind her. All she could see in the terror of the +moment was the gaunt white arm of her uncle, and the two angry eyes in the +shaking head. She shrieked, from pure nervousness, and at her cry the old +man fell in a heap. + +The accident steeled her nerves. Dinah came in in a panic, and as they +were lifting the bony frame from the floor Edwards arrived. With his +assistance they got the sick man to bed. + +That was clearly the last gasp. Yet Mrs. Edwards shook in dread every time +she entered the room. The look seemed conscious still, intensified +malignity and despair creeping in. She was afraid and guilty and unstrung. +Perhaps, with some sudden revival of his forces, he would kill her. He was +lying there, too still for defeat. His life had been an expression of +hates; the last one might be dreadful. + +Yet she stood to her post in the sick-room, afraid, as she knew, to trust +herself with her husband. Her mind was soiled with seething thoughts, and, +in contrast, his seemed so fresh and pure! If she could keep him +unsuspicious of her, all would be well in the end. But the task she had +set herself for him was hard, so hard! + +That night when all was still she crept downstairs and groped about in the +davenport for the papers. They had been lying there unopened where they +had fallen earlier in the evening. She struck a match, caught up the +fresher document, and hugged it to her as she toiled upstairs. When she +had tucked it away in her satchel the end seemed near. They must wait now. + +She put her husband out of her mind. Outside, the warm summer days died +away over the sea, one by one, and the grass beyond the gates grew heavier +with dust. Life was tense in its monotony. + + * * * * * + +That had happened on a Saturday; Monday Dr. Shapless came again, his shoes +dusty from his long walk from the station. He looked oiled as ever, but +more determined. Mrs. Edwards daringly permitted him to see the dying +man--he had been lying in a stupor--for she was afraid that the reverend +doctor's loud tones in the hall might exasperate Oliphant to some wild +act. Dr. Shapless shut her from the room when he went in, but he did not +stay long. A restless despair had settled down on her uncle's face, there +to remain for the last few hours. + +Her heart sank; she longed to cry out to the poor old man on the bed that +_she_ did not want his money. She remained with him all night, yet she did +not dare to approach his bed. She would disturb him. + +He died the next afternoon, and at the last he looked out on the world and +at her with his final note of intelligence. It was pathetic, a suggestion +of past tenderness defeated, and of defeat in hate, too. She shuddered as +she closed his sad eyes; it was awful to meddle with a man's last +purposes. + +The funeral was almost surreptitious; old Dinah, the Leicesters, and the +Edwardses occupied the one carriage that followed him to the graveyard +across the village. They met a hay-cart or two on their way, but no +curious neighbors. Old Oliphant's death aroused no interest in this +village, ridden with summer strangers. + +The day was impersonally suave and tender, with its gentle haze and autumn +premonitions. Mr. Leicester said a few equivocal words, while Mrs. Edwards +gazed helplessly into the grave. The others fell back behind the minister. +Between her and her uncle down there something remained unexplained, and +her heart ached. + + * * * * * + +They spent that night at the Leicesters', for Mrs. Edwards wearily refused +to return to the Oliphant place. Edwards carried the keys over to Slocum, +and told him to take the necessary steps toward settling the old man's +affairs. The next day they returned to the little flat in Harlem. The +Leicesters found their presence awkward, now that there was nothing to do, +and Mrs. Edwards was craving to be alone with her husband, to shut out the +past month from their lives as soon as possible. + +These September days, while they both waited in secret anxiety, she clung +to him as she had never before. He was pure, the ideal she had voluntarily +given up, given up for his sake in order that he might have complete +perfection. His delicate sensitiveness kept him from referring to that +painful month, or to possible expectations. She worshipped him the more, +and was thankful for his complete ignorance. Their common life could go on +untainted and noble. + +Yet Edwards betrayed his nervous anxiety. His eagerness for the mail every +morning, his early return from business, indicated his troubled mind. + +The news came at breakfast-time. Mrs. Edwards handed Slocum's letter +across the table and waited, her face wanly eager. The letter was long; it +took some half-dozen large letter-sheets for the country lawyer to tell +his news, but in the end it came. He had found the will and was happy to +say that Mrs. Edwards was a large, a very large, beneficiary. Edwards read +these closing sentences aloud. He threw down the letter and tried to take +her in his arms. But she tearfully pushed him away, and then, repenting, +clasped his knees. + +"Oh, Will! it's so much, so very much," she almost sobbed. + +Edwards looked as if that were not an irremediable fault in their good +luck. He said nothing. Already he was planning their future movements. +Under the circumstances neither cared to discuss their happiness, and so +they got little fun from the first bloom. + +In spite of Mrs. Edwards's delicate health and her expected confinement +they decided to go abroad. She was feverishly anxious for him to begin his +real work at once, to prove himself; and it might be easier to forget her +one vicious month when the Atlantic had been crossed. They put their +affairs to rights hurriedly, and early in November sailed for France. + +The Leicesters were at the dock to bid them God-speed and to chirrup over +their good fortune. + +"It's all like a good, old-fashioned story," beamed Mrs. Leicester, +content with romance for once, now that it had arranged itself so +decorously. + +"Very satisfactory; quite right," the clergyman added. "We'll see you soon +in Paris. We're thinking of a gay vacation, and will let you know." + +Edwards looked fatuous; his wife had an orderly smile. She was glad when +Sandy Hook sank into the mist. She had only herself to avoid now. + +They took some pleasant apartments just off the Rue de Rivoli, and then +their life subsided into the complacent commonplace of possession. She was +outwardly content to enjoy with her husband, to go to the galleries, the +opera, to try the restaurants, and to drive. + +Yet her life went into one idea, a very fixed idea, such as often takes +hold of women in her condition. She was eager to see him at work. If he +accomplished something--even content!--she would feel justified and +perhaps happy. As to the child, the idea grew strange to her. Why should +she have a third in the problem? For she saw that the child must take its +part in her act, must grow up and share their life and inherit the +Oliphant money. In brief, she feared the yet unborn stranger, to whom she +would be responsible in this queer way. And the child could not repair the +wrong as could her husband. Certainly the child was an alien. + +She tried to be tender of her husband in his boyish glee and loafing. She +could understand that he needed to accustom himself to his new freedom, to +have his vacation first. She held herself in, tensely, refraining from +criticism lest she might mar his joy. But she counted the days, and when +her child had come, she said to herself, _then_ he must work. + +This morbid life was very different from what she had fancied the rich +future would be, as she looked into the grave, the end of her struggle, +that September afternoon. But she had grown to demand so much more from +_him_; she had grown so grave! His bright, boyish face, the gentle curls, +had been dear enough, and now she looked for the lines a man's face should +have. Why was he so terribly at ease? The world was bitter and hard in its +conditions, and a man should not play. + +Late in December the Leicesters called; they were like gleeful sparrows, +twittering about. Mrs. Edwards shuddered to see them again, and when they +were gone she gave up and became ill. + +Her tense mind relieved itself in hysterics, which frightened her to +further repression. Then one night she heard herself moaning: "Why did I +have to take all? It was so little, so very little, I wanted, and I had to +take all. Oh, Will, Will, you should have done for yourself! Why did you +need this? Why couldn't you do as other men do? It's no harder for you +than for them." Then she recollected herself. Edwards was holding her hand +and soothing her. + +Some weeks later, when she was very ill, she remembered those words, and +wondered if he had suspected anything. Her child came and died, and she +forgot this matter, with others. She lay nerveless for a long time, +without thought; Edwards and the doctor feared melancholia. So she was +taken to Italy for the cold months. Edwards cared for her tenderly, but +his caressing presence was irritating, instead of soothing, to her. She +was hungry for a justification that she could not bring about. + +At last it wore on into late spring. She began to force herself back into +the old activities, in order to leave no excuse for further dawdling. Her +attitude became terribly judicial and suspicious. + +An absorbing idleness had settled down over Edwards, partly excused to +himself by his wife's long illness. When he noticed that his desultory +days made her restless, he took to loafing about galleries or making +little excursions, generally in company with some forlorn artist he had +picked up. He had nothing, after all, so very definite that demanded his +time; he had not yet made up his mind for any attempts. And something in +the domestic atmosphere unsettled him. His wife held herself aloof, with +alien sympathies, he felt. + +So they drifted on to discontent and unhappiness until she could bear it +no longer without expression. + +"Aren't we to return to Paris soon?" she remarked one morning as they +idled over a late breakfast. "I am strong now, and I should like to settle +down." + +Edwards took the cue, idly welcoming any change. + +"Why, yes, in the fall. It's too near the summer now, and there's no +hurry." + +"Yes, there _is_ hurry," his wife replied, hastily. "We have lost almost +eight months." + +"Out of a lifetime," Edwards put in, indulgently. + +She paused, bewildered by the insinuation of his remark. But her mood was +too incendiary to avoid taking offence. "Do you mean that that would be a +_life_, loafing around all day, enjoying this, that, and the other fine +pleasure? That wasn't what we planned." + +"No, but I don't see why people who are not driven should drive +themselves. I want to get the taste of Harlem out of my mouth." He was a +bit sullen. A year ago her strict inquiry into his life would have been +absurd. Perhaps the money, her money, gave her the right. + +"If people don't drive themselves," she went on, passionately, "they ought +to be driven. It's cowardly to take advantage of having money to do +nothing. You wanted the--the opportunity to do something. Now you have +it." + +Edwards twisted his wicker chair into uncomfortable places. "Well, are you +sorry you happen to have given me the chance?" He looked at her coldly, so +that a suspicious thought shot into her mind. + +"Yes," she faltered, "if it means throwing it away, I _am_ sorry." + +She dared no more. Her mind was so close on the great sore in her gentle +soul. He lit a cigarette, and sauntered down the hotel garden. But the +look he had given her--a queer glance of disagreeable intelligence-- +illumined her dormant thoughts. + +What if he had known all along? She remembered his meaning words that hot +night when they talked over Oliphant's illness for the first time. And why +had he been so yielding, so utterly passive, during the sordid drama over +the dying man? What kept him from alluding to the matter in any way? Yes, +he must have encouraged her to go on. _She_ had been his tool, and he the +passive spectator. The blind certainty of a woman made the thing assured, +settled. She picked up the faint yellow rose he had laid by her plate, and +tore it slowly into fine bits. On the whole, he was worse than she. + +But before he returned she stubbornly refused to believe herself. + + * * * * * + +In the autumn they were again in Paris, in soberer quarters, which were +conducive to effort. Edwards was working fitfully with several teachers, +goaded on, as he must confess to himself, by a pitiless wife. Not much was +discussed between them, but he knew that the price of the _statu quo_ was +continued labor. + +She was watching him; he felt it and resented it, but he would not +understand. All the idealism, the worship of the first sweet months in +marriage, had gone. Of course that incense had been foolish, but it was +sweet. Instead, he felt these suspicious, intolerant eyes following his +soul in and out on its feeble errands. He comforted himself with the trite +consolation that he was suffering from the natural readjustment in a +woman's mind. It was too drastic for that, however. + +He was in the habit of leaving her in the evenings of the opera. The light +was too much for her eyes, and she was often tired. One wet April night, +when he returned late, he found her up, sitting by the window that +overlooked the steaming boulevard. Somehow his soul was rebellious, and +when she asked him about the opera he did not take the pains to lie. + +"Oh, I haven't been there," he muttered, "I am beastly tired of it all. +Let's get out of it; to St. Petersburg or Norway--for the summer," he +added, guiltily. + +Now that the understanding impended she trembled, for hitherto she had +never actually known. In suspicion there was hope. So she almost +entreated. + +"We go to Vienna next winter anyway, and I thought we had decided on +Switzerland for the summer." + +"You decided! But what's the use of keeping up the mill night and day? +There's plenty of opportunity over there for an educated gentleman with +money, if what you are after is a 'sphere' for me." + +"You want to--to go back now?" + +"No, I want to be let alone." + +"Don't you care to pay for all you have had? Haven't you any sense of +justice to Uncle Oliphant, to your opportunities?" + +"Oliphant!" Edwards laughed, disagreeably. "Wouldn't he be pleased to have +an operetta, a Gilbert and Sullivan affair, dedicated to him! No. I have +tried to humor your idea of making myself famous. But what's the use of +being wretched?" The topic seemed fruitless. Mrs. Edwards looked over to +the slight, careless figure. He was sitting dejectedly on a large +fauteuil, smoking. He seemed fagged and spiritless. She almost pitied him +and gave in, but suddenly she rose and crossed the room. + +"We've made ourselves pretty unhappy," she said, apologetically, resting +her hand on the lapel of his coat. "I guess it's mostly my fault, Will. I +have wanted so much that you should do something fine with Uncle +Oliphant's money, with _yourself_. But we can make it up in other ways." + +"What are you so full of that idea for?" Edwards asked, curiously. "Why +can't you be happy, even as happy as you were in Harlem?" His voice was +hypocritical. + +"Don't you know?" she flashed back. "You _do_ know, I believe. Tell me, +did you look over those papers on the davenport that night Uncle James +fainted?" + +The unexpected rush of her mind bewildered him. A calm lie would have set +matters to rights, but he was not master of it. + +"So you were willing--you knew?" + +"It wasn't my affair," he muttered, weakly, but she had left him. + +He wandered about alone for a few days until the suspense became +intolerable. When he turned up one afternoon in their apartments he found +preparations on foot for their departure. + +"We're going away?" he asked. + +"Yes, to New York." + +"Not so fast," he interrupted, bitterly. "We might as well face the matter +openly. What's the use of going back there?" + +"We can't live here, and besides I shall be wanted there." + +"You can't do anything now. Talk sensibly about it. I will not go back." + +She looked at him coldly, critically. "I cabled Slocum yesterday, and we +must live somehow." + +"You--" but she laid her hand on his arm. "It makes no difference now, you +know, and it can't be changed. I've done everything." + +CHICAGO, August, 1895. + + + +A REJECTED TITIAN + + +"John," my wife remarked in horrified tones, "he's coming to Rome!" + +"Who is coming to Rome--the Emperor?" + +"Uncle Ezra--see," she handed me the telegram. "Shall arrive in Rome +Wednesday morning; have Watkins at the Grand Hotel." + +I handed the despatch to Watkins. + +"Poor uncle!" my wife remarked. + +"He will get it in the neck," I added, profanely. + +"They ought to put nice old gentlemen like your uncle in bond when they +reach Italy," Watkins mused, as if bored in advance. "The _antichitàs_ get +after them, like--like confidence-men in an American city, and the same +old story is the result; they find, in some mysterious fashion, a +wonderful Titian, a forgotten Giorgione, cheap at _cinque mille lire_. +Then it's all up with them. His pictures are probably decalcomanias, you +know, just colored prints pasted over board. Why, we _know_ every picture +in Venice; it's simply _impossible_--" + +Watkins was a connoisseur; he had bought his knowledge in the dearest +school of experience. + +"What are you going to do, Mr. Watkins?" my wife put in. "Tell him the +truth?" + +"There's nothing else to do. I used up all my ambiguous terms over that +daub he bought in the Piazza di Spagna--'reminiscential' of half a dozen +worthless things, 'suggestive,' etc. I can't work them over again." +Watkins was lugubrious. + +"Tell him the truth as straight as you can; it's the best medicine." I was +Uncle Ezra's heir; naturally, I felt for the inheritance. + +"Well," my wife was invariably cheerful, "perhaps he has found something +valuable; at least, one of them may be; isn't it possible?" + +Watkins looked at my wife indulgently. + +"He's been writing me about them for a month, suggesting that, as I was +about to go on to Venice, he would like to have me see them; such +treasures as I should find them. I have been waiting until he should get +out. It isn't a nice job, and your uncle--" + +"There are three of them, Aunt Mary writes: Cousin Maud has bought one, +with the advice of Uncle Ezra and Professor Augustus Painter, and Painter +himself is the last one to succumb." + +"They have all gone mad," Watkins murmured. + +"Where did Maudie get the cash?" I asked. + +"She had a special gift on coming of age, and she has been looking about +for an opportunity for throwing it away"--my wife had never sympathized +with my cousin, Maud Vantweekle. "She had better save it for her +trousseau, if she goes on much more with that young professor. Aunt Mary +should look after her." + +Watkins rose to go. + +"Hold on a minute," I said. "Just listen to this delicious epistle from +Uncle Ezra." + +"'... We have hoped that you would arrive in Venice before we break up our +charming home here. Mary has written you that Professor Painter has joined +us at the Palazzo Palladio, complementing our needs and completing our +circle. He has an excellent influence for seriousness upon Maud; his fine, +manly qualities have come out. Venice, after two years of Berlin, has +opened his soul in a really remarkable manner. All the beauty lying loose +around here has been a revelation to him--'" + +"Maud's beauty," my wife interpreted. + +"'And our treasures you will enjoy so much--such dashes of color, such +great slaps of light! I was the first to buy--they call it a Savoldo, but +I think no third-rate man could be capable of so much--such reaching out +after infinity. However, that makes little difference. I would not part +with it, now that I have lived these weeks with so fine a thing. Maud won +a prize in her Bonifazio, which she bought under my advice. Then Augustus +secured the third one, a Bissola, and it has had the greatest influence +upon him already; it has given him his education in art. He sits with it +by the hour while he is at work, and its charm has gradually produced a +revolution in his character. We had always found him too Germanic, and he +had immured himself in that barbarous country for so long over his Semitic +books that his nature was stunted on one side. His picture has opened a +new world for him. Your Aunt Mary and I already see the difference in his +character; he is gentler, less narrowly interested in the world. This +precious bit of fine art has been worth its price many times, but I don't +think Augustus would part with it for any consideration now that he has +lived with it and learned to know its power.'" + +"I can't see why he is coming to Rome," Watkins commented at the end. "If +they are confident that they know all about their pictures, and don't care +anyway who did them, and are having all this spiritual love-feast, what in +the world do they want any expert criticism of their text for? Now for +such people to buy pictures, when they haven't a mint of money! Why don't +they buy something within their means really fine--a coin, a Van Dyck +print? I could get your uncle a Whistler etching for twenty-five pounds; a +really fine thing, you know--" + +This was Watkins's hobby. + +"Oh, well, it won't be bad in the end of the hall at New York; it's as +dark as pitch there; and then Uncle Ezra can leave it to the Metropolitan +as a Giorgione. It will give the critics something to do. And I suppose +that in coming on here he has in mind to get an indorsement for his +picture that will give it a commercial value. He's canny, is my Uncle +Ezra, and he likes to gamble too, like the rest of us. If he should draw a +prize, it wouldn't be a bad thing to brag of." + +Watkins called again the next morning. + +"Have you seen Uncle Ezra?" my wife asked, anxiously. + +"No. Three telegrams. Train was delayed--I suppose by the importance of +the works of art it's bringing on." + +"When do you expect him?" + +"About noon." + +"Mr. Watkins," my wife flamed out, "I believe you are just shirking it, to +meet that poor old man with his pictures. You ought to have been at the +station, or at least at the hotel. Why, it's twelve now!" + +Watkins hung his head. + +"I believe you are a coward," my wife went on. "Just think of his arriving +there, all excitement over his pictures, and finding you gone!" + +"Well, well," I said, soothingly, "it's no use to trot off now, Watkins; +stay to breakfast. He will be in shortly. When he finds you are out at the +hotel he will come straight on here, I am willing to bet." + +Watkins looked relieved at my suggestion. + +"I believe you meant to run away all along," my wife continued, severely, +"and to come here for refuge." + +Watkins sulked. + +We waited in suspense, straining our ears to hear the sound of a cab +stopping in the street. At last one did pull up. My wife made no pretence +of indifference, but hurried to the window. + +"It's Uncle Ezra, with a big, black bundle. John, run down--No! there's a +facchino." + +We looked at each other and laughed. + +"The three!" + +Our patron of art came in, with a warm, gentle smile, his tall, thin +figure a little bent with the fatigue of the journey, his beard a little +grayer and dustier than usual, and his hands all a-tremble with nervous +impatience and excitement. He had never been as tremulous before an +opinion from the Supreme Court. My wife began to purr over him soothingly; +Watkins looked sheepish; I hurried them all off to breakfast. + +The omelette was not half eaten before Uncle Ezra jumped up, and began +unstrapping the oil-cloth covering to the pictures. There was +consternation at the table. My wife endeavored soothingly to bring Uncle +Ezra's interest back to breakfast, but he was not to be fooled. My Uncle +Ezra was a courageous man. + +"Of course you fellows," he said, smiling at Watkins, in his suave +fashion, "are just whetting your knives for me, I know. That's right. I +want to know the worst, the hardest things you can say. You can't destroy +the intrinsic _worth_ of the pictures for us; I have lived with mine too +long, and know how precious it is!" + +At last the three pictures were tipped up against the wall, and the +Madonnas and saints in gold, red, and blue were beaming out insipidly at +us. Uncle Ezra affected indifference. Watkins continued with the omelette. +"We'll look them over after breakfast," he said, severely, thus getting us +out of the hole temporarily. + +After breakfast my wife cooked up some engagement, and hurried me off. We +left Uncle Ezra in the hands of the physician. Two hours later, when we +entered, the operation had been performed--we could see at a glance--and +in a bloody fashion. The pictures were lying about the vast room as if +they had been spat at. Uncle Ezra smiled wanly at us, with the courage of +the patient who is a sceptic about physicians. + +"Just what I expected," he said, briskly, to relieve Watkins, who was +smoking, with the air of a man who has finished his job and is now cooling +off. "Mr. Watkins thinks Painter's picture and Maud's are copies, +Painter's done a few years ago and Maud's a little older, the last +century. My Savoldo he finds older, but repainted. You said cinque cento, +Mr. Watkins?" + +"Perhaps, Mr. Williams," Watkins answered, and added, much as a dog would +give a final shake to the bird, "_Much_ repainted, hardly anything left of +the original. There may be a Savoldo underneath, but you don't see it." +Watkins smiled at us knowingly. My wife snubbed him. + +"Of course, Uncle Ezra, _that's_ one man's opinion. I certainly should not +put much faith in one critic, no matter how eminent he may be. Just look +at the guide-books and see how the 'authorities' swear at one another. +Ruskin says every man is a fool who can't appreciate his particular love, +and Burckhardt calls it a daub, and Eastlake insipid. Now, there are a set +of young fellows who think they know all about paint and who painted what. +They're renaming all the great masterpieces. Pretty soon they will +discover that some tenth-rate fellow painted the Sistine Chapel." + +Watkins put on an aggrieved and expostulatory manner. Uncle Ezra cut in. + +"Oh! my dear! Mr. Watkins may be right, quite right. It's his business to +know, I am sure, and I anticipated all that he would say; indeed, I have +come off rather better than I expected. There is old paint in it +somewhere." + +"Pretty far down," Watkins muttered. My wife bristled up, but Uncle Ezra +assumed his most superb calm. + +"It makes no difference to me, of course, as far as the _worth_ of the +work of art is concerned. I made up my mind before I came here that my +picture was worth a great deal to me, much more than I paid for it." There +was a heroic gasp. Watkins interposed mercilessly, "And may I ask, Mr. +Williams, what you did give for it?" + +Uncle Ezra was an honest man. "Twenty-five hundred lire," he replied, +sullenly. + +"Excuse me" (Watkins was behaving like a pitiless cad), "but you paid a +great deal too much for it, I assure you. I could have got it for----" + +"Mr. Watkins," my wife was hardly civil to him, "it doesn't matter much +what you could have got it for." + +"No," Uncle Ezra went on bravely, "I am a little troubled as to what this +may mean to Maud and Professor Painter, for you see their pictures are +copies." + +"Undoubted modern copies," the unquenchable Watkins emended. + +"Maud has learned a great deal from her picture. And as for Painter, it +has been an education in art, an education in life. He said to me the +night before I came away, 'Mr. Williams, I wouldn't take two thousand for +that picture; it's been the greatest influence in my life.'" + +I thought Watkins would have convulsions. + +"And it has brought those two young souls together in a marvellous way, +this common interest in fine art. You will find Maud a much more serious +person, Jane. No, if I were Painter I certainly should not care a fig +whether it proves to be a copy or not. I shouldn't let that influence me +in my love for such an educational wonder." + +The bluff was really sublime, but painful. My wife gave a decided hint to +Watkins that his presence in such a family scene was awkward. He took his +hat and cane. Uncle Ezra rose and grasped him cordially by the hand. + +"You have been very generous, Mr. Watkins," he said, in his own sweet way, +"to do such an unpleasant job. It's a large draft to make on the kindness +of a friend." + +"Oh, don't mention it, Mr. Williams; and if you want to buy something +really fine, a Van Dyck print--a----" + +Uncle Ezra was shooing him toward the door. From the stairs we could still +hear his voice. "Or a Whistler etching for twenty-five pounds, I could get +you, now, a very fine----" + +"No, thank you, Mr. Watkins," Uncle Ezra said, firmly. "I don't believe I +have any money just now for such an investment." + +My wife tiptoed about the room, making faces at the exposed masterpieces. +"What shall we do?" Uncle Ezra came back into the room, his face a trifle +grayer and more worn. "Capital fellow, that Watkins," he said; "so firm +and frank." + +"Uncle," I ventured at random, "I met Flügel the other day in the street. +You know Flügel's new book on the Renaissance. He's the coming young +critic in art, has made a wonderful reputation the last three years, is on +the _Beaux Arts_ staff, and really _knows_. He is living out at Frascati. +I could telegraph and have him here this afternoon, perhaps." + +"Well, I don't know;" his tone, however, said "Yes." "I don't care much +for expert advice--for specialists. But it wouldn't do any harm to hear +what he has to say. And Maud and Painter have made up their minds that +Maud's is a Titian." + +So I ran out and sent off the despatch. My wife took Uncle Ezra down to +the Forum and attempted to console him with the ugliness of genuine +antiquity, while I waited for Flügel. He came in a tremendous hurry, his +little, muddy eyes winking hard behind gold spectacles. + +"Ah, yes," he began to paw the pictures over as if they were live stock, +"that was bought for a Bonifazio," he had picked up Maud's ruby-colored +prize. "Of course, of course, it's a copy, an old copy, of Titian's +picture, No. 3,405, in the National Gallery at London. There is a replica +in the Villa Ludovisi here at Rome. It's a stupid copy, some alterations, +all for the bad--worthless--well, not to the _antichità_, for it must be +1590, I should say. But worthless for us and in bad condition. I wouldn't +give cinque lire for it." + +"And the Bissola?" I said. "Oh, that was done in the seventeenth +century--it would make good kindling. But this," he turned away from +Painter's picture with a gesture of contempt, "this is Domenico Tintoretto +fast enough, at least what hasn't been stippled over and painted out. St. +Agnes's leg here is entire, and that tree in the background is original. A +damn bad man, but there are traces of his slop work. Perhaps the hair is +by him, too. Well, good-by, old fellow; I must be off to dinner." + +That was slight consolation; a leg, a tree, and some wisps of hair in a +picture three feet six by four feet eight. Our dinner that evening was +labored. The next morning Uncle Ezra packed his three treasures tenderly, +putting in cotton-wool at the edges, my wife helping him to make them +comfortable. We urged him to stay over with us for a few days; we would +all go on later to Venice. But Uncle Ezra seemed moved by some hidden +cause. Back he would trot at once. "Painter will want his picture," he +said, "he has been waiting on in Venice just for this, and I must not keep +him." Watkins turned up as we were getting into the cab to see Uncle Ezra +off, and insisted upon accompanying us to the station. My wife took the +opportunity to rub into him Flügel's remarks, which, at least, made +Watkins out shady in chronology. At the station we encountered a new +difficulty. The ticket collector would not let the pictures through the +gate. My uncle expostulated in pure Tuscan. Watkins swore in Roman. + +"Give him five lire, Mr. Williams." + +Poor Uncle Ezra fumbled in his pocket-book for the piece of money. He had +never bribed in his life. It was a terrible moral fall, to see him +tremblingly offer the piece of scrip. The man refused, "positive orders, +_permesso_ necessary," etc., etc. The bell rang; there was a rush. Uncle +Ezra looked unhappy. + +"Here," Watkins shouted, grabbing the precious pictures in a manner far +from reverent, "I'll send these on, Mr. Williams; run for your train." +Uncle Ezra gave one undecided glance, and then yielded. "You will look +after them," he pleaded, "carefully." + +"You shall have them safe enough," my wife promised. + +"Blast the pasteboards," Watkins put in under his breath, "the best thing +to do with them is to chop 'em up." He was swinging them back and forth +under his arm. My wife took them firmly from him. "He shall have his +pictures, and not from your ribald hands." + +A week later Rome became suddenly oppressively warm. We started off for +Venice, Watkins tagging on incorrigibly. "I want to see 'Maud,'" he +explained. The pictures had been packed and sent ahead by express. "The +storm must have burst, tears shed, tempers cooled, mortification set in," +I remarked, as we were being shoved up the Grand Canal toward the Palazzo +Palladio. "There they are in the balcony," my wife exclaimed, "waving to +us. Something is up; Maudie is hanging back, with Aunt Mary, and Professor +Painter is at the other end, with Uncle Ezra." + +The first thing that caught the eye after the flurry of greetings was the +impudent blue and red of Uncle Ezra's "Sancta Conversazione," Domenico +Tintoretto, Savoldo, or what not; St. Agnes's leg and all, beaming at us +from the wall. The other two were not there. My wife looked at me. Maudie +was making herself very gracious with little Watkins. Painter's solemn +face began to lower more and more. Aunt Mary and Uncle Ezra industriously +poured oil by the bucket upon the social sea. + +At last Maud rose: "You _must_ take me over there at once, Mr. Watkins. It +will be such an enjoyment to have someone who really knows about pictures +and has taste." This shot at poor Painter; then to my wife, "Come, Jane, +you will like to see your room." + +Painter crossed to me and suggested, lugubriously, a cigar on the balcony. +He smoked a few minutes in gloomy silence. + +"Does that fellow know anything?" he emitted at last, jerking his head at +Watkins, who was pouring out information at Uncle Ezra. I began gently to +give Charles Henderson Watkins a fair reputation for intelligence. "I mean +anything about art? Of course it doesn't matter what he says about my +picture, whether it is a copy or not, but Miss Vantweekle takes it very +hard about hers. She blames me for having been with her when she bought +it, and having advised her and encouraged her to put six hundred dollars +into it." + +"Six hundred," I gasped. + +"Cheap for a Bonifazio, or a _Titian_, as we thought it." + +"Too cheap," I murmured. + +"Well, I got bitten for about the same on my own account. I sha'n't get +that Rachel's library at Berlin, that's all. The next time you catch me +fooling in a subject where I don't know my bearings--like fine art--You +see Mr. Williams found my picture one day when he was nosing about at an +_antichita's_, and thought it very fine. I admire Mr. Williams +tremendously, and I valued his opinion about art subjects much more then +than I do now. He and Mrs. Williams were wild over it. They had just +bought their picture, and they wanted us each to have one. They have lots +of sentiment, you know." + +"Lots," I assented. + +"Mrs. Williams got at me, and well, she made me feel that it would bring +me nearer to Miss Vantweekle. You know she goes in for art, and she used +to be impatient with me because I couldn't appreciate. I was dumb when she +walked me up to some old Madonna, and the others would go on at a great +rate. Well, in a word, I bought it for my education, and I guess I have +got it! + +"Then the man, he's an old Jew on the Grand Canal--Raffman, you know him? +He got out another picture, the Bonifazio. The Williamses began to get up +steam over that, too. They hung over that thing Mr. Williams bought, that +Savoldo or Domenico Tintoretto, and prowled about the churches and the +galleries finding traces of it here in the style of this picture and that; +in short, we all got into a fever about pictures, and Miss Vantweekle +invested all the money an aunt had given her before coming abroad, in that +Bonifazio. + +"I must say that Miss Vantweekle held off some time, was doubtful about +the picture; didn't feel that she wanted to put all her money into it. But +she caught fire in the general excitement, and I may say"--here a sad sort +of conscious smile crept over the young professor's face--"at that time I +had a good deal of influence with her. She bought the picture, we brought +it home, and put it up at the other end of the hall. We spent hours over +that picture, studying out every line, placing every color. We made up our +minds soon enough that it wasn't a Bonifazio, but we began to think--now +don't laugh, or I'll pitch you over the balcony--it was an early work by +Titian. There was an attempt in it for great things, as Mr. Williams said: +no small man could have planned it. One night we had been talking for +hours about them, and we were all pretty well excited. Mr. Williams +suggested getting Watkins's opinion. Maud--Miss Vantweekle said, loftily, +'Oh! it does not make any difference what the critics say about it, the +picture means everything to me'; and I, like a fool, felt happier than +ever before in my life. The next morning Mr. Williams telegraphed you and +set off." + +He waited. + +"And when he returned?" + +"It's been hell ever since." + +He was in no condition to see the comic side of the affair. Nor was Miss +Vantweekle. She was on my wife's bed in tears. + +"All poor Aunt Higgins's present gone into that horrid thing," she moaned, +"and all the dresses I was planning to get in Paris. I shall have to go +home looking like a perfect dowd!" + +"But think of the influence it has been in your life--the education you +have received from that picture. How can you call all that color, those +noble faces, 'that horrid thing?'" I said, reprovingly. She sat upright. + +"See here, Jerome Parker, if you ever say anything like that again, I will +never speak to you any more, or to Jane, though you are my cousins." + +"They have tried to return the picture," my wife explained. "Professor +Painter and Uncle Ezra took it over yesterday; but, of course, the Jew +laughed at them." + +"'A copy!' he said." Maud explained, "Why, it's no more a copy than +Titian's 'Assumption.' He could show us the very place in a palace on the +Grand Canal where it had hung for four hundred years. Of course, all the +old masters used the same models, and grouped their pictures alike. Very +probably Titian had a picture something like it. What of that? He defied +us to find the exact original." + +"Well," I remarked, soothingly, "that ought to comfort you, I am sure. +Call your picture a new Titian, and sell it when you get home." + +"Mr. Watkins says that's an old trick," moaned Maud, "that story about the +palace. He says old Raffman has a pal among the Italian nobility, and +works off copies through him all the time. I won't say anything about +Uncle Ezra; he has been as kind and good as he can be, only a little too +enthusiastic. But Professor Painter!" + +She tossed her head. + +The atmosphere in the Palazzo Palladio for the next few days was highly +charged. + +At dinner Uncle Ezra placidly made remarks about the Domenico Tintoretto, +almost vaingloriously, I thought. "Such a piece of Venice to carry away. +We missed it so much, those days you had it in Rome. It is so precious +that I cannot bear to pack it up and lose sight of it for five months. +Mary, just see that glorious piece of color over there." + +Meantime some kind of conspiracy was on foot. Maud went off whole mornings +with Watkins and Uncle Ezra. We were left out as unsympathetic. Painter +wandered about like a sick ghost. He would sit glowering at Maud and +Watkins while they held whispered conversations at the other end of the +hall. Watkins was the hero. He had accepted Flügel's judgment with +impudent grace. + +"A copy of Titian, of course," he said to me; "really, it is quite hard on +poor Miss Vantweekle. People, even learned people, who don't know about +such things, had better not advise. I have had the photographs of all +Titian's pictures sent on, and we have found the original of your cousin's +picture. Isn't it very like?" + +It was very like; a figure was left out in the copy, the light was +changed, but still it was a happy guess of Flügel. + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" I said to Maud, who had just +joined us. + +"Oh, Mr. Watkins has kindly consented to manage the matter for me; I +believe he has a friend here, an artist, Mr. Hare, who will give expert +judgment on it. Then the American vice-consul is a personal friend of Mr. +Watkins, and also Count Corner, the adviser at the Academy. We shall +frighten the old Jew, sha'n't we, Mr. Watkins?" + +I walked over to the despised Madonna that was tipped up on its side, +ready to be walked off on another expedition of defamation. + +"Poor Bonifazio," I sighed, "Maud, how can you part with a work of fine +art that has meant so much to you?" + +"Do you think, Jerome, I would go home and have Uncle Higgins, with his +authentic Rembrandt and all his other pictures, laugh at me and my Titian? +I'd burn it first." + +I turned to Uncle Ezra. "Uncle, what strange metamorphosis has happened to +this picture? The spiritual light from that color must shine as brightly +as ever; the intrinsic value remains forever fixed in Maud's soul; it is +desecration to reject such a precious message. Why, it's like sending back +the girl you married because her pedigree proved defective, or because she +had lost her fortune. It's positively brutal!" + +Maud darted a venomous glance at me; however, I had put the judge in a +hole. + +"I cannot agree with you, Jerome." Uncle Ezra could never be put in a +hole. "Maud's case is a very different one from Mr. Painter's or mine. We +can carry back what we like personally, but for Maud to carry home a +doubtful picture into the atmosphere she has to live in--why, it would be +intolerable--with her uncle a connoisseur, all her friends owners of +masterpieces." Uncle Ezra had a flowing style. "It would expose her to +annoyance, to mortification--constant, daily. Above all, to have taken a +special gift, a fund of her aunt's, and to apply it in this mistaken +fashion is cruel." + +Painter remarked bitterly to me afterward, "He wants to crawl on his share +of the responsibility. I'd buy the picture if I could raise the cash, and +end the whole miserable business." + +Indeed, Watkins seemed the only one blissfully in his element. As my wife +remarked, Watkins had exchanged his interest in pictures for an interest +in woman. Certainly he had planned his battle well. It came off the next +day. They all left in a gondola at an early hour. Painter and I watched +them from the balcony. After they were seated, Watkins tossed in +carelessly the suspected picture. What went on at the _antichità's_ no one +of the boat-load ever gave away. Watkins had a hold on the man somehow, +and the evidence of the fraud was overwhelming. About noon they came back, +Maud holding an enormous envelope in her hand. + +"I can never, never thank you enough, Mr. Watkins," she beamed at him. +"You have saved me from such mortification and unhappiness, and you were +so _clever_." + +That night at dinner Uncle Ezra was more than usually genial, and beamed +upon Maud and Watkins perpetually. Watkins was quite the hero and did his +best to look humble. + +"How much rent did the spiritual influence cost, Maud?" I asked. She was +too happy to be offended. "Oh, we bought an old ring to make him feel +pleased, five pounds, and Mr. Hare's services were worth five pounds, and +Mr. Watkins thinks we should give the vice-consul a box of cigars. + +"Let's see; ten pounds and a box of cigars, that's three hundred lire at +the price of exchange. You had the picture just three weeks, a hundred +lire a week for the use of all that education in art, all that spiritual +influence. Quite cheap, I should say." + +"And Mr. Watkins's services, Maud!" my wife asked, viciously. There was a +slight commotion at the table. + +"May I, Maud?" Watkins murmured. + +"As you please, Charles," Maud replied, with her eyes lowered to the +table. + +"Maud has given herself," Uncle Ezra said, gleefully. + +Painter rose from the table and disappeared into his room. Pretty soon he +came out bearing a tray with a dozen champagne glasses, of modern-antique +Venetian glass. + +"Let me present this to you, Miss Vantweekle," he pronounced, solemnly, +"as an engagement token. I, I exchanged my picture for them this morning." + +"Some Asti Spumante, Ricci." + +"To the rejected Titian--" I suggested for the first toast. + +VENICE, May, 1896. + + + +PAYMENT IN FULL + +The two black horses attached to the light buggy were chafing in the crisp +October air. Their groom was holding them stiffly, as if bolted to the +ground, in the approved fashion insisted upon by the mistress of the +house. Old Stuart eyed them impatiently from the tower window of the +breakfast-room where he was smoking his first cigar; Mrs. Stuart held him +in a vise of astounding words. + +"They will need not only the lease of a house in London for two years, but +a great deal of money besides," she continued in even tones, ignoring his +impatience. + +"I've done enough for 'em already," the old fellow protested, drawing on +his driving gloves over knotted hands stained by age. + +Mrs. Stuart rustled the letter that lay, with its envelope, beside her +untouched plate. It bore the flourishes of a foreign hotel and a foreign- +looking stamp. + +"My mother writes that their summer in Wiesbaden has made it surer that +Lord Raincroft is interested in Helen. It is evidently a matter of time. I +say two years--it may be less." + +"Well," her husband broke in. "Haven't they enough to live on?" + +"At my marriage," elucidated Mrs. Stuart, imperturbably, "you settled on +them securities which yield about five thousand a year. That does not give +them the means to take the position which I expect for my family in such a +crisis. They must have a large house, must entertain lavishly," she swept +an impassive hand toward him in royal emphasis, "and do all that that set +expects--to meet them as equals. You could not imagine that Lord Raincroft +would marry Helen out of a pension?" + +"I don't care a damn how he marries her, or if he marries her at all." He +rose, testily. "I guess my family would have thought five thousand a year +enough to marry the gals on, and to spare, and it was more'n you ever had +in your best days." + +"Naturally," her voice showed scorn at his perverse lack of intelligence. +"Out contract was made with that understanding." + +"Let Helen marry a feller who is willing to go half way for her without a +palace. Why didn't you encourage her marrying Blake, as smart a young man +as I ever had? She was taken enough with him." + +"Because I did not think it fit for my sister to marry your junior +partner, who, five years ago, was your best floor-walker." + +"Well, Blake is a college-educated man and a hustler. He's bound to get on +if I back him. If Blake weren't likely enough, there's plenty more in +Chicago like me--smart business men who want a handsome young wife." + +"Perhaps we have had enough of Stuart, Hodgson, and Blake. There are other +careers in the world outside Chicago." + +"Tut, tut! I ain't going to fight here all day. What's the figure? What's +the figure?" He slapped his breeches with the morning paper. + +"You will have to take the house in London (the Duke of Waminster's is to +let, mamma writes), and give them two hundred thousand dollars in addition +to their present income for the two years." She let her eyes fall on his +toast and coffee. The old man turned about galvanically and peered at her. + +"You're crazy! two hundred thousand these times, so's your sister can get +married?" + +"She's the last," interposed Mrs. Stuart, deftly. + +"I tell you I've done more than most men. I've paid your old bills, your +whole family's, your brothers' in college, to the tune of five thousand a +year (worthless scamps!) and put 'em in business. You've had all of 'em at +Newport and Paris, let alone their living here off and on nearly twenty +years. Now you think I can shell out two hundred thousand and a London +house as easily as I'd buy pop-corn." + +"It was our understanding." Mrs. Stuart began on her breakfast. + +"Not much. I've done better by you than I agreed to, because you've been a +good wife to me. I settled a nice little fortune on you independent of +your widder's rights or your folks." + +"Your daughter will benefit by that," Mrs. Stuart corrected. + +"Well, what's that to do with it?" He seemed to lose the scent. + +"What was our understanding when I agreed to marry you?" + +"I've done more'n I promised, I tell you." + +"As you very well know, I married you because my family were in desperate +circumstances. Our understanding was that I should be a good wife, and you +were to make my family comfortable according to my views. Isn't that +right?" + +The old man blanched at this businesslike presentation; his voice grew +feebler. + +"And I have, Beatty. I have! I've done everything by you I promised. And I +built this great house and another at Newport, and you ain't never +satisfied." + +"That was our agreement, then," she continued, without mercy. "I was just +nineteen, and wise, for a girl, and you had forty-seven pretty wicked +years. There wasn't any nonsense between us. I was a stunning girl, the +most talked about in New York at that time. I was to be a good wife, and +we weren't to have any words. Have I kept my promise?" + +"Yes, you've been a good woman, Beatty, better'n I deserved. But won't you +take less, say fifty thousand?" He advanced conciliatorily. "That's an +awful figure!" + +His wife rose, composed as ever and stately in her well-sustained forty +years. + +"Do you think _any_ price is too great in payment for these twenty-one +years?" Contempt crept in. "Not one dollar less, two hundred thousand, +and I cable mamma to-day." + +Stuart shrivelled up. + +"Do you refuse?" she remarked, lightly, for he stood irresolutely near the +door. + +"I won't stand that!" and he went out. + +When he had left Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast; a young woman +Came in hastily from the hall, where she had bade her father good-by. +She stood in the window watching the coachman surrender the horses to +the old man. The groom moved aside quickly, and in a moment the two +horses shot nervously through the ponderous iron gateway. The delicate +wheels just grazed the stanchions, lifting the light buggy in the air +to a ticklish angle. It righted itself and plunged down the boulevard. +Fast horses and cigars were two of the few pleasures still left the old +store-keeper. There was another--a costly one--which was not always +forthcoming. + +Miss Stuart watched the groom close the ornate iron gates, and then turned +inquiringly to her mother. + +"What's up with papa?" + +Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast in silence. She was superbly +preserved, and queenly for an American woman. It seemed as if something +had stayed the natural decay of her powers, of her person, and had put +her always at this impassive best. Something had stopped her heart to +render her passionless, and thus to embalm her for long years of +mechanical activity. She would not decay, but when her time should come +she would merely stop--the spring would snap. + +The daughter had her mother's height and her dark coloring. But her large, +almost animal eyes, and her roughly moulded hands spoke of some homely, +prairie inheritance. Her voice was timid and hesitating. + +At last Mrs. Stuart, her mail and breakfast exhausted at the same moment, +Rose to leave the room. + +"Oh, Edith," she remarked, authoritatively, "if you happen to drive down +town this morning, will you tell your father that we are going to Winetka +for a few weeks? Or telephone him, if you find it more convenient. And +send the boys to me. Miss Bates will make all arrangements. I think there +is a train about three." + +"Why, mamma, you don't mean to stay there! I thought we were to be here +all winter. And my lessons at the Art Institute?" + +Mrs. Stuart smiled contemptuously. "Lessons at the Art Institute are not +the most pressing matter for my daughter, who is about to come out. You +can amuse yourself with golf and tennis as long as they last. Then, +perhaps, you will have a chance to continue your lessons in Paris." + +"And papa!" protested the daughter, "I thought he couldn't leave this +winter?" + +Mrs. Stuart smiled again provokingly. "Yes?" + +"Oh, I can't understand!" Her pleading was almost passionate, but still +low and sweet. "I want so much to go on with my lessons with the other +girls. And I want to go out here with all the girls I know." + +"We will have them at Winetka. And Stuyvesant Wheelright--you liked him +last summer." + +The girl colored deeply. "I don't want him in the house. I had rather go +away. I'll go to Vassar with Mary Archer. You needn't hunt up any man for +me." + +"Pray, do you think I would tolerate a college woman in my house? It's +well enough for school-teachers. And what does your painting amount to? +You will paint sufficiently well, I dare say, to sell a few daubs, and so +take the bread and butter from some poor girl. But I am afraid, my dear, +we couldn't admit your pictures to the gallery." + +The girl's eyes grew tearful at this tart disdain. "I love it, and papa +has money enough to let me paint 'daubs' as long as I like. Please, please +let me go on with it!" + + * * * * * + +That afternoon the little caravan started for the deserted summer home at +Winetka, on a high bluff above the sandy lake-shore. It had been bought +years before, when not even the richest citizens dreamed of going East for +the summer. Of late it had been used only rarely, in the autumn or late +spring, or as a retreat in which to rusticate the boys with their tutor. +When filled with a large house-party, it made a jolly place, though not +magnificent enough for the developed hospitalities of Mrs. Stuart. + +Old Stuart came home to an empty palace. He had not believed that his +reserved wife would take such high measures, and he felt miserably lonely +after the usual round of elaborate dinners to which he had grown +grumblingly accustomed. His one senile passion was his pride in her, and +he was avaricious of the lost days while she was absent from her usual +victorious post as the mistress of that great house. The next day his +heart sank still lower, for he saw in the Sunday papers a little paragraph +to the effect that Mrs. Stuart had invited a brilliant house-party to her +autumn home in Winetka, and that it was rumored she and her lovely young +daughter would spend the winter in London with their relatives. It made +the old man angry, for he could see with what deliberation she had planned +for a long campaign. Even the comforts of his club were denied him; +everyone knew him and everyone smiled at the little domestic disturbance. +So he asked his secretary, young Spencer, to make his home for the present +in the sprawling, brand-new "palace" that frowned out on the South +Boulevard. Young Spencer accepted, out of pity for the old man; for he +wasn't a toady and he knew his own worth. + +People did talk in the clubs and elsewhere about the divided +establishments. It would have been worse had the division come earlier, as +had been predicted often enough, or had Mrs. Stuart ever given in her +younger days a handle for any gossip. But her conduct had been so frigidly +correct that it stood in good service at this crisis. She would not have +permitted a scandal. That also was in the contract. + +Of course there was communication between the two camps, the gay polo- +playing, dinner-giving household on the bluff, and the forlorn, tottering +old man with his one aide-de-camp, the blithe young secretary. Now and +then the sons would turn up at the offices down-town, amiably expectant of +large checks. Stuart grimly referred them to their mother. He had some +vague idea of starving the opposition out, but his wife's funds were large +and her credit, as long as there should be no recognized rupture, perfect. + +The daughter, Edith, frequently established connections. In some way she +had got permission to take her lessons at the Art Institute. Her mother's +open contempt for her aesthetic impulses had ruined her illusion about her +ability, for Mrs. Stuart knew her ground in painting. But she still loved +the atmosphere of the great studio-room at the Art Institute. She liked +the poor girls and the Western bohemianism and the queer dresses, and +above all she liked to linger over her own little easel, undisturbed by +the creative flurry around, dreaming of woods and soft English gardens and +happy hours along a river where the water went gently, tenderly, on to the +sea. And her sweet eyes, large and black like her mother's, but softer and +gentler, to go with her low voice, would moisten a bit from the dream. "So +nice," he would murmur to her picture, "to sit here and think of the quiet +and rest, such as good pictures always paint. I'd like not to go back with +Thomas to the train--to Winetka where they play polo and dress up and +dance and flirt, but to sail away over the sea----" + +Then her eyes would see in the purplish light of her picture a certain +face that meant another life. She would blush to herself, and her voice +would stop. For she couldn't think aloud about him. + +Some days, when the murky twilight came on early, she would steal away +altogether from the gay party in Winetka and spend the night with her +lonely father. They would have a queer, stately dinner for three served in +the grand dining-room by the English butler and footman. Stuart never had +much to say to her; she wasn't his "smart," queenly wife who brought all +people to her feet. When he came to his cigar and his whiskey, she would +take young Spencer to the gallery, where they discussed the new French +pictures, very knowingly, Spencer thought. She would describe for him the +intricacies of a color-scheme of some tender Diaz, and that would lead +them into the leafy woods about Barbizon and other realms of sentiment. + +When they returned to the library she would feel that there were +compensations for this dreary separation at Winetka and that her enormous +home had never been so nice and comfortable before. As she bade the two +men good-night, her father would come to the door, rubbing his eyes and +forlorn over his great loss, and to her murmured "Good-night" he would +sigh, "so like her mother." "Quite the softest voice in the world," +thought Spencer. + +Once in her old little tower room that she still preferred to keep, +covered with her various attempts at sea, and sky, and forest, she was +blissfully conscious of independence, so far from Stuyvesant Wheelright +and his mother--quite an ugly old dame with no better manners than the +plain Chicago people (who despised them all as "pork-packers" and "shop- +keepers," nevertheless). + +On one of these visits late in October, Edith had found her father ailing +from a cold. He asked her, shamefacedly, to tell her mother that "he was +very bad." Mrs. Stuart, leaving the house-party in full go, started at +once for the town-house. Old Stuart had purposely stayed at home on the +chances that his wife would relent. When she came in, she found him lying +in the same morning-room, where hostilities had begun three months before. +He grew confused, like an erring school-boy, as his wife kissed him and +asked after his health in a neutral sort of way. He made out that he was +threatened with a complication of diseases that might finally end him. + +"Well, what can I do for you now," Mrs. Stuart said, with business-like +directness. + +"Spencer's looking after things pretty much. He's honest and faithful, but +he ain't got any head like yours, Beatty, and times are awful hard. People +won't pay rents, and I don't dare to throw 'em out. Stores and houses +would lie empty these days. Then there's the North Shore Electric--I was a +fool to go in so heavy the Fair year and tie up all my money. I s'pose you +know the bonds ain't reached fifty this fall. I'm not so tremendously +wealthy as folks think." + +Mrs. Stuart exactly comprehended this sly speech; she knew also that there +was some truth in it. + +"Say, Beatty, it's so nice to have you here!" The old man raised himself +and capered about like a gouty old house-dog. + +He made the most of his illness, for he suspected that it was a condition +of truce, not a bond of peace. While he was in bed Mrs. Stuart drove to +the city each day and, with Spencer's help, conducted business for long +hours. She had had experience in managing large charities; she knew +people, and when a tenant could pay, with a little effort, he found Madam +more pitiless than the old shop-keeper. Every afternoon she would take her +stenographer to Stuart's room and consult with him. + +"Ain't she a wonder?" the old man would exclaim to Spencer, in new +admiration for his wife. And Spencer, watching the stately, authoritative +woman day after day as she worked quickly, exactly, with the repose and +dignity of a perfect machine, shivered back an unwilling assent. + +"She's marvellous!" + +All accidents played into the hands of this masterful woman. Her own +presence in town kept her daughter at Winetka _en evidence_ for Stuyvesant +Wheelright and Mrs. Wheelright. For Mrs. Stuart had determined upon him +as, on the whole, the most likely arrangement that she could make. He was +American, but of the best, and Mrs. Stuart was wise enough to prefer the +domestic aristocracy. So to her mind affairs were not going badly. The +truce would conclude ultimately in a senile capitulation; meantime, she +could advance money for the household in London. + +When Stuart had been nursed back into comparative activity, the grand +dinners began once more--a convenient rebuttal for all gossip. The usual +lists of distinguished strangers, wandering English story-tellers in +search of material for a new "shilling shocker," artists suing to paint +her or "Mademoiselle l'Inconnue," crept from time to time into the genial +social column of the newspaper. + +Stuart spent the evenings in state on a couch at the head of the drawing- +room, where he usually remained until the guests departed. In this way he +got a few words with his wife before she sent him to bed. One night his +enthusiasm over her bubbled out. + +"You're a great woman, Beatty!" She looked a little pale, but otherwise +unworn by her laborious month. It was not blood that fed those even +pulses. + +"You will not need my help now. You can see to your business yourself," +she remarked. + +"Say, Beatty, you won't leave me again, will you!" he quavered, +beseechingly. "I need you these last years; 'twon't be for long." + +"Oh, you are strong and quite well again," she asserted, not unkindly. + +"Will a hundred thousand do?" he pleaded. "Times are bad and ready money +is scarce, as you know." + +"Sell the electric bonds," she replied, sitting down, as if to settle the +matter. + +"Sell them bonds at fifty?" The old shop-keeper grew red in the face. + +"What's that!" she remarked, disdainfully. "What have I given?" Her +husband said nothing. "As I told you when we first talked the matter over, +I have done my part to the exact letter of the law. You admit I have been +a good and faithful wife, don't you? You know," a note of passion crept +into her colorless voice, "You know that there hasn't been a suggestion of +scandal with our home. I married you, young, beautiful, admired; I am +handsome now." She drew herself up disdainfully. "I have not wanted for +opportunity, I think you might know; but not one man in all the world can +boast I have dropped an eyelash for his words. Not one syllable of favor +have I given any man but you. Am I not right?" + +Stuart nodded. + +"Then what do you haggle for over a few dollars? Have I ever given you +reason to repent our arrangement? Have I not helped you in business, in +social matters put you where you never could go by yourself? And do you +think my price is high?" + +"Money is so scarce," Stuart protested, feebly. + +"Suppose it left you only half a million, all told! What's that, in +comparison to what I have given? Think of that. I don't complain, but you +know we women estimate things differently. And when we sell ourselves, we +name the price; and it matters little how big it is," + +Her scorn pierced the old man's somewhat leathery sensibilities. + +"Well, if it's a question of price, when is it going to end--when shall I +have paid up? Next year you'll want half a million hard cash." + +"There is no end." + +The next morning, Mrs. Stuart returned to Winetka; the rupture threatened +to prolong itself indefinitely. Stuart found it hard to give in +completely, and it made him sore to think that their marriage had remained +a business matter for over twenty years. And yet it was hard to face death +without all the satisfaction money could buy him. The crisis came, +however, in an unexpected manner. + +One morning Stuart found his daughter waiting for him at his office. She +had slipped away from Winetka, and taken an early train. + +"What's up, Ede?" + +"Oh, papa!" the young girl gasped "They make me so unhappy, every day, and +I can't stand it. Mamma wants me to marry Stuyvesant Wheelright, and he's +there all the time." + +"Who's he?" Stuart asked, sharply. His daughter explained briefly. + +"He is what mamma calls 'eligible'; he is a great swell in New York, and I +don't like him. Oh, papa, I can't be a _grande dame_, like mamma, can I? +Won't you tell her so, papa? Make up with her; pay her the money she wants +for Aunt Helen, and then perhaps she'll let me paint." + +"No, you're not the figure your mother is, and never will be," Stuart +said, almost slightingly. "I don't think, Ede, you'll ever make a great +lady like her." + +"I don't think she is very happy," the girl bridled, in her own defence. + +"Well, perhaps not, perhaps not. But who do you want to marry, anyway? You +had better marry someone, Ede, 'fore I die." + +"I don't know--that is, it doesn't matter much just now. I should like to +go to California, perhaps, with the Stearns girls. I want to paint, just +daubs, you know--I can't do any better. But you tell mamma I can't be a +great swell. I shouldn't be happy, either."' + +The old man resolved to yield. That very afternoon he drove out to Winetka +along the lake shore. He had himself gotten up in his stiffest best. He +held the reins high and tight, his body erect in the approved form; while +now and then he glanced back to see if the footmen were as rigid as my +lady demanded. For Mrs. Stuart loved good form, and he felt nervously +apprehensive, as if he were again suing for her maiden favors. He was +conscious, too, that he had little enough to offer her--the last months +had brought humility. Beside him young Spencer lolled, enjoying, with a +free heart, his day off in the gentle, spring-like air. Perhaps he divined +that his lady would not need so much propitiation. + +They surprised a party just setting forth from the Winetka house as they +drove up with a final flourish. Their unexpected arrival scattered the +guests into little, curious groups; everyone anticipated immediate +dissolution. They speculated on the terms, and the opinion prevailed that +Stuart's expedition from town indicated complete surrender. Meanwhile +Stuart asked for an immediate audience, and husband and wife went up at +once to Mrs. Stuart's little library facing out over the bluff that +descended to the lake. + +"Well, Beatty," old Stuart cried, without preliminary effort, "I just +can't live without you--that's the whole of it." She smiled. "I ain't much +longer to live, and then you're to have it all. So why shouldn't you take +what you want now?" He drew out several checks from his pocket-book. + +"You can cable your folks at once and go ahead. You've been the best sort +of wife, as you said, and--I guess I owe you more'n I've paid for your +puttin' up with an old fellow like me all these years." + +Mrs. Stuart had a new sensation of pity for his pathetic surrender. + +"There's one thing, Beatty," he continued, "so long as I live you'll own I +oughter rule in my own house, manage the boys, and that." Mrs. Stuart +nodded. "Now I want you to come back with me and break up this party." + +Mrs. Stuart took the checks. + +"You've made it a bargain, Beatty. You said I was to pay your family what +you wanted, and you were to obey me at that price?" + +"Well," replied Mrs. Stuart, good-humoredly. "We'll all go up to-morrow. +Isn't that early enough?" + +"That ain't all, Beatty. You can't make everybody over; you couldn't brush +me up much; you can't make a grand lady out of Edith." + +Mrs. Stuart looked up inquiringly. + +"Now you've had your way about your family, and I want you to let Ede +alone." + +"Why?" + +"She doesn't want that Wheelright fellow, and if you think it over you'll +see that she couldn't do as you have. She ain't the sort." + +Mrs. Stuart twitched at the checks nervously. + +"I sort of think Spencer wants her; in fact, he said so coming out here." + +"Impertinent puppy!" + +"And I told him he could have her, if she wanted him. I don't think I +should like to see another woman of mine live the sort of life you have +with me. It's hard on 'em." His voice quivered. + +Beatrice, Lady Stuart of Winetka, as they called her, stood silently +looking out to the lake, reviewing "the sort of life she had lived" from +the time she had made up her mind to take the shop-keeper's millions to +this moment of concession. It was a grim panorama, and she realized now +that it had not meant complete satisfaction to either party. Her twenty or +more frozen years made her uncomfortable. While they waited, young Spencer +and Miss Stuart came slowly up the terraced bluff. + +"Well, John," Mrs. Stuart smiled kindly. "I think this is the last +payment,--in full. Let's go down to congratulate them." + +CHICAGO, March, 1895. + + + +A PROTHALAMION + +_The best man has gone for a game of billiards with the host. The maid of +honor is inditing an epistle to one who must fall. The bridesmaids have +withdrawn themselves, each with some endurable usher, to an appropriate +retreat upon the other coasts of the veranda. The night is full of +starlight in May. The lovers discover themselves at last alone._ + +_He._ What was that flame-colored book Maud was reading to young Bishop? + +_She. The Dolly Dialogues_; you remember we read them in London when they +came out. + +_He._ What irreverent literature we tolerate nowadays! I suppose it's the +aftermath of agnosticism. + +_She._ It didn't occur to me that it was irreligious. + +_He._ Irreverent, I said--the tone of our world. + +_She._ But how I love that world of ours--even the _Dolly Dialogues_! + +_He_. Because you love it, this world you feel, you are reverent toward +it. I have hated it so many years; it carried so much pain with it that I +thought every expression of life was pain, and now, now, if it were not +for Maud and the _Dolly Dialogues_, these last days would seem to launch +us afresh upon quite another world. + +_She_. Yes, another world, where there is a new terror, a strange, inhuman +terror that I never thought of before, the terror of death. + +_He_. Why, what a perversity! You think of immortality as so real, so +sure! Relief from that terror of death is the proper fruit of your firm +belief. + +_She_. But I never cared before about the shape, the form, the kind of +that other life. I was content to believe it quite different from this, +for I knew this so well, enjoyed it so much. When the jam-pot should be +empty, I did not want another one just like it. But now.... + +_He_. I know. And I lived so much a stranger to the experiences I could +have about me that I was indifferent to what came after. Now, what I am, +what I have, is so precious that I cannot believe in any change which +should let me know of this life as past and impossible. That would be "the +supreme grief of remembering in misery the happy days that have been." + +_She._ It makes me shiver; it is so blasphemous to hate the state of being +of a spirit. That would seem to degrade love, if through love we dread to +lose our bodies. + +_He._ Strange! You have come to this confession out of a trusting religion +and I from doubt--at the best indifference. You are ashamed to confess +what seems to you wholly blasphemous against that noble faith and prayer +of a Christian; and I find an invigorating pleasure in your blasphemy. +There is no conceivable life of a spirit to compare with the pain, even, +of the human body; it is better to suffer than to know no difference. + +_She._ But "the resurrection of the body": perhaps the creed, word for +word without interpretation, would not mean that empty life which we +moderns have grown to consider the supreme and liberal conception of +existence. + +_He._ Resurrection in a purified form fit for the bliss, whatever one of +all the many shapes men have dreamed it may vision itself in! + +_She._ But this love of life, this excessive joy, must fade away. The +record of the world is not that we keep that. Think of the old people who +dream peacefully of death, after knowing all the fulness of this life. +Think of the wretches who pray for it. That vision of the life of spirits +which is so dreadful to us has been the comfort of the ages. There must be +some inner necessity for it. Perhaps with our bodies our wills become worn +out. + +_He_. That, I think, is the mystery--the wearing out, which is death. For +death occurs oftener in life than we think; I know so many dead people who +are walking about. As for sick people, physicians say that in a long +illness they never have to warn a patient of the coming end. He knows it, +subtly, from some dim, underground intimation. Without acknowledging it, +he arranges himself, so to speak, for the grave, and comforts himself with +those visions that religion holds out. Or does he comfort himself? + +But apart from the dying, there are so many out of whose bodies and +spirits life is ebbing. It may have been a little flood-tide, but they +know it is going. You see it on their faces. They become dull. That +leprosy of death attacks their life, joint by joint. They lay aside one +pleasure, one function, one employment of their minds after another. +The machine may run on, but the soul is dying. That is what I call _death +in life_. + + + +THE EPISODE OF LIFE. + +Jack Lynton is becoming stone like that. His is a case in point, and a +good one, because the atrophy is coming about not from physical disease, +or from any dissipation. You would call him sane and full of fire. He was. +He married three years ago. Their life was full, too, like ours, and +precious. They did not throw it away; they were wise guardians of all its +possibilities. The second summer--I was with them, and Jack has told me +much besides--Mary began talking, almost in joke, of these matters, of +what one must prepare for; of second marriages, and all that. We chatted +in as idle fashion as do most people over the utterly useless topics of +life. One exquisite September day, all steeped in the essence of +sunshine--misty everywhere over the fields--how well I remember it!--she +spoke again in jest about something that might happen after her death. I +saw a trace of pain on Jack's face. She saw it, and was sad for a moment. +Now I know that all through that late summer and autumn those two were +fighting death in innuendoes. They were not morbid people, but death went +to bed with them each night. + +Of course, this apprehension, this miasma, came in slowly, like those +autumn sea-mists; appearing once a month, twice this week--a little +oftener each time. + +Jack is a sensible man; he does not shy at a shadow. His nerves are +tranquil, and respond as they ought. They went about the business of life +as joyfully as you or I, and in October we were all back in town. Now, +Mary is dying; the doctor sees it now. I do not mean that he should have +known it before. _She_ knew it, and _she_ noted how the life was fading +away until the time came when what was so full of action, of feeling, of +desire, was merely a shell--impervious to sensation. + +And Jack is dying, too--his health is good enough, but pain which he +cannot master is killing him into numbness. He watches each joy, each +experience with which they were both tremulous, depart. And do you suppose +it is any comfort for those two honest souls to believe that their spirits +will recognize each other in some curious state that has dispensed with +sense? Do you suppose that a million of years of a divine communion would +make up for one spoken word, for even a shade of agony that passes across +Mary's face? + +_She_. If God should change their souls in that other world, then perhaps +their longings would be quite different; so that what we think of with +chill they would accept as a privilege. + +_He_. In other words, those two, who have learned to know each other in +human terms, who have loved and suffered in the body, will have ended +their page? Some strange transformation into another two? Why not simply +an end to the book? Would that not be easier? + +_She_. If one had the courage to accept these few years of life and ask +for no more. + +_He_. I think that it is cowardice which makes one accept the ghostly +satisfaction of a surviving spirit. + + + +WHEN THE BODY IN LIFE FEELS THE SPIRIT. + +_She_. But have you never forgotten the body, dreamed what it would be to +feel God? You have known those moments when your soul, losing the sense of +contact with men or women, groped alone, in an enveloping calm, and knew +content. I have had it in times of intoxication from music--not the +personal, passionate music of to-day, but some one or two notes that sink +the mazy present into darkness. I knew that my senses were gone for the +time, and in their place I held a comfortable consciousness of power. +There have been other times--in Lent, at the close of the drama of +Christ--beside the sea--after a long dance--illusory moments when one +forgot the body and wondered. + +_He._ I know. One night in the Sierras we camped high up above the summits +of the range. The altitude, perhaps, or the long ride through the forest, +kept me awake. Our fires died down; a chalky mist rose from the valleys, +and, filtering through the ravines, at last capped the granite heads. The +smouldering tree-trunks we had lit for fires and the little patch of rock +where we lay, made an island in that white sea. Between us and the black +spaces among the stars there was nothing. How eternally quiet it was! I +can feel that isolation now coming over my soul like the stealthy fog, +until I lay there, unconscious of my body, in a wondering placidity, +watching the stars burn and fade. I could seem to feel them whirl in their +way through the heavens. And then a thought detached itself from me, the +conception of an eternity passed in placidity like that without the pains +of sense, the obligations of action; I loved it then--that cold residence +of thought! + +_She._ You have known it, too. Those moments when the body in life feels +the state of spirit come rarely and awe one. Dear heart, perhaps if our +spirits were purified and experienced we should welcome that perpetual +contemplation. We cannot be Janus-faced, but the truth may lie with the +monks, who killed this life in order to obtain a grander one. + + + +TWO SOULS IN HEAVEN REMEMBER THE LIFE LIVED ON EARTH. + +_He._ Can you conceive of any heaven for which you would change this +shameful world? Any heaven, I mean, of spirits, not merely an Italian +palace of delights? + +_She._ There is the heaven of the Pagans, the heaven of glorified earth, +but---- + +_He._ Would you like to dine without tasting the fruit and the wine? What +attainment would it be to walk in fields of asphodel, when all the colors +of all the empyrean were equally dazzling, and perceived by the mind +alone? For my part, I should prefer to hold one human violet. + +_She_. The heaven of the Christian to-day? + +_He_. That may be interpreted in two ways: the heaven where we know +nothing but God, and the heaven where we remember our former life. Let us +pass the first, for the second is the heaven passionately desired by those +who have suffered here, who have lost their friends. + +Suppose that we two had finished with the episode of death, and had come +out beyond into that tranquillity of spirit where sorrows change to +harmony. You and I would go together, or, perhaps, less fortunate, one +should wait the other, but finally both would experience this +transformation from body into spirit. Should you like it? Would it fill +your heart with content--if you remembered the past? I think not. Suppose +we should walk out some fresh morning, as we love to do now, and look at +that earth we had been compelled to abandon. Where would be that fierce +joy of inrushing life? for, I fancy, we should ever have a level of +contentment and repose. Indeed, there would be no evening with its +comforting calm, no especially still nights, no mornings: nothing is +precious when nothing changes, and where all can be had for eternity. + +We should talk, as of old, but the conversation of old men and women would +be dramatic and passionate to ours. For everything must needs be known, +and there could be no distinctions in feeling. Should you see your sister +dying in agony at sea, you would smile tranquilly at her temporary and +childish sorrow. All the affairs of this life would not strike you, pierce +your heart, or move your pulse. They would repeat themselves in your eyes +with a monotonous precision, and they would be done almost before the +actors had begun. Indeed, if you should not be incapable of blasphemy, you +would rebel at this blind game, played out with such fever. + +We must not forget that our creative force would be spent: planning, +building, executing, toiling patiently for some end that is mirrored only +in our minds--how much of our joy comes from these!--would be laid aside. +We should have shaken the world as much as we could: now, _peace_.... +Again, I say, peace is felt only after a storm. Like Ulysses, we should +look wistfully out from the isolation of heaven to the resounding waves of +this unconquered world. + +Of course, one may say that the mind might fashion cures for all this; +that a greater architect would build a saner heaven. But, remember, that +we must not change the personal sense; in heaven, however you plan it, no +mortal must lose that "I" so painfully built from the human ages. If you +destroy his sense of the past life, his treasures acquired in this earth, +you break the rules of the game: you begin again and we have nothing to do +with it. + +_She._ You have not yet touched upon the cruellest condition of the life +of the spirit. + +_He._ Ah, dearest, I know that. You mean the love of the person. Indeed, +so quick it hurts me that I doubt if you would be walking that morning in +heaven with me alone. Perhaps, however, the memories of our common life on +earth would make you single me out. Let us think so. We should walk on to +some secluded spot, apart from the other spirits, and with our eyes cast +down so that we might not see that earth we were remembering. You would +look up at last with a touch of that defiance I love so now, as if a young +goddess were tossing away divine cares to shine out again in smiles. Ah, +how sad! + +I should have some stir about the heart, some desire to kiss you, to +embrace you, to possess you, as the inalienable joy of my life. My hand +could not even touch you! Would our eyes look love? Could we have any +individual longing for one-another, any affection kept apart to ourselves, +not swallowed up in that general loving-kindness and universal +beatification proper to spirits? + +I know upon earth to-day some women, great souls, too, who are incapable +of an individual love. They may be married, they may have children; they +are good wives and good mothers; but their souls are too large for a +single passion. Their world blesses them, worships them, makes saints of +them, but no man has ever touched the bottom of their hearts. I suppose +their husbands are happy in the general happiness, yet they must be sad +some days, over this barren love. Hours come when they must long, even for +the little heart of a coquette that has dedicated itself to one other and +with that other would trustingly venture into hell. + +Well, that universal love is the only kind such spirits as you and I +should be, could know. Would that content you? + +We should sit mournfully silent, two impotent hearts, and remember, +remember. I should worship your exquisite body as I had known it on earth. +I should see that head as it bends to-night; I should hear again your +voice in those words you were singing when I passed your way that first +time; and your eyes would burn with the fire of our relinquished love. It +would all come faintly out of the past, deadened by a thin film of +recollection; now it strikes with a fierce joy, almost like a physical +blow, and wakes me to life, to desire. + +_She._ Yes. We women say we love the spirit of the man we have chosen, but +it is a spirit that acts and expresses itself in the body. To that body, +with all its habits, so unconscious! its sure force and power, we are +bound--more than the man is bound to the loveliness of the woman he +adores. We--I, it is safer so, perhaps--understand what I see, what I +feel, what I touch, what I have kissed and loved. That is mine and becomes +mine more each day I live with it and possess it. That love of the +concrete is our limitation, so we are told, but it is our joy. + +_He_. So we should sit, without words, for we would shrink from speech as +too sad, and we should know swiftly the thought of the other. And when the +sense of our loss became quite intolerable, we should walk on silently, in +a growing horror of the eternity ahead. At last one of us, moved by some +acute remembrance of our deadened selves, would go to the Master of the +Spirits and, standing before him in rebellion, would say: "Cast us out as +unfit for this heaven, and if Thou canst not restore us into that past +state at least give us Hell, where we may suffer a common pain, instead of +this passive calm and contemplation." + + + +THE MEASURE OF JOY IN LIFE. + +_She._ Yet, how short it will be! How awful to have the days and weeks and +months slip by, and know that at the best there is only a reprieve of a +few years. I think from this night I shall have my shadow of death. I +shall always be doing things for the last time; a sad life that! And +perhaps we change; as you say, we may become dead in life, prepared for a +different state; and in that change we may find a new joy--a longing for +perfection and peace. + +_He_. That would be an acknowledgment of defeat, indeed, and that is the +sad result of so much living. The world has been too hard, we cry--there +is so much heartbreaking, so much misery, so few arrive! We look to +another world where all that will be made right, and where we shall suffer +no more. + +Let the others have their opiate. You, at least, I think, are too brave +for that kind of comfort. Does it not seem a little grasping to ask for +eternity, because we have fifty years of action? And an eternity of +passivity, because we have not done well with action? No, the world has +had too much of that coddling, that kind of shuffle through, as if it were +a way station where we must spend the night and make the best of sorry +accommodations. Our benevolence, our warmheartedness, goes overmuch to +making the beds a bit better, especially for the feeble and the sick and +old, and those who come badly fitted out. We help the unfortunate to slide +through: I think it would be more sensible to make it worth their while to +stay. The great philanthropists are those who ennoble life, and make it a +valuable possession. It would be well to poison the forlorn, hurry them +post haste to some other world where they may find the conditions better +suited. Then give their lot of misery and opportunity to another who can +find joy in his burden. + +_She._ A world without mercy would be hard--it would be full of a strident +clamor like a city street. + +_He._ Mercy for all; no favoritism for a few. Whoever could find a new +joy, a lasting activity; whoever could keep his body and mind in full +health and could show what a tremendous reality it is to live--would be +the merciful man. There would be less of that leprosy, death in life, and +the last problem of death itself would not be insurmountable. + +So I think the common men who know things, concrete things,--the price of +grain, if you will; the men of affairs who have their minds on the +struggle; the artists who in paint or words explore new possibilities--all +these are the merciful men, the true comforters whom we should honor. They +make life precious--aside from its physical value. + +You know the keen movement that runs through your whole being when you +come face to face with some great Rembrandt portrait. How much the man +knew who made it, who saw it unmade! Or that Bellini's Pope we used to +watch, whose penetrating smile taught us about life. And the greater +Titian, the man with a glove, that looks at you like a live soul, one whom +a man created to live for the joy of other men. In another form, I feel +the same gift of life in a new enterprise: a railroad carried through; a +corrupt government cleaned for the day. And, again, that Giorgione at +Paris, where the men and women are doing nothing in particular, but living +in the sunlight, a joyful, pagan band. + +And then think of the simpler, deeper notes of the symphony, the elements +of light and warmth and color in our world, the very seeds of existence. I +count that day the richest when we floated into the Cape harbor in the +little rowboat, bathed in the afternoon sun. The fishermen were lazily +winging in, knowing, like birds, the storm that would soon be on them. We +drank the sun in all our pores. It rained down on you, and glorified your +face and the flesh of your arms and your hands. We landed, and walked +across the evening fields to that little hut. Then nature lived and glowed +with the fervor of actual experience. You and the air and the sun-washed +ocean, all were some great throbs of actualities. + +_She._ You remember how I liked to ride with you and sail, the stormy +days. How I loved to feel your body battling even feebly with the wind and +rain. I loved to see your face grow crimson under the lash of the waves, +and then to _feel_ you, alive and mine! + +_He._ It would not be bad, a heaven like that, of perpetual physical +presentiment, of storms and sun, and rich fields, and long waves rolling +up the beaches. For nerves ever alive and strung healthily all along the +gamut of sensation! Days with terrific gloom, like the German forests of +the Middle Ages; days with small nights spent on the sea; September days +with a concealed meaning in the air. One would ride and battle and sail +and eat. Then long kisses of love in bodies that spoke. + +_She._ And yet, how strange to life as it is is that picture--like some +mediæval song with the real people left out; strange to the dirty streets, +the breakfasts in sordid rooms, the ignoble faces, the houses with failure +written across the door-posts; strange to the life of papa and mamma; to +the comfortable home; the chatter of the day; the horses; the summer +trips--everything we have lived, you and I. + +_He._ Incomplete, and hence merely a literary paradise. It is well, too, +as it is, for until we can go to bed with the commonplace, and dine with +sorrow, we are but children,--brilliant children, but with the unpleasant +mark of the child. Not sorrow accepted, my love, and bemoaned; but sorrow +fought and dislodged. He is great who feels the pain and sorrow and +absorbs it and survives--he who can remain calm in it and believe in it. +It is a fight; only the strong hold their own. That fight we call duty. + +And duty makes the only conceivable world given the human spirit and the +human frame: even should we believe that the world is a revolving +palæstrinum without betterment. And the next world--the next? It must be +like ours, too, in its action; it must call upon the same activities, the +same range of desires and loves and hates. Grander, perhaps, more adorned, +with greater freedom, with more swing, with a less troubled song as it +rushes on its course. But a world like unto ours, with effort, with the +keen jangle of persons in effort, with sorrow, aye, and despair: for there +must be forfeits! + +Is that not better than to slink away to death with the forlorn comfort of +a + +"_Requiescat in pace?_" + +PARIS, December, 1895. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories +by Robert Herrick + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY LOVE-LETTERS *** + +This file should be named 8lovl10.txt or 8lovl10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8lovl11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8lovl10a.txt + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Charles Bidwell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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